[Music] welcome to air biscuits I’m Rhett and I’m Linc this week get the roundtable of dim lighting we have another conversation with someone interesting from the internet we’re bringing to you this time Matthew Santoro now I’m sure you’ve seen his videos at least a handful of them list videos designed to satisfy inquisitive minds each week just look for a new thumbnail of a bald bearded dude with the Cheshire Cat smile and millions of views registering underneath it and you will have found Matthew Santoro do that week and now usually these videos come in the form of a top 10 list that is what he is very well known for now with quote mind-blowing in quote facts and trivia irresistible clickable titles like and I’m gonna use my irresistible clickable voice 10 most fascinating things ever found in space 10 most haunted places on earth go deeper said incredible animals with real-life superpowers 10 freakiest coincidences in history and for this last one can you go like monster truck announcer I spy spit a little bit you wish you could have seen it alright here’s a clip from one of Matt’s more recent in popular videos over five and a half million views titled toon cannot should you say this into I mean I could go to next level monster truck guy okay do it catch that it was 10 creepy urban legends that turned out to be true number 6 is creatures in your toilet this one will pucker you but ho this urban legend is about a man that gets out of bed half asleep in the middle of the night and walks to the washroom to do his business only to get bit by a giant rat right in the bath now even though matt has been making videos since 2010 his success is really recent and it’s kind of mind-boggling how quickly he has ascended up the ranks in a three-month time span from May through July of this year he doubled his subscriber base skyrocket him from 1 million to 2 million subscribers just in those 3 months and he’s still growing right as of this recording he’s got over two and a half million subscribers so the dude is just it’s an interesting case study yeah and someone who can refine something and it’s like it caught fire it’s it’s interesting right so we’re talking him talking to him in the midst of this incredible upswing that he has been experiencing this year so let’s kind of let’s call this a case study ear biscuit I mean we discuss lots of things his famous teeth his previous life as a professional accountant and we get into unpacking the secrets to this incredibly quick rise to fame on YouTube and in the approach of navigating this competitive world of internet list videos here it is that your biscuit with Matthew Santoro [Music] now I gotta admit I was hoping that when we offered you coffee you would say yes and then you would request a straw ah because we know that this is a thing you drink on your straw ah so you did your research hello that we always research who do you think yes I do what give us the backstory on drinking coffee through a straw I have my theories there’s actually no real backstory it’s just just general maintenance for the old chompers that’s all it is so you know it gots to keep them white as white as possible and drinking I you know anytime I have it makes a little difficult when you’re at a dinner or a party trying to be classy and you’re drinking red wine through a straw looks a little odd but oh so you you’re all way you never miss I totally commit I’ve never been on a date and done that but what I do is like anytime I’m going out I choose white wine over red on purpose regardless of the dish Wow yes I’m committed I gotta say that I do feel like your teeth are a big part of your brand they are and it’s funny because people are always like why do you show so much teeth and it is it’s just the it’s the smile thing I know it sounds stupid but no but I don’t think it’s just a smile I feel like if I was designing a human for like some sort of and I was like okay I gotta use this person’s eyes I gotta use this person’s elbows first of all I wouldn’t use my elbows because they’re very pointy unless this was like a fighter because I cannot blow somebody in the face but I would choose your teeth oh wow you know they they’re they’re very large I feel like you have very large you could you could bite something like like they’re they’re very white they’re very straight they’re very prominent I’m not in like a we’re not talking like a horse mouth situation we’re just talking like Bionic the nice dude bionic man like oh I got to put Matt Santoro’s teeth on this robot yeah you know what I mean this robot we’re we’re designing to overtake the human race Matt what make you feel a little better before you respond what’s behind this for Rhett is he’s jealous because if you’ve if you look at him now or any videos that you can’t see the guy’s teeth yeah like he try as hard as he made a show people his TV can’t do it but there are people who are convinced he doesn’t even have teeth right yeah and I’m one of those but I got small teeth I got a small small mouth I mean you’re a giant man I am well yeah exit extra awkward yeah so those things may have seemed like a cut on you but basically it’s just revealing one of his deepest insecurities is that people think he’s to compliment it is freaking teeth man right I got robots large teeth is a good thing and it’s not a it’s not a bad thing it’s not like I see a bunch of gums over there it’s not a gummy smile one of those smiles I mean they’re man smiles and all you see is big bright white teeth this is a compliment I would protect him – yeah ma’am just regular regular – like did you have braces I have never had braces really yep never it’ll work done no no work done fillings I’ve had fillings but that’s about it I mean no nothing nothing special done it’s just maintenance my man but but you’re very committed to the whiteness of your teeth the whiteness yes I’m very very much so I I mean all you got to do is just maintain them so I use a lot of Listerine anti stainless tureen not a sponsor I have but I use that I use a you know whitening toothpastes just just regular matron but what is what would happen what would happen if the teeth faded to yellow oh you’d lose well I was just everyone would unsubscribe and I’d be on the street I mean that’s that’s all it is I mean they they’re I guess but what I’m saying is there are quite in focus like for me I don’t worry about my teeth at all cuz he’s like link said you never see him yeah you know I mean I think they’re relatively white and relatively straight but they’re not that white and that straight but they don’t have to be yeah but when you when you are the bionic man such as yourself right on ik mouth they gotta be straight they gotta be white and they are have you ever had like your bite strength tested no no I well my father was a shark and and my mother was just a bucket of white paint so that’s why you know I am Who I am that’s weird yeah it is weird I don’t even know how they got together how does the shark another episode I can’t even still trying to figure that out okay so too bad we didn’t get to see it in action though but there is water you can just drink I will not stain your teeth yeah perfect preciate American water yeah but you got to watch it when drinking like a hot beverage through a straw like coffee man you could you get your sinning you know it’s the Melbourne o’clock rest to the back of yo me out there well I thought it one thing I think about is you know I I I use a new straw every day of course but drinking hot coffee if I’m straw yeah well like a like a disposable straw every day because I have coffee every morning well you could get like a metal straw oh yeah that’s the thing yeah they say eco straw you get a woods wooden straw too I think you just changed my life yeah get some wooden straw bamboo straw okay well I’m gonna have to definitely look into that because I’ve been using plastic straws and for a while now we’ve been thinking over the course of a year let’s say hypothetically I drink 365 cups of coffee one straw per coffee how much of the straw is getting melted while I’m drinking and how much plot so have I consumed a couple straws over the course of a year so what are the with the impact of that is making this up because I just said wooden straw because I figured it yep it exists you can buy them in a five pack handcrafted wood straw 5-pack $17 at sea reusable yes if they’re not that interior designs on them really holy mackerel yeah you need it you know what hey this is a sponsor right when I get back to Canada that’s first thing I’m bars first we’re gonna send you a pack that’s our that’s our thank you I’m making this biscuit I just made my day man thank you so much like a would straws all right so let’s get let’s go a little deeper than the teeth and I’m good stay here what he thinks about la I have you been to LA before yes I love LA I love California in general it’s just it’s beautiful it’s always sunny the people are beautiful you know you guys are here what more could you want but I mean it’s no Canada it’s that’s right I mean there are positives and negatives like MOG yeah oh there’s smog here mmm yeah we don’t get a lot we don’t get a lot of that in Canada stain your teeth no let’s ma get through a straw for now oh that’s what I’m yeah that’s right um no I mean I love I love living in Canada I live right near I live in a town called st. Catherine’s which is about 30 minutes away from Niagara Falls