[Music] welcome to ear biscuits I’m Linc and I’m Rhett it’s time for another conversation with somebody interesting from the internet and this week that person is 23 year old King Russell and that’s not a king who is Russell that’s his actual name but you know him on YouTube and elsewhere as Kingsley he’s amassed over 2.8 million subscribers on YouTube just under four years and he’s most popular for these vlogs that he does vlog series called overexposed basically he rants about things various pop culture things and also stuff to the experiences in his daily life and it’s very funny I mean he’s a legitimately funny dude when I’m watching his videos I’m just waiting for the next thing he’s gonna say that’s funny and every other thing he says is funny and very much Kingsley I love how this space allows comedians to develop in all different types of ways and he certainly developed his own comedic voice he’s got a tone yeah it’s very good you know I think on this ear biscuit we got more of the pensive side of King we got he did not reign perspective I will say that he did not rent at all but that’s not really what your biscuits is about it’s not about your rants it’s kind of just about you talking about yourself and getting more than the real side of him so I appreciated that but just so you can get a taste of what the Internet has come to know and love about Kingsley here’s an example of a rant in June 2010 he released things I hate about driving you know when you get off like a street and you’re going into the highway and this lanes gonna end that you just got off on they will literally go all the way to the end and then want to sit up here and try to get impatient when they want to wait to the last minute to try to get over into everybody’s lane you had a straight mile to get you over into the main lane okay that one’s got over three million views to date here’s another rant where he’s talking about Rebecca black March 2011 has just under nine million views it is the most annoying song slash video I heard slash teen my 20 years of existing on this planet it starts out and there’s like this calendar and it keeps flipping through the days of the week while a cartoon version of her annoying bass I send up there singing with her little harmonies like test on Monday to sing at this recital blah and then Friday gets here and wrote all over the page finally hooray eub she’s like I gotta get up gotta get fresh gotta go downstairs get a bowl have my stereo Kingsley’s one of the only openly gay black mail online personalities it’s near the top of the charts on YouTube and he’s been at it for a number of years the momentum is still growing he’s actually just started his own podcast called Kingsley overexposed and we’re happy to have him on our podcast which was almost called underexposed last-minute change became ear biscuits so that would have worked out really well on this this week so we talked to King about how he received his first break courtesy of Tosh Tosh point OH his last name was not point Oh like King is not an actual King right even though maybe they both should look into those things right we talked to King about how even though he uses a lot of profanity in his vlogs he never cusses in front of his parents and we also explored the question surrounding is he actually quitting YouTube at the end of 2014 why is it it’s been a topic of discussion amongst his fans viewers and himself we get to the bottom of that much more in this year biscuit let’s do it [Music] in a recent blog you said that you went to the Billboard Music Awards and you walked the red carpet and you said that once they started snapping pictures of you you kind of were like what was going through your mind you tell us again I don’t know I was just looking like first there’s like there’s a process they have us all line up and then we just go to the carpet one by one and then they called my name and I just like went in front of the little poster thing or backdrop or whatever it’s called and then the photographer’s just start screaming they just start screaming your name look over here look over here do this do that and I’d never done a red carpet before so I was just sitting up there like what the hell is going on like what am I supposed to do I didn’t know where to put my hands I didn’t know who to smile at and then like I just don’t know how to pose it was completely out of my element and I was just like wanting it to be over you know when you like smile for a really long time and you kind of start like it kind of gives out a little bit yeah and you start like twitching yeah have you googled Kingsley Billboard Music Awards because we did oh great well there’s a number of pictures and we learned this a couple years ago I learned that you know after you go to an event like that and they take your picture on the red carpet the next couple of like that next week all these pictures just pop up and all these different photo sites right right and your picture you see well you have a number of pictures but the full-body one wouldn’t oh my god I’ll show it to you it’s a okay there’s a lot of your face but then the full-body one kind of like oh my god there’s lots of great pictures this one though when I saw it when I heard your story in your vlog and then I saw this picture discloses this is incredible describe yourself basically I’m looking at I look bewildered or like that’s a good horse pissed off at something I’m like them at the camera like yes it’s great in your hand yeah and there’s a wider shot of it and your arms are just both like oh my god at your sides the last time I don’t know what event it was but we walk the red carpet we always walk it together right so it’s you feel a little bit more comfortable when you’ve got somebody to pose with right but I just remember but you feel a little funny when they’re like okay what’s your name blink you first it’s like no no no no we say with me we do it together but do you remember the last time I did this you’re too afraid to go by yourself this guy said we were doing our pose we I mean we’ve got just a couple of poses right yeah and basically one face because I’m like I want this picture to be consistent throughout the Internet the guy said do something different one of the photographers actually said that he’s like can you do something different I was like nope because he wanted he wanted that one picture that like Kingsley could pull up on his podcast when we come on there that you can maybe make fun of us but I mean in fairness you were making fun yourself we just googled it to see if you if it was real and we found out yeah it’s real I mean your vlogs are inspired by your your your experiences in your your life you’re not making this stuff up and you know we just had to make sure that and in this case it was totally true totally – you didn’t know what to do I just like dead away well let’s uh let’s go back were you from I’m from well I was born in Arkansas born Aniyah and so I moved to Missouri when I was six and then I was there ever since until about two and a half years ago when I moved – okay so your earliest memories are Arkansas memories what are those like oh my goodness those are very they’re like they’re not