[Music] welcome to ear biscuits I’m Rhett and I’m linked joining us today at the round table of dim lighting is the creator of one of the most popular songs the internet has ever heard Chocolate Rain that’s right Tay Zonday now if you had a computer in 2007 or at least a library card that allowed you to go to the internet section of your local library you remember Chocolate Rain this video went viral back in that summer and immediately propelled Tay to the Internet Hall of Fame he quickly became the subject of parodies tributes remixes everybody wanted a piece of that sweet Chocolate Rain and today nearly eight years later Chocolate Rain has racked up over 100 million views and for those of you who didn’t have a computer or a library card in 2007 I’m gonna give you a refresher I know you’ve seen Chocolate Rain since then but I just want to describe it because it’s even fun to just describe it to have it wash over you even without even seeing it and Chocolate Rain the say Pia coloured video portrays Tay wearing a white t-shirt and singing in a microphone with his signature deep voice there’s occasional cuts to tape playing the keyboard and every once in a while he according to the text that he placed on the screen quote moves away from the mic to breathe in Chocolate Rain is a staple in the internet pantry people not pantry people I was I was referring in the pantry people he’s created a kind of online nostalgia really that immediately transports you back to the moment you first heard Chocolate Rain it’s like when I don’t know when like JFK died for like our parents or something or when you had your first child or that mm-hmm kind of like that it’s kind of like having a baby listening to this song I’m gonna transport you there again right now just latrine some stay dry and others feel the pain Chocolate Rain a baby born will die before the sim topless ring the school say it can’t be here again Chocolate Rain the prisons make you wonder where it went topless ring and say the will be dry chocolate rain zoom and see the light chocolate rain now the crazy over chocolate rain eventually faded but taya’s continued to maintain a career in web video for the past eight years and learning to ride that wave of chocolate rain that wave of chocolate rain get that I’m gonna use as many of those analogies as the fact that it’s just rain its water it washes over you can ride the wave just help me out is dominus rink I’m gonna sprinkle you with it it you can drink it in the ocean so I could down is a wave it’s not I could arrange or just ring brain waves you can if they get enough of it anyway comes in sheets the shutting waves he learned to ride the sheet of chocolate rain that led him on a really interesting journey into what it’s like to be known so well for something that became unintentionally huge and we talked to him about what it’s like to build a career on a moment like that yeah we also taught to tell you about his life before the sheets of chocolate rain how he suffered from severe anxiety agoraphobia and went many years essentially being a mute we talked about the creation of Chocolate Rain and how he handled all the craze and instant fame including our interview with him back in 2007 we also talked about how he perceives people’s perception of him perception inception he gets psychological and I think I we both said the word fascinating fascinating about we’re like multiple times during our conversation would say because you know what it was fast and it is I wasn’t doing a Spock impression you’re going to enjoy this biscuit but first we want to tell you guys about our sponsor who remember helps make ear biscuits a reality for you to enjoy EF college break the travel experts at the FK create amazing travel experiences for people aged 18 to 28 listen the only boring and tedious part of travel is the planning reserving flights and hotels figuring out what to do when to do it how to get from place to place all the necessary stuff 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looking forward to having this conversation I know you kind of came in here last minute we appreciate that but I will say that I’ve been looking forward to having the Tay Zonday your biscuit for quite a while there’s a number of questions and we’ve got we’ve got quite a history to go through not only with you as a person and as a performer but also with us collectively I think there’s some good stuff yes we want to hit on definite but you know having not released videos this year yet on either of your YouTube channels we were trying to you know do some research do some catch-up and one of the first things we found was an article out there that’s multiple multiple articles Wow alright seeing that you were spotted shopping for engagement rings with your girlfriend are you engaged I’m behind the times on this I need to apparently I need to be reading TMZ well that was the only one of the articles find the latest on tayzonday well the second article said that you had had a secret wedding ceremony oh my goodness I am just behind the time now I hasten down behind the fanfiction so there’s scene at your face I’m trying to figure out are you legitimately surprised and you you do legitimately look taking a back ride oh no I’m not glad you engaged I actually am NOT I am not engaged you know I don’t have time for relationships even people are always asked hello you’re not even in a relationship my goodness I seriously I can’t even find time to like tie my shoes I seriously and it’s funny because people always okay you must get all the ladies you must get all the whatever like you who are you after like yeah I mean well but be surprised how dull my life there’s no in its the interesting thing is is they’re seeing these articles there’s this one source this one source it’s difficult to ascertain the reliability of this source given our conversation already but also given the nature of this website when we were just trying to catch up on haha one of the things that it multiple articles including and engage the engagement the secret looking for engagement rings very large diamond heist oration of day on day I want a secret ceremony with a quote from a close friend I’m not kidding it was just like this is I you don’t know about this apparently I haven’t been googling myself lately okay well I’m gonna look so you haven’t you you’re not engaged you don’t have a girlfriend have you been like just perusing the diamond section just for I I actually have not but see every time you say that I think you’re about to say I actually have you’re like I actually am engaged but you’re like I actually am NOT you keep hooking me well no I mean honestly it’s the most boring topic I could possibly think of like I think the media and the world kind of fascinates about these aspects of your personal life when you two go through this I mean this is you know you’re you’re kind of big-time now you can’t either semi-famous you have the speculation and the fanfic I’m sure you’ve seen yourself and you know different cartoon configurations and whatever else people do yes I do out they’ve heard about it about you we have him we have team members who tell us do not marry the fan members I mean link fanfic no I I am thoroughly enjoying this tay zonday for much more no but I have got to read the headlines of some of these art because this is this is this one source that is now that now that I’m reading the titles of the articles I’m realizing this is a like a whole celebrity news spoof site and what give us the day this is like very recent this is not like a year ago this is like a – few days ago today that were requires it April third of the day we’re recording this hiepro second so it’s the day after April Fool’s all right so if we did this April Fool but it’s not Tay Zonday nude photos leaked online oh my goodness Tay Zonday x’ dog recovering from surgery Tay Zonday secretly married that was today Tay Zonday named sexiest singer alive that was yesterday okay Tay Zonday TIME’s Person of the Year 2015 this is all one website what’s the name of the website media mass net Tay Zonday to be a dad Tay Zonday goes Gangnam style Tay Zonday Tay Zonday is the highest-paid singer in the world that was yesterday and Tay Zonday new album in 2015 world tour this you don’t know in charge of his website are you I apparently not though I mean it some of them I’ll take you know hey is this your version of listen you know what they say about all publicity it’s suspicious is so intriguing this point just why I say about rhettandlink got nothing it said oh it says nothing about come on hit meaning the Internet I mean this website it’s a satire site guys oh yeah which that makes a whole lot of sense now but they’re fixated on satirizing you oh it’s a no you’re mean media mass is a parody news site best known for debunking celebrity rumors this is like us just lot live on the air discovering the I am I feel like this is a paid promotion for media seems like it I are they handing money under the table let’s see what it says about it let’s see what it says about us guys and I’m gonna be disappointed if it doesn’t say anything about us but there’s a Tay Zonday article for every single day is it automatically generating it says absolutely nothing about us you have like 50 articles oh man well you know I guess we playboy I am winning that procedurally generated algorithmic