and Niagara Falls is the type of thing where you ever been over uh no I had definitely have not but there have been multiple people that have tried some survived some haven’t oh yeah it’s quite illegal but you’re gonna show on that yet uh no I’ve done I don’t know I’ve done the top ten on pretty much everything now but try think I’ve done one on that what we’ve done that but you can still do it actually I just did one on ten inventors killed by their own inventions and one of them was a guy that invented what he called the capsule and he used this thing to go over the falls and he survived so you do you know about this guy he was years later was something related right yes so so the first time he did it everything was fine so these guys I believe he was in Dallas Texas the Houston Astrodome I think it was and they created an artificial waterfall over something along those lines and he went over in the capsule except the Houston Astrodome was apparently much higher and what happened was he something like that and he fell when he impacted he hit the side of the pool anyways the capsule exploded he died and that was the end of that but he didn’t hit in actually like on target so that’s why he died so he was like doing a test he’s doing a ticket selling demonstration like he was a he was a celebrity it’s like come seed ready to win over the Falls go over the fake Falls here right and he’ll die you gotta stick to the real Falls when you want to yeah exactly well you know that topic is a good example of something that it takes thought and calculation to come up with a good subject for a good list video and you’ve you’ve you’ve got it down to you’ve honed it to an R you know but my question is there’s such a wide range of topics um of serial killers from to sports it’s a science to science fiction how do you decide what to do an episode on inventors who’ve you know who were killed by their own inventions you know where do these things come from well I actually have two sources one is real life so I’ll just be living my life I don’t know walk into a store and something will click and I’ll just say oh that’s a good idea I’ll put it down on my phone the other one which is usually my biggest source is sometimes it’s all the internet obviously so I’ll either Google just a random topic or I will use one of the I have a I have a folder in chrome where I have and this is I’ve never told anyone this so this isn’t for you guys but I have a folder in chrome where I have about 10 or more list websites and you guys know there’s tons of these list lists websites and what I’ll do is I’ll search randomly through their lists and then I’ll find one so for example I’ll find a you know 6 the 6 creepiest foods or grossest foods on earth and then that’ll be like ok that’s a great topic so what I’ll do is I’ll use that idea and google it and use you know I’ll cherry pick from the 10 websites that pop up and cherry-pick the best ones and then do further research on those so I never just use one website because you’d be surprised at how much false information there is especially when you’re doing like my series 50 amazing facts a lot of these facts quote unquote websites that are out there you know especially the ones that people share on Facebook and things like that a lot of them I’d say 50% of them are false yeah of the ones that you read online once you actually look into it they’re either completely false or just unfounded like and they’ve been replicated on multiple websites sometimes yeah yeah it’s the type of thing where you know a false fact B almost becomes truth because everybody starts saying it like even when you you know one of these websites will misquote somebody or something and you know then BuzzFeed will pick it up and then cracked I’ll pick it and they just all pick it up and so it but it’s but it’s false so in in the first couple 50 amazing facts that I made I actually accidentally used a couple of those and ever since then people called me out on I thought oh I’ll call you out oh they definitely well I mean especially with a big audience they people yeah there’s always one and that’s it so ever since then I’ve been really really diligent about researching these things and you know if I can’t find absolute guaranteed something that I’m certain about I just leave the fact out now well interesting we can say you know with good mythical morning we basically apply the same system in terms of when we do a list episode right which I want to get into that I want to get into this the dynamics of that and how we and you feel about that that approach but as you say that I mean that’s definitely our approach our approach is let’s not just go to one website because a we don’t want to just do the same list that somebody else did because then it’s just we’re just biting off for them so but if there’s what there’s a list on the internet it’s been done 10 times of course and so yeah everything’s are remixed remind your favorites and then cut in offer commentary yeah yeah but we’ll get into the mechanics of that that later but we want to we want to find out about the the Matt that became the Matt Santoro of today so let’s go back I’m assuming the origins are in Canada yes yes do you want me just begin yeah where did you come from well my mother well my mother but um essentially I grew up in a small town again this is something I haven’t told anyone before so but I grew up in a small town called well in Ontario obviously and I lived there for most of my life and then I moved to st. Catherine’s with my now ex-girlfriend and now I live on my own but when I was when I moved to st. Catherine’s I was studying accounting and I went what about even before then so you moved it okay you did you move that you you moved to st. Catherine’s to study accounting well you know I know okay I went to Brock University in st. Catharines and I was actually living with my mom for many years and I lived there while I was studying accounting and I graduated that then moved to st. Catherine’s that was the time line and I got my master of accountancy degree and that took five and a half years let’s let’s figure out what is it what contributes to someone wanting to be an accountant um my my dad has been in business his whole life and now he actually teaches business which is a lot more less stressful apparently but yeah my dad was always in business so I decided you know what you can you know basically I want to do something in business I remember my accounting teacher in high school saying to me well Matt you know I know you don’t know what you want to do but if you want to make money go into accounting cuz you’re guaranteed to make a lot of money I thought okay well I’m in high school I don’t know anything so that sounds good you hear a lot of my dad does it yeah well plus my dad’s in business so I just kind of kind of fits so I went into that um what does your mom do cuz you could have done that uh my mom jeez I don’t even my mom works at like an employment thing so when people for immigrants so when immigrants come in she helps them get jobs and just helps everybody get jobs type thing she works for the government basically okay um but yeah so yeah and I’ll just tell the story if you want any more details just jump in let me know but yeah so I got my master of accountancy degree and when I graduated I worked in accounting for about two years now immediately upon graduating I are just before actually I had really discovered all these people that were making videos on YouTube raywilliamjohnson was the first person I discovered this was 2010 or actually late 2009 I discovered him and then I discovered dan brown pogobat philip defranco wheezy waiter Tessa Mickey Kitty Julian Smith just all these people that were pretty talented now you are you had graduated you had an accounting degree I grab at this point at this point at the end of 2009 I’d graduated with my undergrad and then between 2009 and 2010 I was working on my master’s degree there’s only one more year and that so you started working on your masters and started watching YouTube videos well yeah you can do both of the same time you yeah sure you can and when I started watching these people you know it was so entertaining and I realized my god these people are famous like they’re basically internet famous and especially with Ray he was doing it out of what looked like his apartment and I was just fascinated that this is a whole new world that we live in that these people can start this type of stuff with just a web what looked like just a webcam and I was just fascinated by so I thought to myself but after about six months of watching these people I thought I could probably do that now that takes a certain kind of person though well it does yeah because the the average person I I think that’s changing you know I know that I think kids especially who are watching youtubers now it’s kind of built in that oh this can be a career because I know there’s people who do this as a career right but it takes a certain kind of person as an adult with a degree to be watching YouTube content and then make the connection to oh I could be doing this so I mean were you just were you a guy that liked to perform for people no like any kind of background well it’s kind of weird that I went into accounting because my whole life I’ve been a kind of a goofy guy I always enjoyed making people laugh I’ve always enjoyed facts and things like