Welcome to Ear Biscuits, the podcast where two lifelong friends talk about life for a long time. I’m Link. And I’m Rhett. This week at the round table of dim lighting, we’re going to be doing a couple of things. One, we’re gonna be exploring a internet phenomenon that I already know that most of you are familiar with, but we’re gonna be breaking it down. And we’re going to be revealing a secret that I don’t think that we’ve revealed before, about a video that we made a long time ago. We’re coming clean about something dishonest that we did for a video. And we tend to be honest. We tend to try to be honest. I think this is going to be good, for, to get this off my chest. I can’t. I mean, if it does come up, it pops up in my brain. A little shame. There’s a little shame, because of it not being discussed. So, we’re going to bring it out into the open. I will say, just in case we’re doing something that we often do, which is we think that we’re saying something for the first time. And we actually, “Oh guys, like five years ago, “You said this on Ear Biscuits.” Our memories, it isn’t that our memories are bad. It’s that you essentially have just an open channel directly to all our experiences, because we talk about everything that we do and think. And so– There’s a difference between remembering something and remembering if you’ve talked about it. Right. So, we apologize if we’ve already come clean about this. And I don’t think, I mean, there are certain people that have been a part of my life through the years who, they’ve been, I forgot, they’ve forgotten that they’ve told me this. So, they’re telling me this and the exact same way. I mean, my mom does that a lot now. Yeah, that happens as they age. I was talking to her this morning, she had her second cataract surgery. And this was the seventh time she’s told you about the second cataract surgery. Well, she’s told me about five different times even though her right eye, there’s something else wrong with it that makes it hard for her to see out of, they’ve decided to do the surgery, you know, to remove the cataract in that eye anyway, because who knows in the future, you know, there might be something else that can fix that problem. And then the cataract will already be removed. And you never know if it will increase her range of vision in that eye anyway. And what I just told you, she has told me for the first time, five times. And it’s not, I don’t, I mean, maybe it’s an age– it’s what she’s thinking about. Maybe it’s an age thing, but it’s like, it’s the one thing that when you start talking about, “Well I had this done to my eye “and I’m getting it done to my other eye.” It’s just the thing that you talk about. And it’s, and when you tell everybody that you talk about, “Well you know, I’m having this procedure done.” It’s part of it. And then, I mean, I guess it’s a good sign that I’ve talked to her enough that I’ve heard the same thing five times because you know, I’ve been talking to her about her. I good news is, she’s got her second. She’s got the second eye done. And everything went well. She, we still don’t know because it was yesterday. If she’s realizing any of the benefits or who knows maybe in the future as technology develops, you know there’ll be something that can fix the other problem. And then the cataract would already be removed. I don’t know if I said that. Yeah, yeah. I like that. That’s good. That was, that was a nice reference. So yeah. Do you correct her, do you correct her when she? You know what– Yeah, you told me that. The second time I was like, yeah you told me that, third time I don’t think I said anything. Oh wow, I think you got to say it every time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You told me that. Well, it’s just good to– What’s the update? It’s just good to have a conversation. What’s the latest? You know? I think success is just having a conversation where she’s you know, she’s processing and you know, I’m trying, I try to ask questions that will get a different answer. Yeah, well, speaking of old people with bad memories I was on Facebook recently. That’s nice. And this is a choice, because this is not a habit. I mean, I’ll find myself on Twitter and I didn’t even realize it was happening, but that never happens with Facebook. I do not go on Facebook. I don’t have it on my phone. Do you? I have it on my phone and the reason that, I had it on my phone for years, but I do not, I’m not a Facebook user, it sounds like a drug. You can make that argument. I do not participate, however, recently when I was trying to contact people to be a part of Jessie’s birthday video, I was spamming like family and friends and old friends. Got to go to Facebook. The only way I can get in touch with some of her old friends was Facebook. One of the reasons I do go to Facebook at times, and I don’t know what this says about me, but there’s a couple of people, first of all, if you do go back in time to when we were first getting on Facebook, of course, we were individuals on Facebook and before, you could have like a Facebook page that was a brand, the Rhett & Link page, the Mythical page that we have now, we basically used our personal Facebook pages for promotional purposes, right? During the early days, writing the Facebook song, posting that, that kind of thing. Yeah. And we, in the same way that we were using Twitter in the early days, everybody was using Twitter, Facebook, the only point of reference when those new social media platforms came out at the time was MySpace, and the whole point of MySpace was to have as many friends as you could possibly have, you were ranked by how many friends you had, so we were like, of course, I’m on Twitter, that’s why you followed everybody back on Twitter. In fact, we both had this thing installed on Twitter where we would automatically send a message to someone who followed us and automatically followed them back. Which has rendered that aspect of my Twitter useless. And by the way, we’re hearing this very deep vibration sound. Oh good, you’re hearing it too. Somebody is doing some work, it’s like somewhere in the neighborhood. Construction? I don’t know if you’re gonna be able to hear it in the final mix, but if you do hear an occasional vroom, that’s what that is, it’s not one of our stomachs, but we’re gonna do our best to get rid of it. So I went back a couple of years ago and I unfollowed a whole lot of people on Twitter because of that whole point, following four or 5,000 people on Twitter is pointless, so I was like, I’ll only follow people that I actually not just want to be nice to, I want to hear what they have to say. And so, where am I going with this? So what that means is that Facebook for me, I think you could have 5,000 friends as a limit, we both got to that place, and then I just maintained this Facebook account and when I go on there, there’s a couple of people that I was friends with, that I wasn’t really friends with in real life, I think they were in North Carolina, that throughout the past four years of the Trump presidency, seeing what they say about the situation– These are friends of friends, these are not fans. Correct, correct, these are people that I was connected to in real life in some way. Seeing the way they processed the Trump presidency was just a fascinating sort of like, I felt like it was my personal tie to a very different perspective than the perspective that I had about