[Music] welcome to ear biscuits the podcast where two lifelong friends talk about life for a long time I’m link and I’m red this year at the round table of dim lighting is 2023 fresh and we are going to get started for the first episode of 2023 by talking about first impressions and specifically uh First Impressions that people mostly you people have had of us uh and this is really a uh what I hope will be a way for us to learn some lessons about how you know we put ourselves out there over the years in many different forms and we’ve been received in many different ways as you will see and see if we can learn anything maybe if we need to make any uh adjustments or just we’re still making First Impressions information hopefully information is good all information is good take it and do what you will with it well information exists what you do with it determines if it was good or not uh yeah you can do good things with information and you know what it’s I think it’s just fun to think about First Impressions so as we’re talking about hours maybe you want to think about the first impressions that you make on people one of my favorite slogans of any product like I the one that just really stands out for me is you never get a second chance to make a first impression of course I don’t know what product that is and shoulders right or cells in blue so you don’t know I thought it was big red gum see it doesn’t matter no no no no no no it’s a dandruff shampoo I am 90 sure of that 90 sure that’s a dander sham okay and it’s probably head and shoulders well Head and Shoulders is like but you don’t have dandruff exactly and if they also did you never get a second chance to make a first impression they did Head and Shoulders is the best it’s the best product on the planet the best product on the planet I don’t know if it works but oh I still I use I use everybody asks me all the time what do you do to get your hair I use Head and Shoulders conditioner oh wow not a sponsor I use Head and Shoulders Supreme which is their like one that doesn’t have the weird stuff in it and at least Myers uses it as a face wash oh really and swears by it on Tick-Tock hey it’s good man so I like that python zinc I think it’s one of the best slogans you never get a second chance to make a first impression I don’t know if they came up that’s true I think they just commandeered it it’s true man and it’s it’s so powerful and you never know I mean you can’t control what people think of you so like you know I don’t want to go overboard in this thing but it’s it’s nice to know how you’re perceived in my opinion and but it’s really hard to know sometimes when you have a long-standing relationship with somebody like we have a mythical beast and by the way a few employees who wrote in wrote in who called in and left voicemails um it’s fun to then we might have to get Jenna’s opinion on this and Jenna too she’s here it’s fun to hear what people you know what did you now that we know each other really well what did you think of me the first time we met I don’t you know ask a ask the ask the people you care about now about back before they knew that they cared about you what did they think of you you know could be fun give me fun I tend to not like the fact that that is true uh because I tend to one of the things I believe about myself is that I consistently do not make a good first impression okay in in what way um I just you know I have it you might say that I don’t come across as warm yeah I don’t I don’t when I meet somebody for the first time I’m in very much sort of a observational uh standpoint and I’m not trying to get them to think anything about me and then about and then like halfway through the evening I’m like oh maybe I should have done something to make this person think a certain way about me so you were just assessing your first impression of them not realizing that your face was just very concentrating I think a lot of times when I’m meeting somebody my thought process is honestly is this person worth the investment of of like oh wow but you know me committing to whatever more more with them whatever that more is you know it’s well or friendship maybe another maybe another way to say it is is there something here you know it seems like I I don’t think you’re making a value judgment I think so I’m asking a clarifying question do you mean like is there something here could we be fill in the blank friends business partners what whatever the nature of the conversation is in the context of It kind of it it it the blank will be filled in different ways but that’s isn’t that kind of what you’re saying is like is there something here is there some sort of chemistry it takes um a lot or am I wrong no I’m well this this is how I understand it it’s not specifically that it’s that it takes me kind of getting to a certain level of comfort with someone before I’m like I’m gonna show you the real Rhett and it might take meeting you a few times before I do that and that’s not just a are you worth the investment sometimes it’s that like we talk we’ve talked many times about how the like uh I especially am not like I’m not trying to be funny most of the time unless I’m in entertainment mode now most of the time that means there’s a camera sometimes that means there’s a group of people who I think could benefit from me being entertaining um but like it takes me I have to make a conscious decision like all right you’re going to go into that mode this mode of like I’m a guy that will say and do funny things and but me just my natural disposition is not that my natural disposition is I am present and if you ask me a question I will answer it I’ll I’ll talk to you about anything I’ll talk to anyone about anything I’m not reserved in that way but I am reserved in terms of like giving yourself to someone yeah and and so that means Jessie gets frustrated with me sometimes because she’s got somebody that she wants me to meet and she’ll have to be like now you need it like try with them turn on or like be warm to them you know and it’s not that I’m cold it’s just that when you’re not especially warm you can be perceived as cold especially when your resting face is more of a um [ __ ] no no just look at me rest your face and look at me um but but be engaged like your brow furrows and you’re in deep thought well you seem to be in like it does seem to be like well oh my gosh what is this guy I’m gonna throw that one right back at you because most of the time no we can talk about me and you are in a second in a zoom meeting I look at you and at me and I realize that both of us are looking at the person like this furrowed brows I mean especially a meeting yeah when it comes to a meeting we’re very we’re concentrating and we’re thinking I’m like man we’re in our brain I would not want these two guys to be looking at me like that and I try to then soften my face a little bit and then I realized that I just don’t what do you then I just felt like I’m falling asleep one of the best things that came out of the pandemic for me was that I can be in a meeting and look at myself exclusively no but seriously I can learn things about myself like that it’s like if if you’ve been on Zoom calls for these past two and a half years and you haven’t learned anything about the energy you’re putting out into the world yeah you need to you you need to you need to observe yourself a little bit now we didn’t I didn’t change as much as maybe I thought I should but yeah you alter your your all to yourself a little bit it’s like oh I need to I need to turn up the corners of my mouth a little well if somebody’s like I need to be a supportive active listener like pitching an idea or especially if they’re talking to us like do you know there’s a there’s AI now that you as you can use as a plug-in on Zoom that keeps your eyes uh in contact with the camera no matter what you do there’s a guy on Tick Tock who demonstrated them and so he and he’s it’s actually freaky but it looks completely normal so he’s