that but I never like when I started YouTube I never thought you know oh this is gonna be a career I just thought I’m just gonna do this and this will always be something that’ll be my creative outlet because when you’re an accountant like I mean if you’re crunch often yeah you need something or else you’re gonna you know lose it so that’s just what I did I started doing that working basically 9:00 to 5:00 Monday to Friday doing videos on Saturdays writing the video through the week at night so it’s kind of a hustle what was your living situation of the time because you said you moved to st. Catherine’s yeah so I moved here to st. Catherine’s with my girlfriend upon moving in with her ex-girlfriend upon moving in with her I you moved in with your ex-girlfriend no well a girlfriend at the time okay that would have been weird no but I moved in with her and then I just I just was like okay now I’m going to start making videos I’m in a new place fresh start let’s just start making videos so I went out I got a crappy handycam Sony Handycam I mean it was 1080p that’s all I cared about I didn’t know anything about video editing I didn’t know anything about um you know white balancing so my video my first set of videos were very orange looking no lighting no mic or anything but I just jumped into it and everything I learned I was completely self-taught off youtube and I just had a really big imagination so I what I would do is come up with what I wanted to do in the video and then figure it out after I never thought like oh no could I do that I never thought of that I just shot what I wanted to do and then figured out how to do it through you YouTube tutorials I’ve never taken a class on video editing nothing like that never learned how to shoot you know professionally or anything like that just learned everything myself so and creatively you I mean looking back at your earliest videos very different than what you’re doing now yes I can see you know when you list your influences you can you can definitely see that at the beginning you were kind of emulating you got a little bit of a you got a little bit of fill talking about maybe a current event here there maybe you got a wheezywaiter clone yeah I mean yet you get good I like this it’s you know you definitely see hey they’re doing this I’m just gonna throw it all against the wall and then see what sticks Yeah right that’s kind of basically yeah and I mean if you look at my earliest videos I’ve always done lists I’ve always done that they just weren’t top 10s I’ve done you know everything from you know 10 ways 10 ways to lose your man card which is just a ridiculous video but I was one of my first videos and that was inspired by something I heard on the radio side disc jockey we was talking about a man card and I thought it was a hilarious topic so I just came up with 10 things how to be a manly man which is ironic because I am the farthest thing from everything on that list like I’m not like a manly man at all I know you’re not a card carrier actually I am because the guy that owned like I it’s like man card calm or official man card calm they found the video and it contacted me and said we love this we what’s your address we want to send you an official man card so I got yeah so I got that look like it’s just a black man card with my name and it says members since and then it has my date of birth and then till death yeah that’s what it says I’m seeing with a certificate and everything so you got a man karma by knowing somebody that’s I well we all have hey as long as you got we all have our man card until we lose it that’s the way the man card but I don’t really believe that stuff just that’s just the technical how it works but yeah so and that’s about it so I started doing skits no no you listen we get into you know that’s this transition from those early videos so to what you’re doing now wait describe st. Catharines because that’s is that where you’re at now that’s where I’m at now yeah okay about a hundred and fifty thousand people not a very big town I’m not too small though not too small I mean well and where I grew up which is 15 minutes away from that is only 50,000 so I moving on up but if you look at like Buffalo New York Niagara Falls is about 30 minutes above that st. Catharines is about 30 minutes above that Toronto is about an hour and a half above that just to put it into perspective so that’s that’s where I live okay and it’s in and if you’re doing accounting mm-hmm which I which you’re at a desk right this is this is there’s not a lot of movement going on no if you’re entering in your lifestyle situation into like one of those fitness apps you put sedentary base if you’re an accountant yeah so it might it’s one thing to be like okay well on the weekends I’m going to what kind of things did you hunt moose that’s a little thing I’m sorry there’s different things that you could do but you were like I’m gonna do this other thing which it’s is a little you know this less sedentary than accounting but it wasn’t like okay I’m gonna go and do this other thing to bring myself some satisfaction well what what what was the initial allure of that were you like that just seems more fun like those people seem like they’re having more fun or those people seem like they are reaching more people um I don’t know it’s just it’s it’s hard to explain I mean I like I just jumped into it because it looked like something that I I don’t know I can’t really explain it to you to be completely honest it was just something that I’ve always enjoyed entertaining people I was always a goofball in high school and grade school so I thought to myself this is a way to continue doing that just to the people that watch me on YouTube so instead of high school or grade school you know now that I’m an adult well this is my only other way to do it so right that’s just it was just my creative outlet it’s really all it was and so yeah just continued from there and it was something that just happened as an outlet you know on the weekend I imagine you sitting at your accounting desk I mean we had engineering jobs rep more than me would sit at his engineering cubicle and obsess about all the things that he wanted to be interested in besides what he was only paid to do yeah so I imagine you think about like this is what’s going into my video this Saturday oh yeah Oh totally it was really the only way to keep me sane you know that’s the only thing that kept me sane and the only thing that kept me awake was a lot of energy drinks and coffee just a terribly unhealthy unhealthy job and you’re sitting there all day and I’m so glad I’m doing what I do so much better so as you split your time between accounting and YouTube there there was no room for that girlfriend she had to hit the road no no no no no nothing like that her name’s Marcy she was the most so isn’t is one of the best people I’ve ever known it just it just didn’t work out we we after a while we’ve been together for we were together for five years just kind of after a while seemed like we were just really really good friends you know it just kind of happens there was no juicy story nothing ever nothing happened no one did anything we’re still really good friends she’s still very supportive we have caught coffee once in a while so everything’s good on me through a straw she doesn’t drink through a straw picture that’s great that’s who one cup of coffee two straws yeah you were dating yeah I know something like that but no no it’s a couple months ago and well okay fresh this is woke a John Deere biscuits yeah it’s a June so July August yeah bout two two and a half two months ago two and a half months ago and Wow this is a five year relationship yeah two months ago yeah you move out she move out I moved out because I moved in with her originally was still her apartment so I moved out and but it was you know it was really tough but it was it was something that I knew was the best thing for the both of us you know and it was super tough because she was one of the most supportive people and like I said one of the best people still is one of the best people I’ve ever known in my life but it’s just sometimes you just don’t click and a half chemistry and it just didn’t work so it was just time to move on hmm so to go back from those first videos start to walk us through the transition from emulating the youtubers that you watched to moot you said you were doing some list based things pretty early on we can see that but I you know in looking back through the channel I think there’s certain milestones that I can you can count I can kind of trace an evolution to arrive at what what you have today in your mind how did that happen and you know leading up to a point where you could do this full-time I’m curious how recent that’s been um I it’s kind of it’s tough i okay so right up until the end of should I think of the timeline now so it 2014 2013 so right up until the end of 2013 I was about October ish I still only had about 15,000 subscribers and though working full-time uh no so that’s part of the story – I was actually laid off that’s what so I’ll do a little backstory so what actually happened was I was working in accounting for two years and I was working for a small firm what happens the risk of working at a small firm is there much more if the economy goes bad or anything happens there more you know something likely for to do layoffs type thing and that was the