[Music] welcome to ear biscuits I’m Rhett and I’m link it’s time for another conversation with someone interesting from the internet and this week at the roundtable of dim lighting we have Natalie Tran technically she wasn’t at the round table of dim lighting we caught up with her at VidCon it wasn’t that dim and it wasn’t round it was rectangular it was a squarish rectangular ish table but we took these microphones so it shouldn’t sound that much different right although that’s really beside the PIA Natalie has been making videos under the handle community channel since 2006 so going way back but she’s been making videos consistently pretty much on a weekly basis especially recently again all showcasing her unique sense of humor her channel currently has over 1.5 million subscribers she’s the second most viewed Australian channel with over 500 million views now the majority of her videos are this combination of stream-of-consciousness monologues with a sketch format where she plays every single character a little taste of that we’re gonna give you right now a 2009 video called sexy underscore baby those embarrassing old email addresses with 5.5 million views hi so do you guys have make up stupid email addresses when you were young I know I did it’s incredibly embarrassing when you’re still using them I can’t ever look Natalie sorry sweetie could you also give me your email address again I can’t quite make it out so it’s s sx c aces sx c and underscore and then he’s got a baby baby yeah yeah and then Hey and GTL okay Angelina numbers here 669 so we have s X L like sexy sexy underscore braids the underscore angel 69 and hotmail comm that’s you you wouldn’t think it would you great now I could you just take a sense I’ll be right with you thank you okay you probably already get a sense if you’re not familiar with their content of why she’s popular she’s totally relatable and that’s the thing I’ve always thought about Natalie’s videos is I always immediately relate to the observational humor that she’s that you know the thing that she’s making an observation about and it’s always funny and she’s been doing this for a very long time and her fan base has remained and continued to grow I mean she goes back to you know we’re talking oh seven oh eight early stages no oh six oh six all the way back all the way back to the beginning certainly so I mean it’s a testimony to her ability to remain true to a voice and continue to captivate an audience but we had an interesting conversation with Natalie I mean it was different than I expected I would say don’t lean you expected to right I mean for someone with such a developed comedic voice and such longevity on the platform she was extremely humble almost mink yeah I mean I do believe that she helps set the template for popular comedic vlogging on YouTube today I mean just look at superwoman as if not a direct emulation of her certainly an inspiration through a couple of layers of YouTube since 2006 leads to someone a phenomenon like superwoman who we’ve also talked to on ear biscuits but when we’re talking to Natalie it was almost like we had to convince her of that in the conversation that she made a legitimate contribution to the medium you know she didn’t want to own it and and says it’s as if she hadn’t even thought about it right and this is coming from you know two guys who are definitely have we have a lot of aspirations and we see this YouTube thing as the thing that we want to do and continue to expand and everyone that we talked to on air biscuits typically they have that kind of focus it’s just like yeah I found this thing I have found success on YouTube and I’m gonna keep pushing it and interestingly I mean obviously she’s just as talented as anybody that we’ve talked to but her perspective is totally different it seems like YouTube is a side project yeah I mean that was surprised and not a career that I mean that’s at one point she actually said she feels very lost that comes up in the conversation I mean it’s an interesting case study it’s like she’s evolved on another continent I mean yes she’s on another continent but it is an island yeah I wonder how much that has to do with it it’s like she’s she’s kind of in her own world of developing as an artist that is not tied to playing the YouTube game as we call it or even making it a career I mean she talks about the things that she wants to do while this is her side project that surprised me right and we say all that to prepare you for the conversation because I feel like there are moments in this conversation where it feels like we’re pushing her we are pushing her to get an answer for her to recognize how awesome she is and so yeah this is gonna be interesting it’s gonna be a near biscuit that stands on its own that’s different from the ones that we’ve done so far we want to prepare you for it we think it’s great and like link said I think it’s an interesting case study and someone who thinks very differently about the whole online career thing here it is our ear biscuit with Natalie Tran [Music] what is the thing on your wrist this is like a pedometer in a heart rate monitor and I wear it because I like to know how many calories a hundred percent that I can consume so if it says you’ve exerted this many I make sure that I eat that amount does it know when you’re eating or do you think tell me I don’t mean that I try it like I just mean cuz I often eat over this way I always kind of try and justify how much food I’m eating if that makes sense so I got you this far so I can definitely eat food right you can put like a hamburger in terms of steps are you sure it’s not a watch because it looks like a watch also watch I hold it how convenient how’s your steps are you uh I mean you’re obviously physically fit no no I’m really I’ve got mr. Burns’s body if you take who’s mr. burns from The Simpsons oh come on a link I’ve never seen that I think that shows only in Australia yes it is an Australian show it’s very small yeah I’m sorry I didn’t get you reference they’re coming out with a new cup called the vessel and this is a this is a cup that you poured any liquid in the world into the cup in it like any other Cup it analyzes what you have poured into the cup and tells you how many calories it is so it’ll be like a blue Gatorade 300 calories I mean you made I talk to you I’m auditioning to be the voice of the vessel but no good for us last year this is happening it is it exists and it will be on the market so you can put anything you want any mix and it knows well that’s a great question I was told that the guy tested it poured a bunch of different liquids into it and it got everyone right now is this just a Kickstarter campaign where people promise everything and nothing really happened though this is legit I read it well I think the question is though I mean you anyone who has a contraption like this that you’re wearing is a little bit progressive in terms of technology right I’ll be completely upfront with you I was given this and then but I was so infatuated with it I bought him one full price and for me that’s the big deal of you like a product when you’re given one and then you buy someone else one so I have to be upfront with you I was given one I wasn’t told I had to wear it but because i’ma lose I was like I’m gonna wear this everywhere and then I got him one him being I’m sorry him being my partner Owen because I really wanted to see how much we collect daughter at the end of the day so you can also measure the percentage of your sleep how often you stayed still and so I check every night I wake up and I’m like eighty-three percent what about you why does it change anything about your your habits change is what I know about my habits what kind of sleep are you you move around a lot not apparently not I think