just like kind of like what if you look down all the way well I don’t want you to repeat any phone I had you on now if I have it on do not disturb does not mean that Siri shouldn’t disturb me definitely how come she didn’t get the message she’s in the phone I don’t have a relationship with Siri well I try not to that was unintentional just break up with Siri right now I don’t know how you do that I wasn’t I mean I when I said I was gonna look at your face I wasn’t you know I know you probably thought I was going to give you a cheap shot but I I didn’t I was I’m really interested in this I think that you were that it was just it’s the level of intensity that could be intimidating I mean when you combine it with height and like the bigness of the beard and hair but we can switch to me for me I think my first impressions uh probably just run the gamut because it’s so mood-based for me when I’m meeting people for the first time I think it has it’s it’s so much what vibe I’m in like I don’t know if I’m yeah I I’ll just exude whatever my emotions are like and I am being like and I will take it up a notch like so it’s not just I’m being myself it’s like whatever self I am and kind of in that that day or that night I think I that’s what I that’s the energy that I try to harness that into social interaction and sometimes yeah sometimes I have a funny it comes off funny anecdote I’m this we were reselling in a in a setting of really interesting people uh together interesting people um and the guy from West Coast Customs oh yeah and his entire family were in this small gathering basically and I saw you talking to him and the family for an extended period of time and uh and then I was I’m gonna go see what who Link’s talking to so I go over there and uh Within 20 seconds the wife of West Coast Customs the guys it was like your friend is a uh we had developed a rapport yeah I I could tell she was saying it she was joking she was being funny but like she was commenting on your uh she was very feisty you’re you’re um I don’t have I haven’t yet come up with a word for it but how would you describe it uh projecting because she was okay yep and I I I really liked her for it like I mean she was she was dishing it out as much as she was taking it let me tell you that and I think she started it oh because you think it’s foreign if somebody’s giving it to you she entered the conversation late and so um her family introduced her to me is how I remember it as like oh I we know who this guy is and she’s like I don’t know who you are but that’s how the conversation started so I was like okay I see where we’re going with this I two can play this game I kind of like this so yeah that we we were both we were both doing okay so because that in that particular instance I was very much in a in a in a in a playful in a playful mode whatever wherever you’re going to go with this I’m going to go with it but if I am if I’m in kind of a grumpy Zone yeah I might be a little too sarcastic with people and um there’s lots of times when I come back from stuff where I I’ve met a number of people for the first time some sort of mixer party type scenario and I just sit there and just think about what what everybody thinks of me and how and I just I start to feel bad and I’m like did I get their number so I can apologize like these things happen hmm to me a lot or like so I do try to I’m trying to be more aware of that um but for the most I think for the most part I err on the side of like being more winsome but but maybe too extra and I’m definitely talking like Party Zone at this point because that’s where you meet people for the first time A lot of times unless you’re putting content on the internet and people are just watching you for and then you’re obviously we’ve done everything that when we put stuff out there on the show we’re trying to make the best first impression because we want we want we want more mythical beasts I would say that the filter with which uh we the filter that we apply to what goes on the Internet is way different than it was 10 years ago definitely I mean I was talking to Jessie I’d rather much more be myself now than win over a fan who thinks I’m somebody I’m not and I think that people respond positively I don’t and I’m not talking I took a long time I’m not talking about that that’s true the vulnerability piece of it but that’s actually not what I’m talking about okay what I’m talking about is if you go back 10 years we curated every single thing that we put on the internet because we were putting a lot less on the internet now with a podcast with a Daily Show and then an after show yeah we’re not constantly trying to be exactly who we think that when we’re being ourselves and as it has been evidenced many many times lots of people don’t like me or you or us and that because they’ve made a decision that or I don’t like this aspect of them and that’s just a part of putting yourself out on the internet but then when it comes to you know uh even pictures uh you know because sometimes Jessie and I would like go to an event and we’ve got pictures that were then posting and she and she’s like you know if I’m gonna post pictures that if me and her in it well she because she has not put herself out nearly as much as I have on the internet and also I think it my particular opinion is that women have a much harder time uh uh on the internet than men because they are constantly objectified and criticized and put into and you know their physical appearance is pointed out much more quickly than it is for a man so that whole thing for her is like I’m going to approve like she’s going to look and make sure that the pictures of her that are going up on my feed are ones that she approves when she asked me that question I’m like baby people have seen me I mean I am a meme for for a man with and without a beard like I the worst thing I like I might as well just have the uh the most unflattering things you could ever see from me angles Expressions everything it’s on the internet for everyone to see you I you never need to approve any photo of me that goes up and that’s that’s changed a little bit a little bit every single year even stuff you remember we used to approve every single photo that would go out officially like through a mythical thing like this is going to be on a banner now sometimes this we still do that like if it’s going to be like the YouTube Banner oh I kind of want a photo that I kind of think I look better than not yeah but more often than not it’s just like oh there’s another thing that is going there’s another merch picture I don’t I quit looking at them because I don’t like the way I look 90 of the time so you I just I just kind of let go of that yeah um there’s nowhere to hide for us so it’s kind of a good thing so I think that in some ways I’ve just my I don’t know I think differently about first impressions in general now because there’s so many different versions that have gone out there yeah when it comes to our public persona but back to like the interpersonal like am I meeting someone who’s going to be a friend and I’m about to screw it up in Short Circuit the whole thing I would just summarize it for me as I don’t want to be misinterpreted as a jerk and I definitely don’t want to actually be a jerk and both of those things could happen sometimes not but it’s the minority of this is a really small minority where I’m actually a jerk and then there’s a good piece of the pie that’s still less I mean I’d say I don’t know what percentage it is I would hope it’s 25 of the time or less like hopefully less than 20 percent of the pie is I actually mean well but I can I’m easily misinterpreted or easily interpreted as being a jerk but then a lot of times it’s just like okay this dude this dude is is a nice guy for I don’t know what a something guy that’s that’s my thing I don’t want to be interpreted as a jerk what about you what are you most concerned about I think that my philosophy is if this is someone that I um want