moment where a light bulb went off because I remember the day I got laid off I came home and I wasn’t upset and I actually I remember looking at Marcy and smiling and saying I got laid off and it was a it was like it was like this seed of doubt this voice that was in the back of my head for these two years you know really came to the forefront and said hey I’ve been telling you this whole time you weren’t happy you know let’s make a change and it was that moment where I realized you know we live in a world now where the the quote unquote safe fruit is not that safe we were always told to go to university get a good job work the nine-to-five do that for 40 years and then you die raise a family and that raised the family first not from as a corpse it generally doesn’t work out and people into that so you know raise a family and then you die but that doesn’t that’s not the world anymore and people are waking up to that fact and I’m just glad that I woke up to that at a relatively young age because I’m 29 right now I woke up to that at the age of 27 and I think it took me as long as it did because era I didn’t realize it longer because you know you spend five and a half years in school you know you can’t it’s it’s hard to say jeez well I changed my mind you know it’s really I think this is you know what I really want to do and it it takes not many people do that because if specially when you already have a job I mean who’s gonna leave a nine-to-five job where you have pay to to follow you know a wild goose chase I mean making it on YouTube is like winning the lottery it really is it’s very very difficult and I was blessed enough that that happened to me but you were at that point yeah one year ago now basically it’s almost October yeah so one year ago you laid off yeah and you got that small interface because you knew I can go all-in with YouTube I was laid off a year before that actually so yeah so uh well what happened was October ish was the almost one year anniversary of getting laid off okay so that whole time I was broke I had no money you know I’m that’s one of the reasons I’m so thankful to Marcy cuz she really helped out during that time and you know I was getting some unemployment and stuff so that kind of health but really I was hurting bad luckily I had a bit of a savings or I’d been a really bad shape but so you know on the year anniversary when my unemployment insurance ran out I had literally no money I just but that whole time I never stopped doing youtube because I thought to myself and and I started doing other things I started shooting some weddings to make ends meet I started doing we’ve all been there yeah you do what you have to do you use the skills you’ve you’ve done I’ve gotten over the last three years on YouTube to start going in different directions and I thought to start thinking myself okay maybe no I didn’t enjoy wedding video right-minded I know you’re one of the lucky ones it wasn’t I mean you know it’s a if have you guys done that it’s a long day it’s a really we did yes we did it’s a very big one it felt like more though yeah it felt like more weddings than well I only shot one full day wedding so that’s probably similar to you guys but I did a lot of like just the ceremony you know a few hundred five hundred bucks like just you know it’s hard to live off of that yeah and you know but I never gave up hope I just kept doing YouTube and I thought to myself if I just throw my tentacles out there and touch on a little bit of everything maybe something will take off and it just so happened that in October I think it was October anyways I took a two-week trip across America do you guys remember the Ford Fiesta movement yeah where they gave away a bunch of cars into a bunch of youtubers well my friend Scott in Buffalo took myself and my friend Rob Dyke across America to visit our friend Dylan whose channels householdhacker in Portland Oregon right yeah so we went down to Buffalo picked up Robyn Massachusetts came all the way back to Buffalo when all the way to Portland and came all the way back to Buffalo and then I went home and then he dropped Rob off in Massachusetts because I didn’t I couldn’t handle being in a car for another even eight hours after two weeks but that trip really did a lot for me because I did a lot of networking in Portland I you know I signed to the collective which is Dylan started the sub Network called tube unity he convinced me to sign with them and that’s really when everything took off I started meeting people just now working more and then all of the sudden something happened where it just kind of happens I don’t know if that happened to you guys I know you guys have gone viral several times I mean your videos are speak for themselves but for me I’ve never gone viral so my growth was very sudden because right up until December I had about 30,000 subscribers and it took about six months to reach well eight months now to reach 2.5 million so that it all happened very quickly and there was about a three month period there where I was getting 25,000 subscribers a day which and I was right behind PewDiePie in terms of growth there were some days where I even beat him absolutely nuts it is what was the first time that you recognized that that was happening because you’re saying it wasn’t one viral video it was a it was a surge in the channel now how long did a decision to only do list videos precede that wave of subscribers uh so what happened was I didn’t truth be told I didn’t want to be known as the list guy I always considered myself very creative I didn’t want to give up my you know skit roots the whole skit thing that I was doing so I would do a skit one week and then I would do a top ten list the other week why I started doing top ten lists I don’t know I’ve just always liked the I’ve experimented a lot I’ve tried top twenty I’ve tried top 40 top fifty five seven I’ve tried all kinds of numbers and just through experimentation I realized that people really liked top tens there’s just something about that round number people like because you would see in the performance of those that’s right that they would you know you’d get it it was all in the analytics it would start breaking a million views at some point well I wasn’t getting that at first um it’s funny before all this happened I was happy to get 2,000 views a week I thought that was a lot cuz it is K I mean it’s all relative light like if you think about that that’s 2,000 people that watched your video so now that I get a million in like five days it’s just it still blows my mind cuz in many ways I’m still that same guy in my head but yeah I would do a skit one week and then the next week I would do a top ten and then I would do a skit and then the top ten and back and forth and and I we ended the video you would say you know you would call people to subscribe to push that big red button and you’d say subscribe to see my other comedy videos and I remember seeing that and I was like well are they list videos are like videos so there was this trying to figure out and I think that that was my assumption was there’s an identity crisis going on here the fans want those lists yeah but he wants to be a comedian it was it was an evolution it was a transition I that was where it was happening where you know I started looking at the analytics and thinking oh my god I’m getting 50,000 views on the skits but my lists are getting 200,000 yes so what would happen and I would notice that there was a huge jump at subscribers when I do the top tens just boom happens so I was thinking myself what would happen if I exclusively did top tens and the rest is history that’s really that’s really what it that’s really what happened but it wasn’t an easy decision it was not if you look at my outro screen I stopped using the word comedy and I stopped like if you up until a certain point I would say subscribe new comedy videos every Saturday right and I left that in there for a while even after I started doing exclusively top 10s but after a while I started realizing and I started and I even started taking them out of the category of comedy because up until then they had all been considered comedy and I the reason I left it as that is because I always was doing a little like you guys have probably you know you’ve seen it I do a little bit of comedy in between the facts try to keep it light kind of like a bill and I was a big inspiration for me that way it was interesting the infotainment type stuff yeah so I was I would that’s kind of what happened I realized you know what this is more education at this point the comedy is secondary so I took the word comedy out of my endcard where I call people to action to subscribe and and I started moving it to the classifying them as education in the education category and that actually I think hurt my subscribership actually because as soon as I did that I started going from 25,000 a day down to I’m about at 6 I average 6 to 8 thousand a day now which is still nothing to sneeze at but that’s a big drop and I think that I think part of it was because of the switch from comedy to entertainment or – sorry education because I think a lot of people look at look for more comedy videos than they do education videos but education is pretty big on YouTube now so it’s I’m still getting a decent amount of well you know this is so fascinating I mean we’re so fascinated with this obviously because we have an interest