everything that happened over the past four years. You can dip your toe in, learn a little something and then take your toe out. Yeah, but I’m not a Facebook debater, I’m not gonna get in there in the comments and that whole thing, but I’d go and see the people debating. Lurk, you lurk. And so that’s why I would go back. Well, one of the things I’ve noticed especially this year ever since Facebook has now done the thing, they’ve essentially, if you’re looking at Facebook on your phone, they’ve adopted the same practice that Instagram has, or even TikTok where if you click on the video button on Facebook, it brings up a full screen vertical video that plays and then the next one just comes up and plays or you can swipe and the next one comes up and plays so basically the same interaction that you have with those kinds of things. So you kind of get into this loop. And this is not a new phenomenon, but it’s something that I sort of rediscovered, and I was like, I think we should talk about this on Ear Biscuits because it brought up some interesting things for us and that is, the phenomenon of prank videos on Facebook combined with the requirement for videos to be at least three minutes in order to get monetized. Okay. Now, there are– Has rendered what? A crazy phenomenon. It has created this interesting intersection of people who are both making a prank video but also, okay, trying to meet the three-minute time limit, trying to get to that three-minute time limit so they can monetize it, but they’re also, like most prank videos, 99% of prank videos on the internet, are fake. So if you take a prank video that is fake, and then you require these people who are not professional actors and in my estimation don’t have a lot of insight into human behavior in general, like what normal rational human behavior would be. There’s a self-exposing phenomenon. Having to meet that time limit exposes the nature of the thinking and acting and the execution in a way that just is fascinating. It lays it bare. And I have a case study video. I have a case study video that I kind of want to lead you through and a couple of other ones that I can just talk to you about, but I want to show you one. I find it interesting that you went on Facebook to do some political lurking, but then a prank video pops up and then you just found yourself watching it, is what happened. I’m not proud of this, but my guess would be that this never happens to you. But I would get caught in just sort of, I’ll just get caught in a video watching sort of just binge where there’s nothing satisfying at all, I feel like it’s the equivalent of being at a slot machine. You’re like a toddler in front of the screen, that’s like, oh there’s colors moving, my eyes are looking at it. I think this happens most often– It is designed this way. Of course, yeah, I would think this applies to, this is why they made the interface this way, this applies to most people, but TikTok is the perfect example of this, it’s just like, you just kind of go into this vegetative state and just watch a bunch of videos. Scroll, scroll. But not every other platform is trying to do the exact same thing. Yeah. And I’d fall victim to it, and I dislike myself when that happens, but at least I discovered something that I thought would make a good Ear Biscuits, so at least we’re monetizing it. So you watched this video and you’re gonna, okay, I can see where this is going, but Rhett has not shown me this video and I want to see it. Oh, you shall. But first, you know what, the new mug that we’re selling on Good Mythical Morning. The heat-activated mug that goes from totally black to showing these amazing, vibrant illustration from our Good Mythical Intro? It has proven very, very popular, so popular that in the last conversation we had yesterday about it was that, we were having trouble getting enough, getting enough made, I mean, this is great news, people want the heat-activated mug, but it also illustrates another issue which is, when we introduce a new mug, there’s an old mug, there’s a limited supply of it and once it’s gone, it’s gone forever. This has become a collectible, my friend. The old GMM mugs are in short supply. If you want to own a piece of history, the days are fleeting. There’s three colors, we got two colors right now, the blue, slash purple, whatever that is, the green and there’s an orange as well, and they all have different designs on them. And this is at the last chance section of the Mythical store so mythical.com, go to the last chance section and this is essentially things that there’s a limited supply, and they’re there, and you can get them now, but when they’re gone, they’re gone forever. Ever. For ever. Unless you want to go buy them for more on Ebay. Which, some people do that. Mythical.com. Last chance section. All right, crack open that laptop, and let’s go to Facebook. I can see the title of this right now, thief steals bike and get big karma. With an angry face emoji. Thief steals bike and get big karma, that’s grammatically– Not correct. But forget it. I don’t think it matters. Just forget about it. And is thief spelled incorrectly? I before E, except after H. Yeah, thief is spelled incorrectly. Are you sure? Yeah. I’m really bad at that. T-H-I-E-F is how you spell thief. You’re right. So thief is– Thief is incorrectly, steals bike and get big karma. That’s not grammar. Okay, there’s more than just that that’s wrong with this, okay? So I’ll let the beginning unfold and we’ll get into the basic idea. Okay. Okay, let me make sure that the sound is working because that is an important part of this. We’re gonna clip this right there. So it’s a guy. So when they come to steal my bike– Chaining a bike to a chainlink fence. He’s in a ghillie suit, is that what you call that? Yeah. Oh, right there beside the bike? Yeah, so he’s strapping a rope, and the girl filming is, “You think this is gonna work?” Okay, 30 minutes later, so he strapped this bike to a big rope. A chain fence. And here comes the guy running, and it’s, “Oh, a bike.” This is the guy. And he looks like a fake bush right beside the bike. Right beside it. It’s like he’s never seen a bike before. Now, okay, so he’s thinking– He’s touching the bike now. He’s testing the tires out. There’s air in the tires, buddy. Keeps touching the bike. He’s checking the front tire. And this girl filming, okay, she’s kind of behind. He’s testing it just in case you’re wondering what’s happening, the text says he’s testing it. You want to make sure the bike is properly inflated and he keeps touching the bike seat. Let me see how it rolls. He’s checking the sturdiness of the bike. Okay, now, okay now he’s got to deal with the existential sort of crisis that he’s having. He’s got his hands on his hips and he’s walking around. He’s scratching his head and then scratching his chin, like the classic cartoon capturing of inner turmoil. Yeah. This is the worst. It’s like he’s talking to himself. Yeah, he’s dealing with, he’s thinking about the consequences of stealing this bike. We know he’s tested it. No, no, no, he’s thinking about what a person who would steal a bike, but would need to take a long time to do it would do. He’s looking up at the sky, and he keeps stroking his chin and looking up at the sky. Yeah, right, okay. Yeah, right. This is such an insult to intelligence. Now he’s talking to himself, look his arms are out, and he’s like, “I mean, there’s no