Reckless Ben Interview (Ft. Courtney Love) - 5CAST (#23)

Summary

5CAST w/ Andrew Callaghan

Episode #23: Reckless Ben Interview (Ft. Courtney Love)

Date: August 1, 2026
Host: Andrew Callaghan
Guests: Ben Schneider (Reckless Ben), Courtney Love

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Overview

This episode of 5CAST features an in-depth interview with Ben Schneider, better known as Reckless Ben—a YouTube investigative content creator embroiled in a highly publicized legal battle with Bricks and Minifigs, a company implicated in withholding a rare $200k Star Wars Lego collection from a family. The conversation, recorded at Channel 5 HQ, tracks Ben’s journey from a slackliner with a knack for creative stunts to a digital crusader exposing corporate greed and police corruption. Courtney Love joins late in the episode, sharing insights on media, reputation, and public narratives.

The episode is a candid, at times humorous and poignant exploration of creative persistence, the influence of digital audiences, and the modern dynamics of power, accountability, and storytelling in the age of lawsuits and social media.

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Key Themes and Discussion Points

1. The Bricks and Minifigs Lawsuit: Origins and Tactics

• Background: Ben is facing up to 15 charges—including extortion, commercial interference, defamation, and residential picketing—stemming from his investigation into Bricks and Minifigs’ alleged refusal to return or pay for a consigned $200k Star Wars Lego collection.
  • "If we're found guilty on all crimes, it's like 147 years in jail." – Ben Schneider [00:00]
• Creative Legal Schemes: Ben describes using legal loopholes—such as dividing the lawsuit among friends and creating a lottery to shift his claim from civil to criminal court—to push accountability.
  • “Everything was done legally. We just did legal loopholes to try and get it back.” – Ben Schneider [01:08]
• Corporate Greed and Power Disparity
  • “It’s not really about Legos… The real story is corporate greed, police corruption, Mormon mafia.” – Ben Schneider [00:13]
  • “It’s not who’s right wins. It’s who has more money wins.” – Ben Schneider [00:24], [17:09], [33:55]
• Public Trolling & SEO Manipulation: Ben created the “We Steal From Old People” merch/business as both a protest and a way to sabotage the SEO of Bricks and Minifigs.
  • “So now anytime someone looks them up, it says we steal from old people.” – Andrew Callaghan [00:32], [16:11]

Timestamped Segment:

• [00:00]-[02:58]: Ben outlines the legal saga, stakes, and allegations
• [03:00]-[08:39]: Andrew recaps the context for listeners; Ben discusses tactics and company response

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2. Investigative Storytelling and Community Impact

• Ben’s Approach: Reckless Ben frames his videos as both exposés and experiments—testing systemic corruption and the boundaries between civil and criminal law via outlandish yet legal stunts.
• Crowdsourcing Stories: Ben finds stories through direct outreach from fans, reviewing thousands of tips.
  • “I just put at the end of my last video, just said, if anyone has a problem the police can’t solve, hit me up.” – Ben Schneider [05:39]
• GoFundMe and Legal Defense: Ben raised significant legal defense funds via GoFundMe, which in itself became the target of further legal retaliation.
  • “I actually got arrested for that GoFundMe because they said I was… cyberstalking was the official thing.” – Ben Schneider [31:24]

Timestamped Segment:

• [05:39]-[07:19]: Ben describes finding cases, community response
• [31:21]-[32:38]: Ben discusses the GoFundMe, legal roadblocks, and using a “legal trust”

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3. Corporate, Police, and Judicial Collusion (“Mormon Mafia”)

• Ben’s Theory: Suggesting informal, religiously-fueled networks among certain Utah-based business owners and police soured the case against him, citing differences in credibility and appearance over substance.
  • “Mormon mafia… if a police officer is also Mormon… am I going to believe this YouTuber… or the person I look up to in my church?” – Ben Schneider [09:39]
  • “I think also the judge is Mormon. … There must be some collusion going on.” [53:11]

Timestamped Segment:

• [08:30]-[10:01]: Ben unpacks perceptions of institutional bias

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4. The Broader Power of Digital Media and Public Opinion

• Fighting Back Publicly: Ben and Andrew agree that with today's online audiences and tools, the old crisis PR and legal moves (silence, legal threats) often backfire.
  • “The easiest way to air out the truth… is the Reckless Ben route, the Afroman route, the route that I took.” – Andrew [30:57]
• Fanbase and “Punching Up”: The two discuss the ethics—and power—of aiming at institutions, not people, and the distinction between punching up vs. punching down in comedy and criticism.
  • “Punching up humor. Not punching down humor… way harder, but way more satisfying.” – Ben Schneider [83:57]

Timestamped Segment:

• [30:06]-[33:24]: The role of PR, digital narrative, and the “groundswell” of support
• [83:57]-[84:15]: Punching up vs. down in digital content