in understanding this platform but I think it’s so cool to talk to you right now because you are in the middle of this right I mean you’ve gained a million-and-a-half subscribe subscribers since May hmm yep crazy right in know viral video that’s why I’m proud of that cuz it’s like I stopped well I think a lot of people would consider multiple million views viral but yeah yeah not viral in the turn of the ways you guys 10 millions or whatever yeah but it’s just so fascinating because you started with a certain thing and you know one of my favorite videos of yours is you’re a million subscriber thank you video where you show your first oh really that you you put up because I think it helps to kind of encapsulate the process so much you’ve got this video that you you say this is gonna be embarrassing for me to show you know you and she said you were you were definitely preparing the audience for how embarrassed he was gonna be by showing this video and then it’s a totally different style like we said it was very easy to see the different things that you have pulled from to put this video together the the different people that you’ve been influenced by and now to see how so much has you’ve honed in on this very specific style that is working and so there’s this dynamic of like well I kind of wanted to do this but the audience has dictated that I’m doing this and it’s addictive is it not it’s very addictive it’s very true especially especially when you it’s something you’ve wanted for three-and-a-half years yeah and for it to finally happen I mean for anyone out there that hasn’t experienced anything like this it is it’s almost like a drug like you get like a high off of it like you start seeing all these people like ten thousand subscribers a day it’s like oh my god like you get excited it’s like that’s a lot of people like I’m growing so quickly and you get hooked on it so you want to do more top 10s and more of what you’re doing to keep those people coming and it just keeps growing and growing and it gets it’s it’s it’s like a drug addiction I don’t want to say that what it is it’s like it’s like I don’t want to call it Fame I don’t like using that word but it’s like the notoriety the attention it’s it’s addictive it really is well and I think I mean for the way I relate to it I mean obviously it’s cool to be recognized for doing something but when you just think about you think about the longevity you know you want to be in this business for a long time and you were the success not just to be able to say that I’m successful but to be able to keep doing it it’s it’s so you you gravitate towards the things that you’re like well I mean I kind of liked those sketches but boy they don’t want they don’t want that from me yeah so why am I gonna give them something they don’t want when I can just I can kind of systematically give them exactly what they’re asking for yeah exactly and and I mean it’s sort of uh it’s it’s a trade-off because when you when I used to do sketches and I mean I still enjoy that because you’re not boxed into a top ten format I can do anything I want I can move the camera I can shoot clones I can do all that stuff but you know when you upload a video like that and I remember getting you know say 2000 views on it but then I do it top ten I get far more it really I don’t know the the top tens outweigh the loss of not being able to have that creativity because you’re getting so much more attention it’s just it satisfies you in a different way you know what I’m saying so yeah I can’t be as creative but I mean you guys have probably seen some of my more recent videos I try to still use that creativity like I’ll appear right at the beginning like out of nowhere you know what I’m saying or like I don’t know like I’ll crash-land through the roof like I did in my most recent video so I elements of that are still there it’s not dead it’s just I’m I’m picking and choosing my how to use my creativity now mm-hmm is there a fear that either you’re still gonna get tired of it I mean that for certain people doing anything any one thing for too long can feel like uh being an accountant at a desk or is there a fear that the audience is gonna change their mind you do anything any one thing too long they lose interest um there isn’t a fear it’s how do I explain it it’s more of you know I think that people universally just like facts they like to learn things and they like to do it in a fun way um do I think that you know this could all go away someday sure I do I think YouTube could you all go away someday not just the the the popularity of lists so um I don’t ever think about the future I really don’t it’s that’s something that I’ve learned in the last year is live in the present because there’s so much happening in my life like right now I mean this I’m here for LA for a week it would be a terrible thing to think at any point during this week oh jeez I wonder you know if I’m gonna lose views next week or subscribers it’s like May and live in the moment I’m here now I’m I’m you know on ear biscuits like this is a cool opportunity I get to see you guys again like it live for the now man like that’s the thing that I tell people all the time it’s don’t worry don’t live in the past what’s in the past in the past don’t think about the future because all we have is right now and you know that’s something that I truly and take risks that’s the most important thing is that a is that a discipline you’ve required or do you think that is a personality makeup that you have that it’s a gift that comes along oh no that’s something I’ve learned okay I believe it or not up until recently I was a extremely conservative person I taking a trip to LA by myself forget about it a year ago even six months ago but them every single time I realized that every single time I’ve ever stepped out of my comfort zone something amazing has happened from it every single time and to anyone listening honestly that would be my one thing I want you to take away from any of this advice I’m giving is step out of your comfort zone and truly do something that scares you do something that sounds amazing but you know is absolutely terrifying for you and you will one of two things will happen if it’s if it’s YouTube some incredible opportunity could come out of it or if nothing else you’ll just grow as a person and that’s really important to grow as a person you don’t want to stay stagnant and do the same things over and over cuz that’s that’s a boring life man do something exciting you know what I mean so that’s I don’t know that’s my PSA I want to talk about the specifics of you know how the content has arrived at what it is right now you know there’s there’s a couple of things I mean it’s not as simple as okay well I was doing some sketches and and now I’m just doing the list videos but the tone how I would describe the guy who is delivering the information in your most recent video versus your first video right so in the first video it was like okay I’m a funny guy I’m a comedian and I’m gonna do and say some things that are funny and this is all for your entertainment this is all to make you laugh now it’s very much this is very much about you actually getting what I’m saying almost to the point that your your tone your enunciation you are you are speaking to the audience as if it is very important that they understand almost as if you’re taking into account that there are people out there who are ESL you know the English is a second language you are clarifying things very almost to the point where you’re like okay if I’m if I’m in a American guy your age I would be like I almost feel like you’re you’re speaking you’re not speaking to me do you know what I mean yeah I’ve actually gotten many messages from people that are ESL that have said you know my second language is English but I’m I’m I speak Spanish so I speak French and that your videos are teaching me how to speak English believe it or not they’ll say things like I totally believe your pronunciation is excellent and for the record I don’t actually speak that properly all the time but doing these videos has really taught me to speak properly because we all kind of use slang and say like hey what’s up or something like that right like I just said something like that like I don’t that’s how I speak like everyone speaks with how did you come to that decision huh did you get did you buy videos back so I’d watch the videos back and be like oh what did I say there you know what I mean like and as a viewer I don’t think they’re gonna understand if I said this word or this word so I started really being careful and it happens all the time and I like you know people don’t realize how long it takes to make these videos not just because the research but I do often you know 20 takes on one sentence because I can’t get that T out properly and it’s minute matters I can’t think of any specific example but just that type of stuff and it’s frustrating but you know I find myself it’s it’s now carrying over to real life where I’ll be talking in a conversation and I will purposely catch myself before I even say the word in pronoun pronunciate it really correctly uh so yeah it’s it’s funny how to go back to what you were saying about my original videos to now it’s you sort of and tell me if you guys agree with this you sort of find your on-camera persona your presence you know when you first start you’re kind of you don’t know