really there but they’re there it’s funny because I was looking at where I grew up on Google Earth like two weeks ago Google Arkansas yeah and it was just like dirt like an end of residential space but it was I don’t know Arkansas was very rural small town I think there were like less than a thousand people in the town where I grew up mm-hm we had like one elementary school um – gas station a post office and then like houses and like a railroad track went through the town and everyone had to work and like the nearest city which was like 12 miles away so nobody nobody worked in this little town no unless you’re at the gas station or post-office Alzheimer Arkansas it’s like I thought all time love and Little Rock yeah that’s like the incorrect way to say all time that’s your town I know sometimes I want to say Alzheimer’s but I can’t but yeah if you don’t know how to pronounce a really horrible disease that’s where I live I mean that’s I mean that’s incentive to move right there mm-hmm I miss it though oh yeah well you’re looking at a non piccolo have you been back I haven’t been back since the last time I went was before I moved here I went to see my sister and also you still got family in this small town I do well my sister’s in the city that’s like 12 miles outside of it but I have aunts and my grandma was in the small town but she moves like a few months ago okay yeah it’s very like becoming like dilapidated and like I’d go me it goes down yeah it’s actually kind of scary what do you call your grandma and what does she think of your videos I call her granny actually because I have her and then I have another grandma on my mom’s partner side and I call her grandma and then call my grandma my mom’s grandma granny and she hasn’t seen my videos so he hasn’t no I don’t think so I hope not really so what’s the conversation like when you talk to granny it’s just at this point she’s kind of older so it’s just like how are you doing I miss you come visit she doesn’t ask what you do or anything sometimes she doesn’t even it’s kind of sad like she doesn’t realized I’m not at home oh I’m gonna talk to her on the phone sometime like I don’t think she realize I’m in California okay yeah I got into a situation the same thing for your grandma she doesn’t know what she did he’s she’s still kicking she’s like an active ass grandma she does like running and she’s still in like choir and she powerwall it’s like every day she cooks she’s like superwoman does she watch your videos no but she knows about them and like all my family but but I mean but she knows what you do yes she understands why you’re out here why don’t you like when you family tell me more about that what is this mainly the profanity because when I’m around my family I’m just okay different person and a respect for like adults I just don’t use profanity and one of the things when my mom first realized what I was doing um one of my aunts I think had stumbled upon me I think after the whole tosh point-o thing that I was on and my mom called me briefly what was the tosh point-o thing I did this video about like a list of pet peeves that I had and I was literally just sitting on my dorm room just talking about how I hated like skinny jeans and couples that sit on the same size of the booth like literally just a list of stupid things but you were you were being you were in Kingsley yeah its Kingsley bitch mode it was like spring break and I still had to work and like nobody was on campus and I was just bored out of my mind but but your language was much more colorful than what you would use with your yeah way more culpable I never use profanity I said one time in front my mom when I was in the car I was like it’s hot like I didn’t it doesn’t rolled out and I like gripped the side of like the passenger door and I looked at her with my eyes like so wide I was like I’m so sorry like I just that’s not how I grew up I don’t know how I became she’s mad or something no she just started laughing she’s like it’s okay that was literally deep first and only time I’ve ever used I don’t really want my parents like really it’s not how I grew up I never but when you when you first started like that first rant video that got really popular they had the colorful language was that were you did you have that language in your your normal life it was like I’m going into a character here that I know will be funny it was like my first rant that I uploaded it was authentic I was genuinely like perturbed about it was about like this experience I had at um a parking lot of an Applebee’s with the Jonas Brothers who had a concert that summer and like they’re fans I completely took over the parking lot like beyond the arena and it was just a mess and I was trying to get food and they were everywhere with their posters and like playing music and just you know how girls are when there’s like a guy band and they’re just completely over-the-top rabid yeah and I went home and I had been watching YouTube that summer um I think I started watching Shane Dawson what’s the first person I started watching and through him I just found other people and I suggest saw them talking and I was like oh my god I want to make a video about this and so I did it and um people responded to it and then that’s like when I kind of molded the character like this outlandish profane careless being but the for that first that first video was just going on anger and adrenaline and frustration yeah and so this language that you were never allowed to say was coming out and I felt good okay did your so tell me more about your parents back then and kind of growing up well I mean does that mean that they were really strict or really heavy-handed they weren’t strict like okay my parents are lesbians my mom and her partner and I just never like I guess it’s strict like I couldn’t watch TV a lot like I watched two hours of TV a day that was my limit and I had like an hour to half limit for the internet and um all the movie channels were blocked anything above like pg-13 was blocked like I was very I guess sheltered in a way was it like a religious home too or no it was just they wanted me to be a kid I guess I have no idea like what their intentions were but I just I didn’t have a lot of exposure to like profane or crazy things well and let’s back up a second because you say your parents are lesbians I assume a man was involved at some point in the process so how did how did that happen um I’d still to this day don’t really know the full story but I know that my dad left my mom when she was pregnant with me and so with her it was like situation of just being an Arkansas and it was very close behind it down there he’s like she wanted kids like my sister’s older than me so she’d had my sister already and like she was doing what she needed to do to like survive I guess um not be judged she was just doing the whole southern with a man having kids thing and then I think that she met her partner when I was I want to say three ish and they’ve been together ever since and we moved like I said when I was six we all moved to st. Louis and that was just life as I knew it but you didn’t I think in one of your videos you you you mentioned that you’re your parents your mom