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5. Parallel Lawsuits: Ben’s, Andrew’s, and Community Lessons

• Andrew’s Legal Woes: Andrew compares his own ongoing civil suit (Bill Joyner) to Ben’s, and together they muse on the weaponization of lawsuits by “old-fashioned people” not accustomed to being challenged on the internet.
  • “I guess the moral of the story is watch the movie before you sue someone.” – Ben Schneider [40:48]
  • “It’s not who’s right in court, the winner is who has the most money usually.” – Ben Schneider [33:55]
• Cultural Shift: Both suggest that publicizing legal bullying can invert traditional power structures.
  • “If you do sue someone and you’re lying, like they can publicize it.” – Andrew [40:57]
• Advice for Companies: Ben repeatedly jokes that the only way Bricks and Minifigs and people like Bill Joyner can repair their reputation is by open transparency—and doing the chicken dance as a public apology.
  • "They can say that they're sorry by doing the chicken dance, and I will take that as a sincere form of apology." – Ben Schneider [47:08]

Timestamped Segment:

• [39:47]-[41:58]: Comparing lawsuits, reputational effects
• [47:02]-[47:18]: Advice for redemption—transparency and “chicken dance”

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6. Creative Process, Persistence, and Anti-Perfectionism

• Persistence over Talent: Both Ben and Andrew emphasize that longevity, iterative improvement, and enjoying the process matter vastly more than innate skill.
  • “It’s not about skill or talent necessarily. It’s about persistence.” – Andrew [21:13]
  • “There is only push-ups.” – Shia LaBeouf via Andrew [79:41]
  • "Pretty much everyone starts at the same place, which is we suck." – Ben Schneider [80:43], [81:36]
• Advice for Aspiring Creators: Start anyway, expect to suck, and find a unique angle. Ben has a practice of watching favorite YouTubers’ first videos for encouragement.
  • "Just be creative and think of, what can I do that no one else in the world is doing?" – Ben Schneider [78:37]

Timestamped Segment:

• [77:14]-[81:36]: Career origins, advice, value of failure

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7. Media, Narrative, and the Algorithm (with Courtney Love)

• Courtney Love Joins [59:01]: Courtney shares her experiences with reputation, the media’s manipulation of narratives, and how modern algorithms both fragment and entrench belief systems.
  • "It's called the over culture now. It's like mainstreams and mainstreams. People stay in their algorithms and they believe stuff." – Courtney Love [61:23]
  • “...people that leave nasty comments on me are good for my brand.” – Courtney Love [63:02]
• Digital Empathy: She expresses support for Ben’s approach and connects the story to her own experience battling public misconception pre-social media.

Timestamped Segment:

• [59:01]-[64:02]: Courtney Love reflects on media, algorithms, reputation

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

“It’s not really about Legos… Legos is kind of just like clickbait. The real story is corporate greed, police corruption, Mormon mafia… It’s not really whose right wins. It’s who has more money wins.”
— Ben Schneider [00:13]-[00:24]

“I just put at the end of my last video… if anyone has a problem the police can’t solve, hit me up.”
— Ben Schneider [05:39]

“The more I get sued, the more it helps my career, I guess.”
— Ben Schneider [12:53]

“If you do sue someone and you’re lying, like they can publicize it.”
— Andrew Callaghan [40:57]

“Just be creative and think of, what can I do that no one else in the world is doing?”
— Ben Schneider [78:37]

“There is only push-ups.”
— Shia LaBeouf via Andrew [79:41]

“Pretty much everyone starts at the same place, which is we suck.”
— Ben Schneider [81:36]

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Topical Highlights by Timestamp

• 00:00–10:00: Ben introduces lawsuit; origin of “We Steal From Old People”; framing of story as more than Legos—about systemic abuse of power.
• 17:06–19:18: Parallels between Ben’s experience with Scientology and current legal fight; use of religion/tactics to avoid defamation.
• 31:21–34:26: The GoFundMe saga; legal defense in a digital age; community support.
• 46:00–48:15: Reputation, infamy, and the power of transparency vs. retreating from controversy.
• 59:01–64:02: Courtney Love’s entrance; reflections on old and new media cultures; media’s impact on personal and collective narratives.
• 78:37–84:53: Ben and Andrew encourage unconventional creators, stress importance of practice; critique “punching down” content; lasting value of positive, inclusive work.

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The Episode’s Tone & Flow

The conversation is equal parts irreverent, confessional, and motivational. Ben’s earnestness and dry humor balance Andrew’s probing but good-natured interviewing. Courtney Love brings historic perspective and empathy. The episode is laced with inside jokes, “meta” observations about digital life, and practical advice for creators, all while cynically acknowledging the legal and algorithmic realities of 2026 media landscapes.