there to be something more like I like oh this is somebody I would want to be a friend with um or this is someone we would want to work with or whatever I think my philosophy is most likely if I just was myself without trying and also even if I was understated and didn’t say a whole lot like that person probably has the wherewithal to pick up on the things about me that they like and if I again if I think that this is something worth pursuing I feel like there could be a more intentional second interaction like I actually don’t put a lot of stock in the first impression I’m not saying that it’s not true but I’m saying that I don’t I don’t live my life as if the first impression is super important because I know that I’m not good at them and I haven’t had any experience ever where I had a interaction with somebody that I really liked and then I didn’t I wasn’t able to continue that or further it because of something I did wrong the first time we got together okay well that’s good just remember you never get a second chance to make a second impression either it is a good slogan second impression let’s get into some voicemails about us but first let’s promote some crap oh it’s it’s the start of the year so we have a dispatchers from Myrtle Beach my dad’s podcast with me this month we’re launching a video version uh so look for the launch of that YouTube channel if you want to watch my interaction with my dad I highly recommend it um check it out if you haven’t it’s uh it’s an important part of of my life now so maybe become an important part of your life also a hot dog is a sandwich Josh and Nicole’s podcast from the mythical kitchen is back and it also now has a video component great format YouTube channel if you don’t know tell them what the format is they basically take controversial food opinions and put them against one another you know the whole is a hot dog a sandwich that’s the whole the whole idea there their interactions are great and they’re I mean listen this is like very consistently one of the top food podcasts very well respected within the culinary world because listen Josh and Nicole are not us they actually know things about food like significant things about food like they’re very well informed and just for you to listen to you won’t you not only get hungry but you’ll also learn some stuff about why about the things you’re hungry for and you’ll be hungry for more of their podcast hot dog is a sandwich ear biscus is supported by better help you know what makes me feel good you mean besides talking to me yes that makes me feel good but besides that it makes me feel good to be my best self man oh you know to give myself the attention and the work I need to be my best self you know what I’m getting at okay yeah well to be my myself I usually I I unbutton the top two buttons on my shirt so today I’m not looking at my best self why you do that and now I am being my best self but you know what you can’t always be your best self that is an impossible task but working with a therapist could definitely get you closer to that best version of yourself and better help is a great step to get you there you know we’re big fans of therapy and having access to therapy I mean one of my top moments of last year was the growth that I experienced in therapy it was a top moment for me as well my girl you you’re a therapy okay yeah no therapy has been really important uh for both of us that’s why we talk about it all the time and we think that more people should have access to therapy and that’s why we’re a big fan of Better Health yeah the cool thing about betterhelp is that it’s entirely online so you can take that appointment from anywhere especially if it’s your first time with therapy it’ll help ease your nerves if you’re uncomfortable with it so just fill out a questionnaire so they can match you with the right person and if they somehow did not match you with the licensed therapist of your dreams you can always switch and it will not cost you anything extra if you want to live a more empowered life therapy can get you there visit betterhelp.com ear today to get 10 off your first month that’s better help h-e-l-p.com slash ear [Music] ton link this is Richard I’m calling from Las Vegas Nevada I’m such a such a huge huge huge huge fan Rhett and Link and Good Mythical Morning and you guys are this uh so freaking hilarious anyways I’m calling uh I’m calling about your most recent tweet that you guys put out you remember the first time you saw us on the internet yeah I remember it very very vividly I was scrolling through a link aggregator website called gorilla links and it was just a just a thumbnail a view of YouTube written link sitting in a polar Ranch and at this thought it was so unique and so weird I just I decided to click on it it went to your YouTube video and from that day I fell in love with you you guys this is so so freaking hilarious keep doing what you’re doing I’m Gonna Keep listening to to ear biscuits I’m gonna keep watching the show okay yeah we he okay that got weird it sounded like he was gonna say handsome that guy is say when he said when he said hilarious I just feel like he was about to you know I feel like he was gonna say handsome we have we accept the love you know if you see two guys in ranch a tub full of ranch like all the way up over their faces that’s quite a first impression and for him that’s exactly what he needed to fall in love because I think some people would see that and be like I’m not and I’m not interested in that you know I mean frankly uh if I saw that I would not want more like me personally but did we get any of those but a lot of people did want more hi Rhett and Link My name is Donna um I wanted to share the first time I saw you guys on the internet um my boyfriend got a link to one of your videos it happened to be the will it Meatloaf uh episode and I he was watching it I happened to walk in right as you guys were trying the Taco Bell meatloaf and I remember thinking it was the grossest thing I’ve ever seen I was like what the heck who the heck are these guys this is so disgusting I thought it was so stupid and then um kind of lo and behold we just randomly started watching you guys and since then I think I’ve watched every single episode and gone back to catch up on all the other ones too so um you know not the best First Reactions uh you know first impression but um I do love you guys and now now I get it now I understand uh in the in the moment I did it but um but yeah I will never forget that so hope you guys have a great day disgusting and stupid those were that was her first impression yeah and somehow we won her over like that hey that feels pretty good I mean it doesn’t get work I mean those are some pretty pretty bad terms what I also think is probably the most common first impression uh we do less disgusting now but but I’m saying that stupid it’s pretty par for the course I think if you go back to the period of time in which we were gaining uh subscribers at the highest rate we ever had yeah which is like 14 15. when the algorithm was changing and all that and so it was just like rewarding our content and suggesting it to everybody um that was when we were kind of in the Heyday of hot peppers and gross stuff yeah and that was when it really worked it doesn’t work nearly as well anymore and I so I think that if you just do like a an evaluation of the fan base I think that this first impression is probably the most common like if you had to group it into like they were doing something stupid yeah disgusting and stupid I mean that could have been the name of the show it could have been the name of us yeah which one do you want to be but we couldn’t be contained by those two terms right uh let’s see this one this didn’t hurt too bad yet Tyra and Link um my first impression of you guys was introduced to me when I was in high school uh I was in Youth Group at the time and um my youth Minister would play your guys’s videos during our youth group and I remember the