it’s because we’re in a hotel at the moment and the dinners are very heavy so I’m just stuck on to them the word the water soon is that the covers yeah sure she sleeps she sleeps in a room with sand dunes yeah you’re sleeping on piles of there is no sand in my room no you know what I mean the big the dinners yeah you know we call them do days or comforters or whatever yeah yeah yeah do they’re like trapping you you’re trapped in your bed it’s very heavy when you’re just kind of keeps you still so you’re not a health conscious person are you but are you so it’s more of a competition between the two of you to see who can yeah yeah I’ve worked the most ER eat the most yeah we’re just very we’re big into our data collection so for example we had traditional heart rate monitors which you know the ones you stick around you your body those are uncomfortable so I wall them we wore them for a full 24 hours so we for a few days so that we could compare echo exertion after a few days but I now have like a permanent scar under here because just if I was such like a dick I just didn’t take it off I was like oh it’s really hurting under there how is this eight years ago and now I have like these permanent like nipples and like nipple looking scars on Days really so you have four nipples I have four nipple that’s told me how am i hot right it was worth it no it seems pretty obvious to translate four nipples into like internet success yes so young when you’re in this field of occupation does that happen is it okay I’m gonna turn have you turned the heart rate monitor scars or any of these other weird gadget tree things into vlogs I can’t believe I even told you guys you haven’t made a video card I have four nipples because use views caps for exclamation points naked in the title no I haven’t told anyone about you know it’s interesting that we that we’re talking about this taking something like four nipples and turning it into it if you’re not gonna do it we’re gonna do it okay because we technically do have four nipples shoot it would be a big letdown there four nipples and it’s just the two of us guys but you have even from the early days kind of made a decision it I think to just kind of do things your way right so you eat – not necessarily play the YouTube game even we’re just gonna say that because I’m failing okay like your early videos right yeah there’s a couple of videos in your first like ten or twenty videos where you would be like boring video mm-hmm and but you mean you were like you were trying to be ironic would say that yeah because you were doing what you did called your housekeeping videos early on yeah so were you answer questions in that kind of yeah and so you were like boring video but I definitely got the sensation that she’s telling me it’s a boring video because she thinks that guys this is gonna be a boring video not because I’m trying to be some super ironic person to trick you into watching it just a certain honest cool level yeah no it was just honest the only way that was YouTube yonks ago and I guess every it was just such a different community and I guess I don’t know yeah and it that seems to be that that’s the kind of that’s how your career has been characterized as you’re just you just being yourself you just doing your thing I mean it literally is you multiple times in these video yeah no I guess I’d never it never started as anything and I’ve always kind of hoped that I’d just keep it up for fun and continue with life and it’s just something I guess it was thrown into the mix right now I like to call you the queen of split-screen there’s lots of people who will do that you’re shaking your head but I cut off all my fingers and lastly I didn’t notice it’s in the crop and they’re like you’re missing all these pink it’s a hazards of split-screen the physical split-screen is not what I’m in awe of I know how to do that so I know how to not cut my fingers off there’s no you just don’t cross the line so you’re not blowing my mind there but I call you the queen of split screen because the comedic timing how do you maintain and execute the comedy that you’ve come up with in your head or written down or you I don’t know you tell me how you’ve do you write it down and then how do you how do you maintain the comedic timing in a split screen with yourself oh my video is a scripted so they’re all scripted and I guess especially with the sketch kind of skip parts of them they all have to be scripted because they interact with each other it breaks my heart that I’m not good enough or patient enough to do any green screen because that would be much more interesting but um I guess I just I put a 20 cent coin on the floor and I’m like that’s where the other person standing or sometimes my cat moves it and I’m like I wish you hadn’t done the other presence ending but it’s very high-tech I just put a coin on the floor well you put a coin in I didn’t even know existed I mean so yeah even even a 20 cent coin is something that I know I make a coin and then I put it on the floor and then I I look at that pot and I go I hope this looks right right so you establish tiling that way but are you are you hearing in your mind the other you speaking the retorts and how do you know how long it’s going to take yeah this I have this really I must be very boring and repetitive because I have this awful ability to speak at the same pace of sentence as constantly so like sometimes I’ve dubbed things and it’s just worked the first time I’m like wow like I just have no variance in the way I speak meaning you ADR it yet to match your references you just say it is so you’re not listening back to the I what I thought you would have done is like okay I’m gonna play back baby yeah with the videos sorry not with the videos but I mean sometimes that’s right but back with your videos when you’re doing the split-screen thing you’re not like going back and watching what you just said because you can’t really touch the camera other than right because just gotta stay in the same place and the light always changes now I always just in my head I can hear it so it’s okay but if you notice in my videos I not a lot the other character nods a lot or they kind of look in the other direction just in case if I if the 20 cent coins moved I just kind of look off I nod allied like this like I close my eyes and I nod so that way there’s no real interest right it just kind of works yeah and how critical are you of your own videos do you watch them back and having done them for almost eight years eh do you watch back your latest video even beyond the edit like once it’s up and are you critical or do you shy away from that and B do you go back and watch some of the earliest videos does that ever happen um I make a lot of videos that don’t go up as I’m sure everyone does so after I’ve added if I really don’t like a video I watched a few times if I think it’s bad sometimes I think maybe I’m just in a bad mood I’ll come back later if I still don’t like it it doesn’t go up how often does that happen it used to happen a lot more often but maybe I’m sleazier now but I’d say maybe one in every four videos every three or four videos doesn’t make it up really yeah I write a lot I write a lot more scripts that don’t make it up as well so every script so it might be something that happens in them in the middle of shooting and you’re like oh this just doesn’t work in or I used to give up but Rowan who helps me film a lot encourages me to finish them and then I finish them and edit them and see how it goes but maybe I’m just being a dick and I often don’t like so I don’t you don’t put them up we I think we just have a lower standard you know video is a super polish I don’t know what you took well I put the production value that you guys were I would be very happy with