what you look like like now when I make a face I know exactly what it looks like to the other person while I’m making it because I’ve done it I’ve seen my face a hundred million different ways right um especially the teeth right I’m just like I know exactly what that looks like Oh without a doubt I mean you know I would say we’re very much ourselves on good mythical morning but anyone who listens to ear biscuits will know that the the the tone of what you’re gonna get on the air biscuit and what you’re gonna get on good mythical morning are they’re they’re distinct you know and there’s a different energy there’s a different yeah same person but you know it’s a different package yeah I definitely relate to that and you get that I mean I we’ve lost the majority of our southern accent because of watching ourselves back for years upon years not video and it’s not necessarily I don’t think it’s it’s not being ashamed of the southern accent but it’s a I don’t know how that’s coming across to the masses right so if I want to speak to everyone it’s so definitely relate to that mm-hmm and they say that you know do you guys hear an accent the way I speak because I’m Canadian you I hear that do you I mean on a number of words but yeah not you know put explain like what I’m curious to hear this because I hear America say that all the time baby Oh UT Oh God it’s mostly about yeah see I see you’re trying you’re trying I try but if I say it quickly like about it’s it’s a rounded out like it’s not it’s not a boot like people exaggerate boot it’s not a boot it’s about it’s like it’s oh you it’s like rounded it’s strange it I don’t know why we do that but I would say that I mean my advice to all three of us would be let’s just kind of keep it where it is right now it’s like it’s it’s been you know it’s it’s the edges have been taken off of it but we don’t want to go any further you should you should still I should be able to tell that you’re Canadian by hearing you talk I think that that’s an asset yeah I think I think it is I mean some people I mean look at a British youtuber any one of them really they’re super popular why well because you know Charlie McDonnell for example it makes great content but people love that accent it’s a it’s a rare import type thing you know I’m saying like they’re they watch it and it’s like all that I like that novel it’s another thing that you’ve done is you you’re clean you know your your initial content had never used to be had some off-color stuff tell us about that evolution um I I so I never really swore heavily there’s one video that I say everything and a lot of it and that was just an experimental video to see how it would work and I got a lot of feedback from that video saying like especially from like my family and stuff they did say things like all geez like we didn’t really like that and I was kind of embarrassed by it so I didn’t do that ever again but yeah my original videos I would only say the S word I’d never said the F word if I did i bleeped it and it was intentional I would write it into the script for comedy yeah but now cuz I don’t really speak like that but in in now I purposely leave that out because I know I have a very young audience so I mean I have an audience of all different ages but really probably from like 8 to 16 8 to 20 so it’s still fairly young I get a lot of letters on my second channel where I do my mail with Matt series a lot of eight-year-old ten year olds twelve year old so not just the fact that I know they’re watching but I also get a lot of messages from parents I get a lot of parents messaging me on my Facebook page saying hey I just wanted to say thank you for your clean content I love my son watching your videos cuz he learns things and that’s cool like you know like I wake up pretty much every morning I have my coffee through a straw and I sit there and I and I have my cereal or whatever I’m eating and I answer my facebook messages that’s kind of a tradition that I have every day in my tweets and stuff and a lot of them are from parents a lot so that’s kind of I kind of think to myself like I have almost an obligation at this point you know like 2.5 million people that’s a lot of people it’s the same thing with you guys what do you add three point five three point something good mythical morning yeah that’s a lot of people like think about that that’s that’s almost double the size of like Toronto right so you got a figure you know you have probably a lot of people that wake up that expect a certain quality of content certain amount of cleanliness and if you go out there and start dropping f-bombs it’s an off-brand thing you know it’s a branding thing really is what it is so that’s I just try to keep it clean yeah do you see YouTube as a game Rhett and I refer to playing a YouTube game as that way of characterizing the techniques to build a channel do you see it as a game no I don’t you know what I don’t not not in a trivialization kind of a way you know I know you’re saying in like a strategic everything is a decision what’s the thumbnail what am I in the thumbnail am I in every thumbnail what’s the title is the number-10 well that stuff matters that once a week and you have to be cognizant of that and you definitely have to pay attention to that but I still I’m actually really glad that my growth happens so rapidly so quickly because in many ways I’m still and I’m also glad that I struggled for so long because in many ways to this day I’m still that guy I still remember having 10,000 subscribers and thinking man I would love to be famous because like like it’s cool to have that many people I still don’t look at myself as famous I you know I don’t really like that word but now I definitely have notoriety now but it’s cool yeah I don’t know I I don’t look at as a game I look at it as okay I know what I have to do I know I have to put myself in the thumbnail with a with a goofy face with the smile and the teeth people expect that they look for that every Saturday morning I know that I have to put a 10 in the title I know that I have to use catchy title like blah blah blah you didn’t know or blah blah blah of all time or you etc you guys know how that stuff works very BuzzFeed II type styles of words and but I but I don’t look at it as what can I do to get the most views I don’t look at it like that I use a certain standard and that’s it because I don’t like to I never look at my analytics I never look at there was a while there when I was getting the 25,000 a day where I was looking at man likes every day is getting excited about oh my god a quarter of a hundred thousand people it’s amazing but I don’t do that anymore because you can really get obsessed with that stuff and you can really like I said it’s almost like a drug like you start looking for it and it’s like oh like I wonder how many I’m gonna get today it’s like you’re feigning for those subscribers yeah I know this might sound silly to people listening but until you actually experience it it’s a bizarre thing mm-hmm and I don’t do that anymore I just I’m sort of returning almost to my roots of I’m just a guy that likes making videos I just want to continue doing that and I’m just gonna make topics that I find interesting I’ve never done I think there have only been one or two occasions where I’ve done a topic that I really wasn’t interested in but was so highly requested that I had to do it but every other video is sort I’m not into zombies much this is actually pre top-10 I think trying to think now I know it wasn’t it was top ten it was called ten ways to survive the zombie apocalypse and I’m not a zombie guy I’m really not I’ve never gotten into Walking Dead I think it’s a decent show but I’ve never really got into that whole genre so that’s an example of one you wouldn’t do now I know I probably would because again it was so highly requested that it was just something like I can’t ignore this anymore but 99% of my videos or things that topics that I would find interesting and that’s always how I’ve done my videos is a topic that I only make videos and put out videos that I would like to see and I’ve always run my channel that way I’ve never done a video and I’ve never put anything in a video that I haven’t been proud of or have thought to myself you know oh I don’t know about that I’ve never done that it’s always been that’s cool I gave 100% at that and I think I think my content shows that even even as almost amateur as my original videos were there’s still a level of quality there and I pride myself on that and I’ve yeah I’ve never uploaded a vlog on my main channel I mean I I suppose I have one or two but nothing nothing consistent like that well I think it’s interesting you’re touching on something which is the balance between leading your audience and being led by your audience right having the audience dictate what you’re gonna do and then sort of dictating that for your audience which any youtuber I one of the the dynamics of YouTube is we are on the the opposite end of the spectrum from say the Coen brothers you know in the corn brothers sit down or Wes Anderson sits down it to conceptualize a film my impression is they could care less or they couldn’t care less about what people want right it’s very much about what they want to create we don’t have that luxury in one sense we have to think because it the audience is so involved in the audience is so responsive and they’re so vocal I think it’s