one here.” What? Is he talking to God. He’s like doing a soliloquy, he’s getting on the bike– Here he goes, here he goes– Hold on, there’s still the chain. And there we go, ghillie suit just strapped it on, here we go, and the way he even starts the bike is a ridiculous way, I mean the way that, here we go, all right, don’t want to go too fast because I know that this rope is tied to it, so then, and boom. Oh my gosh. So he did stunt work. Here we go, listen to what he says. Are you okay buddy? You okay, what happened? What’s this on your bike? Oh it’s like it’s not your bike, that’s because it was tied up, it was my bike, that what you were doing, huh? So he’s chasing– And he also runs across the bush, okay, all right. So that was it, three minutes, 23 seconds of pure, unadulterated prankage. Totally not fake, totally not acted. Let me first just explore a couple of things because one of the things that was very fascinating to me was the comments, right? Because I was like– I would say, please, let the comments say, my intelligence is insulted, a six year old could watch this and pick up on the non-verbal cues and say this is not how anyone acts. I can’t tell how many views this has, when I watch it on my phone, I think it was like over 50 million views, I think it was like 80 something million views, just to give you an idea of how many people watched this. 324,000 people have reacted to it with a like or love, whatever, 40,000 people have decided to comment on it. Okay, please restore my faith in humanity. All right, Mark says, “The bike thief is not a good actor.” Okay, okay. He even sounds like he’s wearing a microphone, a real thief would have taken the bike in a second. 432 people seem to agree. Another comment here, “This is all a lie, a thief does not think “that much to steal something, “was he so blind that he did not see the red rope, “the carabiner attached to the bike since he inspected “the bike for a long time and finally “a camouflage net is visible at that distance.” First of all, as some people have corrected this guy, the carabiner was placed on there after the fact, because the inspection– Right as he was about to take off, the bush comes to life and snaps it on. “OMG, your videos are so annoying because you think “we’re all stupid and believe they’re real.” “If you’re going to waste all this time in making them, “try to make them a little more believable.” “Is it possible that this lasts more than three minutes “and the guy with the car was there all the time watching “while the one who takes the bike shows that there “is no one, there is no logic to that.” That’s an ironic comment. I actually feel better about that. I don’t and I’ll tell you why in a second. I mean at least the top comments call it what it is. And are seeing through this thing, now none that you read have the insight that we have, as to why this is happening, because of money. But I feel better because of this, people are seeing it. But the system is still rewarding this guy’s efforts, he’s got a lot of Paul energy, I will also say that, the guy in the ghillie suit. Paul energy? Like Paul brothers energy. Okay. Just as a sidenote. I don’t know if that’s a complement or an insult. Just an observation. To the Paul brothers or to the guy. Here’s why I don’t feel good about it. Because taking the time to point out something so obvious is not something to be proud of and it’s not something to feel good about. Yes, you’re right, I would feel even worse about humanity if there were people who believed it, and it doesn’t seem that anybody really believes that this was a real thing that happened, but it’s almost like there’s this thing that they’re also implying which is, you know what, if this guy was a better actor I would have appreciated this video more. And that’s the thing that’s super-interesting to me. That’s true. It’s the fact that and this is kind of what I want to explore, is the idea that this is a genre of video, now first of all, the whole fake prank thing, which we’ll get to a second and how that personally applies to us and what we think about that, and what the motivations are for faking a prank. But again when combined with this time length requirement, now I’m gonna talk about two other videos. In fact, the two videos that came up after this video that were exactly the same thing, just packaged differently, the first one was, there was this family that was outside and they were working on a car and they had a pair of jeans– Okay. That they have stuffed with something to make them look like legs, and then this guy, like a middle-aged dude, took his shoes off and put them on the end of these filled up jeans and then put the jeans underneath the car, like he was working on it. Scarecrow mechanic. Then he got on the other side of the car, so that when he talked, it sounded like his voice was coming from underneath the car. And as soon as they get it set up, a woman comes outside, like the mom of the family or whatever, and at that point, it was obvious that it was fake, because of the timing of the way she came out. There was no cut? No it was like, okay, we’re ready, and then they swift pan and she’s coming out of the house and she’s like, okay, I got the tools for the car. And she goes up to the guy, and he’s yelling, he’s like, give me the wrench and she takes the wrench and instead of handing it to him, she kind of like tosses it under the car, you know to kind of play along with the idea that I would believe he’s really under there. First of all, the longer that his fake legs just sit there, not moving at all, and they’re both right next to each other and the two feet are propped to the side, the more obvious it is that he’s not real, and then of course, there’s a person in the driver’s seat who takes her foot off of the brake and it rolls over the legs and crushes his legs. And then she’s going nuts, but the funny thing is, she doesn’t even look back at the fake legs, she gets mad at the woman in the car. It’s just again, it’s a study of human behavior that reveals that people don’t understand human behavior. Acting is not easy. And we’re not just talking about writing, not talking about acting, we’re talking about writing, because you got to plan this a little bit. So one of the things that keeps people in a good story, one of the reasons that you like the movies and the TV shows that you like, is because the way people react to unbelievable situations is incredibly believable and relatable. It might not be that it makes a lot of sense that people might end up on an island, like they did in Lost and not be able to tell, there’s unrealistic things that happened, but people’s reactions to the situation are believable and relatable, and that’s what doesn’t happen in these videos. A third video, super simple, there’s a woman and again these videos came up, they were served to me, Mr. I’m Watching Fake Prank Videos on Facebook, with a vengeance, they were served up to me because Facebook apparently understood, he likes these fake videos. Because you watched all of the first one. The retention time was full because I was studying it. And you watched the second one. And then the third one comes up and there’s a woman standing knee deep in a lake next to a dock and there is a man behind her and he has an aligator head on a fishing line, and he puts it in the water, and he’s like, hey, how are the reservations coming, like she’s making reservations