first time he played a video he kind of advertised it as this is stuff like we would do at youth group like playing silly games or eating weird food so and it’s funny now to know your guys’s journey through deconstruction and also mine so anyway thanks bye yeah I think that the uh I don’t know how to feel about this because I’m sure that there’s many a youth pastor out there who has a lot of regrets for introducing uh our content into their youth curriculum but we put out a lot of youth group energy I mean that was an ERA I mean because that because we came from youth group energy so yeah even though we never said we want to make good mythical morning like a like a youth group with two guys who uh aren’t allowed into youth groups anymore because of their age and now I guess because of their beliefs but uh uh yeah we I I was very self-conscious about putting out that youth pastor energy I’m glad she didn’t go that far it’s like these guys are just like me you know well I think we I think we hit the youth pastor energy pretty hard for a pretty long time I mean listen talk about first impressions of like other YouTubers that we were meeting I bet if we go back and asking that if they may not have those words but like when we started meeting YouTubers they had everybody like would try to figure us out and they were like I think it came down to youth youth pastor energy but here’s here’s the thing I gotta say that now that we’re in Los Angeles that if you were to survey a group of people in Los Angeles and you were to give them multiple choice as to what we do for a living and you gave youth pastor I mean look at what you’ve got on look what I’ve got I mean especially what you’ve got on those glasses and your hair like and even when I’ve got on like like if you’re talking like metro area youth pastor really we’re still because they’re yeah we’re still because anyone who looks like they’re trying to not look their age that’s the quintessential sign of a youth pastor if you have if you come from that world if you do that in the South you’re gonna look a certain way you know yeah if you do that in Los Angeles you’re gonna look I mean you obviously I would say this is a cool look but I’m saying that that but it looks like somebody who’s trying to look cool and I’m saying I do the same thing that is that’s a that’s youth pastor energy that’s like West Coast that you’re telling me I’m just saying you can’t get away from it because but it’s in the behind the it’s in the eye of the boat it’s in the behind of the boulder yeah I’m not saying you should change anything or I should I don’t know what they’re doing your youth group but I feel like that is the that’s what youth pastor energy is is someone who is hanging out with kids a lot and trying to kind of appeal to them by the way they dress and the way they do their hair or whatever I just want to be on record to say I every fashion Choice I’m making now is only to appeal to myself okay and you you’re a youth pastor [Music] 2012 and the first impression that I remember having is man these guys should get new haircuts um and eventually that did happen so congratulations on evolution these guys should get news what year did she say 2012 yeah yeah we’ve had some we’ve had some some low points here’s a good follow-up I think all right link it’s me Daniel um been watching you guys for a while I just wanted to say I forgot what you guys asked I’m like um what did I think when I saw yours on that well I first saw you guys when you started trending like 2015 so back then I must have been like 12 13. oh the one thing I remember is at the time I had a bowl cut and this was before 2016 so before Lake had cut his hair so I remember watching them be like man I think it’s just like me that is so cool he’s got a bulkhead just like me he’s awesome it’s not a popular and stuff it wasn’t a bulkhead you got glasses and that made me feel good about having glasses and that was really cool I thought um barrette Brett was like rent was crazy he was like he was like that guy I wanted to be you know that guy I was they were awesome too this dude didn’t even remember the prompt at the beginning got a haircut and uh yeah I love both of you guys all right I’m never going to forget Rhett was the guy I wanted to be and Link was the guy that I was how does he feel now I would like to know he said he loves us both man all right let’s go to some employees I’m Really Gonna I’m literally gonna hold on to that so my dad magic Paisley called in I we do not know what he said hey this is Mike Paisley calling from Cloudy Burbank California uh and I’m talking about the first time I met Rhett and Link it was almost 10 years ago and they were two YouTubers that I’d never heard of but they were a big ass deal at the time because they had almost 2 million subscribers and so when they came to the digital Twigs studio downtown we’re very excited to meet these these big time YouTubers and they brought Stevie their producer and they brought their wives and they brought their kids and it totally took out all of the like anxiety of meeting these like uh these YouTube guys because they just seem like regular dudes with kids and it was a really Charming experience and so um I never really liked him though I uh ever since that day I I wish I hadn’t encountered them JK JK that’s my story about meeting Rhett and Link for the first time it was great and uh I’ll never forget it I’ll never forget it either yeah because we knew that they were going to do uh they were working on the intro for the medical show which was the stop-motion animation and we were like this is going to be super cool it’s so cool let’s go back and watch it let’s bring all of our families to the studio this the little Studio that they have yeah because they were building it all practically as like this as like scale models of like a tree growing out of a volcano under an underground volcano and like yeah Paisley was so kind like to show our kids like how everything worked and it was awesome it was awesome and now you know all these years later he’s we got him all to ourselves working for us well before you move to the next one you’re moving pretty quickly my impression of you right now is that you’re moving through these very quickly and we’re not talking about them just so you know oh okay um going back to the uh youth pastor thing uh not what we were talking about but a very real thing that we’ve we’ve talked about is the impression that we have and you might remember the details of this but like conversations that we have had with people that we met back in those earlier days um where there was a um kind of this undercurrent a little bit of tension you know I talked with Pete Holmes about this because I went back on the his podcast to talk about a human overboard and we were talking about the first time that we came on the show which was at the end of 2019 before we told our deconstruction story publicly in 2020 on this podcast right and we actually talked about it on the podcast he was like yeah there was this sort of um I can’t remember the word that he used to describe it but when you know that someone wants to be able to talk about something but then doesn’t that was a certain energy but I’m actually saying go back to those early days and really this was mostly when we were in North Carolina and then the very early days in California where um we were both still identifying as Christians and even as I was like coming out of that in like 2012 2013 I still I was sort of like coming out of it in an intellectual way but in terms of just the way my brain worked and the way I saw the world a lot of that was still kind of intact and so we kind of bring like a suspicion to people of the world you know what I’m saying and even in some of those early ear biscuits where we would interview with somebody interview somebody and we’re asking them these questions but then not disclosing uh can you remember any conversations that we’ve had in the in subsequent years