satire article game can you expound upon this recent tweet in your Twitter feed now this is posted on April Fool’s Day it I’m tired of lying I’m attracted to aliens I want to cuddle an alien feel tentacles all over my body and make interspecies children now you see I think that April Fool’s is like Vegas in terms of what happens on April Fool’s stays in April Fool’s and so it is April 2nd I think saying that it’s April 2nd is kind of like pleading the fifth so I am just going to separate myself from all actions all digital trails that were left by me on April 1st but but can I make an observation you can make it up ok so you’ve just confirmed that this was an April Fool’s Day prank tweet from you but I think it that’s that gives insight into your sis of humor because it’s not it’s such a bizarre tweet you thought he was serious no I’m just saying if this is a joke it’s an interest I mean I believe these articles about him getting married yeah you’re the one who fell for that I’m just saying that tell you if I read this if I read this sincerely well that’s it’s weird if I read it as an April Fool’s prank tweet it’s still weird interesting now why is that cuz it’s not it I guess this is the review the reverse interview yeah you said you’re like was hilarious okay okay I thought it was riveting you are you put you were playing into like the way that people like to speculate about you like I bet he wants to make love to an alien no no but but I think you kind of hit because the larger question here a larger problem is like I have problems with whenever I try to be deliberately funny ah I cannot be deliberately funny I can only be incidentally funny okay and this is that defines my career where it’s like I can be just being me just being every day and not trying to be funny being quote-unquote this straight man is it’s called an improv comedy you know just fascinating and it’s fine it’s many people laugh at it like oh gosh so when you go for the joke when I for the joke people have the exact reaction that you’re having what’s like hey uh okay maybe that was a little bit funny but you know it’s it’s also kind of creepy like you hit the wrong no fair dude I mean I I know you were trying to be funny but Kazon they joke that yes that was tazed on Days attempt at a joke God and you’re having a very typical reaction come on I read attempts at humor so many interesting things happening already but isn’t it it is you know your self analysis there I think I’d like to unpack over the good ones get into that get into that conversation before going all the way back to your birth because I do want to go all the way all the way back let’s go back to let’s go back to the first time that the three of us met and I don’t match do it now in that hotel yes that poolside room the Roosevelt the Roosevelt Hotel to do a segment was it was the show online nation yes yes yeah yes W exactly let me and I’ll set the stage here because we we I’m glad you remember that’s amazing yeah I think we may have touched base about this at one time over there because this has been eight years ago this happened just holy moly some perspective here but we were hosting the show online nation on the CW which some of the listeners may know was a really horrible show that we hosted four episodes it was a clip show we toss to internet video and your your video had gone viral and either the spring or summer or 2007 and then our show is coming out in the fall of 2007 and there was this whole debate about is it too late does it make us seem out of touch to talk about Chocolate Rain the first episode of the end of one of the first episodes of the season and we were like I feel like we’ve got to talk about this because it was such a big thing and they were like well you guys you know what you can do you can go and interview the guy behind this thing because he’s gonna be in LA for Jimmy Kimmel right so this is that the at the height of chocolate roll absolutely but online nature wouldn’t the first episode would not air for like another month until like October that was the that was the question of the timing but you know we wanted to not just be hosts but we wanted to go out on location we wanted to we wanted to create content and part of that if that was an interview then hey we were fine with that you know it was our first it was our first time working in LA we had visited and you know we were intimidated by everything and then now we’re we’re being told okay we’ve got like 20 minutes with you know what what we all called the Chocolate Rain guy you know we didn’t know you Estee even though we knew that was your name we were gonna interview you and yeah I guess Kimmel had put you up at the at the Roosevelt side room Roosevelt and it’s funny you recounting that experience of LA because that was actually my first experience as an adult at least since I was you know a kid I’ve been there a couple times but uh and I just remember that sense of awe being amazed like you know you feel the sunlight on Hollywood and Highland and it kind of exists weird filtered by pollution sunlight yeah that you don’t get in in the south in the Midwest and it’s like Minnesota where you were Minnesota where I was at the time and so it just that sense of LA being so new right and feeling different and I was totally green at the time of that interview like that was just like me being caught up in the whirlwind of the craziness of not knowing what to do and we we can illustrate that because we go – yeah we go to your door we knock on your door with our producer and your manager who is also you’re a relative of yours or somebody at the time I think you were traveling with like a was a brother or a cousin or my brother was there but somebody who was handling you at the time all right comes to the door and says well what we opened the door and we can see through the door which is on the hallway side I can we can look through your room and see the pool where we wanted to set up the interview yes and so hi we’re here I remember being a weird awkward situation somehow is this what we’re getting – yeah yeah we were like remember exactly what it was but it was it felt very awkward you’re gone your guard was up and we were like can we you know we wouldn’t you mind if we do the interview pull side and you were like sure and then we were like okay can we just can we just walk through your room get to the pool it’s right there and you were like no I prefer that you walk around in boundary mode we could have been anybody at that point well you were anybody I wasn’t expecting a film crew like I think I was just kind of freaked out I mean cause we had a guy with a camera he’s gonna walk through your room yeah and I I have so many stories of just kind of being a little bit freaked out by the entertainment industry and now it’s just like if a film crew mr. Cruz came and I was like hey you know sure come and do whatever I know what they do I think at that time I was just literally I went from being a nerd and we’ll get to this if we’re starting for my birth but I guess the voices go in there yeah I was literally a nerd in my living room making music as a hobby singing in front of bed sheets and Chocolate Rain sat around for two or three months without going viral right it was posted on the front page of Digg which is kind of like reddit back in that day the view is doubled in a week someone saw it on Digg posted on a 4chan kind of became a joke there and they prank called it’s on green show and it just kind of started to take off bro but but the point getting back to that moment the hotel yeah is that I was so swept up by like literally in a period of a couple weeks 30 or 40 radio interviews were completed by me in a very very it was a whirlwind whirlwind you know you know agents of all types booking agents and publishing agents and everyone and their mother people wanting me to sing at their Bar Mitzvah sing at their corporate parties sing every was trying to contact me about this video and I was literally still just a nerd in my living room inside and this is the thing that I want to get into as we talk about like you know that video kind of catapulting you to fame is that sense that at that time was probably the beginning of you figuring out exactly what people were seeing and then cutting and being like okay I’m beginning to interpret understand what they’re interpreting me as and how I’m playing into that absolutely so I think the best way to come back to that and talk about you know Chocolate Rain and in the last eight years is to go back to the beginning all right and who you are where you’re from Oh Michael so you start out you’re not you’re not teh the moniker yet you are Adam I am born Adam bought er some time in 1982 while living in Chicago okay I am the youngest of three by quite a bit my brother’s six years older my sisters 11 years older I would say being around older people all of the time tremendously shaped my personality I always felt very driven to be an act older than I was at every age and I think it also contributed to my being very much an observer I observed the behavior and other people and you know I observe and I mimic and I think that tends to be a dominant aspect of my personality even today okay what was what was the parental situation both parents in the house both parents in the house very very lucky to have two parents and they