on the phone. While standing in water? Standing in water, facing away from him. And of course I don’t know who the person is who’s filming this interaction and why she’s not paying attention to them, let’s not think about that. And she says, oh yeah, it’s taking a second. And then he’s like, well, you need to be watchful when you’re in the water because there’s all kinds of stuff in lakes like, sea snakes. He literally said that, alligators. And she’s like, “Alligators?” Alligators are my number one fear and you know that. But she’s not turning around to see it. So he has to maintain, again to get to the three minute limit, which I didn’t talk about, the way they stall that, the mechanic video is she kept handing him tools– Oh my gosh. They had to pick the moment in which they stall the video to keep you watching to get to that three minute mark and in the gator video, it’s literally just the husband moving the gator around behind her and continuing the conversation like, how are the reservations coming, for three minutes. And then eventually– Do you still not like gators? And she sees the gator and freaks out, whatever. So I believe we said this, but it bears saying it again, you don’t get paid by Facebook for your videos unless they break the three minute mark. It’s created a prank monster. And you’d think it would expose pranks. That’s the point. I think that’s the underlying point, is that Facebook doesn’t care about this because they make money and apparently the people making the videos don’t care. It’s not like they take it as a personal insult that you find it fake, they just go and make their next one. They have embraced, my theory is that people who are making these videos have embraced the fact, of course it’s fake, I’m doing my best to make you believe that it’s fake, or maybe there’s a certain small sliver of the population that’s not that smart, that does believe that this is real, but we’re all agreeing with the fact that yeah, this is fake, it’s not that big of a deal, but you watched it and I made money so I’m gonna make the next one. And if people dislike the video enough, these algorithms do take that into account, but you know, the main thing is if people are gonna watch the whole video, there’s no denying the fact that it kept people on the platform and it takes a lot to override that and they’re not gonna program the algorithm to outweigh likes to dislikes or ratio or whoever they look at that to whether you watched it or not. The principle with Netflix, it’s a different thing, but it’s a similar principle, that Netflix just started showing you recommended things that you’d think you’d like to watch and leaning on that instead of the queue. When Netflix first came around, it was all about the queue, it was all about I want to watch this next, this next, this next and you would just go through it, but the discovery mechanisms were, they had a long way to develop and they since have, so now Netflix is mostly about that, as are all of the streaming services. And by the way that’s why YouTube subscriptions have been buried for years. For this principle that like, it’s not what’s your stated intention, it’s your– Behavior. Actual actions that are the tell-tale signs of what’s gonna work and then what we can sell the most against. And this is actually, this illustrates, I’m gonna make a political, I guess you could call it a political point at this point, because this is an example of why when profit is the primary motive behind a process, it doesn’t, I mean, I grew up a conservative guy who thought that this idea of the free market and the fact that everybody being motivated by money will ultimately bring out the best possible outcome, right, like a pure capitalistic view. I’ve since– Competition makes everything better. I’ve since re-calibrated that view. I’m not well-versed on these issues, but there’s so many examples in modern society of how profit being the goal causes things to, first of all, it causes a lot of people to suffer, I’m not saying anybody is suffering in this situation necessarily, but you know, speaking of Facebook and all social media in general, we’ve seen that this whole idea of keeping people on the platform and keeping people watching ads has led to this incredible political polarization in our country, as was very well explored, in the Social Dilemma documentary on Netflix. But this is just an example of profit being a motivation leading to a very bad product. This hasn’t led to a great product. Have you no pride? This has led to something that truly sucks in every sense of the word, fake prank videos that are, fake prank videos suck. Period. Yeah. Fake prank videos that are drawn out for three minutes in order to make a profit for the person who has decided to make a living in this way– Are awesome. Suck squared! Which makes it kind of awesome. And so– I might get back on Facebook. I’m just making the point that that isn’t the case. I think that what makes the human collective better and is beneficial to all of us is a better motivator than profit, but again off the soapbox. As a sidenote, arguably, our entire career and success, post Good Mythical Morning, or during, we’re still doing Good Mythical Morning, but you know, post the launch of Good Mythical Morning is based on this algorithmic phenomenon of watch time as well, you know? Yeah. We benefit from this. But we didn’t know that. We wanted to have a conversation, we formatted a show, we made something that we were proud of and our team is committed to excellence and doing the best we can and so very quickly we arrived at, to have a meaningful conversation, you were at the 12 minute mark, but we were actually cautioned to not go far beyond the 10 minute mark, but then YouTube changed from emphasizing subscriptions to watch time and rewarding that. So we made the best product which started getting, it broke 10 minutes, got closer to 15 minutes and people stuck around and they watched the whole thing and so we were rewarded, because we rewarded the viewer and they just kept binge watching, we had so many of the episodes that everybody won in that situation. That’s an example of the content being motivated by the system and the profit, but making a product that fits within that system, that hasn’t compromised itself for the sake of the profit. We didn’t know about the principle when we were formatting Good Mythical Morning. But now, as we’re reformatting Good Mythical Morning, and creating cuts for Facebook, or making new sketches that we put on Instagram, we absolutely have to take into account what’s the threshold to be able to monetize. You know, we can’t just make videos and not be able to and then platform refuses to run ads against them. So, Facebook, you know, that three minute mark means a lot to us too. So if you’re watching on Facebook, and by the way, that’s how my mom watches Good Mythical Mornings, every I talk to her, another thing she’ll say is, I’ve been watching more of your show lately, and she’ll talk about a video and I’ll be like, that video is like four years old, mom. I was like, you need to look at our hair styles to really figure it out, because the way that Facebook will server it up, it’s seemingly random. Once you watch an old one, and sometimes we repost stuff. Right. But the main thing we’re doing is we make cuts of Good Mythical Morning, cut-downs we call it, that break the three minute mark, but that work within