about hey how did we come across did we because I remember somebody telling us that yeah you guys had some uh like holy energy or something I can’t remember how it was described but I think that was something that I have since been able to observe and not just not I’m not going to single out any anybody of a particular Faith but anyone who has an agenda and that agenda is I want you to think like me and I want you to agree with me and this is something that everyone including myself falls into on a pretty regular basis I’m TR I’ve gotten much better at it I’m trying to get better at it but when you kind of bring that into a conversation it’s pretty palpable yeah that can color a first impression well I mean being raised in the Evangelical belief system by definition is you want to win people over like you’re you’re you believe that Jesus actually commanded you to do that to make disciples so to speak well in in to use the terms so you know and it will be for this person’s benefit and it and it’s and you’re not doing it for you it’s like so all of a sudden a first impression gets wrapped up in like there’s this level of self-awareness that okay I am different in some ways so one of the most easily easy ways that you can notice it first are like okay how clean my language is or the things that I am not going to do maybe that’s not drink for some people or maybe it’s not dance for some some religious people you know so it’s there’s these certain ways where you start to you have to be aware if you want to you want to make a positive impression because you want to represent your relationship with God in a way that wins people over that entices people that these are literally things that Paul talks about in the Bible you know this is how you need to go about your life in a way that helps people by winning them over to the cause of the faith so you’re aware of these things where you stick out as different and you know you get to you I I think for me I developed a little bit of a complex on that front because it’s first impression is not just about are people going to like me but are people going to like God that’s a lot of pressure you know and um are the things that make me different it’s so hard for it just not to imply judgment like silent judgment I’m not no I don’t I don’t do that it’s kind I mean if somebody is um has been sober for years and they say you know what um I’m sober or I’m in recovery or whatever terms they use it’s very clear that it’s about this is my process and it kind of short circuits judgment you know but I don’t do that I don’t do that I don’t do that as a just a moral thing then because you’re doing it is immoral how could it so it’s an implication it was so hard to have that conversation and it didn’t seem like an effective way in that you just find yourself hoping that nobody notices and that’s the complex I think that Dynamic is actually still very present and probably more present ever in our culture and I don’t think that it is so we we related to that context from a Christian standpoint but I think that our our in America we’re so politically polarized at this point interesting that um if you’re somebody on the left and you’re talking to somebody on the right and you find out that they’re on the right mm-hmm it’s very difficult for you to not have immediate judgment in your words and your face now you’re interacting with them and vice versa vice versa vice versa yeah I I I don’t I don’t like to do the both sides thing I am on one side of this you know I’m on the left side but the psychology of it plays both ways yeah and I think that it it actually is something that has really short-circuited what could be uh fruitful conversations between people I think is that there is this like okay because you identify and this is some this is a new phenomenon like I’ve been reading a lot about just like people people who are really studying polarization right now because it is more pronounced than it than it has been in the recent past I mean sure maybe way back in the day but like it’s super pronounced right now and there is and there’s there’s good reason I’m not saying that you know oh abandon your principles but in terms of immediately categorizing somebody as okay if you identify in this way then I can assume all these different things about you and I actually cannot have a meaningful dialogue with you and I’m gonna judge every single thing you say and I’m going to judge every single thing you do versus see oh you know what most likely you are also a human person who based on your own intuition and your circumstances and your environment and your psychological disposition came to these conclusions that you are currently at and they may be different than mine but you’re still a human and we’re still All in This Together how do we have a fruitful conversation um it’s just it’s something that you don’t experience very often out here because we this is a pretty homogeneous and political environment in Los Angeles um but it’s something that you go back to the home in North Carolina I was actually talking to my brother about this I was like you know you’re you live in a super purple place you know like you know and you kind of forget that when you live in a super red or a super blue place you kind of forget about those very very purple places like these Southern Metro areas uh where on a daily basis you’re going to have meaningful interactions and you’re also going to have to have meaningful um meaningful like collaborations with people from all over the Spectrum like you have to do meaningful things you have to get things done you have to have an interaction with somebody you have to purchase something from somebody you have to do a deal with something you have to work with or to work with yeah and if you’re just going to be like oh you’re on the other end of this spectrum a spectrum that I believe stands for everything that is wrong and is everything that is wrong with our country and everything that is evil in our country uh yeah you that that energy comes across it just comes across in your interactions in the same way that our energy of like well this is who we are and this is what we believe about things and because I’ve been on both sides of that I’m just you know I’m trying to be conscious of it in a way because the point I think is to have a meaningful dialogue into arrive at what how are we going to move forward you know yeah and there I think there are a lot of people who like to be put in a box if it’s their box you know but I I don’t I personally don’t like that because I’m not so firmly I I you know it’s I don’t know it just as an i as a concept of not being taken as an individual human that has with all the complexities is just not it’s that’s not a place that’s that’s not how I want to be received um but I think that it’s for apparently for some people they do yeah on on on whatever extreme right just what the that’s that’s what defines the extreme in my opinion is that like yeah I this is my box and I want and I want you to know it I want it to be the first thing you know about me if I you know uh that’s never really been who who who I wanted to be and it’s I am not really interested in that place because you don’t feel like you can you know no but you’re not there’s not talk about active listening you know if the first thing you say is this is my identity is my box like then oh I mean that could sound very uh interesting my identity is my ideology my identity is my ideology it’s like well okay do I really want to keep talking to you if it’s like if that’s it if it’s that simple like even if I don’t want to change your mind even if I just want to interact with you as a person you know it’s just not appealing to me yeah um but there I do think there’s a lot of people who that’s not the case and who you disagree with about things and it’s that that’s yeah I mean going back to the purple living in the purple place you know it’s I I think that’s something we don’t benefit from you know