every video – I’d be like no this is going up because I paid people it’s going my pajama is like it’s okay I’ll come back to the budgets but it’s like we get to a point we’re just like well we’ve definitely we definitely our videos that we’re not proud of but they looked and you’re like ok but we’ve got to put this but put this up but you get to a point where you’re just like nope if there’s not a video because at this point are you still is it still kind of weekly or what like what’s the yeah I still do them weekly I mean don’t get me wrong I still put ones up that I’m not super happy with but that tends to be when I go well I’ve got work I just and I tell people I’ll have one up a week now I try to write and so if if it worse comes to worse I do put one up but yeah it’s not always something I’m super happy with well I’ll tell you I’ll tell you something that maybe we decided we weren’t going to tell anybody but I’ll be vulnerable and I’ll expect a reciprocation later on in this air biscuit okay but yeah we’ve definitely put a lot of work in time and it’s difficult to walk away from something but I mean we had an idea for something and it involved kids and then we shot the whole thing and then we realized that inadvertently it had gotten way too close to something that the fine brothers were doing yeah and you know then being so successful at it we didn’t want to come close I mean and they’re also friends we didn’t want to come close to any sort of comparison so we scrapped the whole thing and when we’re talking two days of filming with kids like lots of kids I’m telling you and we just didn’t anticipate how close it was gonna hit the final product was going to seem and we scrapped the whole thing that’s a shame and that’s it’s really not only are you spending money and you’ve got all these people working on this thing but we had all these kids lined up then we had that well somebody had to tell him we didn’t hi it someone else it wasn’t gonna see the light to their videos not being put up on YouTube but I’m gonna find a good way to handle that I think here’s what we should do we should just give that video to the fine brothers and let them make that video I’m sorry to hear that I’m sure that if you put it up they wouldn’t have seen it that way and I’m sure other people wouldn’t know if you’ve got a big bank of work and they wouldn’t have well I appreciate that you want to that you’re that you’re encouraging us but no we’re not yeah and we shouldn’t have so hey we’ve been there Wow very recently no thanks for bringing it up I feel horrible now so okay so you you are part of what I would call the first early wave of YouTube you know 2006 let’s let’s go back in and lead up to that point what got you into YouTube and that kind of thing so let’s just go back to the beginning of Natalee okay so where’d you grow up and what’s that story um I grew in Sydney with my family as you do sometimes I don’t know I grew up with my family as you do I was just a very normal child I’m the youngest which probably says I was a bit of ish but I think that’s about it really like I was you know the youngest youngest is how many of to my sisters nine years my senior nine years yeah I wish I crashed the party layup yeah it is a huge gap so what how do your parents explain that I’m Asian so we don’t even speak of such things oh really so tell us about your parents oh they’re lovely my father he was a teacher in Vietnam and he came to Australia he taught primary school in Vietnam I mean in Australia and then my mother was a solicitor in Vietnam she came to Australia and she worked a few jobs and eventually worked at a post office like sorting mail and stuff in the back room so what was the circumstances that led to the move from Vietnam to Australian when was that they fled Vietnam and they arrived led yeah they arrived via boat in 1981 so okay so explain the fleeing part yes so after the war a lot of Vietnamese people seeked refuge other places and they were lucky enough to have arrived in Australia when laws were better and we were accepting me and they arrived in Australia in 1981 and we’ve been in Australian since so I was born in Australia so yeah I I read a quote where you said that your parents endured so much to give you and your sister great lives yes I didn’t they were wonderful very selfless people and I’ll always being indebted to them are they still living yeah they are okay one day I’ll buy them a massive house and that’s the plan that’s the plan I’m gonna buy them a massive farm and anything they want and well you know you have a very specific sense of humor that we both really appreciate laughing and it’s very developed and it’s great did that come from your parents yeah my parents very much made me very aware of like the subtle differences between people I guess in the way the behave not necessarily where they wasn’t really always the same kind of observational humor that I talked about but it may have just been have you noticed this or have you noticed that and I guess something that you pick up or maybe it’s just a different but I mean observational humor isn’t really a specific thing everyone notices it so well to be able to put it in a certain way especially in the way that you’re able to write it is absolutely a gift yeah I guess our curiosity is is that the type of thing that came up conversationally with friends or with your family I think my parents probably established that way of thought but it’s probably something that I talk about with friends or it’s just something I noticed as everyone does when they’re hanging out with friends you seem to say that culturally that your parents you didn’t really talk to your parents about the specifics of anything you know you’re talking about the difference between you and your sister being born is something you never discuss with them no sometimes I go sometimes I go to other people’s family times I can’t believe the way they were allowed to talk to their families like if I laughed too loudly but didn’t tables mom like calm down as I’ve gotten older she’s being a little bit cooler with things like I can say words like you look sexy and she laughs but it’s still a bit you know she’s calmed down a bit in terms of me being a bit of a dick around it’s like I see her and she’s always in her pajamas because pajama is the home of tire of immigrants at home all the time and like sometimes I come over and because I’m coming over I’m in proper clothes you know and she won’t know I’m coming up this she’ll be in her fluro pajamas that she bought for $3 at the markets or something and I’ll come over I’ll slap her on the bummer you look really sexy back in the day she probably would I would have been in a lot of trouble for that but now she’s okay with it a little so now you started making videos and for years a few years at least you were making it from home like we live in with your parents yes I made them might they bought me my first computer when I was at uni and I made them through my eye side so I literally like dragged my computer everywhere I read about lonely girl in the newspapers and I remember just going on to the website being really interested in the website did you think that lonely girl was a real person no I didn’t which is why I heard about in the paper it was after everything had been no prevailed it was just I had never heard of YouTube which I love the idea of a university person not knowing what YouTube is because if you think about it now every man and his dog knows what it is but I remember going on and really enjoying the community and then I saw video responses so I started clicking on videos and then that kind of landed me into a space where I saw everyone communicating with each other and I wanted to do the same so you made video responses to lonely girl more