the Facebook environment. But again, they break the three minute mark, but because they’re 12, 15-minute episodes– And that’s easy. It’s an easy thing to cut it down, it’s something that we’re proud of. The place that we kind of relate to this a little bit is Instagram. You know, IGTV, there’s monetization there as well, it’s in its infancy, and it’s not that significant. But, the threshold for monetization on Instagram is two minutes, so the way that we try to address that is not by taking a concept that, I think the thing that all these videos, these prank videos that I just talked about, especially the alligator one and the bike thief one. You could tell this story in a much more compelling way in about 30 seconds, right? Now, we create sketches that from the conceptualization and the writing and the execution of the sketches, it’s like, okay, is this a concept that makes sense in two minutes? We don’t stretch anything out. So yes, we are playing this game, and this is a business and so we’re not going to take the time to dress up and be characters and make this video just for kicks, it’s part of, if we can make this thing two minutes long, we can actually get paid to do it, okay. So let’s make it two minutes long. But we have artistic pride. That is questionable sometimes but– No, we do, we do, we are, this is something that we’ve always been, I’ve always felt dirty about the system and even, I think the best example of this is the titling and thumbnailing of YouTube videos, which is a whole conversation that we can have, but just to quickly cover it, you know the reason that our thumbnails on YouTube look the way they do– Obnoxious. Is not because we think that they look good, I mean just to be frank with you, I do not like to see me making faces that close up, I don’t, I don’t like it. I hate it. I’m pretty close to you right now, this is like, I mean, I don’t even have to extend my arm all the way to poke your eye out, that’s how close I am sitting to you, and this is the approximation of how close, if you were recreating the thumbnail experience in real life. Yeah, right. I think psychologically, look at me, look at me and do it, if you’re this close to me, making faces like that– You want to slap me. And you were about to eat something. You want to slap me. Why would you make eye contact with me while eating at this close of a range, much less when making that face you’re making? I want to, I want to slap me too. That’s not human, man. Every time I see one of our GMM thumbnails, I want to slap me or you, whoever is featured. And I’m assuming lots of people feel the same way, but you know what? They got a thumbs up, thumbs down, they should add a slap. Through doing this for a decade and fine-tuning that. We’re slaves to that. What we have determined is that that style of thumbnail, and there’s a lot of different factors that go into that style of thumbnail working is what gets us the most views. So like you said, we got artistic integrity, but we are, we do play the game, we are willing to compromise, we do A-B testing on both titles and thumbnails every single morning, it’s like, hey this one is not really catching, we think we need to change this word to this, that’s why if you watch from the very beginning every day, you’ll see some changes because hey, this is a game, we’re trying to play, we’re trying to win and we’re playing within the system. We personally are not involved in that. Thank God. Because we just cannot, even talking about it is demoralizing. But the one thing that we couldn’t do is make that prank video, I just couldn’t, so we checked some pride at the door. We try to maintain some integrity though, because while I do want to slap you when I see you on the thumbnail, and also myself, so it goes both ways, what I’m doing in the thumbnail, what you’re doing in the thumbnail is not misleading, it is indicative of what they’re gonna see in the video and the title is also indicative. They may be sometimes just a little sensational, maybe a little bit of a misleading thing, but as a principle, it is supposed to be indicative, because we understand that there’s a long term relationship that we have with our audience, and if we begin to mislead the audience and take you as a bunch of fools, you’re not gonna stick around for very long. Right and that’s the other thing, that’s insulting. So we have a history with prank videos. As creators, as artists. And we couldn’t bear to keep it up. I will say, one of our first videos is trimming strangers’ nose hairs at the mall and this was made before YouTube existed, ’cause we were making videos when we were involved in crew and we were hosting or MCing the regional Christmas conference, we made comedy videos, we talked about this in the last year’s and that’s where this video came from, from the, I think it was the Greensboro mall. The Christmas conference was in Greensboro, and you know, it was just, hey we need to make a video, we made sketches, we were writing songs, but we would also do prank videos, it was just a genre that you did. But we really did it, we really took a nose trimmer to the mall and wore these, you can look it up on the Rhett and Link YouTube channel and watch it, I think, I’m pretty sure it’s still public, it shouldn’t be, it’s horrible. But the thing that’s not horrible, the redemptive value is that you can tell that we really went up to strangers and trimmed their nose hairs. People would, you could talk people into doing that. And it’s implied that we’re just going around the mall doing this, so I’m about to trim your nose hairs and I’ve just trimmed who knows how many other people’s nose hairs. With the same device. It was heinous. Yeah, but it never crossed our minds that we would fake it. That’s the beauty of it, the beauty of it was getting the real reaction from people. That’s what we were into. The fact that we really did it, I mean, for me, whenever we come up with something like that, I’m like, this is go time, we’ve got to show that we got the balls to do this. And to your credit, you were right there with me, but there was a lot more inner turmoil with you than there was with me. I could just switch off my conscience. Yeah, I don’t like messing with people. I have to make this work. I would say that– Because we’ve got to make a funny video, we’ve got to do this. It’s not just that, it’s not that you have a stronger commitment to making a funny video, I think it’s that you are much more comfortable, in life in general, in making people uncomfortable. And I don’t know what this says about me, but I have a real difficult time making people feel uncomfortable, that’s why I do the sympathetic laughing, you know, like if you watch, when we have guests, and people point this, like when we have guests, when we used to have guests on GMM, before COVID, we will have them again, I’ll laugh at everything they say because there’s this, and I think it’s just called sympathetic laughing and it’s basically, you laugh to subtly communicate that you’re not a threat, and try to make the person feel comfortable. I find myself doing that often. I find it interesting that in this conversation, you’re the one who’s a little more on the defensive than me, but I’m basically the one who is in these videos, much more the willing jackass. I’ll watch that stuff back and I don’t want to be that person anymore, it starts to eat away at who you are, you know, because I guess