and her partner we’re together mm-hmm but you didn’t you just thought they were friends there was like this yeah it was a point right if your mom wasn’t out to you right when I was younger I told me when I was very young but I didn’t care like she literally one day came in my room and sat on the phone and she’s like we are what society would call lesbians I don’t know what the hell she was talking about was like okay but like it was a situation where like you got someone’s like dating someone a woman dating a man and like if she has a kid should be like this is uncle Steve yeah it’s really not uncle Steve like I think from what I remember she told me that that was my aunt and so I thought they were just like living together but again I was so young I didn’t care I didn’t really know what was going on right but more in a protective way of I don’t want to tell Kingsley that I’m dating this person that could be another mom to me or whatever and then we break up and then you know I guess I take it – that’s what you mean there was like a protection on that level yeah it was entirely I didn’t want to protect him from understand that I’m dating a woman where and I think of the situation where she wanted me to know when she felt I was ready to wear maybe like I didn’t get made fun of or something I don’t know what she was thinking but either way I didn’t care so what was that part of the move to st. Louis was that one of the things that motivated it was you know being a small town in Arkansas as a lesbian couple for sure I think that and then just career for us in the Midwest like st. Louis is like a big city so it’s like a super big deal to move from where we were to Missouri and um it was just great it was like I feel like a chance for them to start fresh and then my sister to start fresh because we moves like right before I started kindergarten or anything so it’s just a completely new start and was it like a mind-blowing announcement when like she went from being what’s her name and what do you call her like you call her mom too or oh no I don’t call her by her first name okay yeah I call my mom mom but I still like my mom I just don’t write a mom yeah but what was it like a mind-blowing announcement oh now my my my mom’s friend is now my mom’s spouse or a partner no I really when she told me I didn’t comprehend anything I don’t think you’re still young then yeah I don’t think until I guess like middle school high schools I start to realize like what a lesbian was okay and like what my parents were and um how did that relate to you understanding of yourself as being gay did you your mom was always out to you were you always out to yourself to know me like being gay was so weird like I feel like I knew I obviously knew but I never mentioned it to anyone I don’t even mention it to my parents um the first time we even remotely talked about a guy I was working at Fridays and it was my senior year of high school and this kid from Detroit was like there was like five of his friends and he gave me his phone number and um I was working at the host and he was just flirting and I just felt like really really like I don’t know how I thought I was just feeling some type of way that I felt before in my life and like I’m good yeah okay my mom picked me up and I just told her about it like oh my god this guy came in and he was really cute and blah blah like that was that like I never thought twice about it it wasn’t a big deal and then until I was in college which was like maybe like a year after this she called me up and she literally just said to me say it like say what she’s like that you’re gay and I started laughing for like five minutes then I eventually said it and I thought was that so that they knew I just never situation where I felt the need to like announce it mm-hm and when did you know I feel like I knew in like eighth or ninth grade I feel like that’s when I’m trying to remember who it was but I remember like having my first crush on a guy in middle school so I want to say like eighth grade yeah okay and that was it that was in st. Louis so you know you moved to st. Louis right before starting school basically and what was that like new kid at first like I don’t remember it like distinctly but I know I was excited like I wasn’t sad or anything um I was always like adventurous I remember just being on planes like I loved flying I love traveling and it was only six hours away so like when we first moved we visited a lot um but I just I don’t know I wasn’t a shy kid like I was just ready for the world and I went to school I always loved school and I just thought st. Louis was like a cool place I immediately got involved in a bunch of stuff and it was a pretty good experience and what were you what were you into at that time we use like I know you I know from your vlogs and that you were a smart kid yeah immediately immediately they recognized okay this kid is gifted and put him in some advanced classes and that kind of thing I started out and my first passion I guess was choir um I sang from I sing in church when I was like four or five and then when I started school in st. Louis I joined choir in first grade um I got into Orchestra I played the violin yes I did and then I heard I was a little little gay nerd and then I played the saxophone and band once I got to fifth grade but only did that for like two years so yeah and then I was involved in theater and scholar bowl Spelling Bee II just any I was very immersed in school because I didn’t get to do much outside of school not that I need to as a child but like I just liked doing things I liked staying after school I liked meeting different people in different activities and just like being involved and you know teachers from a very young age I just liked networking but if you weren’t out to your mom until college then I guess you weren’t out to your friends either so that was kind of like it was I didn’t say it but they knew like even with some of my friends in high school like I would talk about guys I just wasn’t ever once people that was like I’m gay and I didn’t like I wasn’t part of like the Gay Straight Alliance I didn’t do anything proactive I guess that I could have to been more part of the community I just was it wasn’t part of your public identity yeah I wasn’t I don’t know if I wasn’t comfortable with it but I just the way that school was it I just never felt the need to like make it a big deal but you made a big deal out of Britney Spears yes instead I think that was a dead go away right so tell me about that the Britney obsession you know it’s actually my mom’s fault I was in my room when they been doing homework and I just heard this like I heard like and I’m like what what are you watching listening to and I like peeked my head around the corner and she was watching like music videos and toxic was on and I was just fascinated and I was like oh my god oh my god and then back then like there was some like vivo or anything and so I would literally like watch the TV channel the MTV had that showed like music videos 24 hours trying to catch that video like any chance that I got and I finally saw it and I was just ever since then I was just fascinated and what I’m what specifically