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Final Takeaways

Reckless Ben’s ongoing battle with Bricks and Minifigs is a microcosm of the new digital age: scrappy online creatives versus institutional power, with audiences evolving from passive consumers to active participants and supporters. The episode underscores the transformative power of transparency, community, and creative persistence, while also warning about online negativity and the pitfalls of chasing clout over meaningful content.

“If you’re a corrupt company, we welcome your lawsuit. It’s a great way to end this.”
— Ben Schneider [85:01]

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For listeners:

If you haven’t followed the Bricks and Minifigs saga, this episode neatly recaps its legal twists, larger implications, and what it takes to turn misfortune—and lawsuits—into a career, a cause, and a movement.

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[End of Summary]

Transcript

[Ben Schneider]

If we're found guilty on all crimes, it's like 147 years in jail. This one just seemed like such a big injustice, you know? It's so simple. I gave you my Legos. You gave nothing back to me. I say it all the time that this isn't really about Legos. Legos is kind of just like the clickbait, you know what I mean? The real story is corporate greed, police corruption, Mormon mafia. Everything was done legally. We didn't break any laws in this documentary. We created a lottery in order to turn it from a civil offense to a criminal offense. But it's not really whose right wins. It's who has more money wins.

[Andrew]

You created a company called We Steal from Old People. And their tagline was Bricks and minifigs.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah, that's our motto.

[Andrew]

So anytime someone looks them up, it says, we steal from old people.

[Ben Schneider]

They tried taking my YouTube money. They tried taking we steal from Old People merch money. And they also tried taking the GoFundMe money. Bricks and minifig. Bricks and minifigs. Bricks and minifig. Bricks and minifig. Bricks and minifig. Bricks and minifig. We steal from old people. Bricks and minifigs. Because they should just give the Legos back. They shouldn't be able to keep it. They should give it back.

[Andrew]

Dude, thanks for making the time.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah. What up?

[Andrew]

What up? Thanks for coming, man. I'm good. This is the first official Channel 5 headquarters shoot right now.

[Ben Schneider]

Nice.

[Andrew]

Just seeing behind the curtain where the editing operation takes place. So for somebody unfamiliar, what's going on with the lawsuit?

[Ben Schneider]

Oh, my gosh. I don't really know right now. I'm kind of just letting the lawyers handle it. But I guess this company stole a bunch of money from this old man, and we asked them nicely to give it back, and they didn't. So we basically just did a bunch of crazy, what I call legal loopholes to try to get it back. Everything was done legally. We didn't break any laws in this documentary. We just did legal loopholes to try and get it back. Like, we created a lottery in order to give it out as a prize to turn it from a civil offense to a criminal offense, stuff like that. We divided the debt between 10 of us to sue them for 10 times, taking a small claims court to get the process done faster, stuff like that. And they didn't like what we did, I guess. So they're suing us. Court document. It's like 300 pages. Our lawsuit is. And there's like, 15 crimes. I put it in ChatGPT, and it says if we're found guilty on all crimes, like, 147 years in jail.

[Andrew]

I think collectively.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah, yeah. But I think they're trying to get us more civilly, though, not criminally, so I don't think I'll have to go to jail. But they want, I think, like, minimum $10 million per person is what they were saying. So, yeah, it's gonna be pretty crazy. I think they're trying to get us on extortion, commercial interference, defamation. I think there's like, 14 things we're gonna. That's just the first ones that come to my head. But, yeah, it's like 15 charges that they have against us. I don't know, like stalking. What are some other ones?

[Andrew]

I'm being sued for stalking too.

[Ben Schneider]

Really? One of the things I'm getting charged for is also residential picketing. Picketing out some side someone's residence. So I put a little tiny sign. It was like two feet long, and just. It was on a public property. So it was the hoa. Didn't know. It was like this little strip of land that's just owned by, like, anyone in the public who pays taxes, you know, So I put it there. But they said because he could see it from his house, it's technically considered residential picketing. Because I'm outside his house making a statement about him, I guess, which was illegal.

[Andrew]

Even though it's on separate property.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah, yeah. Because he could see it from his house.

[Andrew]

And so the big they in this story is bricks and minifigs.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah, it's like Gamestop for Legos. They're not affiliated with Nintendo or any gaming company, but they just resell games that have already been used for a profit. So they just do the same thing with Legos. So someone buys Legos from lego, they use it. It's like a thrift store kind of. You know, you give them your old Legos and they resell it for a

[Andrew]

profit, but it's very curated. So if you wanted to buy like a very specific Lego, they'd have, like. They monopolize, like the brokerage of vintage Legos.

[Ben Schneider]

I'm not really too sure. I'm kind of just more into, like, the corruption part of it. I don't really know the business model too. Too much, but maybe. I don't know.

[Andrew]

Because LEGO produces its sets in limited numbers, experts say some of the rarer sets can sell for thousands of dollars.