a beautiful thing about YouTube it sounds to me one of the things I hear you saying because you’re you’re we’ve talked about this this this evolution of your content which is very much responding to the audience letting the audience kind of determine what you were going to make but you have a strong desire to hold on to okay I’m not gonna talk about things that I’m not interested in you know it may be one percent of the time but describe that balance of listening and being led by the audience and then leading the audience and coming up with what you’re gonna do next uh it’s it’s tough I mean um I kind of take the heavy Apple approach you know people don’t know what they want you just have to give them what they want yeah make them understand what they want to teach them what they would that type of thing yeah it’s pompous as that sounds but I think people for the most part just on what they don’t know they want yeah you know what I mean like don’t don’t follow what everybody else is doing is as ironic as that is because there’s a lot of people doing list videos but I think you know not to go off on a tangent but I think that’s what separates us from a lot of these other faceless top-10 channels or list channels and I don’t want to name names but I know the people behind almost all of them actually I’ll just say all-time tens you guys are probably familiar with them I know the entire team behind all-time tens amazing videos but what I think my in great guys but I think what my advantage over them in any other list channel except you guys because you use your faces is I use my face and people like to be spoken to by a person and a channel like alltime10s is fantastic and I love those guys but it’s just text on a screen with pictures and there’s something be said for having a personality and speaking to somebody because it’s it’s like being in school you know and when you’re in school you have that really awesome teacher everybody’s always had that one teacher just you remember forever because it you learn so much and they made learning fun that’s what I aim to do and I think that’s what we kind of all do here is is we you know you guys do it on good mythical morning and you guys have a lot of fun while you’re doing it in the audience picks up on that and it almost takes down the barrier for learning because when you’re in school people that’s why many people hate school and they they look forward to snow days and crap like that because you know they know they’re gonna come in they’re just gonna hear a lecture and it’s gonna be boring but if the I had this one teacher that always told a joke at the beginning of class it’s just loosened you up you know what I mean put the wall down so I think that’s what sets it apart us apart and I totally forgot what you asked originally now cuz I totally went off in a tangent well just 9ss why don’t you like danger dolan and I think that’s what Oh God you know it’s funny I just recently learned is that a serious question no I was didn’t want to mention names no I there he’s faceless yeah I just recently learned who that guy was and the funny thing is you know how I found out who he was was because I did a video called the ten inventors that were killed by their own invention yeah yeah and apparently that was like his first and I was unaware he even existed and it was also the first thing we talked about right but Niagara Falls yeah yep and he came all so many people see a lot of the people that subscribe to you subscribe to me subscribe to all time 10s subscribe to danger dolan and you know they people claim ripoff all the time i don’t know if you guys get it yeah but i get it all the time and it’s like man first and foremost first and foremost everything is a remix you guys know what I’m saying laughs there are no original ideas anymore everything that could have been done has been done by now and there’s actually a awesome documentary three-part documentary that’s free to watch online called everything is a remix have you guys seen it I know about it yeah you should watch it it’s really really good it’s fascinating anyways definitely check that out but um yeah I got a whole bunch of comments uh oh man you know you’ve lost your own ideas now you’re ripping this person off you’re ripping all the time tens off and it’s like there are multiple ways to do the same topic and I you know I never and that’s when I really sit for a while there I was searching a topic before I did it and I can’t tell you how many topics I threw in the trash because they were already done and after a while I realized you know what I’m not searching on YouTube anymore because it’s probably been done so I’m just going to do it and if people claim ripoff that’s cool because I’m still you know there’s that’s just gonna be 300 dislikes out of 50,000 likes I’m okay with that so there’s there’s multiple ways to do the same topic and just make it your own you know what I mean yeah and that’s another piece of advice I did tell anyone listening who wants to make youtube videos is don’t search if something’s been done already never ever do that if you want to do something like a morning talk show with your best friend and you know you want to you know have a rooster shooting fire out of it smells you know who knows if that’s been done before I don’t know but but do it you know what I mean jump in don’t research that stuff because you know it’s probably been done and it’ll just stop you from doing it and when you do it yourself you’re gonna do it in your own way and you’re gonna do it with your own personality in your own style so just jump into it don’t do the morning thing that’s been taken yeah but you know what I’m saying it’s just everything’s been done by now yeah I mean yeah we ease but when you do especially you know let’s say do five videos a week it’s we’d run into that problem quite a quite a bit and have to kind of make a decision was like okay well can you do can we do it differently I’m trying to figure out if I agree with that piece of advice Matt I don’t which part the the searching before you do I I agree with the sentiment that if you really have in your heart or mind to create something you should express yourself what here’s here’s an example I think the reason that we might be more personally sensitive to this is because our background is in more that you know like original songs yeah and sketch isn’t that kind of thing yeah we have to Google I’m a topic for a song before we throw ever as much as we’re gonna put into time and because you can’t if you can’t get out of that if you make I’m on a boat and you didn’t know there was I’m on a boat you can’t explain to anyone that that’s not like a subject in a top ten list right that’s a specific comedic angle right I mean here’s a great example I don’t know if you’ve ever told this story but we we did a song last year called yeah put the phone down no let’s get off this funky on the phone get off the phone and we wrote the song and it was called put the phone down we had written the song if it’s a branded it was a branded project so we had written the song it had been approved by the brand and everything and it was like you know what we always check this I don’t know why we did we didn’t check this one but let’s just make sure that this hasn’t been done and we found a video was it what’s the guy’s name DJ he did the whole foods rap I can’t remember his name we’ve met him a couple times he did the whole foods rap and so it’s getting real in the whole fools pocket yeah so he’s a comedic musician and he did a song called but the phone got the phone down and it was it was a rap and it was he had not only was it called put the phone down which is what we were gonna call our song he had some of the same exact jokes in fact he had a coffee shop scene in which he was waiting in line behind someone who was on their phone we had written a whole verse about in being in line behind someone who was at a coffee shop on a phone and there was like two or three other things we’re like how this happen how can you come up with the exact same title and the exact same jokes that’s Wells are because that’s just the way comedy work right observational comedy especially so we had to revisit the whole song we had to change the lyrics we had to change what we called it because from that standpoint it was like okay well but I feel I don’t I disagree and I agree because it in one sentence we’re not gonna not talk about the top ten whatever it might be just because it’s been done because it will have been done but we just want to check that okay well maybe it wasn’t done last week by a competitive YouTube channel and let’s see if we can come with a slightly slightly different treatment so a you know I think there’s just but you’re right if you’re gonna keep yourself from doing something that’s been done well you’re not gonna do anything yeah I just meant don’t allow it don’t let it be a hindrance right to your Creator don’t be boxed in but for example for myself if I googled I wonder if anyone’s doing top ten lists no I would have never been Ryan David Letterman good point the good point you know and it’s the same thing everybody’s done top ten David Letterman started that probably in some way influenced all time tens you know I didn’t know who all time tens was because I’ve been doing videos for four years but then people started mentioning them on my channel and then I started talking to