I mean what is obviously there are other female pop stars what what is it about Britney well initially it was just that specific song and that video and how she looked and I ended up going back and listening to like her old stuff because that’s like a black person like Britney wasn’t like I knew who she was but in my house she wasn’t like a fixture yes obviously she was like to the world at that time and then I just I don’t know it just fell in love with her music and then I would see her perform and then the whole crap happened why she like lost her mind in her lair made me like her at her hair and isn’t me like even more because I felt like she was someone relatable who like got super famous and couldn’t handle the pressure and just cracked and then you did a presentation on her at some point I did I did a presentation and disliked graphics media class or something we had to do a PowerPoint unlike a person that was important to our lives like a celebrity not go anyone and so I kept her and it was a disaster okay tell us about that those I was in the class I was there was me I think there was like actually I don’t think there were any girls in that class except for the teacher and um I don’t like all the guys picked like athletes or like rappers or I don’t even know and then I was my turn what was it what’s the demographic breakdown of your school at of this class I mean is this a public school yeah it’s a public school um I’d say mostly white and black students some guy um there weren’t a lot of like there wasn’t much besides that where I’m from right so um and it was just like all guys in the class and I went up to get mine and like they started saying like just rude things and like they just didn’t care my teacher was in the room and they just didn’t care and she would tell them to stop and they just kept going and then like they try to whisper it and like I just heard everything and like I made it through my present saying what are they saying what are something like a and like laughing and saying that I was gay for like picking her and just ignorant things um but I dealt with it in that class before just um being who I was I guess um and uh that that date is kind of like broke me and I like ended up in the hallway and I was just crying and the teacher was like yelling like crazy at the students yeah and did she come out there and talk to you I mean how did you what were the next few hours and then how did you how do you recover from something like that I don’t know she came out and talked to me um like as soon as I went out there and then she went back in and yelled and then she sent me to the counselor’s office I was in the counselor’s office for like an hour um none of the kids got in like trouble well as far as I know but um I don’t know it was just very I don’t think cuz at that point which is also I guess a crucial part of the story I was a new student this was eighth grade and so prior to that and for the seven years I’ve been in another school district and so I was a new kid and um I just had never been in that situation before to where people didn’t know me or weren’t used to like how I acted or the things that I liked so it’s just extremely overwhelming and I just had to cope with it it was a very messy period of my life my grades dropped in everything I mean yeah for how how long was the recovery I mean as a eighth grader I’d say I hadn’t recovered until I was in high school it was like a huge like blow to my personality to my just everything cuz I was just like I was so careful you when I was younger like I didn’t care about anything I’m just super nice and like I talked to everyone and then once I moved and went through that it was just like whoa not everyone’s hmm you know accepting that everyone’s the same and so um it eventually came out that I was getting like bullied I guess when my parents went to a parent-teacher conference cuz I hadn’t told him anything just cuz I was that kid and like we moved and I don’t want to like make it seem like anything was wrong and I was just like yeah I’m having fun at school but then they went to conferences and my teachers were like he’s having a rough time and um they talked to me about it but that was like near the end of the semester so you were kind of keeping it to yourself yeah so in high school you it was kind of an upswing of okay I’m moving on from from this this valley this low point right high school I think was just it was a good time because it became a point where you can kind of figure out who’s also interested in what you’re interested in there are a lot more activities to join and there was just so many more people from like all the middle schools in the district and it was just so much more diverse and so it was nice to I felt like I was starting over like I met new people that didn’t go to my middle school it was just it was a refreshing start you said in a recent video if you had to do high school over that how did you put it I thought that I would come out of the closet immediately and just be open for business with my exact Club but you’re laughing it she’s I mean is that it’s the truth I would I always think of like doing things over and I know people say oh I wouldn’t change a thing but I would definitely change some things because I already have this life I would like to see how it would be different moving on to college you you mentioned it seems like college kind of was like a a wild time you go off to University of Missouri yes so you you had to I mean you ended up doing pretty well in high school it sounds like in order to and did you get scholarship there’s I got like a $2,500 okay so you got a partial scholarship – not the one I want Mizzou yeah and did you go to school with some people that you already knew some yes friends I actually went to school with my best friend from high school and then there was just like a circle of people that you knew from high school that were going yet you had like the Oh we’ll keep in touch table to each other that we did that and um it was just so cool like my parents like I said I had been super super sheltered and so I prior to like I hadn’t been one of those kids that like partied in high school or drink or anything I never had alcohol before and I’m we got there the first week and they had a frat party I’m like the first day after classes and we went there and like I don’t know how I was like standing up this was literally the first time I ever drank alcohol but I was a pro and I just I think in my head I just accepted the role of like big brother because it was me and then like three girls and um we just got to a point where they were completely wasted and it was just time to go when I’m trying to get us to a cab and I was holding her like under her boobs because that’s as much I’m a skinny guy I was just trying to like get her there without like dropping on the floor and she just peed she just completely peed it like while I was holding her as though I wasn’t there and I was like okay cool you’re welcome and I was just so annoyed well it’s actually warm to start and then it becomes cool huh thanks for the reminder rhythmic flashback but I did actually drop her at that point yeah oh yeah that was the it’s