[Ben Schneider]

So this is from 2003. This is the Cloud City set, which is kind of the holy grail of Star wars fans. There was about 3,500 of these made back in the day because people looked at it and said, $100 for a Lego toy?

[Courtney Love]

No way.

[Ben Schneider]

But now it's, you know, pushing 10 grand because of the condition of the box and the collectibility of this.

[Andrew]

So going back to the very beginning. So you came with, was it a father and son?

[Ben Schneider]

Just the son. The whole thing was his dad was like, really sick, and any stress could make him more sick, so they didn't want to stress him out.

[Andrew]

For those of you guys wondering what the heck is going on here, Let me break a few things down. This is Mr. Benjamin Schneider, also known as Reckless Ben, a YouTube creator known for his investigative videos that expose organizations and businesses that he believes have acted in bad faith, Infiltrating cults sometimes, and even Scientology itself. Recently, Ben was reached out to by Brian Mansell and his father Ed, because back in 2023, Brian had put what's described as extraordinarily valuable collection of sealed lego Star wars sets and rare minifigurines, apparently worth around 200k on consignment with a company called bricks and minifigs. But in 2024, bricks and minifigs store ownership changes, and allegedly they refused to honor the agreement and pay out the man cells. Once the man cells made Ben aware of the situation, he went to work and began posting his investigations on YouTube until the story blew up. The story quickly reached far beyond Ben's subscriber base, Accumulating millions of views across YouTube and other platforms as other creators, news outlets, and Lego fans began covering the whole debacle. Since then, there's been a cascade of lawsuits, both civil and criminal, resulting in Ben's arrest. But there's still been no final resolution yet. But because I'm currently going through my own lawsuit, I thought it was a great time to talk to another creator going through one as well. All right, I think you're all caught up. Back to Ben.

[Ben Schneider]

So the son was the one dealing with this whole thing. And the whole thing was, let's keep this a secret from our dad because we don't want to make him, like, more sick with all this bad information.

[Andrew]

And how did you come across this lead in the first place?

[Ben Schneider]

I just put the end of my last video, just said, hey, if anyone has problem that the police can't solve, hit me up. I made an email just for these emails and they can type in their like stories. And we were actually on our way to Burning man and it started raining and so it was like a 26 hour wait to get inside. So we're just waiting our car for like 20 hours and we're just, all five of us are just going through the emails. We're all logged in and just storing all the ones we thought were cool. And this one just seemed like such a big injustice. Bricks and Minifigs knows that this family, especially with the father's health, doesn't have the resources to take them to court. And almost mockingly, they've since flooded all of their social media with tons of pictures of Star Wars Legos. It's so simple. I gave you my Legos. You gave nothing back to me. Like, that seems like stealing, you know, like. So I was like, huh. Like, how can. And he's like, the business uses all these ways to justify it. But I'm like, at the end of the day, he gave them something and they didn't give him back what they were supposed to. So, like, it just seems like the easiest case ever. Like, I'll do this one, you know?

[Andrew]

Yeah. So Bricks and Minifigs took custody of the collection and didn't pay him the money after selling some and keeping others.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah. So it's supposed to be on consignment, which Bricks and Minifigs claim they don't do, which is part of the reason why they took it. But the way it's supposed to work is once a Lego gets sold, Brian gets paid, I think 60 to 70%, and they get paid around 30 to 40%. I forget what the actual detail was, but they keep a small percentage of each sale. Basically, the new owners came in, they're like, we don't do consignments. We buy, sell, trade. That's their logo. They're like, we don't do consignments. So we get to keep all the stuff even though they didn't pay for it, which, like, if they don't do consignments, they should just give the Legos back. They shouldn't be able to keep it. They should give it back.

[Courtney Love]

These are ones that haven't. He has not been paid his percentage yet. And if I don't have the tickets, I won't know how much I need to pay them.

[Ben Schneider]

Ultimately, no sign. That's a business thing and not necessarily yours. Brandon will take on the business. He takes on all that.

[Andrew]

Yeah. I just think it's awesome that you have this, like, natural desire to use your platform to kind of like shed a light on these, I guess, smaller interpersonal conflicts. That like, are kind of reflective of larger social problems. Right. Like people being taken advantage of by business conglomerates.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah. I say it all the time that this isn't really about Legos. Legos is kind of just like the clickbait, you know what I mean? Of like, it's kind of the backbone that holds this thing. It's like the subject matter. But the real story is corporate greed. Like, we have more power than you and we know that we can do something wrong and we can get away with it. So we're going to because not because, like, we're not going to do the morally right thing. We're going to get away with it because we have power. And then this next couple of videos get into more into police corruption and maybe people helping each other, the same religion, even though they're not really like the good guys. Like, I'll help you out because, like, I look up to you in my church, you know, so it kind of gets more into that stuff. But yeah, the Legos is just kind of the area this all takes place,

[Andrew]

you know, it's the tip of the iceberg. And as you travel down.