are still wonderfully married to this day and a lot of kids don’t get that yeah mom and what it what did they do or do now they were teachers my dad taught high school and my mom taught elementary school and then she was a principal for twenty years and you know I think the the benefit of that as a parent is you get to see how other people’s kids turn out and you kind of I don’t know if that shapes I mean I don’t know first of all is it because we’ve kind of started with the relationship silliness you know right first of all being in a relationship is a sustaining relationship is one of the hardest things you can do and so I I am absolutely amazed that my parents or anyone else has been married a long period of time I mean that is hard to be with one person for 20 30 40 years but then to have kids and raise kids and again that is one of the most difficult things you can ever do and I had no appreciation of this as a kid so I think these are insights that I I kind of get being an adult being 32 almost 33 now reflecting back on my childhood I think I see it with much rosier glasses and much more forgiving glasses because I’m kind of in the world I’m like wow that must have been really really hard yeah does your explanation of being kind of the young kid chameleon looking up to the older people kind of growing up early another way people put that is he’s got an old soul absolutely I had a tremendously old soul and and you know everyone told me that when I was like 10 years old so it wasn’t just something you you reapplied in retrospect because people asked about well you got the deep voice and well surely you’re affecting your voice and things of this nature where it’s people start to question and try to deconstruct you that you derive the reasons for that or is it something that even back then your parents were like yeah you were he was always an old son I was always very much an old soul yeah I remember one of my favorite role models when I was 9 10 years old was Lieutenant Commander data on stock generation and I loved the idea and also Spock and the original Star Trek I love the idea of being reserved and super intellectual and somehow greater than my own humanity now I read somewhere hopefully not on rets website yeah that your parents discourage you from listening to popular music so what what was behind that I would say that my parents you know because you got you you got piano lessons and like voice lessons early on like music was a big part of your child’s lessons but I did I did take some piano lessons I was no particularly good at them but I had took a few years of piano um I would say that you know my parents were fairly strict I mean I you know Bing schoolteachers and I think seeing other people’s kids and whatever I don’t know what their motivations were but you know I’d say they definitely had a vision of prim and proper MARY POPPINS kids that that was kind of you know their sense of a well-put-together family and you know is there any religious motivation behind that I don’t think it was religious conservatives because we were certainly I was raised Methodist Christian we went to to church certainly but I think it was almost kind of like like when I was a kid I wasn’t allowed to play with violent action figures couldn’t we couldn’t have weapons we couldn’t so I think like a man or something yeah I actually remember he-man and Shera from when I was like three four years old my room I wasn’t allowed to play with action figures all that had weapons or GI Joes or that type of thing I don’t know I mean I think it it was something that they meant well you know they’re like okay don’t have you kid don’t have a key Plan C I do so they don’t become violent or whatever I mean I I think there are so many things you do when you parent that it’s like you just kind of make the best call that you are able to make at that point in your life and you know I certainly there have been times in my past where maybe I would be a little bit angry about some of the more hurtful restrictions or whatever because you’re right I mean I didn’t feel free to listen to a lot of popular music growing up I felt and and part of that again was what I described earlier this very internal pressure I had to always be older always see more proper always seemed more reserved always seemed more adults than even the adults around me and so I think that also kind of fed into this sense of well you know don’t listen to you know who’s popular than you know Nirvana Korn Rage Against the Machine etc so you were raised in a pop music vacuum I think that’s that’s fair to say and I mean so what what would you pull from for a Chocolate Rain then well and in fact what’s interesting is I was raised in pop music vacuum but then the internet came along when I was 12 or 13 years old and around 13 14 I started being able to download mp3s and the internet was this wonderful place where it’s like I realized I could do any and my parents couldn’t see what I was doing and so it kind of became this second life so to speak which is why sometimes I think I relate so much to two kids in the digital generation now cuz I mean it’s it’s all like crazy with social media and like you know big kids going to sleep with their phones and whatever so what did you download you say that almost suggestively innocent bunnies and you know unicorns but music though what means though I remember the first mp3 I ever downloaded was Will Smith’s men in black remember that kind of I mean surely your parents would have been upset with that right I don’t know you don’t think you got to be violated offended galaxy I don’t actually know I realized that you know I I have a lot of perceptions I think especially when I was young uh I think I would perceive people very literally when I was young and so you know someone would say something to me once including my parents like okay you’re not allowed to do this and like I would remember that four or five six seven years later I’ve always had kind of that pictographic type of memory where it’s like if you say something and I think I was brutal like this as a kid you know where I be 17 18 years old remember something that my mom just said to me offhand when I was throwing to be like oh wait you actually did say that and / compliant like absolutely proper that is the best word / compliant I was an / compliant pleaser who very much took what was said to me literally I remember you know one time I was just watching TV just watching full house fairly innocent show when I was 12 years old and and and my mom was just I don’t like you know the dialogue between you know the the father and the daughter and that it was a little bit you know not what you thought was appropriate probably where full house episodes like that this seemed like friends not like a parent or just I mean it was just some seniors we’re like something was in it was something where it’s like I think my mom would have said it I was being sassy and yeah and forgot and she probably forgot about it the next day but I remember like years later I was like 16 17 almost 18 years old you know creeping up on adulthood and still having internalized exactly my mom said on that day as though it was gospel and I think it took me a while to watch full set house well I guess it’s probably Netflix now but I mean have you watched it ever since then I actually haven’t I actually stopped watching a whistlin and I and i watch this marathon what else marathon no I that actually took the flawless out of me I think that constitutes torture nice day and age oh it’s great still great it still holds up the to spoiler alert the youngest girl is really twins and I kind of figured that out eventually but you know I made I I guess we’re kind of hitting on different points in my job I would say you know the the extent to which I was extremely cerebral and extremely you know extremely pleaser uh kind of resulted in a period of my life from about 12 to 19 where I was just I had such high anxiety huh that I literally did not speak in my house I retreated to the Internet I you know kind of you know I played games on the internet played a lot of Star CG was kind of like MechWarrior played a lot of you know it did things with my online squad there but when you walked in the front door I did not speak I literally I were your parents worried did they was there an intervention of any kind oh yeah I mean I certainly saw plenty of theorists and you know there was kind of that you know the efforts to kind of tentatively break the ice but I don’t think they actually understood the rationale for well how would they characterize it though because that’s one of things I wanted to touch on too is since a lot of your your career has been characterized by the way people interpret you absolutely so how was that happening at that point like did you begin to pick up on how you were being interpret by friends how you being inserted by your family your parents um and how how would you characterize that how I was being interpreted I mean I I would say that if I go back to my 12 13 14 year old brain I definitely felt very very parented and very very um watched very very sheltered sheltered and living in a pad opticon where I felt like every breath every you know step I took was kind of thought of deeply and monitored and even though you seem to now describe it as more of a product of your own brain