the wall and that was the define moment of college free yeah that’s when I was like okay this is real I’m here and it’s about to be a mess and it became a mess from there in what way it just you know I I just felt so free like nothing against my parents but I just it was awesome to like be in a place where you go to class you do your homework when you want you turn it in you have like freedom you can go eat what you want go back to your room when you want and I just is that when you started making videos on YouTube I started like a month before I left oh okay um I was working I got working my ass off and I just hey what was your job I was working at Fazoli’s which was like a fast food Italian fast what I’m telling you know garlic sticks yes it’s so good so good I was doing that and then I was a waiter at TGI Fridays and I also did room service there because we were attached to a Crowne Plaza so I just made hella tips and I was saving it off for school is that where you have Flair the the pins is that TGI Fridays or just Ruby Tuesday’s well it’s Fridays no s yeah it so you have the pin depends right what kind of pens the old pins like on yours likes bondage buttons and suspenders is that no we’re nothing is we have button red shirts with like checkered there’s a place where you they call it flare like you’re like and however many buttons the waiter has attached to their suspenders is how much Flair they had that’s not TGI Fridays like I thought it was I know we did have a reward with a cauliflower there’s a similar rescue my bean and I’m sure that people listening know what I’m talking about but I can’t remember that anyway you have suspenders on no I didn’t but it was awesome and and that’s the show the Jonas Brothers vlog you were vlogging from the perspective of an employee at Applebee’s it was TGI Fridays I was cheating oh but um which is better which is better which has better food right is no doubt okay although Applebee’s appetizers their chest amazing but their entre is Friday’s question okay everybody’s got a right to their own opinion yes so when you posted that first rant video when you were cheating on your job at Applebee’s yeah it was because you had been watching Shane Dawson you’re okay if I’m angry about this this can be the way for me to get it out or was it were there other motives too like I also want to be a youtuber and I’m gonna try it right now no it was literally just I was what the whole like motive I guess was after I saw Shane I like found vlogger threw him left on this Gaikwad year I found Chris Crocker like I just found a whole bunch of people and like I was fascinated by the aspect of connecting with people um one of the first things I started doing was doing reality show recaps mm-hmm just to see other people who had similar interests and like conversate with them like I was always in the comments just talking and seeing who had similar thoughts so that was like my main motivation and then when this happened um I did it literally just like get it out just to like we have a story to tell um I didn’t know anything about being a youtuber I didn’t know what being youtuber was but did you know that you were funny because you know there’s a lot of vloggers out there there’s a lot of people who just share the details of their life and I know there’s a lot of people who are really interested in that that’s not the kind of content that I consume but with you you’re once you get going it’s like a stand-up comedian as far as I’m concerned right you know I’m saying it’s like you you’ve got comedic timing you the way you phrase things it’s really funny and is that the kind of thing that you’re like I know why people are going to like this or did your friends know but yo yeah Kingsley he’s funny it’s in people at school told me I was funny it was not a situation where I thought I was funny and I didn’t like start uploading because I thought I was funny I uploaded just to be able to talk to people um they told me I was funny and that felt good but I never like even to this day like I don’t I don’t I don’t watch myself but clearly I don’t think anyone but yourself yeah I headed it and then I watch it that one time to make sure there’s no errors and I upload it and I’m done like I hate hearing myself talk I’m actually like and all that some people have done it for five years how I said that but I mean but when you edit it I mean you’re sir when I watch it it’s at least every third cut is it’s gonna be on a joke I mean it’s gonna be on what’s he gonna say next and in the cut you know what I mean you’re at this point you’re very much it’s down to a science here you know where you’re gonna where you were you’re gonna you’re gonna get your questions you’re gonna get your content or your inspiration from and then you’re gonna format it – I’m just gonna I assume it’s not scripted it’s more no like this maybe it’s just an outline in your head it’s like mice mice gets the scripted but the rants and the vlogs I just I talk I may have a post-it note to remind me of topics if I’ve got more than one but usually I just do want a video and so I just let it go like stream-of-consciousness yeah and then when you edit it you’re kind of going out on joke or out on I mean for me it’s I I’m waiting for you to say it in the way that only you can say it and then you’re out and then it’s not and then it’s another one and it’s so how much are you cutting out I would say I cut out I think on average I record like eight to ten minutes and then my videos like four minutes long so what 60% effect the math so I cut out that much that’s that’s a lot of natural funny if you can just bang it out and yeah I feel like I’ve learned my audience at this point and like I know what kind of phrases they like I know what kind of commentary they want to hear and I just never want to like ramble for too long and um that’s what I delete a lot is if I like um like piling on on a certain topic I’m like oh you said this already that doesn’t need to be said toys so if it takes you 10 minutes to make the video and it and you edit it down to four minutes what do you do with your free time Wow have a podcast and what and I had I asked I asked that question like a fan who when they hear that somebody’s a youtuber they assume that what do you mean you’d be bored for 10 minutes at 10 minutes a week I know that’s not the case it’s a mess but you know you you do have a lot of things going on so I mean okay you you you fast forwarding from from college you moved well tell us how you got out here then we can kind of talk about what what you do not sure I didn’t get out here actually it was a very like random I had no plans like I’ve always wanted to move to LA not because of YouTube like even before that just for a different experience than the Midwest I wanted to go somewhere that was like more diverse and open and had a lot more people and opportunities and um I had been dating this guy well okay like my video I started at school in August of 2009 and then my video that was on Tosh went viral April 2010 um so the end of my freshman year was kind of like weird I was working at Subway I’d worked like four jobs your sandwich artist yes I was a sandwich artist I was working at