I’ll kind of switch. But for the sake of these kinds of videos, it’s better to be that way though. Sure. But my point is, that was one of the factors that took us away from doing prank videos. The other one was, yeah, because it starts to make both of us feel icky inside, to take advantage of people. I think, my theory is that it was a cultural change that took place, not that prank videos are not still a thing, but there’s a generational change, and especially when all the other content that you make is generally– Nice. Nice and good-hearted. Like, you know, we try to uplift people, our comedy is not cynical, observations we try to make about people are not demoralizing or derogatory in general, so then, but we still have this really, like, we’re fascinated with people and we do both enjoy putting people into uncomfortable situations, and that’s what our local commercials were in a lot of ways. We were walking this line. Yeah, but screwing with people at the dirt track race, with the fake survey, remember that video? That a lot harder for me. It’s much easier for me– You’re lying to people. Right. So you can laugh at them. But it’s a much finer line with the local commercials because we’re doing something that’s like, this is gonna benefit your business, and we’re also collaborating, this is an idea that you either came up with or you bought into, but we’re gonna stand here and get you to say this line knowing that it’s gonna be funny for reasons that you may not fully understand, I’m much more comfortable with that, but when I have to be literally interacting with somebody on camera, it’s just harder for me to do it. There’s a cultural shift, but at the same time, there’s not. These videos are still going, like tens of millions of views on Facebook. They’re all fake. They’re not all fake. And you look at the success of the Impractical Jokers, now that’s an older audience. I think it’s generational. The savvy feeling of feeling sorry for the younger audience. My kids loved Impractical Jokers. And I think, correct me if I’m wrong, I’ve never watched it, but I think they make themselves the butt of the joke a lot of the time. They’re primarily trying to embarrass one another as friends. And they– It’s much more about that than it is about making people feel bed. They never leave the lie, but even if they make somebody feel bad, they let them in on the joke at the end, I think. They may do that in real life. That is the principle of the big– But they don’t do that. It’s not, candid camera always ended, like the old candid camera show always ended with, hey man, I’m just joking, there’s a hidden camera, there’s a hidden camera, they don’t do that on Impractical Jokers. They may do that off camera, but they don’t make that part of the bit, it’s just not a part of it. I think the last prank video we made just broke our spirit, and we were like, never again will we do this. And so now if you haven’t done it before, there’s a confession to make. I feel like we need to make the confession up front because it will make watching the video and analysis of it that much more insightful. This video is called invisible dog prank, released on our Rhett & Link channel, it’s about to break 2 million views. It was released February 26th 2013. And there are elements of this video that were faked. Now, this video was a sponsored– I don’t know how sorry I am yet. We need to talk it through. This video was sponsored, and there were these new headphones, from, was it– DTS. DTS. Yeah, DTS had these new headphones called X-Technology, it was 3-D like surround sound and so we were gonna go to their headquarters which was out west of here, and the ideas was let’s make a video where to demonstrate how realistic this 3-D sounds is, we’re going to make people think that there is a dog about to attack them from behind while they were doing, I don’t even know what we told them we were gonna do, we’ll figure that out in the video. Let’s watch, we’ll watch the video together. But yeah, I remember why we constructed this concept and then sold it to DTS, and we can talk about that afterwards, so let’s just, it’s a three-minute 42 seconds video, so hey, it could go on Facebook. It’s 42 seconds longer than it needs to be. This is Bullet, he’s actually a pretty nice dog. But he’s been trained to do this. We’re gonna make people think they’re being attacked by him. But it will just be in their headphones. Here’s the setup. DTS has developed a technology that creates a realistic, 3-D like surround sound experience through just a pair of headphones. But our test subjects don’t know that, they think they’re just coming in for a hearing test in a focus group. This is at their studio, at the DTS. So we were playing DTS employees, that why we had the shirts on. Yeah, like testing new technology. When we bring them into our testing area, we’ll have Bullet bark at them. Scary dog. And in the middle of our lame test, we introduce the surround sound of Bullet attacking them from behind. But when they turn around, there’s no dog. Just a grumpy-looking cat, named Purrfect. So first of all, we also got. Is that Grumpy Cat? No, it’s a Grumpy Cat lookalike, may he rest in peace. Dude, was Grumpy Cat a thing a that point? Oh yeah. So we didn’t come up with Grumpy Cat. Don’t want to give us that much credit. But it’s like, you think it’s a dog, and you turn around and see a cat, this is a fun, fun prank. However, here’s what happened. On the day, now they funny thing is. Not on the day, in planning. In planning, we were like, this video has to work. So we need some insurance that if we don’t get reactions that are, you know, shareable, and buzz-worthy, we have to have a plan B to ensure that. So you know, we were adamant that we were gonna conduct the prank legitimately. Now I don’t know if this is me moralizing in my own head, but that is not how I remember it. What I remember– I know that’s what we did, and then what we would do, as we watch it, I might be able to pick out people, but I think what we did was, we would get people to– We just got people to do it twice. We got people to do it again. If we got them legitimately the first time. Yeah, and then if it wasn’t good enough. And then we said, hey, “We’re gonna do that again, “now you know what’s gonna happen, “and just really, like, when you hear the dog bark, “just really react like you’re scarred.” And we were like, hopefully enough of these people would react in a way that’s believable and we’ll pepper those things in, but there was a hope, even while I was there, there was a hope that we wouldn’t have to use any of that stuff. That we wouldn’t have to resort to– It was an insurance policy. To directing anybody. The only difference in my mind is that we came up with that on the day that we saw that people weren’t reacting great, as opposed to we planned it like we said, at the time. That’s the only thing I remember differently, is that we were like, “They’re not reacting that great, “let’s just get them to do it again and maybe we’ll use it.” It felt like we were really easing into it. And I will say this is totally on us, because no one who works for us now, not even Stevie worked for us when we made this video. Yes, she did, she had just started, this is February 2013, and I think we hired her between filming this and editing this. So she wasn’t there during– Or between getting the job and filming it. Yeah, so it was like one of the