[Ben Schneider]

Oh, it's a great way to describe it. Yeah. Wow.

[Andrew]

I went to journalism school, so.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

And then at the bottom of the iceberg is what some have called the Mormon mafia.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like police corruption, Mormon mafia, like corporate greed.

[Andrew]

And just so people know you don't mean Mormon mafia in like an organized crime, you know, godfather sense. You mean just LDS members looking after each other on a high court level.

[Ben Schneider]

Obviously, like something really bad happened and everyone has their own theories of like, why this is happening. My theory is that Joshua Johnson, he's the owner of the store that's kind of the main villain of this story and he is what's known as the High Council. So I think it's like some high up, like, Mormon thing. He's been fired from bricks and minifigs. Is Josh getting fired from the Mormon church? Released from his High Council calling. So if a police officer comes to his house and the police officer is also Mormon and he has two people to choose from. Oh, two people are telling me different stories. One of them's lying, one of them's telling the truth. Am I going to believe this YouTuber who. YouTubers kind of have a known reputation for exagger the truth to get clicks and stuff. Or the person I look up to in my church. Oh, I'm going to believe probably the person that's I look up to in my church. You know, it's not really like, there's like, an undercover deal going on and stuff, and they're paying each other off. But I think. I think it just comes down to that, you know, just, he looks more trustworthy. He's in a suit and tie. And I'm kind of a goofball. Like, I'm wearing this, like, the CEO on my shirt. I just do goofy things. It doesn't mean I'm lying, it just means I'm goofy, you know? But the police officer takes, like, my goofiness is like, I'm not credible and I'm making up stories and stuff.

[Andrew]

And what's the main lie that that man is tell?

[Ben Schneider]

Oh, my gosh. It's like. I think it'd be easier to say, like, what truths does he tell? Pretty much almost everything that's come out of his mouth at this point, I think has been a lie. I don't think I've heard him tell the truth really at all. I think the main ones are. I mean, his main claim is right now is, oh, we tried to give the Legos back to Brian, but Brian didn't want the Legos back.

[Andrew]

We've been, you know, working to try and work with Mr. Mansell for a good little while. We've asked for documentation, and every time we ask for that up to this point, we seem to kind of then lose the connection. But we continue to reach out to try and, you know, get towards a resolution with the Mansell family on this matter.

[Ben Schneider]

So that's like a big one. And then another one he's running with is, well, the previous owner stole the Legos before they had, like, she sold all of them and then kept the money for herself.

[Andrew]

Crystal Law was a former franchisee of bricks and minifigs. Yeah, she took Mr. Mansell's Lego, sold it, didn't pay him. She has his money. Crystal sold the Lego. You know, like, if there was anything that had been done that was untoward by the previous franchisee, if that individual had sold more than they let on and did not pay Mr. Mansell, we've offered to compensate him for the loss of compensation that should have been given to him. So we've tried to make multiple offers and hopefully we'll be able to get them to the table so we can discuss it.

[Ben Schneider]

Which could be true. Like, some of that actually could be true. So I think a lot of his lies are based in reality. So maybe the previous owner did actually sell some and didn't pay Brian, but at the same time, she also sent a bunch of like timestamped pictures of a lot of the Legos in the store that they still had that they're claiming were never in the store.

[Courtney Love]

Star wars sets still in the process

[Andrew]

of getting them organized and priced, but they're here.

[Courtney Love]

And it's a lot.

[Ben Schneider]

It could be. I don't know. It's hard to tell, like, how much is corporate, how much is the previous owner. But what we do know for sure is that the corporate. Because of those timestamps pictures, corporate is responsible for at least those Legos that were still in the store at that point. He promised us a full inventory right away. We've never received it.

[Courtney Love]

Just absolutely nothing. So we've never. We've never gotten anything. We've never gotten an inventory list.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah, the previous owner who got her entire store stolen from her by corporate, I mean, she's legally required to get sent an inventory list. And even she, two years later, has not gotten it yet.

[Andrew]

And what is the current, like, state of the criminal case?

[Ben Schneider]

They say it could take up to like, two years, maybe. It's. It's in what they call pretrial. So I show up to court and they're like, you know, you have the right to a lawyer, right? And I'm like, yep. And they're like, okay, we'll see you in two months. Or I show up and they're like, do you plan on representing yourself? And I'm like, I have a lawyer. And they're like, okay, see you in two months. And it's been. It's been like 30 seconds each time. It's so stupid.

[Andrew]

And like, this experience of being sued frivolously for no reason and just like. And during this law fair, what's the main thing that you've learned?