there’s benefits to it you know and I I end up saying things like you know maybe this is the reason I’m glad to live where I live because it just makes it easier but I don’t know there’s something good about being challenged right well I think I I think it’s the nature of uh it’s the nature of a democracy it’s the nature of our country right there’s a hell there’s a health to it and it has functioned in a generally positive manner for most of the history of our country and we’ve moved from kind of a dark place to a less dark place like that’s the general uh progression that we have moved and it has come through the push and pull and hopefully that’s a trajectory of progressivism and conservatism sort of like stretching the culture the cultural blanket across time um and so right now we’re kind of in a place where the cultural blanket has been ripped apart and we’re just two people two sides just standing there kind of looking at each other holding one half of the country right and it’s just like well how do we get this thing back together and keep moving it because we have been moving towards equality for more people that is the general disposition of humanity and culture over time and that’s the that’s why I’m on the Progressive side because that’s the I want to keep pulling the blanket but I don’t want to pull it so hard that it comes that it tears or it comes out of the conservative’s hands because at that point we’d have no longer of a functional democracy it’s not easy to do but I think that the moment we just rip it away and we’re like we’re not even the same people anymore well yeah but we’re still both citizens of the same country and you have this your vote has the same power that my vote has and what does it do me more good to sit there and make fun of you and call you an idiot or does it make more does it or me to have a constructive dialogue with you if I think that I’ve got the the right point on this don’t I want to maintain some kind of connection so I can have a conversation I’m not saying to compromise your beliefs I’m just saying how do you still how do you maintain a conversation and you can and you can it’s true to say it the other way too can you sit there and call me an idiot and then and and then expect me to actually listen to anything you have to say right right yeah it goes both ways yeah okay um you want to keep going I think we’ve officially pissed off as many people as we possibly could how did that piss off anybody because anytime I just feel like we didn’t we didn’t take a stand on anything exactly exactly except except that people should work together but that pisses off people on both sides that’s the problem okay so now we’re pissing off everybody both extremes okay I’m fine with that but we are a country with extremes that’s where we are right now that’s all I’m saying so by trying to say is there some way that we can work together and move things forward you’re going to piss both sides off I’m just saying that’s the state that we’re in right now I wish I could quote of course you know who am I going to quote right now if I could but I can’t Bono when he was on brene Brown’s podcast um uh back in December it I mean he talks he I mean in like a little one little question he talks about this um and he kind of has this he has his own Theory about centrism it’s interesting I’m I’m not gonna I can’t quote it but it’s like it there’s a reflection of that in this so like hey I feel like I feel like there’s some there’s some people that I can Harbor with Bono this good guy I think I gotta to put a little Safe Harbor [Music] um I I want to go to another kg called in now kg is relative um well she’s not a relative she’s a mythical crew member she’s a she’s a she she’s worked with this relatively short amount of time less than a year I believe yeah so I let me let’s see what she said hey yo it’s your girl kg um and my first impression came from when I started watching you guys in college I used to watch you guys all four years every morning um right before I got ready for class and the first impression I got off was these goofy silly curious guys um that gave off the comforting dad Vibes and that’s why I would usually watch you guys because the positive vibe you gave off the videos was just amazing and it really helps me through all four years of college and when I first met y’all it was my second day at work and I was in the zone doing my start paperwork and I could see from the corner of my eye on the bullpen that two figures just like stopped and I looked up and it’s written link and I internally I’m freaking out and Link’s like oh you’re the new PA because they just sent out an email welcomed me into the company the day before I was like yeah it’s me my name is Carolina and other people call me kg and it was funny seeing them attempt to say my name but I was like no it’s good like you can call me just call me kid sometimes people call me Kevin Garnett just to make a joke thought it was funny then we started talking about basketball and then they welcomed me I was like so excited to see your work and like happy that you’re here and it was just very welcoming so the impression I got while watching their videos really really like met with the in-person Impressions which is just insane because I looked up to you guys in college and and it’s it’s just crazy to work with you all so yeah I think the impression from watching you guys really met up to in person thanks kg too nice Jenna come on you you gotta you gotta give us some dirt because I mean like Paisley Paisley Paisley was nice kg was nice no but no other employees no one called in I can’t believe no one else called in uh okay people are afraid yeah I’ll I’ll share the dirt we because we met uh I had at a bar we met at a bar yeah I had submitted an application to work as your personal assistant and we had set up uh a meeting in like a week a week later or so yeah but your interview yeah my interview but then Laura my best friend she was doing makeup on the show invited me as her plus one to your end of year holiday party and I was like okay they’re gonna be there in my head I’m just like I swear if they make me do some sort of interview at this party is going to be a no it’s gonna be absolutely immediate no for me and so I show up I know to take the job okay just keep yeah I’m sorry yeah okay I was like I’m like I’m just going to go to a party I’m going to a party We’re not gonna talk about how that I’m interviewing with them in a week we’re just I’m just going to a part so I show up and then you two are like one of the first two people that I see there and so I introduced myself and I was like hi I’m Jenna and immediately link is like hey we should do the interview now yeah I’m about to say you think that he’s not going to do that and I go absolutely not I I immediately was like absolutely not this is your party you should have fun I know I’m gonna have fun let’s do our interview another time at the regularly scheduled time and that was the end of it and that was the end of it and I was like okay great they didn’t mind me saying no and they didn’t mind uh and they understand work-life balance I was like this is good this is a good first step I pushed back and they were like you’re right cool and I was like all right okay I could probably work for these guys but then my whole thing at the party was getting to know Jessie and Christy I was like I was because good strategy that always helps well for me I just in the past assistant jobs that I had that some some were quite intense and it was very much there was no work-life balance and um some old bosses Partners were less than kind to me and I didn’t mean to laugh they were less than kind so I was like I was like okay if their wife’s gonna be there I’m gonna get to know Jessie and Christy if we get along I’m gonna give this a shot I’m gonna give this a shot with these guys because I like I wasn’t really applying to we’re really looking to say no at every turn I was yeah I was yeah you