Subway or worked at a movie theater I worked Toys R Us for seasonal um and I thought I was silly you did Toys R Us over Christmas yeah I worked there from wow that’s a Black Friday oh really it was a disaster okay tell us about that I felt like I wanted to quit but I couldn’t it was just ridiculous I had went home for Thanksgiving break and then I had to cuz my school is only like 90 minutes from where I grew up and um I we got there like 5:00 in the morning and I was just like oh I doesn’t look too busy yet because my doors open at 6:00 or something and as soon it’s like they opened I was just completely I didn’t know what was going on mothers were like constantly asking questions kids were running around and I was there from open to closed it’s my first day I know it was horrific it’s traumatizing soutache kind of wreck he rescued you from that yeah it’s so weird did he make fun of you in a show he cuz he can be really harsh he was not as hard as I’ve seen him be his bed at like the worst thing he said um because one of the things I said was like I hate being on chatroulette and all I see is penis and he like rift like oh I’m sure he’s not so upset about seeing penis or something like that it was all good so it was funny I laugh and then from from that viral video you were you know I got to do more of this like what was the game plan actually I was like kind of in shock like I didn’t after I did that video I did like three more and then I stopped for a bit um it was just weird like after it happened after Spring Break like I went back to work and like people were coming in and just like knowing who I was and they were asking me to like say lines from the video and stuff and I’m just like whoa there’s this freaking awkward would you say the lines no I was working I was like no no no like I’d play I wasn’t rude or anything I just like laugh at all and um I was like glad when school ended that year cuz I did I didn’t know what the hell was going on but you started you took a little break but then you’re you kind of doubled down on it I did because it was summer and like no offense from Missouri but I just I was so bored I had absolutely nothing to do and making videos like it was fun and um it’s not like there wasn’t like that video went viral but I still didn’t have like a lot of subscribers or like I was getting more but at that point it wasn’t something I looked at or than you knew like I still didn’t understand what YouTube was but not really making money much money yeah yeah so it was just all weird I was still doing it for fun so then would it when did it switch to oh I can I can make enough money here to decide to move to LA or you know the honest truth of course I didn’t like start taking YouTube serious look like I said business until I classed year oh yeah like even beyond me moving out here I moved out here because of it um so – okay well then tell me how you decided to move out if it wasn’t a financial decision it was a love and what I really love more like a drama I went to a Britney Spears concert in Michigan there she is again I know just every point of my life uh and the guy I was with we’ve been dating for like two months and then he was like he was texting this other guy just like inappropriate things I won’t go into detail but essentially I like broke up with him and made him fly back to Missouri and then my friend Stephanie went to the concert with me instead and my friend Caitlin who I went to school with at Mizzou was moving out to LA two weeks from then and she’s been looking for a roommate and like um I was about to start my junior year and it was just like a point in life where I’d like I didn’t care about school um like I wanted to finish school one day but at that point I just felt like I was like getting into debt like I wasn’t motivated I wasn’t learning anything new um I had the thing with the guy and so it was just like this weird awkward place of just like I need a change and like literally when I left Michigan I called my mom in the car because I had like a eight hour drive and I told her like I want to move to LA like Caitlin needs a roommate she’s my friend I have enough money saved which I did like I didn’t have like a lot but I mean that was from your all the jobs that she worked plus a little little YouTube money I did a little bit Adsense okay so you had already activated your your ads and all that yes and so I don’t know if just the end of summer I was like in kind of a low place and I saw an opportunity to go somewhere different and new where I had opportunities where I had at this point in time like I didn’t know when again I would have the money to do it I didn’t know when I’d have a roommate when I’d have a ride like I just felt like it was one of those opportunities like if I didn’t take it then I would have never ever been here um and so I did that and then Here I am and when was that how long ago was that this was Sept I guess September 2011 okay I moved out here September 13th of 2011 okay and what was it like I mean when you when you got out here was it had you ever been to LA before I had not I didn’t even like I it was completely just dreams and like a ideal I guess scenario ahead in my head of what it was that I just thought that I could ever move here without ever having had visited and I was like I was overwhelmed at first we lived in Redondo Beach which people they don’t live here it’s kind of more suburban not as busy um my roommate was doing like beach volleyball so we moved there more so for her it was just like aw like professionally yeah she actually went which was another thing she left me like the rear for months and I was living here to go play in Croatia for like five months I was like you bitch I was so mad but um it was great the first few months um it was nice just being in a new environment it was nice to go to West Hollywood and see like an abundance of gay people like just in the streets and like no one judging them or it was just a completely different city and life that I had ever experienced before and what did you begin to do in terms of YouTube how did moving out here did it pick up or change things for that it didn’t I um was way more motivated just because I feel like um I wasn’t in school I had a lot of time I was trying to get a job at Blockbuster I remember when I got here but like months after like they all closed yeah that was like I guess I missed that you were about to have every like every I don’t know what the word is but you you’ve been a waiter yeah you know you’ve worked at Toys R Us and he wanted to get the video store credit so you could have like all those titles my dream job forever I always dream to work in a video store I loved that but um mr. be wrong time you know I know I’m sad but I just was yeah I was going like really hard on YouTube I had I made this little backdrop I thought I was so cool I had like this collage of like celebrities behind me if when I talk about pop culture and it was just like it was a great I felt like reenergized and then I signed with an agency like that first summer and um I worked with like Scooter Braun like I just when I moved back here I just was completely just like oh my god like this is awesome this what