[Ben Schneider]

The more I get sued, the more it helps my career, I guess. I don't know. So I welcome any. Any more lawsuits. Any other companies that I take down in the future, feel free to sue me. I would much appreciate it. Don't learn the lesson from bricks and minifigs. Just keep suing me because it's really fun. What I found out is it's only going to get better from here because there's a thing called discovery, and there's also a thing called a deposition where we get to ask them any question and they can't lie. So right now, like, as you saw, I went to the corporate offices and I had this whole conversation with Ammon, and I think pretty much all of it was lies. Me and my friends would always joke about, like, how awesome would it be if we were both set up to lie detector tests and we had like an hour long conversation, like, that would solve this whole thing. You know, deposition is kind of like that, where if they lie, I think they go to jail or it's like criminally, like, they literally cannot lie in a deposition and I get to ask them whatever I want. So hopefully it gets to that point where. Because then, like, my dream would come true where we're like ghost trapped, like the lie detectors, you know, because the TRO kind of destroyed me. It sucks. That why, like, all these videos ready to post, you know, and then they hit me with the tro.

[Andrew]

So the TRO is what kept you from telling the story for a while?

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah, that's why I just kind of went silent. I was just like, hey, it's illegal for me to talk. That's why I kept referring to him as a mystery company. This mystery company that I am no longer allowed to talk about because part of the TRO was I couldn't say anything about bricks and minifigs, but I could say I could talk about a mystery company because then no one knows what I'm talking about. Even though they did know what I'm talking about, I didn't talk about them. So I just said, like, I'm not allowed to talk about this mystery company. And. Yeah.

[Andrew]

So why exactly did the TRO expire? Did you appeal?

[Ben Schneider]

I think our lawyers talked to their lawyers, and we basically said, like, hey, Ben had all these videos ready. Like, because I think the reason. One of the main reasons the TRO got approved was because of how crazy they were saying I was going. Like, I read the document said I was making bomb threats. It said I was trying to burn the building down and shoot the manager. And not just the manager, but everyone inside the building. You know, you don't give it back, I'm going to burn the place down. Or we're going to burn the place down or I'll kill you. It's Ben Snyder who's been the one engaged in this behavior. I think if you're a court and you hear that, you're like, oh, well, we probably should stop this guy. He's a lunatic. Maybe by stopping this guy, we can save some lives, you know? So I. You can't really fault the court too much for that. But we know they're lying. They know they're lying. So I think our lawyers are kind of just like, hey, you guys lied to falsely take away Ben's first amendment right. You guys are now going to Be responsible for any damages he occurs because of this. And every day that passes is lost revenue from the videos he can't put out. So at that point, I think bricks and minifigs was kind of like, oh, like they were contacting the judge, like, please give him his freedom of speech back. Like, we don't want to be responsible for these damages.

[Andrew]

Whoa.

[Ben Schneider]

I think that's what happened. That's kind of what the lawyers told me, but I wasn't involved in that conversation. But from my knowledge, that's how it happened.

[Andrew]

So what went through your head when you're like, all right, I'm gonna publicize these fuckers who are suing me. I'm gonna put this on wax. I'm gonna go through with a full expose.

[Ben Schneider]

Well, they weren't suing me till after the video came out.

[Andrew]

Oh, okay. But they were contacting you privately, telling you to stop talking.

[Ben Schneider]

This all happened, like, after the second video got put out.

[Andrew]

But you had a TR o before the first video came out?

[Ben Schneider]

No, it was after.

[Andrew]

So you decided to go ham immediately.

[Courtney Love]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Nice.

[Ben Schneider]

Because that was part of the first video was like, like, I'm gonna get them to sue me. You know, like, that was the whole, like, we steal from old people company. I was like, maybe if they sue me, then I can take them to discovery, you know, Some people don't know.

[Andrew]

You created a company called we steal from old people, and their tagline was bricks and minifigs.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah, that's our motto.

[Andrew]

So you created a motto to permanently corrupt the SEO optimization of this company. So now anytime someone looks them up, it says, we steal from old people.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah, well, the point was just. I just really liked their business model. So their business model was they steal from old people. There's, like, multiple times them doing this. So I was like, well, if they can get away with it and make a bunch of money, maybe I should. So I set up my we steal from old people company. And then. Where did you get the inspiration? Bricks and minifigs. That's our tagline. And then there's no law that says whether, like, the company has to be above or beneath the motto, you know, like, there's no, like, law that says that, you know, so it's just we steal from old people and then bricks and minifigs. That's just our mod, you know, like, we just take heavy inspiration from them.

[Andrew]

You know, it kind of reminds me of whenever you were going up against Scientology and you created your own religion to avoid liability.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah, that's, like, probably one of my favorite things is just, like, getting sued and then figuring out ways to get around the lawsuit. But the thinking on that. So they were suing me for defamation.

[Andrew]

Scientology?