to videos across YouTube yeah just two other videos instead but did you have a channel at a time called community channel when you’re doing that yeah so when I saw hate the name commuter but yeah I signed up it’s like calling yourself HBO or something it’s really like you know it’s like that um y-yeah so what point is that you know do you know it’s called public is it called public access television here it’s like YouTube so we had that in Australia and I was obsessed with this channel because you would see people filming like a science showing their living room and then the telephone would go off and they’d look at the camera right look at the hallway and I’d be like oh and then you know he’d say I’m just gonna get the phone I’ll edit this out no I won’t and then he went out and you just hear this conversation happening so I really liked this channel so I called myself communal okay it’s like a television it’s like me I didn’t think you know okay so you’re saying specifically the there was an Australian public access that was called community change that’s called community so you just rip their name yeah I just called myself like HBO but it’s not HBO it’s funny because you know I would assume that most people just are like this this girl had this amazing insight into the community of YouTube so she people think I’m religious and they’re like oh so you’re like a do-gooder because you like the community and the channel don’t like no I just like these it’s like the equivalent of calling your chant your channel public access TV it’s exactly like okay it was really dumb ironically it does have this it seems like you were getting involved as a community member yeah with the whole the conversation because it seems like that’s that’s where I thought you were going with the name of the channel because what got you involved originally wasn’t the this impetus to entertain but it was to be involved in a conversation like that stories I’m gonna go with that from now on I originally caught myself commissioned cuz I went in there with the sense of community there you go then to entertain I like it take it that’s the new story we just officially changed the official story like that okay did you have a need to socialize on the internet was there did you not have friends in real life and was this kind of a I’m not gonna lie I mean I went to uni and I worked after uni so it was like I came home after like you know you come home at 10 o’clock at night so I kind of made videos at nighttime and then I like I had friends man back up friends okay I’ll back off but not really but did you make actual YouTube friends early on absolutely a lot of really wonderful people that I’ve met I’ve met online and it’s yeah it’s lucky well do you do you keep in touch with these people now like some of the earliest people yeah I went to one’s wedding before and I have a wonderful time with with people who made online okay so you were at university but you were still living at home of your parents yeah and so 10 o’clock you’d log on to the youtubes and you would make your response videos at some point I imagine it it started to shift into more of your comedic voice how did that happen I mean I guess back then like you could everyone took I still take feedback you know to help I guess when people really enjoy one element of your video good okay well maybe I’ll focus on that and obviously they enjoyed some storytelling then okay I’ll just keep going with that in terms of the genre with it’s sort of a vlog with these scripted elements right were there other people doing that kind of thing like did you like emulating some yeah um I remember the reason that I started even doing the cloning was because a subscriber made a video response to me and he did the same thing and then I did one back to him and then that just kind of everyone enjoyed that and then I just kept going but then I figured it was easier just to break it up between monologue and sketches to the story tell I guess and then what what became what really started to break out for you what was the turning point from just I’m doing this for the fun of it to whoa people are writing articles about me it was very organic I mean I’ve got a – sorry I don’t mean it’s an oily but I’ve got 1.5 million subscribers you know kids log on these days start a YouTube and I can YouTube account in six months they have like five million subscribers or something mine’s been a very slow organic growth it’s not been this meteoric rise but by 2010 I mean articles will be written and they were speculating about how much money you were making millions of dollars that I make and they were saying they were seeing I mean they were saying okay and that she’s the queen of YouTube she’s in the top 10 earners I don’t know how that came out in that year it was really weird I was I’m definitely not in the top ten er I think well that’s what everyone on the list said yeah right but the fact that you were one of those 10 people at that point where you make it you were making it into a career look I still work outside of YouTube and I still do stuff and I guess I don’t know I guess it’s like I said it’s been so slow and so organic I’ve always just accepted it that it’s something fun I do on the side that is a bit bigger but I mean especially with going to VidCon today I just and you see how huge it is for everyone else that’s I mean that’s I think it’s a different playing field for those guys and maybe for me it’s just something really fun I do on the side that was made my transition from being a young adults to someone in their late twenties made that a bit more exciting if that makes sense I mean I get the sense as you talk about it I mean there’s a that you kind of want it to be that way too I mean it would you say that you’re like this is this is a great medium this is fun for me this is a great outlet but this isn’t something that I necessarily want it to propel me to a place where I’m you know I’ve got a television show or I’m run my own studio or that kind of thing it sounds like those aren’t necessarily things that you aspire to yeah I would love writing as I’m sure everyone who’s on YouTube will tell you I you know I love writing and I love creating things and I’d love to do other things and explore it in other mediums but I guess I always try and remember I was doing something before YouTube came along if that makes sense and I want to make sure it doesn’t take me off the path entirely okay so what what was that yeah I don’t have a path necessarily but I don’t want it to completely drive what I’m doing so what what is what have you been doing since University that this is kind of still been the side project what’s been the main thing I’m very lost like every person in the first world is who is very privileged and you know well too many choices but I I mean I I feel like the way that you characterize it you sell yourself short I mean it’s just like you know we’re sitting here yeah we’ve been fans of yours for a long time and then we we see you at VidCon we’re like we definitely want to talk to Natalie because we have this level of respect for what you’ve what you’ve done and how it’s just it’s so pinpointed and so like so good and been good for a very very long time but see but you shake your head you’re like oh no you guys know all the time every time I go and do work with an agency or something they always pull up things you guys have done they always say this is kind of the caliber we want I’m like what you guys attack the stray lian’s it’s not going to happen but um you guys are amazing and I well but I mean I we may have some bells and whistles and we’re doing a different a different type of video but you know in terms of the I guess I guess what I’m saying is that the the core elements that make something engaging