more than your the way you the way your parents I was a it was kind of an unfortunate interaction between your parents being protective but the way your brain works absolutely and I can say that because my brother and sister did not have that but yeah I mean I it’s funny people ask a lot it’s on it’s an oddly common question what was it like when you boys got c4 what was it like when your voice cracked you did you did your parents freak out it and you know the truth that story is uh yeah I was selectively mutant agoraphobic for about seven years my life as an adolescent and really did not communicate like that in that way and it wasn’t really until I moved out and with my parents support their amazing parents graciously supporting me as I moved out and went to college and kind of had my own adult life that then I kind of started to get a perspective and you know well how did you I mean how does that how does that happen how do you go from struggling in this way and even characterizing it as a agoraphobic absolutely I’m going to college because usually when someone is struggling to that level they go to maybe a community college they live at home that is exactly what I did at first I I woulds community college I lived at home eventually we all kind of moved to the Midwest out to Seattle lived in an apartment there and I went to Community College transferred down how did you tell him where do you want to go did you email them or you spoke occasionally you know my sister was actually very help at that point in kind of like when I started to be like 1819 you know she was she was kind of the intervention it kind of cuz I mean she was moving on with her life and whatever she’s much older she’s coming you know what you know curly there’s some miscommunication that’s happened between who and and and mom and dad maybe it’s it’s slimy kind of an adult now let’s evaluate this and you know I I you know I am blessed to have such wonderful people in my family who’ve been supportive both my parents and and my older siblings who’ve really been there for me in those moments where I kind of needed that type of you know tap on the shoulder okay can we move on from this and I think I eventually did and so mechanically how did that happen well it happened what was so interesting is I lived in Capitol Hill in Seattle when I was 19 this was right when 9/11 happened and you know Capitol Hill is a very very politically active you know very kind of a eclectic artistic type community and I’d say that’s the period of my life where I kind of started to I really warmed up to I went to Community College there I was in different independent media movements I think that kind of post 9/11 lead up to the Iraq war period was when I kind of started to look at the Internet is something we’re okay is this something we can attempt social change or at least kind of create a dialog and of course you know it really wasn’t successful then you didn’t have social media you didn’t really have the critical mass to do that with it um but I remember because eventually I ended up studying social change in the relationship between performance and social change when I proceeded a PhD at the University of Minnesota and I think it was kind of that moment living in Capitol Hill where there were all sorts of different types of you know politics and marches and and things going on that I kind of both came out of my shell that I grew up in mm-hmm and became acclimated to different types of people and was that because those those movements usually involve actually getting to know and interact with people is that what kind of drew you out like oh I’m into this movement or I want to go be a part of this group like how do you begin to have those interactions with people where you start feeling like okay no I can be social I can speak like do you remember a moment um I don’t know if I remember a moment I mean so much of my agoraphobia and not feeling safe outside was a fear that my parents would like when I was like 17 16 18 feet a fear of my parents would drive by and see me being normal or see me doing something they would not approve of and I literally clamped up and and shut down to the for that reason not like I didn’t go outside I was afraid of like that that I would be out in so to speak by by being seen by that panopticon and you know I I think at some point you know I I was you know my parents were so good to me when I was you know again I mean they a lot of kids you know when they’re not 18 I did in their auto house had to support themselves you know my parents were very generous I mean they they they paid for me to be in an apartment I was there by myself they paid me to be independent they kind of knew what I needed in order to transition into adulthood and they gave it to me and I was just I was very lucky because not every person who came from where I came from has that level of support in that level of of just doggedness and saying hey this is how we’re gonna do this and this is and you know it was effective like and I remember you know I it was just uh I kind of discovered who I was or started to discover who I was in that period of time when I was nineteen twenty years old and what was that discovery yeah I think it’s still ongoing this is still ongoing you know twelve thirteen years later but just being able I mean sometimes I I remember I was just walking around Capitol Hill one day and Capitol Hill was in at that period of time was a neighborhood we could literally just be walking around you you see a March you see like protestors and plays it was just like you know marching I’ve been in organized march and I remember one time I was just walking outside Seattle Central Community College where I was going school and they were having what they self call this is their title you know that they call the Dyke mark you know celebrating you know that community whatnot and I had no idea what being transgendered or lesbian or anything was or take much but I just like oh wait it’s a March let me let me get and so literally I I was I was in I was no cheating you know at that very time you know they they were very anti administration of it I have this memory of like you know shouting crazily being nineteen years old of the march through the streets of Calvin Hill in Seattle just screaming power yes Bush power knows that compliance things still kicking in but a little bit at least you were you were out in the open I was out in the open I I think I kind of started to feel a little bit more free or at least not constantly monitored for the first time and what’s weird and we’ll get to this later is how Tay Zonday blowing up and coming into you know I mean I hate to say but it is kind of worldwide fame I walk down the street in London and people will be like that guy right I can’t escape it kind of brought that panopticon’s back oh wow that yep I had grown up with and all of the psychology and all of the reluctance and all of the issues that are kind of involved in that sense of always being monitored it’s it’s back again and really we can talk about next the dots of how we got there and then we’ll explore that so you’re marching in the Dyke March that’s their name not ours and then you go home and you write Chocolate Rain about that experience there’s an 8 year gap here ok right we actually need to discover I do it well I kind of already covered it like I was in SIA Capitol Hill in Seattle for a year and a half moved down to finish my undergrad to Olympia Washington Capitol City Washington beautiful Evergreen State College very evergreen if you ever go there one of the most beautiful landscapes anywhere especially when it’s sunny it’s it is sometimes overcast there but a beautiful place on the Pacific Northwest and while I was there at Evergreen I had an advisor who said that he had gotten his PhD in American Studies at Bowling Green’s and he suggested that I apply to American Studies programs because I I just kind of had this assumption when I finished my undergrad that hey I’ve been in school 16 years why don’t I stay in school another 7 and get a PhD I think it was kind of that part of the the boy in me who was like lieutenant commander data who who just wanted to be smarter to be smarter and so basically I pursued a PhD for all of the wrong reasons not because I was super super passionate about a project that needed the solution of being research but because I just wanted a gosh-darn PhD so you got a Bowling Green no I did listen to the adviser who went who got his PhD in American Studies at Bowling Green however and I applied to American Studies programs because they allow you to in some cases to be more self-directed they kind of II study history but also mix in humanities and put other people on your committee who kind of tailor your research interest to you and the way he described it to me it’s like you know you know Adam you know I I want to my my American Studies PhD I don’t even know what I wanted to do till the second or thirty I’m like oh that’s great I have no idea what I want to do this when I get a PhD why don’t I apply for that and so I applied like six seven places Emory communications University of Washington etcetera University of Minnesota accepted me with aid for 44 years of funding and I got a fellowship the first year which meant I didn’t have to be a teaching assistant which was cool so I moved to