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Very scary organization.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah. Cause I basically just settle the things that happen inside Scientology. Obviously, I could have gone the route where it's like, it's not defamation if it's true, you know? But then I was living in my car at the time. I couldn't even afford a house. How am I gonna afford a lawyer? You know? So I was like, scientology has millions of dollars for this. Like, even though they're in the wrong, kind of. The same thing is happening here. It's. It's not really who's right wins. It's who has more money wins, you know? And I realized that, so I was like, okay, so how do I get out of this? Easier than, like, hiring lawyers and stuff. I was like, well, I can create my own religion. Well, I looked into what Scientology does. So one of the things I experience. They'll put you in a sauna for, like, eight hours a day, right? And they can say that it's healthy to be in a sauna for this long, even though people literally will die doing this. And so normally, the family could come and sue and be like, hey, you told us to go. It was healthy to be in a sauna for eight hours a day. That's false advertising. And normally, I could sue, but no one can sue Scientology for this because they're a religion. They believe that it's healthy, you know? So they're like, well, that's just what we believe. And if I sue them for what they believe in, that's discriminating them against their religion. So I was like, why don't I just uno. Reverse them? I'm gonna do the same thing. I made the church of Scientology suck. We just believe that Scientology sucks. So now if I say that, they can't sue me for that because, oh, that's just what I believe in. If you sue me for what I believe in, you're discriminating me against my religion.

[Andrew]

Don't you have to have a God?

[Ben Schneider]

Technically, yeah. We believe in the giant plunger in the sky. Well, we were like, if they can believe in a giant alien in the sky that a science fiction writer. Like, a science fiction writer wrote about it, it should be obvious that it doesn't exist. So I was like, I'm gonna make something even more blatantly obvious it doesn't exist. Like the giant plunger in the sky. I think that was based off the Area 51 thing when. I think you were there when we did the giant plunger thing, I led the raid with the plunger.

[Andrew]

And, yeah, dude, that's the first time that we met is.

[Ben Schneider]

My only tattoo I have is the plunger cross.

[Andrew]

Hell, yeah.

[Ben Schneider]

I did a really bad job. We did, like, a prison tat where you, like, dip a needle in ink and stab yourself. So I did a really bad job. It's like the worst tattoo in the world, probably.

[Andrew]

But, yeah, I think it's. It's pretty legendary, given the backstory.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

So you told me that was your first video, the Area 51 raid.

[Ben Schneider]

I think so. I mean, I had a couple videos before that, but they were all just, like, slack vine videos. That was my first video that wasn't about slacklining.

[Andrew]

How was the tournament in Mexico?

[Ben Schneider]

Oh, that was fun. I went there for a slacklining tournament. Not to escape the warrants because that would be illegal for me to do that. So, yeah, that's the whole reason I went to Mexico was the slack on anything. It wasn't like I just did that also while I was in Mexico escaping the police. It was just. That's why I was there. Well, I'm in Mexico now, and the American police have no authority here.

[Andrew]

What were those warrants for?

[Ben Schneider]

What was it? I think it was the. The one where I threatened to shoot and kill everyone inside the building. It was the extortion case or the criminal obstruction. And.

[Andrew]

And just to clarify, this relates to bricks and minifigs.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah, and that's. That's not like.

[Andrew]

Is there a third thing?

[Ben Schneider]

Well, that. In my last video, Ammon, the CEO, said that I went into the building and I was gonna shoot everyone if they didn't give the Legos back and burn down the building. And so that's what my warrant was for was for the commercial obstruction and then also for not leaving when they asked me to leave, even though in the footage, you can see that I do leave when they asked me to leave. So those are the two things they were trying to get me on. And, yeah, just. So luckily I was in Mexico. It's not that I escaped to Mexico because that would have been very illegal for me. So I. I was just there for the slacklining competition.

[Andrew]

No, I remember, like, you know, because I've met a lot of, like, different content creators throughout the years, and it's kind of sad to see how a lot of people come and go. You know, they, like, try. You know, they don't give it their all, or maybe they give it their all for like six months, and it doesn't pan out the way they expected it to, and you kind of never see them again. They like, work a corporate job and, you know, shout out to them for even trying in the first place. But you're one of those people that, like, I just kept seeing, you know, over time. And I kept seeing you do, like, really sick shit as time went on. I think the Scientology moment was the first one where I was like, oh, this guy is not just like a prankster or like a typical, you know, influencer kid that I would have met at somewhere like Area 51. And then I saw the McKay Manor stuff, and I was like, damn, this dude is really, like, trying to. Trying as hard as he can. And one of my favorite quotes of yours is, it's not about skill or talent necessarily. It's about persistence.

[Ben Schneider]

Oh, for sure.

[Andrew]

And I feel like I agree with you. People are like, you're so good at interviewing. I'm like, I'm actually not that good at interviewing. I just do it all the time, and I haven't stopped. And so I feel like you've steadily tried to make actual change with your stuff. Like, I feel like you think Scientology is a messed up organization.