I wanted mm-hmm scooter he’s uh who it he managed he manages Justin Bieber that’s right wanted ariana grande well I mean in and since since coming out here I mean over the these past three or so years I mean the momentum has only continued to grow for you you’ve been one of those voices on YouTube that kind of gets this initial wave of momentum and then maintains it which is not an easy thing to do and now you announce at the end of 2013 that oh and you know it’s into 2014 I’m done with YouTube so what’s up with that that’s like I had an asterisk to that I’m done haha okay blogging oh okay yeah I not leaving YouTube no I’m still doing like skits and more premium and quote programming but I just won’t be vlogging anymore okay what’s the what’s the rationale and is there a risk associated with that there’s definitely risk um the rationale first like I just it’s gotten to a point for me where it’s just hard to like continuously discuss things by myself like I can’t just be in a room conversating to the camera there’s only so many different things I could say so many comments I can make and when I got the opportunity to do my podcast that’s why I kind of jumped on it because I loved the idea of having a co-host and having guests and like this team of people that you like working off of and um that’s something that I’ve desired because like I said it’s just gotten hard for me to talk constantly by myself and um I started doing skits well I didn’t like on and off when I was in college but I got into it at the beginning of last year and um everyone responded well to it so I was just like this is what I’d enjoy doing because I went school for journalism and we had to take like all these writing courses and I did creative writing I’ve always enjoyed writing like even elementary school I wrote these books that are still like at my house I wrote these like murder mysteries I have like seven of them and they’re each like 60 pages but I just always liked being creative and so when I saw the opportunity to like switch over from just me talking to like writing skits and like writing content and I talked to people like Giorgio Safa who did like storytellers and I just see all these like other aspects of things that like inspire me and make me like excited to do a video or to create content that’s what I want to do I don’t want to be in a situation where I’m just like oh I’m talking just because this is what you guys like because I feel like there’s a point where they can realize you’re not really into it anymore yeah you know I don’t want that to happen but you gave him over a year notice that’s dead-white a quite an advanced notice to know like I didn’t want to be like dramatic about it like I didn’t want to have it be December and be like well that was my last vlog and everyone’s like whoa whoa whoa what so I’m sure even even though you gave the your notice I’m sure you got a lot of upset fans I mean that’s just what happens right yeah um it might be a brilliant marketing scheme I mean how many last albums does jay-z have you know this is it and this is it and this is it well did you have any of those be smart those dramatic messages people said you don’t understand I mean your vlogs or what get me up I still get tweets like every day at least one how does that make you feel um it makes me feel like good that they have enjoyed it so much but then it also makes me like scared to like do something new because I’m like worried about how they’re gonna respond to it but I feel like every time I’ve tried something new on my channel there’s been the thing that I like about YouTube is that people can be honest and like you can tell if your audience likes what you’re putting up or if they don’t and um at this point I’m just at a point where it’s like okay they’re either gonna like it or they’re not I’ll keep what they like and then what they don’t I’ll scrap and so it’s just all like anxious anxious okay are you developing more of a detailed plan of what next year will look like already I mean is it because when you talk about skits you mean scripted content where you’re playing multiple characters it’s still gonna kind of a vlog format right well what you’ve been doing what you’ve done yeah but this will be more like webseries ish okay um I’ve written a bunch like I’ve written like two seasons of one thing and like we’re still planning everything else right now so it’s like murder mystery yeah I wish but uh maybe one day but we have like five things for like fleshing out and like over the next few months I’ll be like filming stuff and editing it and like just having everything ready to go by January hmm yeah so it’s just it’s really nerve-wracking but hopefully it’s planned really well what’s it I mean can you tell us a name of the series no I can’t can you tell us one word of the name of the series Internet okay Internet is one of the word internet in it it does there’s another one Kingsley yeah Internet overload Kings actually if you think about it I think you can get the rest of it but I’m not gonna confirm or deny how many words – it’s okay in one of them’s Internet would you rather win the title the greatest gay youtuber or the greatest black youtuber I think I’d probably say great it’s black why just because it’s more distinctive and I feel like I stand out more okay you know you have Tyler and Troy in like 50,000 other people it both like so I would just like to own my blackness so there’s more gay youtubers than black youtubers I felt like that so you wanna I just wanna like honestly both these titles are mess but I think that I just feel like if I said greatest gay there will be alive because that’s clearly Tyler Oakley Tyler Oakley is the best that ever was and so I just would feel wrong claiming that title when I know damn well that isn’t true oh but you you can take the title of the best black guys I will I will wrestle DeStorm until I snatch the crown well you should you should probably charge pay-per-view or something for that now to explain bad knee by the way Andy well I think it’s better now I think it’s better now it’s probably still a lot of rehab he’s probably still weakened and yeah every time I see his Instagram he’s brought up a mountain or something like that so I think he’s doing fine but this leads to another question which is what link was kind of you know exploring was this this aspect of people categorize people and on YouTube any any form of entertainment is it’s done that that much more but then when you’re trying to kind of break through in a medium like YouTube where it’s not about who’s promoting you it’s not about what network you signed with and so much of the success of a youtuber is just based on the youtuber right it’s just based on the content that they create and how they connect with an audience and anytime you have a distinctive it can be an edge in a lot of ways right yes so you’ve got the you got a distinctive of being gay you’ve got a distinctive of being black and those put you in a minority winning time when it comes to just overall YouTube but you probably weren’t thinking any of these things when you got involved you’re just like I’m gonna rant about this when did it kind of hit you that you were like