Minneapolis and to be honest I thought that in that period of life I would still be passionate about social movements and social change but I kind of found it when I moved away from Capitol Hill in Seattle and also you know this is 2004 now so we’re kind of moving away from that historical moment of post 9/11 – you know everything that followed I never really found my footing in any similar type of community like that in Minneapolis and so I didn’t really have a research interest so to speak I you know pursuing the PhD I would take the coursework learn how to do ethnographic you know anthropological research learn how to do historical research but I was surrounded by people who had passionate life projects that that they were you know say you know they they’d grown up American Indian and they were just researching American Indian land rights or it was part of or you know they grew up identifying it’s queer and you know they’re studying you know sexuality and and and feminism and all sorts things and you didn’t have something I didn’t have anything like that and so so did you feel it seems like what you’re saying is that you felt different I absolutely felt different and you know one of the ways I responded to that difference is I continued my lifelong music hobby I’ve never been a serious musician but I’ve always been a hobbyist musician kind of doing it for fun and I would start going to open mics in Minneapolis around 2006 dragging sometimes my in a 40-pound stage piano with a 30 pound amp I remember one cafe I went to which is in a different part of the city it was the middle of winter in Minneapolis I literally had alligator cables tying a 30-pound amp to a 40-pound stage piano I’m one of those little Airport you know handcarts things yeah and I was dragging it through the snow I on the sidewalk on the sidewalk drug it in through the snow left this little lake of water in this cafe that had maybe ten people in it and so it takes me ten minutes to set up why don’t you just get a keyboard I know I had a keyboard I’m dragging the stage piano and a stage piano there’s a keyboard yes it’s big it’s still big but I basically remember I’m play I’m taking forever to set up I’m playing two songs they’re singing for ten people five of whom are not paying attention the other five of whom really don’t care and then you know putting it back together and going you know into the shame of my car at home and then YouTube comes along at this point before YouTube the people who knew you your friends did they what was their interaction with you what was their assessment of you did they consider you different or you know Adams you know he’s weird guy I love him for it was it that kind of thing I imagine that people have found me to be unique my entire life but you never I have never felt like I could have just that every day blending in and I think that’s one reason I was drew as a kid because I wanted that so so badly especially as an isolated teen and perhaps even growing up into college I think as a teen Ian I mean gosh I so wanted to be just you know I seen kid who was you know like listening to unicorn and and and no fear and all the band’s there and and you know just kind of like hanging out and having my posse having my on the inside on the inside this is who I just wanted to blend and I so badly wanted to blend in and you know it just never was it it wasn’t in the cards you know was it you know partly freezing my parents partly reason who I was I’ve just always stuck out but you’re I mean if you’re saying if we were to travel back in time and meet you on the street and ask you what is your life goal you would have said blend in yet you’re dragging a huge keyboard down the snow and so almost in spite like going on instinct this is these corner inflicted my existence you are you are highlighting the core in our conflict of days on day the double identity that has never resolved itself so YouTube comes along so YouTube comes along I get sick of dragging my keyboard or just playing it open mics where nobody’s listening I’m like okay wait YouTube is there I could just make videos in my living room and maybe reach a larger audience than me five or 10 people listening to me at open mics so is the first video on your channel now the first one you up no no no no okay the the videos on my channel I’ve been very mercilessly pruned because Canon and Zee original classical arrangement yeah eight years ago is is and then you have love an original song by kou be featuring Tay Zonday and then the third one that’s still public is Chocolate Rain yes 101 first of all the way I started on YouTube January 2007 uh because you know I was still known as Adam Bonner at this point and I said I need to come up with an alter-ego I want it to be something that’s not in use by anybody else and so I kind of Google different very why why need an alter-ego because I mean you had a rapper know at that point I believed my career would be to be a university professor where I would be publishing papers and I wanted that too habits on Google life I wanted my career as an academic as a researcher to have its own life separate from my music career and so I so a few people calculate the beginning of a youtube channel especially in 2007 that degree oh and and even more so I wanted a name that if people heard it they would know how it was spelled if it was said in conversation so that if they heard Tay Zonday they would know Oh Tay Zonday calm that I didn’t want it to have an ambiguous spelling and so I think I was just entering different options on Google like a gray Monday data and I entered tayzonday in quotes on Google and it got zero results really I’m I’m gonna take YouTube calm down it’s not the top of your heads on day and say don’t mean anything in another language or know that no they were there was an inspired by something or it was created as an alter-ego like just the words were just like top of my life I’m just saying Tay Zonday flake run I like the way it’s long bay I liked the way it rolled up over the time the funny thing is is you just said you wanted it to be something that when people heard it in the conversation they would know how to look but the first time I heard it you thought it was tazed on it thought was tazed on day yeah that’s the that’s the thing I wasn’t thinking of like but you knew how to spell it and if it was tazed I probably would have been the same feeling right there are no spaces still would have gotten there but yes some people come Ajay’s on I’m like okay whatever and that’s almost kind of something I because you know I blew up so fast so quickly that it kind of didn’t make a difference right yeah they did Matty’s on day she brings up Adam Bonner adam Bonner brings up Tay Zonday now uh but so you created a channel and then what the first video I uploaded on YouTube was my singing swing low Sweet Chariot okay in the range of Paul Robeson and so it was down like swing low Sweet Chariot coming for to carry me home on the keyboard and I loved that the feedback I got on YouTube was characteristically very honest they’re kind of like my ears are bleeding have you ever tried like maybe you want to try Australian throat singing you sound like a frog Tay this is weird and maybe sometimes and these are Fred’s because when you start YouTube whose watch well no I mean yeah I mean I do but there was some organic reach okay okay you what you could do is you can add people as friends and then after you added them as friend you could invite them to subscribe or just synonym it’s just math in the video out audio sorry early 2007 guess who was in my first 15 YouTube friends that I added let me let me guess yes well now that you’re looking at me I’m thinking I’d be reading link please be us no kid role Justin Bieber oh no it was Justin Bieber yeah and he was just a youtube you know thank you I didn’t live even just before Justin Bieber he was that YouTube channel his mom was like hey you know my kid is really great in my 12 yo was really great at singing Michael Jackson and playing drums yeah and which he was a great singer but is this kind of a funny tuba to YouTube history do you think he saw swing low back then like you were seeing them and he was seeing you I liked it I’d like to think so I’d have to ask him but I probably didn’t invite him to subscribe but in any case that’s kind of when I realized that that and a couple other experiments that the super low bass range probably was not going to be Mike ticket to popularity on YouTube and I actually started singing things an octave higher in the baritone range which is where Chocolate Rain and some of the other songs that eventually reach popularity wish to give yet I mean you’ve already demonstrated it but you know people already kind of I think the layman already thinks of Chocolate Rain and the rest of your music as being very base E is how they would describe it to begin with even though it’s technically a baritone yeah you know you approached YouTube with such a confidence of success in such a level of calculation I would say you know when you say well I’ve got to have an alter ego because I’m gonna be a successful write a PhD and then I’m gonna be successful on YouTube under a name that you need to be able to google and find because that’s part of the success and I’m even gonna write an explanation for the actions assuming people will be