first things she was involved with, but she may have just been involved with, I don’t know if she was there that day. She may have just been involved with the edit. But she wasn’t a part of these type of decisions that we were making. Not at the time. We were very adamant that we, and I’m sure we were, that we wanted to do the best we could to actually scare people. Oh yeah. And then we just had a plan B. Because the pranks existed at the time. All right, so let’s watch it, and see if I can pick out the places where it’s fake. Maybe that first one, that girl says, “Oh my God!” I think that was fake. What’s your name? Edwin. So we got the first guy coming in. We’re gonna do a little audio test today. And the dog is, why is there a dog in the studio. There’s dogs in the studio. We were trying to set a mental cue that, okay, there is a dog here that might attack you. So he was afraid of the dog right then, because the dog starts barking whenever he walked through the door. All right, just put those on, and make that comfortable, let’s do it. Hello, thank you for participating in the DTS Audio preliminary sound– Now this guy– I love watching these, they’re obviously real people. Right. They don’t come across as actors in any way. But this guy is an actor. This guy was on Workaholics. Really? And multiple things. The one minute mark. Because here’s what happens, and people, this is an interesting phenomenon with prank videos in general and I think people talked about this in the comments. In L.A., when you put a call out for people to come be a part of any type of focus group, you get people who also are actors and extras. It’s just because it’s Los Angeles, and that’s what a lot of people do, and so it makes it seem like we hired actors, because this guy, and at least a few other people are actors. DTS Audio preliminary sound perception test. We will begin by testing your hearing fidelity in each ear. If you hear a tone in your left ear, raise your left hand, if you hear it in your right ear, raise your right hand. They’re very serious. Pause it. Hold on, that guy. The guy with the mustache. The guy with the mustache, at minute and 10 seconds, he’s in something. A Tim and Eric thing I think. Yeah. For this next portion of the test, we will be testing your audio-visual location perception. You will hear a tone and its perceived location will move from side to side. See, we’re really getting them– Follow the perceived location of the tone with only your eyes. Oh here’s Jason, yeah, Jason was still working for us then. They’re following with their eyes. Here comes the cat in the basket, that looked like a real cat. And it is. See, she knows this is silly. Thank you, for this next portion of the test, we will measure your frequency range perception, you will hear a series of tones varying in volume and pitch and you will be asked to– No, no! Oh my God! I’m sorry, that scared the out of me. Okay, was that a real thing? I don’t know. It was so good though, she was so good. I don’t know. All right, this guy. That was real. That was totally real, that guy shaking was real, man. For this next portion of the test, we will measure your frequency range perception. You will hear a series of tones and volumes– This guy is chill, there’s no way he’s gonna react. No, no! Oh he did yell in slow-mo replay. All right, pause it. Now that guy threw the chair. Fake. I don’t remember. I got to say, I remember telling him, because he was so chill, he didn’t respond. We were like, now, like you said, you see what’s up now, we were playing a joke on you, can you do it again, and again, it’s not that we were getting actors, but all of these people responding to these focus groups are actors, so it actually played into their psyche to get direction to do something again. They all took it, yes. And I remember saying, “I mean, maybe you throw the chair.” Maybe you throw the chair, just put a little idea in your head. That feels so dirty now, man. That’s real. That’s real. Oh my God, that scared me so bad. See, ’cause she didn’t even look, yeah.. That scared the shit out of me, man. Workaholics guy. See. I thought I was being attacked by a dog. That was real. I remember I saw him when I came in. I remember. This is the guy from Tim and Eric, remember we saw Jimmy Sheper when we came in. Yeah. Oh my God, why would y’all do that to me? We were all laughing at it. That was fake. Robot cat. Really? That seemed real. If you thought a dog was– Technology. Yeah. Attacking you, you wouldn’t sit in a chair. If you just told them about the robot cat, and the guy was like, really? It’s like a real cat, wow, technology. Yeah. He did a prank on the prank. Are you serious? What’s the most scared you’ve ever been in your life prior to day? My hands are shaky. When my girl’s pregnancy test came out pregnant and she was like 60. We should hang out, you’re cool, man. I might have peed a little, but I’m all right. All right. So first of all, there was no– Sponsor. Because there was no sponsor language at the end, because, here’s the thing. We were at a desperate point, we were trying to scrap together a living, we had started Good Mythical Morning, but we weren’t making money off of it really. So it was, I’m just saying, we were a bit desperate to feed our families, don’t hold this against us, but you know, the final product that we created was not icky, it actually had a good feeling. But which one is worse? It felt good, right? From a moral perspective. Let’s just really explore this. Which one is worse, one that most intelligent people believe was real, but was fake, or ones that the person who makes the video has already dealt with the fact that they make prank videos, fake prank videos, and they constantly get accused of it, but they just keep making the videos, and there’s a bit of a knowingness between them and the audience that this is all fake, but you’re still watching it. Which one is more morally wrong? I know which one is a worse video. The whole knowingness thing, I just don’t think that’s legitimate across the board. I agree, I was playing devil’s advocate. So I don’t think this is a fair question. I mean, I never talked to Roman Atwood about his switch, you know? He really made a name for himself with his prank videos, pranking his own family and I think other people too, but then he totally switched it to just like a family vlogger, promoting positivity. And then he totally stopped making videos. I don’t know why he made, he did? He’s not making videos at all? He made a couple in the past year. Talk about running the YouTube gauntlet. Starting out with prank videos and then trying to figure out what makes people angry when they watch it. There’s people who are just mean-spirited, taking advantage of people. There was lots of stuff done in poor taste, and I’m not talking about Roman Atwood, I’m just talking about prank videos. But he was, a guy like him in that world, we sidestepped that world, we just dabbled in this one video, really. Once we had a sizeable audience, but then he jumps over to family vlogging which is another death gauntlet of personal health. Where you end up basically– I don’t know his story, but that’s my observation. But you end up applying the same principles. If you’re doing family vlogging– Exactly. And you’re good at it, you’re making a reality show, and everybody knows that reality shows are fake. So the situation and I’m not saying that, and I’m