them and I I met the guys behind the team and everything but yeah it’s like you know I would I wouldn’t be where I am if I started doing if I didn’t start doing top ten lists at all can you know consistently so yeah it’s you know it’s got to be a balance I think so if you think about where you’re going from here what’s next what is the next year look like how do you set your path as to how are you going to innovate well I thought this was the pinnacle right here isn’t here this is like am I not done is this is like yeah you can quit now Oh perfect cool if you decide not to quit now if I decide not to host cheese old yeah cheese I don’t know I know you don’t like to think about the future but I’m challenging you to think about the future yeah well I’ve been thinking about starting a new series that I really don’t want to mention right now because I looked it up and I don’t think it’s been done oh so it’s in but it’s exactly in line with what I’m and it makes a whole lot of sense and I unfortunately can’t talk about it here but I’ll tell you guys after okay but it happened it will tell everybody yeah that’s cool but no big deal I guess and then you guys might end up doing it at this point right now we’ll guess and a few guys I’ll tell you one of us will be right oh yeah if you guess it no we don’t want to do that to you go ahead go ahead shoot a couple oh oh I was gonna say we guess it’s exactly in line with what I’m doing now it makes a lot of sense okay I was gonna say a Spanish version of what you know okay all right we should do that I think it still is still gonna be list based but it’s going it’s not gonna be facts it’s gonna be 3d and now work with me here because he’s he’s he’s oradour and we’re good at this I think you’re about to get worried focus on me right now again all right he’s what he’s gonna do is still list base but it’s instead of being about facts I would if I were him I would go in a direction that maybe is it has it is advice no not advice you’ve done some advice and it’s not tips it’s not to know it’s in the exact same vein of what I’m doing now clips no it’s more no I think it’s gonna be examples of something that fit a category but not facts so right now there see if to try to read it it’s almost it’s all I see now you’re just fishing guys give us one hit well you want people to be excited about this right but you also you don’t want what I’m not gonna do it um and it would because I know if I say this someone will end up taking it and I don’t think it’s been done yet I mean but you’re on record saying you’ve done it and then you’re gonna run back to III I’m thinking about say well this is in line with what you’re saying about the future to go back to that what I plan on doing is just continuing what I’m doing but potentially continuing to evolve in any way that I see fit or that I think is necessary for the continuation of my channel but also to experiment a little bit then start something you know I just want to tell you guys now I I really shouldn’t all right use constraint here’s a better idea here’s an even better start your camera sit down with a stack of mail and spend the next hour and a half or more making a continuous video of opening and reading me do that that’s what you don’t like a terrible terrible idea this has been fun I’m gonna rescue from yourself so you know thanks for helping us make this here bisque it’s great to get to know you sign the table yeah we do like on-air like right now yeah sign it was not ten times can I be precise jenna Marbles and there you have it our conversation with Matt Santoro fascinating you know all right you can’t boil it down to just ten points in the list though you know you got a like a try you had it that’s what a near biscuit is but maybe I’m not how about 50 points I could boil it down to 50 amazing facts about what we just talked about but that would that would be difficult to do maybe he’ll do that Matt please don’t do that you don’t have to do that it was fascinating to me for a number of reasons I think it’s you know he’s one of the only guys that we’ve talked to on your biscuits who is in the midst of this amazing upswing a lot of people we’ve talked to have kind of been through a few ups and downs or whatever and that question of balancing between striking a balance between dictating the canta canta dictating the content and being dictated to by your audience you know being led by your audience or leading your audience is something that I can’t help but be introspective about because we’re doing a lot of the same things right we’ve touched on to some of the same subjects and good mythical morning taps into the same mentality a lot of times we do a lot of lists videos we do videos that we feel like are tapping into what people want to see right and it’s in it’s it’s so you know it’s easy when something’s working it’s easy to keep doing it I appreciated his honest response that you know when things start working it’s it perpetuates itself it’s easy to want to keep doing it now I think that you know there there does get to be a point when if you keep doing list videos you know I maybe he’ll get to a point where he has to ask the question well how many more of these do I want to keep doing you know he’s already talking about iterating kind of branching out into something different I think that’s smart I think he’s I think things to do that got to do that he’s also right that people are not gonna quit wanting to learn and I don’t think that people are gonna quit wanting to learn having things organized in a list I mean this is an old system that’s really being implemented onto a new platform but you look at someone like ray william johnson on equals three which he was heavily influenced by and Ray just couldn’t you know I haven’t talked to Ray about it I’d love to get him on your biscuits but I have surmised that Ray just he couldn’t keep doing the show he couldn’t keep doing equals three and setting up the clips and then knocking them down you know he had to move on to doing something else to move into acting and things like that so it wasn’t the audience that dictated that move it was certainly not it was him and so I think it’s when we talked to Matt at this point it’s still so fresh that I think when you ask him that question he’s like yeah I’m this is you know I just what I’m doing I’m not gonna think too much about the future I what I guess on my theory is I don’t think it’s gonna be the audience that is going to instigate a change in content I think it’s gonna be himself we can relate to that right you just you you you evolve you evolve as a creator well and for us you know I think our preference is to to not commit so fully to one format say with good mythical morning that we’re actually afraid of being pigeon-holed and you know I think that was behind some of my questions was just my own fear of well are we not going all-in enough with the things that were because we’re not willing to be seen as certain people who just make less videos or eat extreme foods you know you can’t sustain that five days a week anyway but right you know it taking more of a slow growth model which things are still working out for us but he may become it you’ve got to give them what they don’t know they want I think we throw that around a lot too and trying to figure out you know how are we gonna iterate on good mythical morning so it doesn’t get stale for the audience or for us yeah and I think you know words of wisdom from format that are very applicable to anyone who is making YouTube content or aspires to make YouTube content don’t get into the numbers chasing game even though you may look at what he’s done and he’s found something that’s working and he’s getting millions of views him saying that he’s no longer focusing so much on well how many subscribers are not getting in a day and I’m not going in and looking at the analytics because it is something you can really obsess about and I think it’s can be really unhealthy and we’ve been there we’ve been there and it usually happens in the midst of an incredible success is when you really get into it and then it kind of wanes a little bit and you start panicking yeah I also was impressed that he didn’t seem to have a chip on his shoulder about being a list video guy you know maybe he’s still in process but I think that he’s dealt with that and you know he he owns it and he says you know what I’m gonna make these list videos and they’re gonna people want them and I’m gonna give them to him and I’m gonna own that and even if someone else has already done something I’m gonna do it in my way and you know everything is a remix okay you know how much is kind of him preaching to himself how much is him you know actually believing those things I don’t know I think there’s a good question as I listen back to it well let Matt know how much you appreciated him and his ear biscuit you can do that on Twitter at Matthew Santoro he is the at Matthew Santoro account unless there’s someone who has somehow gotten verified and looks exactly like it but I’m almost sure that’s him so let him know hashtag ear biscuits let us know how what you think about your biscuit near biscuits in general you can do that by leaving a comment on iTunes a review a rating that’s very helpful to us you can also leave a comment on soundcloud and we appreciate you tasting this biscuit with us we’ll bake another one and speak at it next week [Music] [Music]