didn’t want to get wrapped up in another bad situation yeah I didn’t want to get it wrapped up I I wasn’t looking to uh be an assistant again because I didn’t want to get in another bad situation but I was like I don’t know these guys sound cool I never heard of you before the um Laura showed me your sodang dark video and I was like oh that’s fun that’s creative that’s uh interesting like I like I like that style uh it’s my favorite song of yours now honestly but um but when I said and that was the end of it I was actually being facetious because I I swear I remember interviewing you at the party no like I remember sitting next to you you sat down with me and I was like don’t talk about this and and then we started talking a little bit and I was like you had a conversation but yeah it was a conversation it wasn’t like a hardcore interview okay so we had a we had a little power Dynamic if I remember it correctly if you thought it was a power Dynamic it wasn’t for me I thought we were just chilling I kept making you say no to the interview yeah which was the interview so in my mind I interviewed you in your mind you you stood up to be an interview I was like so we both won well so I remember correctly no I know that I knew that there’s no you’re not gonna keep him from doing something like that so I knew that was going to happen I knew I would not do that and I knew that you um would likely resist it but also I knew that our interviews especially for a an assistant role or very much just like do we like you yeah do we get along with you exactly would We Vibe with you socially so I knew that just hanging out with you was a big part of the interview but it wasn’t an interview so it wasn’t going to be which is really wasn’t going to feel any different than hanging out with somebody yeah which is why I literally thought to this day that we did have the interview like because I made I made I made my decision for me it wasn’t an interview for me I was just like I told them we’re not gonna do a big interview we’ll just talk and hang out and have a good time have a party we’re at a party everybody’s drinking I was like I was like a cocktail or two in it’s like you want to ask me questions about my life sure right because you might do that anyway man who played who here I’m pretty sure I don’t know I think we both played each other it works it works but yeah I ended up talking with Jessie and Christy the most out of everyone and just like I mean adored them I was like all right all right if these women are married to these men all right I can I can all right I’ll give this interview a shot I use definitely I use Jessie as a as my like secret weapon for First Impressions most of the time because I’m just like it’s if we’re going someplace as a couple I know that she’s going to be outgoing in a in in like very very warm and people are going to connect with her and then I’m like okay she she cut in fact it’s actually made me be able to sort of just like retreat a little bit which may not be a positive thing because I’m like I know that she’s going to be super sweet and super nice to these people and like start a conversation she’s gonna start disclosing something she probably should disclose the first time that she meets somebody because she’s an oversharer but people feel trusted and connected with and then and then she can kind of tell me well yeah I really like this person and then okay well next time I’ll also talk to them we’re just similar her and I are very similar because I I have a tendency if in the right circumstances if someone asks a personal question I’ll over share if they ask I’m gonna just share I’m like all right well you don’t even have to ask Jessie yeah she’ll just say it but another thing about that over sharing if you if you’re comfortable sharing it though unless other people are uncomfortable hearing it oh is that a component can I give you a little insight into links very interesting life I’ve had a lot of crazy things happen and sometimes when I say things people are very uncomfortable because they’re like oh huh I I do I feel like and well okay I I get that I I think my mentality is I’d rather put a little bit more of myself out there even if it’s like people are like reeling a little bit because it is part of who I am and if that’s not if if you’re going to have a negative reaction to that then there’s nothing here for us and now you know that so you know I guess another way to say it is like you know if just be yourself and if people first impression is negative and you’re being yourself then everybody’s one because you you can both move on and you’re not you know you’re not uh it’s not manipulative you know so it’s in the moment I think I do err on the side of risking making somebody feel a little uncomfortable oh hopefully with my it as long as this with something that’s that’s true of me then I’m giving them information where they can run for the hills kind of a thing so maybe I’m being defensive here but I honestly I think that that’s part of what’s behind it is like you know this might be a 10 minute conversation and you might be like is that guy always like that or is this you know and then you might say like is that guy always like that because I like that guy or is that guy always like that because I’m never talking to him again mission accomplished but if people get the wrong impression of you yes it does then I don’t want that right right so yeah so people get confused and don’t know because I agree with your mentality in general and I think you should always be yourself but if you’re if you like oh I said something to that person that’s offensive and actually didn’t mean to offend them and now I’ve got something that I need to that I mean that’s the only thing if people are going to be offended by me in our first interaction let’s not have a second one I I do care I don’t want to offend people but if there’s certain things that like if you take yourself too seriously it’s not gonna work for us honestly you know I mean and I don’t want to hurt people’s feelings but that’s how I feel about it I mean it’s like wow Jenna she’s really an open book but something she shared made me uncomfortable uh do you regret sharing it if that’s information that like you were comfortable sharing that then it’s like as long as it didn’t trigger them I think for me it’s one of those people that’s just like it’s a realization of because I’ve some of my stories are unusual for a lot of people so then it’s like seeing their reaction and be like oh uh right right I am not normal cool should I and then it becomes this thought of like does that person deserve to know this thing about me yes that I but again that’s a you thing not a them thing yeah right to me that’s where I draw the line I mean there’s like a couple of different lines that I’m trying to draw but like I I’m I I like talking about this because yeah I’m dialing it in I’m dialing it in you know well it worked so you got you got me that’s why it worked it worked in this instant another thing about that party I will say that kind of uh sold me a bit was um the bonsai tree uh trimmer who was there at the party who was uh trimming a giant bonsai tree the whole the whole party yeah and I had this I was like that is something I’ve never seen I seriously had like a 30 minute conversation with that man yeah I was very fascinated and I was like these guys that was our idea this was our insistence yeah I was like these guys brought this to a party that’s interesting okay yeah yeah just yeah just so people who wanted to talk to him could talk to him he hasn’t been back since though nope that’s we would love her and it’s our fault let’s see what this one holds so my first video I watched of Rhett and Link uh good mythical morning was eight weird ways to open a bottle and my first Spotlight grown men having sex oh orange soda I thought it was so strange and I decided to not watch any of their videos for like a month because I I was so confused uh but I ended