sure that that line gets super-confusing and super gray of like, okay, let’s set this up like this, it’s kind of actually happening, but we need to do it this way for the camera. That kind of stuff happens. But– It can eat away at your soul. But the prank thing is just seedy. I mean, I love Ed Bassmaster, I’ve always been a fan of his. He’s still around. But his pranks were always real. We used him in a video as well. And I consider him a friend, like if I saw him now, I would just be elated to give the guy a hug. In the way that I enjoy Ed’s videos at this point is through Instagram. I follow him on Instagram and his videos come up and it’s like snippets from what he does on YouTube. And you know, he’s still doing it, and it’s still funny. But the heart and soul of it is his characterization. And getting people’s response to him and not just, it’s not first about putting people in compromised positions where it’s like, it feels icky. I mean, I think he’ll go there. There’s an example that you’re familiar with, because I’m familiar with it, and I don’t think there’s much crossover between our audience and their audience. But because I have a teenage son, I know about Nelk, N-E-L-K, rhymes with belk. And these guys, it’s a group of guys from Canada, and their videos are so– Full send. I would call them full send. They’re the full send guys, they’re the full send brand, it’s their deal. And their videos are so, let’s just so, distasteful according to the YouTube ad system, that they can’t monetize any of their content, but they have long since accepted the fact. Over the edge. They’re not going to worry about that, they make their money through brand deals and merch and that kind of thing. They would prank cops by drinking non-alcoholic beer while driving vehicles and getting pulled over. Getting pulled over. Like baiting cops to pull them over. So that feels icky. First of all, I’m going to go ahead and tell you– It’s not hidden camera stuff, it’s like doc style. If you consider yourself a Rhett & Link fan, and you’re into the concept of mythicality, and your general disposition in the world is to make people’s lives better and be nice to people, you might even be offended by the fact that we’re even talking about these guys. They took, they went out on a Big Foot hunt, but then they put one of the guys in an obviously fake Big Foot costume, and then baited this guy. I think to the point where, I think their main joke was that he was gonna have sex with Big Foot. One of them was basically taken advantage by Big Foot and then comes back. Oh gosh. So first of all, let me just be very clear again, I feel like we need to do this, I’m not endorsing these guys. I know we’re talking about them, and some people will go and watch them, they got plenty of views, they don’t need our help. They are offensive, if you are offended by, basically any way that you can be offended, you will be offended by these guys, so that is my warning to you, don’t go watch them, if watching people make jokes that make fun of all kinds of groups. I don’t watch them, I only watched the video you showed me, this is on you, but I will say– And listen, I’d say I watched four of their videos in my lifetime. So I’m just putting a disclaimer out there, that you’re gonna get offended, you’re probably offended that I’m even talking about them if you know what they do, I feel like I have to say that. I’m grateful that we’re not in a place where we feel like we have to justify ourselves to do more prank videos, where we’re mitigating our risk by rigging it and feeling icky inside, and say, “We’re never gonna say anything “about this thing, right?” Because that was a conversation that we had. Everybody who’s involved, you can’t say that we rigged this because that’s gonna erode any trust that people have in us across the board. It’s all on the table at this point. Would we do it, do we regret doing that? Making that video? I think so. I do, but also, it was 2013. Like you said, it was extenuating circumstances and we didn’t end up making a habit of it. We knew that it was a one-time thing, and we actually made a sort of an unspoken decision at that point to be like, “Let’s not ever do a prank video again.” Because we understand the forces at play when you make a video, and you’re like, I want it to be a great video. And if you really wanted it to be a great video, you’ll end up faking things in order to make it a great video, if you’re us. So it’s like we try to keep ourselves from that. And we know we’re not willing to push people as far as Nelk would push people to get the real crazy reactions, so it kind of just puts you in no-man’s land where you either do something that’s gonna be offensive to a large portion of the population or you do something from a true offense standpoint or you’re gonna do something that’s artistically so bad that it’s offensive. So we’re just like, “We’re not gonna do either of those things, “let’s just stay out of that world altogether “and make content that you know, is mostly wholesome.” Mostly wholesome, mythical. I think we can leave it at that. I don’t know if I feel any better, but at least it’s out there, hey. We trust you to do with that information what you will, and maybe that will include, unsubscribing, unsubscribe. Yeah, and I will just say for those of you who are going to be offended at me for giving a very lukewarm endorsement of Nelk, after you go and watch their videos, don’t go and watch their videos. I’m saying don’t go watch their videos. Yeah, that’s a good idea. Okay? How about that? How’s that for an endorsement? I also have a rec so let’s do that. Nelk, right? It’s not Nelk. It’s something called Meat Church. Meat Church. That sounds even more problematic. This is a guy named Matt Pittman, I follow his Instagram, Meat Church, he’s down at Texas, maybe Austin, or outside of Austin. And a lot of people have asked me, where did you get the recipe, give me the recipe for your Nashville hot chicken. Well, I just got it from Meat Church. You just click on their link tree link in the Instagram profile, and it brings up all the recipes, and it also takes you to the store where he sells all kinds of rubs, and there’s a rub that’s used, there’s a dredge that’s used in that process, and the recipe. This is also where I got the recipe for how I did– Green bean casserole? How I’ve done some ribs and brisket, and that kind of thing. He’s basically, he’s got a YouTube channel. Anyway, that’s where I got the recipe from, if you’re into smoking, barbecue and meats. I’m getting hungry right now. Check out Meat Church and I do recommend all the products because you can go to certain places and get recipes for your own rubs, which I respect, the make your own rub game, but it’s easier to just buy your own rub. So that’s what I find to be more convenient, and he’s got some good rubs. Meat Church. Yeah. On Instagram. Yeah, I think it’s also just a website, if you search Meat Church, it will come up. #EarBiscuits, let us know what you think about this, join the conversation and as always follow us on Twitter @mythical, and follow us on Facebook too if you want to get some Good Mythical cut-downs. But on Twitter, we put out questions that we then discuss on this show, if you want to be a part and get a shout-out, follow us @Mythical and #EarBiscuits. To watch more Ear Biscuits, click on the play list 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.