oh I am sort of potentially the best black youtuber like when did you start thinking in those categories that people were probably already categorizing you in I think the first time was when I discovered tumblr um there were like Geoff’s or gay do you guys or guess we say we say jokes around here gives to guess that jag F of myself I would see people like who’s the bunny black guy and I was like oh they talking about me and now there was the first time I saw myself like labeled and then when I was with a network and we were just looking at stats and I just saw like the lack of color I’m like the top 100 200 list and I was like oh wow this is very interesting um like race and sexuality it’s just something I think about a lot so I guess was kind of an eye-opener and I saw it as something that could work to my advantage um if it needs to but I just never ever think about it but when you I mean you kind of alluded to earlier in the conversation of there being a king’s like character I mean our conversation has been this kind of you know it’s been kind of I wouldn’t it’s been laid-back but it’s not the on-camera persona so I’m glad you’re giving us the real you which kind of clarifies is it just amped up is it a character and is there a temptation to be because this these are your labels to be gayer to be blacker I definitely there there is um one of the things I talked about when I did my drum out life it’s just what I went through in eighth grade how it kind of became like subdued and more conscious of what I was saying and how I was acting when I make my videos I kind of keep in the back of my head there like I didn’t have YouTube growing up and right now I feel like a lot of kids do and some of them from like the things they write I know they see people like me and Tyler and whoever they’re watching and they just feel inspired because of the way we are and for me my whole demeanor of like not caring and being strong and outgoing that’s just something I want to project so that if like a gay kid is watching me and they do behave that way they can see that it’s okay so it’s definitely like intentional and on purpose but it at the same time like it’s Who I am but it’s just such a huge magnification of that like how you said I’m not like that the time but I think for the sake of entertainment and for making these people laugh and just trying to make them happy I can do that for like you know four minutes every other day or ten minutes and then edit it down yes 60 percent out well we wish you the best man we we’ve enjoyed getting to know you and thanks for coming in sign the table [Music] and there you have it our ear biscuit with king so hey Kingsley right and I think we got King not necessarily Kingsley and not the character the real person yeah meaning that he was just very much in an introspective mood I think that was one of the interesting things is I think when you watch his videos sometimes he gets really worked up and you might have to cut your your headphone volume down a little bit but I almost felt like I wanted to turn him up because he’s a very mild-mannered guy in person I think a lot of people might be surprised by that but I think we captured that and that’s what you get with an ear biscuit you get the the flipside at times you get the the real side so and that that’s what I I’m continually excited about this show that we can do that there’s no pressure to perform but it does raise a question link are you in character right now or like right now right now are you being the real Lang have you been in character our entire lives that’s funny I mean I just wondering because we do a lot of entertaining together we’re always talking to each other but also talking to an audience well yeah I mean when we’re in the conversation with somebody it’s very I I think you know you listening can tell that we’re just asking a legitimate questions but right now there’s an amped-up kind of a little characterization I mean on good mythical morning are we being ourselves there are we in character we’re we’re in a character that is a heightened version of ourselves and and even right now I’m not I’m not giving you the heightened linked the character but I’m not giving you link the the left just woke up the link that is just there’s no mic in front of my face and there’s not an audience listening I’m talking to you listener and I’m talking to you Rhett you are you next right right yeah and it’s because my voice when I when I’m not in character it’s still this silky smooth my voice is like this it’s kind of mopey it’s I the natural me wants to speak like this very low and like a robot the kind of voice that would talk you through something if an instruction manual were to like a really bad audio book please like a really technical audio book thank you for purchasing about like certain intro to circuits the heartbeat I know it would be like thank you for purchasing the happy Jax jungle gym guaranteed to provide years of fun for you and your family there’s like an audio track for the happy jacket jungle gym if there was like what to put it together like a new audio instruction assembly make sure you have the following tools rubber mallet screwdriver that’s pretty much all you need everything else in the kit that things I want to speak I lay out everything from the kit and make sure you have it all I know you’re not actually going to do that but the people and customer service require that I tell you to lay out everything this is a great idea not just because it’s how I really speak but because if I had an audio instructional manual I would know how long I was supposed to be taking to do things when I look at the the like the total runtime of the audio is that what you knew yeah yeah it’s like now you should have gotten like the first rung on now you should have the first rung on so you don’t have to pause the audio instruction it is real tangent so I’ll wait it would be timed so that you were doing it at normal speed because we’re not building something I want you I’m doing compared to other men out there in the world that’s how I feel sometimes if you are not done your progress as it corresponds to the average man is below average you you are a below-average man so it’s kind of a demotivational thing – mm-hmm huh I think this may be our future audio instructionally instructions downloadable only from our website which of course is rhett and Link duck that’s right oh we turned this into a promotion we should probably turn this back into a promotion for Kingsley I think Stu Kingsley for being on the the ear biscuits and giving us a real biscuit to sink our ears into if you want to let Kingsley know how much you appreciate him being on ear biscuits please do you can tweet at him that’s at Kingsley there’s three wise at the end though that’s he’s got that one that was his Kings Kingsley with two extra wise three total wise all at the end so let him know hashtag ear biscuits on that also give us feedback that way and as we always say leave a review on iTunes leave a comment on SoundCloud these things are valuable to us in many ways emotionally mostly yeah if they’re positive okay well we’ll be back next week with another beaut count on it [Music] [Music]