speculating about it yet the calculation didn’t extend to the things that actually made it such a such an explosion wouldn’t you agree I agree with that assessment so it was it wasn’t like nothing was calculated and it was calculated and that’s the first that’s one of the many things I’m finding fascinating here was the level of calculation that then set up everything that you could never have planned yeah brilliant absolutely there was a tremendous amount of calculation involved in laying the ground for what then happened spontaneously and so tell us how it happened I mean the eruption what was the experience it’s for you like how did you even know it was happening cuz it was delayed the video was out there for a while you were getting feedback people were probably saying the same thing about Chocolate Rain they said about love and the other videos right and like I shouted earlier um I don’t think we edit it out haha but Chocolate Rain was uploaded in April of 2007 it got a little bit of traction you know maybe twelve thousand views from you know the front page feature the other video but it largely set around it was maybe at 30,000 views by June of 2007 and I think in early July someone posted it on digg.com the social bookmarking so basically read it but back then and it was in the top of digg.com for maybe a week and the views doubled to about 60,000 in that time someone saw it on Digg calm posted it on 4chan and then they just thought it was hilarious and it kind of became a frank a a meme there so to speak at this time what were you doing yeah I did you were you were following this I’m assuming you saw the views going up I knew what was being posted I didn’t know any of this until you know afterwards I was basically well what was I doing that summer was I a teaching assistant over this summer I’m trying to remember summer of 2007 I think I may have been off that summer I can’t I can’t exactly remember but I know I was the basically living the life of a PhD student and a nerd in my living room who just did music as a hobby so when so in it so when it happened like even the step one which is you know dig going from 30 to 60 thousand views you knew this was happening you can see people’s comments what’s going through your mind at that time is it people are kid people people get this people who like my music or is it these operations hit me that something was happening was wins there was a 4chan thread where they tried to prank call Tom Green and successfully prank called Tom Green in his web show that he did from his living over the time and then the caller just breaks out see Chocolate Rain mm-hm and then I see Tom Green County reacting Dada and the very next day it’s featured on Carson Daly his late night show and then it just becomes a national news story and perhaps you know every way there is to message me on youtube I have a contact form on my website people were trying to contact me to get in on this news story of this video that is going viral and I remember the first two weeks I did perhaps 30 radio interviews all of them terrible because I just had no sense of being a public figure on that level why what I mean just in the privacy of your own mind what was your explanation this is what it’s like to have 15 minutes of fame this is what it’s like to be a national news story but specifically because now you’ve already articulated this you you understand exactly why it blew up but at the time as it was blowing up how did that realization come about and what were you thinking in that first interview when somebody talked to you um unfortunately this is still on YouTube might take somewhere well no what was my first interview it was with of all people Opie and Anthony in New York press the first radio interview I ever did and I followed a conversation about what percentage of the ocean is composed of whale semen and you know when you’re doing the phone interview they have like with a segment that you can pour it right here what’s going and it’s like well you know like up to 20 percent of the ocean might be composed of well junk oh and here’s the guy next you’re not gonna believe it but he’s blowing up on this YouTube thing we’ve got the guy it stays hot there the chocolate or whatever and I remember I was very self-deprecating in the first interviews what it really what really stands out about most of the interviews I’ve done about Chocolate Rain is people try to peg me into turning it into a polemic interview they say well clearly this is making a political statement a and he’s there a deeper meaning they’re a are you trying to say something like that and I have always shied away from being that so it so called you know Malcolm X figure or polemic political figure with Chocolate Rain is the basis only because while obviously there is a political message or there is a social justice message to it people who experience it they come from all sorts of different experiences someone will say hey my two-year-old can’t stop saying this at bedtime hey you know I I love the way you move away from the bike to breathe in or this is just this was so funny we just passed this around the office at work and yeah I I would have validate those experiences and then maybe 10 20 % of people or actually listening to the lyrics and say okay you know there’s a deeper critique there’s a groupers a deeper social message here Kanye was very nice I think he’s jotted without in this song saying that I tayzonday was deep and and is that was that your intention in the lyrics did you want to talk about that I absolutely did and I think especially when it comes to social justice people are turned off by polemics people don’t want to be preached to and so I sing about what I can’t say about but summarize it for us well I think I just did I always say the question is more important than the answer in terms of if Chocolate Rain can get people asking the question hey what does Chocolate Rain mean then we are in an interrogative space but we have moved from having no conversation to at least they’re being a question but I mean I understand that you know rock jock radio DJs are gonna ask that question because they want to know what the hell it means so to speak but what didn’t they really just want you to be weird so they could laugh at you I mean oh absolutely and I mean that was a really it was a hard aspect of the way in which I blew up because let’s be honest I blew up for the incidental comedy in some regards of chocolate rain for the unintended comedy and there would be asking in the comments can I laugh at this beacon not knowing whether or not I intended it seriously and I mean my response to that has always been hey if I do something and you want to laugh at it and it makes your day a little bit brighter makes your life a little bit brighter go ahead that’s fine but I think the problem what I did interviews in appearances and sometimes in that period of my life is that people would expect me to show up and do that deliberately and as we’ve already covered I get into trouble when I try to be funny doing you weren’t Trump but I try to do deliver a comedy it doesn’t work they just have to be me but I’m really interested in the realization you know there’s a more stark example of this there’s a guy there’s a few documentaries about Kyle just go white I don’t have you ever heard of this this is this guy it’s called just go white the mountain dancer a guy in West Virginia who kind of rose to fame and then in the 80s or the 90s it’s just he was a very very interesting personality and had like this alter ego that was Elvis Presley and stuff and he became he kind of rose to national fame it was on Oprah and it was in that moment of him taking that first trip so to speak to Hollywood where he started realizing that people were laughing at him and he and he basically just had an implosion it sounds like he was very sincere in his mountain dancing yeah it sounds it because you came up a different way through the internet uses that you got to see people’s interpretation of your work from the very beginning so it wasn’t a surprise that people found it funny no you know what was funny is I actually found the hate on the Internet refreshing at first and I say this because when you sing it open mics in Minneapolis I love Minnesota I love Minnesotans they’re not really that confrontational like you perform in New York New Yorkers will tell you exactly what they think about you like you say how did I do okay maybe not my thing whatever you know whatever in in Minnesota you never get that type of feedback performing live they’re always kind of like so I came to YouTube like starving for honest feedback about who I did what I was and so uh I certainly got it I certainly you know that people are unrestrained on the I would say that post chuckling because that’s really the question that it’s segues into is what happened after Chocolate Rain blew up and who did I want to be is that right did I I’ve always had this struggle of okay there’s part of me who wants to be quote unquote a serious actor series entertainer seriously I love dramatic acting I love being on sets I love you know playing the more naturally I would actually play them the role of authority you know the governor the senator the Chief of Police etcetera the things working against that are AI look way too young no one would ever cast me for that right