up watching more videos um and here I am eight years later so shout out to eight weird ways to open a bottle and that very very strange time I had so we were having too much fun we scared her away we were too old to have too much as much fun as we were having and you know what we gave her the information and it took her a month she let it settle to figure out that she needed that in her life the next time she had orange soda and she was like look think about all the ways I could open this with my eye socket I you I think that actually using your eye socket was not one of them but it was the thumbnail yeah that was a kind of a deceptive thought yep yep we don’t do that often the first thing I remember about seeing Rhett and Link on the internet was actually when I was 13 or 14 I saw the thumbnail for the season three Good Mythical Morning episode titled the most amazing optical illusions on the internet and at the time uh seeing the thumbnail I uh it looked fishy to me and I in my head thought it was something potentially sexually explicit so I did not click on it uh but that thumbnail kept popping up in my feed and one day I you know being a horny teenager I was like all right I’m gonna click on and watch whatever this is and I click on it and it it was nothing very explicit it was two dudes of the internet looking at uh optical illusions but uh that’s kickstarted seven eight years ago of being a fan um let what you all do but yep that’s how I got interested wow talk about being disappointed like he had to work up the nerve and then well the drive to click on the video you’re looking at the thumbnail right now I’m trying to make sure that this that’s definitely it’s gonna be it that was definitely it it’s got this so it’s from eight it’s from nine years ago it’s the uh well I started playing now how many views does that have about 22 million good gosh so it’s a picture of an optical illusion it’s just like a photograph of two people hugging and the one person like has a a halter top on but you only see the person’s back so it’s like the shoulders are exposed so there is a lot of skin and then but like the placement of the head looks really weird because it’s the other person’s head it’s the other person’s head I mean I remember what it was like to be a horny teen and it doesn’t I mean there’s there’s a more than enough skin shown in this thumbnail even though it’s just back skin upper back skin of a woman it doesn’t take much um that is hilarious but it’s funny because I wouldn’t have thought that it was sexually explicit but I would have clicked on it because there was so much skin right right maybe we should put more skin in our thumbnails all the skin on our face we didn’t have so much face skin hi Rhett hi link um the first Good Mythical Morning episode I saw was the outrageous camping gear you must own episode from eight years ago at the time I was probably nine years old and I remember watching it and thinking wow this is really boring I don’t think I’m gonna continue watching this but then a while later when the willit episodes came out that just piqued my interest and I’ve been a fan ever since so thank you guys for such amazing content well somebody gave us a second chance you never get a second chance to bore somebody out of their minds when they’re nine years old you know what being nine that was the problem honestly I think what kind of camping are you doing you know I just don’t have a budget for camping I feel like it’s like a story this story reinforces my theory um which I think is maybe the uh a mirror to your theory Germans love David Hasselhoff so if your theory is you’re going to give people potentially too much and if too much is too much for them then you don’t need anything with them I go in thinking I’m gonna give you too little and if too little of me the little bit of me that I do give you if you don’t like the little bit of me that I give you then you’re not going to like the more of me that I give you so therefore the next time we meet I might give you a little bit more and that’s my prerogative and again I think that’s just a personality disposition I’m not saying one is right and one is wrong I just don’t tend to be extra in general it’s just not my disposition so if I’m not going to be and then I’ll simmer down and if I’m going to be a little bit not enough right because I do worry about that sometimes I’m like ah did I just did I come across as like boring or uninteresting because I like I’m in this town of really interesting people and if I just seem like some you know tall guy with Jesus hair who stands in the corner and doesn’t talk to anybody like you know I don’t I don’t want to be that guy necessarily um but in this case I can’t remember her name now uh when she was nine she watched the video she thought we were boring but there was something there was something that she saw that she was willing to come back later will it and then be like okay I’m gonna give these guys another chance I think I just I’m food I think I’m just believing in the second that you never get a second chance you you know what you might get a second chance to make a second impression that’s my philosophy no you would get a first chance to make a second impression that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you you never get a second chance to make any number of impression it’s you only get one chance with every number it is a yeah you might get a first chance to make a second impression but I might call that the next chance you might get another chance to make another impression yep that’s my fault there’s always another chance to make another impression that sells in blue right there there’s always another chance if that if that didn’t work for you Try Us yeah there you go and also I think that’s consistent with our uh mentality of putting so much content on the internet if you didn’t like us here forget it you can see if you can like it you cannot avoid us if you have an internet connection we’ve made that very clear right right right that’s good and boy if you don’t like us which again stand in line there’s a lot of people we give you ample reason over and over again every single day it’s like those guys are now doing this man maybe I’m the one who’s wrong hahaha you’re not saturation you’re not we’re over saturated we’re not for everybody but we’re for you you know what we are for you yeah if you’ve made it this far in this podcast yeah we probably are for you yep so thank you for sticking around uh we’re gonna keep doing this again this year again every single week there’s gonna be another ear biscuit just like this one you can count on it hashtag ear biscuits uh to give us your written feedback and if you want to call in and just let us know how you’re processing all this please do one eight eight eight earpod one and I have a little wreck yes you do uh I’ve talked about this in a recent podcast so I’m not going to go into detail but I’m gonna it wasn’t my official wreck and now it is uh very very famous book Man’s Search for meaning from Victor Frankel it’s like four and a half hours if you want to listen to it so I don’t know how many hours that is if you want to actually read it but it’s a small time commitment and a big reward for hearing about mostly his experiences uh you know through the uh concentration camp concentration camps during the holoca Holocaust yeah so it’s you know puts things in perspective Man’s Search for meaning all right talk at you next week love you hi my name is Cadence and my uncle absolutely loves you guys and he’s actually a straight sweeper and when he heard link talking about how he’s jealous of street sweepers he actually cried happy tears because it he never felt like he was really that important and it was just it was a nice thing for him anyway I hope you all have a good day bye to watch more ear biscuits click on the playlist on the right to watch the previous episode of your 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 foreign [Music]