and good on YouTube are things that are based in personality and just the ability to entertain people and that doesn’t necessarily have to include some looks like I wasn’t saying what you did was good because of you no no I didn’t mean it know what I’m saying but I’m saying the core of what you have is you know I’m either production companies out there who would bend over backwards to say hey we want to take the stuff that because anybody can add that kind of stuff right but they can’t bring the personality in the connectivity that you have with your audience they can’t bring that to that’s what they’re looking for right well I would say the comedic voice I mean I think this is an interesting conversation it’s kind of turned into us trying to convince you that you’re great seriously I mean it’s you know our assumption was okay she’s a full-time youtuber she’s been doing this all these years and I’m very interested in the resilience it takes to remain relevant for eight years with changing what you do very little I think we’re surprised to hear a level of humility that you don’t eat I don’t know if it’s that you don’t want this to be your thing or that you just don’t consider yourself of a caliber that you for it to be your thing I think that’s what I’m trying to figure out I don’t know what I’m gonna be doing but I don’t know I guess I have other things outside of YouTube as well that I’d really like to achieve in life so tell me about those things I want to build a place for my family I’d like to give them somewhere nice and I guess I’m just working towards that at the moment so I can can do that for them well what is your what is your perception as someone who’s who’s been involved in the community for you know a long time and you’ve seen the evolution of YouTube and then you see like you say you come to VidCon it’s been mind-blowing I can’t even explain how am I’m going so what are some of the things that you’ve thought as you’ve observed it we’ve likened the crowds running towards people like World War Z it has been who I don’t even know what they’re running towards I just I just assumed there’s a good-looking young boy on the other side of it some that’s reddish in nature there must be a really tall young good-looking guy on the other side or a very pretty good like beauty girl on the other side because they just scream and they run and I mean I remember like the days where I would sit on stickam in my lunch breaks I would walk down to this is so embarrassed I would walk to the internet cafe around the corner from my work and I was sitting there so I could talk to the other America like to the American youtubers during my lunch break and we would do that and I remember that so I remember like Phil DeFranco was in there and the wine cone and all these are you know and so I remember that was what it was like like that’s what YouTube was like for me so when you come hearing that whoa oh there’s a sign and it’s printed in color and I was like it’s pretty money you know okay and then I went into the registration room on my own badges and like barcodes this is getting pretty right yeah so that’s it’s changed a lot from what I what it was and I guess I’m so it’s amazing I love I love the things that get shared on YouTube it’s incredible and I love that people can access video production at such small cost RIT like speak like relatively speaking to what they were before you know that kids with SLRs can make films it’s incredible right but yeah at the same time it’s like you know I definitely especially as somebody like we’ve been to every VidCon just because we’ve been here you know so it’d be great to go but but you you yeah it’s even VidCon itself has changed so much from the first year till now you definitely get this sense it’s like hmm this has become it’s amazing but there are these there are these like trappings of this has become something that’s so much it gets the more popular it gets in a more celebrity that there is involved in and it kind of gets tainted right I had this I think this is because I look really boring so as we were coming through this woman saw me his mother came up to me she said you work for VidCon I don’t work for me she was anyway let me tell you we’re really upset and she went through and I’ve had a lot of parents I must be someone who parents approach because I’ve had a lot of parents come up to me today and they tell me I’m just eating a sandwich and like listen I have to tell you I’m really upset because I felt in my heart braces like I drove you know I flew my kids here from Florida and we didn’t get to see some and so you know like the signings they closed off the signings whatever and for me that’s an interesting thing because I guess as it but you’re right and I guess that comes along with this whole new wave of what a celebrity is and how there’s this Fame attached to these guys and they have to like security escorting people is really interesting you know and I understand it’s necessary but that’s been an interesting shift in culture I guess that it’s not so much a connection anymore now it’s you can come and ya have signings and do you how do you guys I’m surprised you guys are on this level like you that you haven’t made harassed well we stay in here a lot honestly and we’re not young cheeky British I don’t even know what cheeky means but I think it means that you get smart I’ve already pictured him in my head but yeah we we have to stay in here a lot there is a sense when when it does have Lee we’ve got our scheduled you know signing that is gonna be for a certain number of hours or whatever and some people will probably be turned away from that yeah and then when we’re walking through if we’re doing something and we’re going to a panel and we say sorry just come to the thing tomorrow and to think that if those people couldn’t get into it it is this there’s this dynamic that I told link I was like might the worst part of VidCon tip for me is are those interactions where I’m telling somebody know I can’t get a picture or I can’t do it get a hug right now because if I do then maybe there’ll be another one in another one and another one and we’re not even that you know like link said we’re not the 20 year old British we’re not that boy block anywhere near the most popular people here certainly you guys I mean do you do you feel like that this is kind of eye-opening that you’ve been isolated you’ve you’ve continued to contribute through your channel and it’s been very consistent I mean in terms of the number of views it’s not like you’ve dropped off that much but do you feel like you’re living in an older YouTube that your eyes are being open being here kind of a thing yeah in Australia it’s so different like it’s we live in a country where if you know there’s arguments about whether we should have faster into it or not like we live in a very different kind of place and when people say mean the straight or something they say hi genuinely spit takes me a while to know where I know them from because they’re so relaxed and they’re so hey how’s it going and then I assume I must have met them through work or something and then I say yeah and so it’s very relaxed and it’s very different I can’t imagine this kind of screaming like it’s it’s very yeah do you watch other youtubers today and what do you think I still see I’m I’m I stick to a lot of people who have been watching for a long time I do get recommended a lot of young people but I guess as you do when you start to be precious like I said and you think your time for all the time with workers there we go I’ll watch these later I’ll watch these later but I’m on holidays at the moment so I’ll catch up more but um I think you catch do you catch glimpses of other youtubers doing what you’ve been doing for eight years and what