now and be you know it I think there’s also kind of like that there’s that historical aspect where it’s like you know Chocolate Rain blew up because people were just entertained by it and it’s not a type of entertainment that I was able to reproduce Calculon liberally to calculate and I think you mean you started earlier the conversation talking about well the dearth of what where my videos on each of who I haven’t been uploading on YouTube I have by the way been on twitch a lot I’m like I’m given yet five six hours a night at twitch.tv slash Tay Zonday games tears other games but I think one of the struggles that I had with YouTube over the past seven years is I could not reproduce the entertainment value of Chocolate Rain as deliberate comedy it was incidental it was just me being me and honestly being me as nobody in the sense of being nobody it just screwing around saying hey I’ll put this up and whatever happens will happen and it’s almost kind of like that classic got in Avedon story where it’s like before Eve at the Apple she did not know she was naked and suddenly uh you know I blow up with Chocolate Rain and I’m not Jimmy Kimmel and I do the dr. pepper video and it’s just this energizer bunny that keeps going and going and going I’m parodied on South Park in 2008 the next year I want a YouTube award when a webby award do stuff with several attacks and kind of incidentally become this odd icon who is tied to the internet because even today people who don’t remember Chocolate Rain and don’t remember the name Tay Zonday they’ll stare at me from across say the DMV and say sure that guy from the internet you did that video from the internet yeah from the internet you you are the Internet oh yeah I somehow kind of became in people’s minds in iconography of the internet and Internet success and and blowing up on the internet and and what-have-you but and I have to go back a little bit before we keep moving forward and how do you build on or move forward from chocolate rain is just you talk about the moment of realization when Eve eats the Apple absolutely but for you is that what is the realization is it you seem to say it was what I did that made me so successful I didn’t do intentionally but I want to ask was there also a realization that you bite the Apple and then it’s oh no people are laughing at me not with me because I wasn’t intending to be funny so here I am on Kimmel who am just so you can laugh at me some more I mean was there a struggle there how do you play that that’s the funny you play that and what’s that what’s the what’s the end what’s the conclusion Oh know yourself this is the ongoing struggle of my career because you have entertainers who build successful careers being laughed at carrot top you know but he’s a comedian he’s cracking just my point is like that like what is that is a distinct career path and like I think that has always kind of been the crossroads in my career even when Chocolate Rain was blowing up it’s like I have nothing against hypothetically the career path or people who take the career path of being left Act and but when it’s you there’s a moment where you might be hurt by that or you can either harness it be hurt by it or I would assume both I think there was some of both I think here’s what I you know hindsight is always 20/20 and I’m not gonna say that I have regrets but I will say that you know you look at what what Miranda sings has done it’s very successful she’s kind of taken and and you know that’s not a real name but she created the Miranda sings character as this over-the-top character to be laughed at and she’s actually extremely extremely talented singer but Miranda sings is the obnoxious you know put lipstick on to do it and and do the whole you know you get internet views show two brilliant brilliant businessman in retrospect be because I had this inner conflict that you’re describing I didn’t embrace Tay Zonday like say a Miranda sings and just take it and run with it and say hey yeah you know I’m the guy who moves very for Mike to breathe that and do this and this you know and I think it would have been a more successful business that blew up more if I had kind of been willing to stomach the reality that the way to grow it in that moment was to just accept being laughed at and create Tay Zonday is this alter ego of being laughed at and but even ones are the life thing I think what happened instead is that it kind of became this odd thing that I I I wanted to personally identify my of course it did because it the difference between you and Miranda is that Miranda was created about Colleen I mean we talked to her on the show but it was you expressing yourself and then you find that people reacting in this way and of course it was a it’s a lot more complicated for you in that moment in that volcanic explosion of viral video to figure out people are interpreting me yeah it’s a moniker you made up a name but you were just it was you absolutely it was not a deliberate character so it was but what so was there a moment of biting the Apple oh my gosh they’re laughing at me or I don’t know if it was a moment of I don’t know if I can take it on a particular moment I would say what I knew from the experiences that I had in the summer 2007 and the fall thereafter I had a lot of either pretty intense experiences I mean I was opening for Girl Talk at First Avenue you know the most name is called Minneapolis you know dr. pepper video that got huge it was of course you know of kind of a very different portrayal of me and in an exaggerated way and on Kimmel I mean that it’s amazing and the front page of Sunday’s another da it you know it’s I knew that I needed a lot more time to figure out who I was then the moment of being hot would allow because everyone was telling me when I was that in that moment and I think even for a week or two correct me if I’m Robert I think if you look at the history of Google trending topics Chocolate Rain Tay Zonday is like number one number two for like a week or two in July of 2007 everyone was telling me in that moment it’s like okay you’re hot now whatever you’re doing now this moment may never come again in your life so there is a tremendous pressure on me just to go from being a nerd in my living room to suddenly and by the way we’re still in graduate school it’s cool this point I decided not to drop out I still thought I’d be finishing the PhD so I tried to mix them both you know there was a tremendous pressure to try and make the most of this moment and I think my response in that aha moment was just to realize hey I’m not going to be able to be the person I need to be to take the best advantage of this moment of being hot I’m just not going to be there and that’s okay I’m just going to keep trying to be me and explore being me and I probably have many more years of doing that to figure out who I am and who I want to become and that’s exactly what I did I stayed in grad school I continued uploading YouTube occasionally and kind of did the same thing uh and and that to some extent that’s why I came to youtube I came to it as an experiment to get feedback and who I was and learned to be who I was but well it’s um like you found yourself in a place where it an Impala would call this an impossible position to try to calculate a miscalculation to become I love that to become intentional about something that was unintentional now the the fascinating thing is that you have you have made a career that was based upon that you know the biting the the but not the biting the Apple but the the raining of the chocolate and then the the eventually kind of realizing what that was that was happening and how has that unfolded and what does it mean for you as a as an entertainer now well here’s the silver lining of having a lot of people laugh at you uh and and what I kind of realized and this is maybe how I made peace with it okay is that it you know if you have if if you just have exposure of any type whatever type of exposure that is assuming it’s not negative exposure you know people laughing it is not necessarily negative exposure some people will look at that and they’ll take it seriously and they’ll try to just because you got in front of their eyeballs you will have an opportunity to develop a more serious relationship with them and you will have an opportunity to then kind of get to be a wait okay yeah I realize you laugh at that okay that was funny that but when you get to know me I’d say that knowing me in person is a pretty different experience than just you know watching Chocolate Rain and laughing at it and that’s kind of been what what drove my career is you know I would post content on YouTube there is always that YouTube audience it saw it for whatever reason I’ve tried posting more serious things on YouTube there is a smaller audience for that there’s a smaller audience for example for my singing somewhere over the rainbow from Wizard of Oz I think I did a decent job of that you know bring him home from lame is I’ve done more serious stuff on my youtube channel and I think I’ve you know done some semi competently but it is true the audience for that has never been as large yes it is a different card for a different thing for my you know like singing call me maybe an add a point based voice in turn being entertaining in that way I mean yeah I mean certainly I’ve questioned with just