do you think when you see someone like superwoman doing the split-screen and she’s playing different characters and talking to herself I mean you say you know oh that’s me that’s she’s doing my thing she would I do but I mean will you tell me what you think I’ll tell you what I think I understand having that kind of a feeling but that’s not like I made up split screen and I think kids these days are very polished or what they do and I think they’re really smart and switched on and you know good and good on them but they wouldn’t be I mean there’s a argument to be made they wouldn’t be doing if you hadn’t done it first I mean in terms of somebody would have done it it’s not like you know what I mean like I did like I said everyone’s been doing splits great it’s not like that not that specifically but even the comedic voice and female with a strong comedic voice all alone playing different characters or speaking her mind in a comedic way and interacting with fans it is said it you set a template that absolutely is being emulated directly and indirectly and through a couple of different layers at this point and being around and still doing it I mean does that give you a sense of satisfaction I don’t never attribute their videos to me I don’t have a goal they’ve obviously like taken this from me but okay look I just you just have to be like good on them and they they’re so good at what they do now you know like it took me so long to figure out maybe I should move off a web camera maybe I should get a microphone and maybe I shouldn’t you know I just they’re great at what they do and you just have to applaud them really so you don’t want to say that it took you so long and it doesn’t take them as long because of me and other people because I think that’s the truth no because it’s a generational thing everything will happen faster with the next generation everything will it takes you it took me longer to look up books in the library I know now kids have all these new ways of you know it’s just the way time works and you have to accept it move on you made a comment Rhett read it to me about how you put comments at the end of your videos and now there’s people who do that and do more with comments what did you read that that’s on your about section of your channel oh is that sound like it must have been a joke I thought I deleted that dick joke okay oh that was a joke cuz me being a dick I thought I deleted that I don’t channel takes me ages to get it around my channel well I definitely took it as sarcasm yeah but yeah I but at the same time ice I sense that there’s there’s truth under under that which is like yeah I was you know everyone’s doing all this interesting stuff with with commas I only put that up because I got comments um I think which is like oh she does this like so and so and then you go on there’s like 14 year old doing it that’s all so I was like I did it you know I’ve been doing it a while it’s okay I was obnoxious and I thought I had delay did not apologize that I hadn’t I don’t think you should apologize it’s just I liked it no I thought I had deleted it but I can never they changed that YouTube page they do change it quite a bit yeah that’s just everyone like I said if I didn’t do it someone else is gonna do it I didn’t invent comment feedback or anything I just ringing dude I’m sorry but when you put like porn music with it can you say that you invented that come on well no one’s copied that so that’s a baby that’s not the magic maybe that’s not that I thought it was you’ve you’ve been more consistent in making your videos over the past year yeah but there were times when you would kind of fall off and be gone secret babies was there anything let us in on some of these secret babies was there what took you off of youtube and where there was there any drama I mean I guess my hunch or my guess is that when you’re putting yourself out there and you’re you are setting a template for a strong voice female vlogger that I have to believe that there’s this gray line between your personal life and your public entertainment life yeah did that have an impact on your ability to maintain your videos did anything go wrong I like to think no I mean I know I talk about things my mother doesn’t stop but they’re pretty generic things you know my mother tells me to bring a jump but everyone’s mom tells them to bring a jump us or a sweater right yeah like that you know I like to think I actually don’t talk about my personal life too much really like they’re all very generic don’t you hate it when this happens that it happens to everybody if that makes sense there’s not really that much about my personal life in there but fans demand it I mean there’s speculation all over the internet about you being engaged a few years ago because you wore a ring on the wrong finger or something I wear many rings how many raise um look it’s all just yeah one it one the first break I had I can’t remember why it just happens and I don’t know about you guys but sometimes I’m a very I I work myself up sometimes I don’t because I’ve made a big gap the next video needs to be really good and then just becomes this huge fear there’s a stupid fear and I don’t know why so that usually is what prolongs a big gap the second I remember I had just gotten back from a big trip around the world we created a video a travel series Rowan film there’s with me a travel series as well as our YouTube mmm and we were contracted to make one a week as well as that while we travel there was a lot of content to make especially when you’re on the ground and you’re traveling and it means no sleep ever it wasn’t on your channel notice I put on somebody else’s on a company’s channel and by the time I got back I was just exhausted and I’d gone through a bad time with my personal life and I just wanted I guess to get over that cuz like I said I mean YouTube’s really fun and stuff but it’s on the side and I always try and make sure life is good first right before YouTube yeah so so I you know every every youtuber deals with it with just fans that take things too far and messages and you can get berated with comments and messages that kind of thing and from our experience that females deal with this many degrees more impregnate you so I mean like how what how has that been has that had any impact on the way that you approach YouTube um yeah look if I could go back I mean no I shouldn’t say that it’s it’s hard because on the internet for some reason if you wear a singlet top it it somehow is very you know erotic whereas if you were to walk down a street in a singlet top it’s not very interesting or you know in anything like that but um you you just grow a thicker skin to what I guess sometimes I don’t I don’t tend to go out in public meetings a lot to be completely honest with you because I do receive I used to receive what I was I used to receive a lot more kind of threats and scary emails and stuff like that and I what do you mean um I just you just had to have liked it I reckon a dozen people who would write me every day and they would span over years so man when the first bid can’t happen I really wanted to go and I was going but then the emails got scarier and I guess because they knew where I was coming and then they would say I know where you’re coming and twelve people who you would get 12 emails a day for a year at least from 12 people and I remember one guys all independently just yeah yeah I remember one guy got really upset and he wrote me every minute one night and it was insane and you get that a lot as a girl that I as a woman sorry I think that um I’m sure everyone gets that sorry I just think sometimes with anything people just get a little bit confused and perhaps a project feelings that don’t necessarily exist so how did you deal with that I mean what I just said I’m really sorry I can’t come to fit correspond to the people the stalkers these are stalkers right I mean it’s to be honest now I don’t even know if I get them you know I mean you just don’t read them after a while but didn’t know that then so perhaps I just paid too much attention to them and I should have just let them go was it the type of thing you had to call the police I called the cops once because a few times but I remember one time I was really upset because someone left a package outside my house and it obviously happened in a very short break where I had left my house to walk down the road for something so I assumed they were in my street waiting because it had no postage stamps or anything like that and I called the cops but back then again no one really watched YouTube said the cops too said to me you know well get over it yeah don’t go on the internet then what did they open the box oh yeah so we open the box and there was just weird stuff in it he looked I want to know what the weird stuff was your glasses and all those weird things you wrote to me no it was um it was just a letter that he’d written from the perspective of like my fish and he’d given me stuff to put my room and stuff like that and I look I know it came they were it was good intentions just right in the wrong way that’s just somebody doesn’t understand boundaries yeah who was around the block which is scary and then the cops didn’t do anything no they said if he hurts you then we can do something like that’s if you hurt me I’ll let you know Thanks thank you did it get worse how did that how does that we restore resolve I know nothing happened and this is the thing as I should have just learned from him I should have just been smarter from younger and just realized you just ignore things well but you know I can’t help but think that you know if you think if you take us for example I mean first of all being guys that you just naturally don’t have to deal with those things as much it’s not it’s it’s not at the same degree and then I think that there’s there’s two of us right so but if you if you if you change a couple of those factors and there’s there’s more of that kind of thing you’re you kind of by yourself you it’s not like you’re sharing the channel with somebody I mean I know how that would affect me personally is I would I would lose some of my motivation to kind of be like okay yeah I really I want to keep doing this and I want to keep raising my profile because well I’m gonna get more crazy people like this that are trying to reach out to me you know what I mean if that’s if that’s part of the package I could see how that would cause you to lose a little bit of a taste for you know YouTube fame yeah well look look like I shouldn’t have made you know I was in my bedroom I was making videos and I I created a very intimate setting I probably should have been more aware of that and I’m sure you guys receive I mean it’s all girls screaming out there at VidCon I’m sure you guys have received your fashion girls are as crazy as guys yeah yeah like I’m gonna go in your house and wear clothes girl’s touch everything that’s scary too well you’re just making me very thankful that well I haven’t read any of those we don’t they’re in your bedrooms right now you know I’m just saying it’s girls around the hallways right now you don’t mean I think I’m sure you guys a subject to that somewhat but you know not to the same degree so as usually you say you’ve got things that you want to try off of YouTube YouTube has changed dramatically you know over the past eight years your content has definitely gotten you know more polished that kind of thing like you said as you’ve you’ve added just from a technical perspective it’s it’s gotten you is changed and gotten better but it was always great in terms of the content and you seems like you’re continuing to kind of pump it out like what is the what’s the long-term plan with with YouTube I don’t know I’m really worried because I’m hitting 30 soon and I’m really worried because I make these little girls like I watch you know but you must be 11 like this is not good this is not good no I don’t know I guess I just keep doing it till I have a lot more videos that don’t make it than do and then I just stop doing other things at the same time right so like you did this you shot this series which that what that was for a brand it went somewhere else somewhere else was it I was for Lonely Planet so we did and around the world travel series and we’re trying to do one now but it’s bit harder ironically independently because we don’t have a brand attached to us even though we produced the whole series anyway so we’ve had a lot of trouble with just tourism boards kind of getting back to us and just because of what we learnt it was so hard to get content to feel 2 minutes when you don’t know anything about a city yeah so we would land in a city would go we have two days to film here mm-hmm and that’s quite hard so we’ve been trying to talk to you and board about organizing itineraries but they don’t necessarily want to collaborate with YouTube but I understand they must get a billion requests a day from bloggers and and one but that’s the flavor of the type of projects that you’re working on at the moment so we run a few companies we do like corporate videos and we also make we make wedding videos as well oh yeah that’s what my favorite things and that’s what we do that takes a we just finished wedding season and in Australia so and I work freelance doing other things it’s also a freelance it sounds like you you you like to be involved in the creative process and in this kind of medium but it isn’t necessarily that all your efforts are focused towards the personality Natalie centered content that YouTube YouTube is all about that right it’s just personality driven but you’re saying I want to make videos I want to be creative I want to write but I don’t necessarily have have this aspiration to be like no but I want to funnel all that creativity into you know your channel to continue to grow that I just don’t have I don’t have what it takes I don’t think it seems to be a lot of 8 I totally understand a lot of effort I know a lot of people don’t especially in traditional media when I hear interviews with youtubers I know how much effort goes into a YouTube channel I know how much effort goes into you know the community and God you go into a company and they have a whole person dedicated to running the Facebook page so I understand how much effort goes into a YouTube channel I don’t have that kind of motivation or dedication so I don’t think I could carry it off but um yeah I just don’t have that dedication well but but I think kind of what we’ve kind of arrived at is that it’s uh it’s definitely not a an ability issue you don’t have that specific desire that would lead to that that would lead to this is the only thing that you do and this is like your 100% all-in there’s nothing wrong with that I mean it’s not you I mean I’m not being accused of anything it’s very much just it’s interesting I think honestly refreshing you know to talk to somebody who that isn’t there a very specific aspiration I just don’t know how everyone does it like I’m trying to organize I’m like some t-shirts and stuff and my brain just melts when they write back an email that’s more than a paragraph and I’m oh my god there’s words in here and fulfillment and clothes come back to three months of times well want you know one of our dreams is to come to Australia so maybe you can help us answer the questions that you have when we come there so no you should definitely go to assert whereabouts what you want to go we wanted we’d want to do like a four or ifer are a four by four adventure you know how biggest rally is right like it’s