conversations with you over the years when you’d like brush shoulders at an event or something but that well is it it but is he affecting his voice and when he goes home and he’s like just hanging out or like going through a drive-thru that it’s like okay he’s it goes up another octave I mean he’s you know there is a question but but I mean I took your explanation of being that kid who wanted to be older to be in that old soul that it might have been that your voice was something that maybe use you’ve settled into something that was an affectation of wanting to be older at a younger age did you talk like this before YouTube it’s funny what do you say talk like this because what I wake I’m when I’m going on I think of me as like someone who talks like this like that like what this is what what is this and that that’s the question what is the this of Tay Zonday talking like this um did I talk about this before my voice was deep probably I mean I I would assume I was always cerebral intellectual reflective uh aloof to some extent well III don’t mean to go back to the shallow end of the pool here I’m not trying to to do that by going back to the voice I was just acknowledging that I think people just you know they want to be fascinated to a certain degree and then they just want to believe that I’ll you affect his voice or that’s the simplest solution that’s the more entertaining solution explanation so your knowing you the messages this is me guys I am a person and I like to say things and have thoughts and have conversations and I am actually and I’m not interested in that I’m not a cartoon not a cartoon and I think you’re right there’s there is that is kind of the struggle that I’ve always had on YouTube it’s not just a story being taken seriously but it kind of is for whatever reason me and my natural state uh on cameras I present myself on YouTube people don’t know whether to believe that is real they don’t know whether to believe that’s a real person whom they can have a relationship with they they can’t imagine when they watch Chocolate Rain sitting next to me on the bus how does that make you feel about opportunities that are gonna continue to come for the rest of your life for you to be that guy that people laugh on the internet you know I just like to say that I am passionate about working I don’t really complain about the context because I’m old enough and wise enough to know that any type of exposure including good-natured humor is exposure that you know if ten thousand people watch it maybe two people will be watching that who then initiate a serious relationship where they get to know me and maybe that’s a work relationship maybe that’s something that’s very serendipitous and so exposure is ultimately king and then the money’s still green right I mean I guess I mean I’m guest starring in a couple episodes of what is it on Adult Swim now they jack and triumph show which is very fun very fun to be on set I love acting like if I had a choice watch it with my career I love being on sets I love the lights the camera having a crew yeah in my face I love being cast and and and and embodying a role I just I love it to tears and one reason I think I love it is because I’m I’m I can let go in a fictional space in a way that I cannot let go in real life and I feel more real acting in a fictional context then I actually do with real people in real life and that harkens back to the car tuna fication of Tay Zonday to this sense that when I am actually real in real life and it’s not an acting set somehow I’m taken as this cartoon somehow I’m taken as something that is fantasy and not reality and it’s almost like when I’m in fantasy when I am on set when I am acting when I am able to actually be a character I feel more real and more incisive and more on top of my game as a human being than I do anywhere else including in real life well that’s interesting and you know we wish you the best and acting and everything else that you do but we appreciate you being real here I think you certainly have been real here so thanks for creating this here biscuit I think thanks for that thank you so much for having me and there you have it our chocolate biscuit with chocolate covered with a zine dipped and covered and smothered in chocolate rain let teh know that you appreciated his ear biscuit with us you can do that using hashtag ear biscuits at his Twitter Tay Zonday ta y z o nday I really appreciate it I mean this is what I’m gonna tweet okay hey man thanks for for being so open and so introspective you know I’m I’m glad that he was willing to go there and you know I mean he’s I think it was clear that he had thought about his experience but I do feel like maybe we brought him back to it and helped him process it in one place I like to feel like we’ve done that at least even even if no one’s listening like you are listening and I’m glad you’re listening but and I’m not saying it’s therapy and I’m not saying that they needs therapy because that that would be the wrong thing to say I’m really digging a hole for my sky no I’m just gonna see how you swim out of this bucket of chocolate right wait a second I just enjoy having conversation with people to get them to process their experience in one sitting especially when there’s kind of lights going off and we’re reaching conclusions that maybe they hadn’t thought about but it’s not therapy yeah you know I’m saying that Tay it’s well I think the thing that we’ve talked to people who are known for something and then I mean ultimately every youtuber every entertainer ultimately has that thing that most people recognize them for right I mean there’s very few people that have this this really even-handed body of work this everybody has the thing that they broke out with he happens to be he is such a right place right time 2007 unintentional so big like although you don’t think that if if he if Chocolate Rain hadn’t existed until tomorrow in it the internet no it wouldn’t work no I know it would work but it wouldn’t be it would not be the sensation that it was it I believe that it had to do with the time in which people were thirsty for chocolate rain and things like that IIIi people are still as thirsty today I think that I’m trying to think of the other people that we’ve talked to who had started with some unintentional success I think there were a number of ear biscuits I the only one that’s coming to mind is glozell though I’m interested to go back and listen to that one yeah because you know she kind she was she was doing a character but then it was so there was some intentionality to it just like there was what they was doing but it but it blew up in a way that she didn’t anticipate yeah we had to react in that and that’s the interesting thing because we’re not talking unintentional in the way like okay you were filmed falling into a fountain right and you became super famous for it no no he created a piece of art he created something that people authentically like for all because of all the the intentional decisions he made that’s the wonderful unintentional consequences of intentional decision when you describe the elements of chocolate rain to make chocolate rain great that’s all intentional but like he made the decision to move away from the mic to breathe he made the decision to put text on the screen but he didn’t necessarily know that that would be that one of the things that made it entertaining for people so and now that I love that dynamic I love the fact that he understands that that was the mechanism that created it he still can’t calculate it he can only channel it like I think that was you know when he talked about a sense of humor in the tweets like well when I try to be funny it might come across as creepy but when I’m just putting something out there people are going to respond to I kind of have to trust that it I’m gonna unto unintentionally create something through intentionally trying to do something else I’m gonna intentionally do something unintentional right well I think what you’re saying like is that you can’t make it Chocolate Rain but when it does Chocolate Rain it’s gonna take it and use it to your advantage I mean even in the song biscuit we we did I mean you were reviewing the edit and describing to me that the phenomenon have kind of letting him loose at the end of the song there I believe that it was for me personally the most entertaining song biscuit to date and the most entertaining part for me was at the end where Tay takes the lead and we kind of move into the background and just repeat a line over and over again and he just kind of goes to a Tay Zonday place signature holding up of both hands at the same time the facial expression at a tone it was a privilege to be there melody choice of that yes it was great it was you know I hope you’ll enjoy that you know you can put a song biscuit on top of your ear biscuit and make a biscuit sandwich you know we could we could analyze our experience forever we’re gonna keep doing that but you are free to move along with the rest of your life or to the near next ear biscuit and just keep listening maybe you’re on a road trip we’ll see if we see those tweets I’m I’m getting on a plane I’m downloaded a whole bunch of your biscuits whatever you do you can count on us to keep baking the biscuits Lauria sheet by sheet on a weekly basis like chocolate right [Music] [Music]