big yeah it’s big a lot of 4×4 adventures are happening there oh that would be wonderful when were you doing it I’m committing you do whenever you book us do you have a do you have a four-wheel drive vehicle I I have a three door car and what happened to the fourth door it no it’s like one of those really small Mazda’s it’s not gonna make it across the outback it has back yeah is that what it is a two-door hatchback yeah and I make everyone wait when they want to get in the back seat and I push the seat forward no way you can hump in well we can work we can transportation I can hire a car though okay I got my full license this year a hire car for you guys it’s gotta have like really but we die we don’t have any plans but we do want we are at some point I don’t know how many months or years it will be but we’re gonna we’re gonna come to a strike you must be making content all the time like you might I mean we’re really busy but it yeah it’s just something like that just we’ll take just a lot of things that fall into place but we’re gonna do it it’s gonna happen may I ask if you’re booked out like do you create content in advance like are you oh I mean we try to you know get our rhett and Link channel stuff lined up and then good mythical morning you know we just have to keep churning those out you know it’s daily show type things yeah I’m asked do you get tired creating so much content yeah I mean there’s a mentality that like you’ve started this this train right and it’s and it’s got this momentum and sometimes you just find that you’re just exclusively committed to just keeping the train going right I mean we’re able to encourage each other and we’re doing enough different things that you know we don’t have to just do the one thing so that helps us out a lot and we let our ideas drive us a lot and we have you know we have the freedom on the red link channel to do anything we want which is really great we’re grateful for that so that helps yes there’s not any at this point there’s no real there’s no real sense of burnout or anything like that even with all the content that we create but there is like man this is tough and it never stops yeah I was gonna ask about that because like obviously I just take breaks whenever I want but how do you deal with having to this is the thing with YouTube and the Internet right there’s no seasons yeah it just continues and how do you guys deal with that kind of well we used to break up good mythical morning and we still do break up good mythical morning in two seasons but the breaks in between seasons I’ve gotten to do something like this one between season five and six is a week yeah that’s what it mean like how do you that’s not yeah you really don’t you don’t break yeah the answer the question is well we don’t because once people make this you know make our show a part of their daily routine you’re like well I don’t want to stop because then I’ll stop making it a part of their daily routine but we can do it from Australia so we’ll figure out how to make yeah that’s right it’s a full day to fly to Australia that’s a day you won’t be able to make one yeah we can shoot ahead of time we can make it happen well listen we’ll we’ll take our Australian epic trip offline that’s what they say in the corporate world but keep doing what you do and thanks for hanging out with us [Music] and there you have it our ear biscuit with NAT Tran I feel like I’m colour net that travelled it now that we’ve had the ear biscuit you know is on that with a G or just net in a tea oh just no G that face you’re like there’s a G and NAT I was thinking oh no I literally I put it everywhere except at the beginning of the words but it before you saw the wheels turning like NAT G like a silent in the yet I got it I got net that was a net joke okay you know I feel like I have two seemingly contradictory thoughts in my head at the same time and when this happens I like to stop and recognize it okay because I feel like these are the special moments in life linked when you have two contradictory thoughts in your head about Natalie sure about G net okay on the one hand it’s refreshing very refreshing to talk to someone who is just kind of like guys I am NOT going to take your bait yeah and yeah and say that I want to be the super successful entertainer that you guys want me to be that’s the one thought and then the second thought is a frustration with her mm-hmm because she is so awesome she’s an incredible unique voice and it I her sense of her Sensibility and her sense of humor and her writing style and all that I can see it so easily expanded into other formats you know beyond what she’s doing is great but I could see it expand in so many different places and as a producer the producer Amin as a pretty fan wants to see it come to life and blossom into what it could be and so I’m like what but I don’t want to I’m I’m not one to force you into that so it’s refreshing and I want to like you know I’m kind of envious on once in one hand but then I’m frustrated on the right right yeah I can relate to that I feel refreshed that after you know eight years of YouTube content its she’s it’s still it’s still an out it’s still a creative outlet for her it hasn’t become a job I mean maybe there maybe it’s not evolving on another continent maybe that’s trying to oversimplify like the analysis of our super youtuber maybe it’s more of a personality type um you know that she’s you know she says I don’t it makes my mind melt to think about merchandising it’s she doesn’t think that way but she the way she does think is very comedic Lee and insightful and you know we can just we can just revel in that and be happy that hey she’s doing this as an Ellen she’s got other things going on too that we don’t necessarily get to see but it rounds out who she is as a person why do we have to see all of it and that be her career but yeah as a producer in as a fan I’m like well if if she was a couple of blocks from here well I’d love to work together yeah on a you know on a frequent basis and just tap into that comedic psyche that she’s got yeah yeah and maybe the verb is exploited and I think maybe that’s what she’s sensitive to and but I don’t know yeah I think that arrays abound yeah it’s it remains to be seen I think that my analysis of the situation is that part of it is the fact that she is just not as enamored with you know she kind of knows in some sense what it would be like to be even bigger than she is right now and it’s not something that interests her but I hope that it’s not that she that she feels like she needs to apologize for her success or that she doesn’t deserve it because that’s the last thing that’s true because she definitely deserves it she’s a unique talent and we were happy to have a conversation with her and we’re gonna keep watching her content yeah and you let her know what you think of her on her Twitter you know hashtag her up I you know what I don’t think you should hashtag I think you should use the @ symbol you can hashtag ear biscuits but then at natalie tran tagged her up hashtag your business that work now let natalie tran know what you think hey you know what it is he could do hashtag Ginette i mean you could do that i can start that to also leave us a review on iTunes and just just keep listening you know we value that and we value you these ear biscuits are baked for you not for nobody yeah because we unabashedly and unashamedly want more and more people to listen to this oh we wanted well I just said I want them to keep listening yeah well and more new people say no you guys please get your other people to the last thing you’re gonna accuse me of is being apologetic about more people listening I’m just being honest with you and on that note will they have another one next week we will [Music] [Music]