[Ben Schneider]

Oh, yeah.

[Andrew]

You thought McKay Manor was pretty messed up.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

And I feel like you think the same thing about bricks and minifigs.

[Ben Schneider]

Not. Not when I first started McKay. I actually thought McKay Manor was cool when I first did it. I just want to do like a cool, like, challenge. You know, I love challenging myself because he's advertising as, like a two mile zip line, like a giant bungee jump. Like, he said there was gonna be like a half a mile, like, underwater haunted house that you go through. Underwater. Like, it seems, like, awesome. You know, I was like, I'm down

[Andrew]

somewhere deep in Southern California. There's a place that brings your worst nightmares to life. The exact location is a closely guarded secret. It is the most extreme horror experience on the planet, where people's deepest fears become reality. People want to do this and I provide it.

[Ben Schneider]

And then, yeah, I got there and it turns out the whole thing was a scam part. This is the fun stuff. Really? Yeah, it was just boring.

[Andrew]

So your issue with McKay Manor wasn't that you think, like, the waterboarding and the electricity stuff they're doing is messed up? You thought it was let down at false advertising?

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

So you. Okay, so to clarify, you wanted it to be worse?

[Ben Schneider]

Well, I wanted to be fun. I wanted to be what he advertised.

[Andrew]

Fun for everybody.

[Ben Schneider]

So what he does is he. He fakes having a haunted house. And then he'll hire, like, people to, like, beat you up and stuff and. Yeah, like, waterboard you and stuff. And then at that point, it just becomes, like, torture. If that makes sense.

[Andrew]

Yeah, it totally makes sense.

[Ben Schneider]

I could see, like, a world where it's like, okay, like, there's this really fun stunt, and I happen to get her doing this stunt, but that wasn't what was supposed to happen. Like, the stunt was supposed to be, like a giant zip line or something. A giant bungee jump, you know, something like. And, oh, if I happen to get hurt, then that was an accident, you know? But what McKamey Manor does is I think he has, like. He said he has, like, voices in his head, and the only time the voices stop is when he's hurting other people. So he goes there intentionally to hurt people for his, like, benefit, not for the person going through his benefit. It's like, for his benefit, you know? And so you're just, like, a victim in this thing, you know?

[Andrew]

So he's a sadist.

[Ben Schneider]

He's not trying to create an experience. Yeah, he's not trying to create. He's trying to create an experience for him.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Ben Schneider]

Lies to people to get them up so we can, like, beat them up inside. That's not fun. That's not like.

[Andrew]

Yeah, it's not. It's not cool at all. You were pissed there was no rats.

[Ben Schneider]

Like, that would have. I would have done. It would have been, I mean, like, Fear Factor to stuff like that. I could see that being like a Fear Factor stunt, you know, like, oh, there's a maze of rats. You gotta swim through them, you know, Like. Like, I think that'd be funny for something like that on Fear Factor, you know, like, not cause I like pain or anything. Like, I hate pain, but I like doing things that are hard, you know, and something where you're like, oh, my gosh, like, I'm gonna look back on this in like, five years and be like, that was epic what I did, you know? I mean, as long as there's no, like, animal cruelty with the rats and stuff, that would suck. But I probably wouldn't be excited, actually, for the rat one because, like, their claws might hurt and stuff. But some of the other stuff he was advertising seemed really cool.

[Andrew]

I feel like, what do you think's the coolest thing he was advertising that you were let down by not existing.

[Ben Schneider]

Probably the two mile zip line. That would seem fun. Or like the underwater haunted house. That'd be Cool. He said there was like a room where like 50 tarantulas are like all climbing on you. Stuff like that. He said there was like a tightrope walk that you have to walk. I was like, oh, that one. Like, I slackline. Like, I'll be really good at that one. You know, just stuff like that.

[Andrew]

Whenever you do these kind of things and seek out these experiences, how much of it do you think is about, like, you know, pushing your own limits and taking yourself to the extreme versus just like capturing content that you know will succeed online?

[Ben Schneider]

I don't really think about, like, what will succeed online. If you look at my history, like, pretty much everything I've done is just because I think it's fun and then it usually always ends up flopping. I think this time I got lucky with the LEGO thing that people just happen to like Legos, because I feel like I do all these antics I do in the LEGO video and all my previous videos, you know, I just never had that like, clickbait of the Lego, you know, because it's always just like weird things that people don't care about. But I think if I did try to do things that people I think will go viral that I don't really care about, I think I would have burned out and stopped YouTube. That might have been the problem with all the people. Because you're like, people show up, they try for like five years, doesn't work out and they stop. I think they stopped because they didn't achieve the results they wanted. Yeah, but the results I want isn't really like, oh, like money and fame and stuff. It's like having fun filming the videos. As long as I'm having fun filming the videos, that's like my result that I want to. And I've gotten that every video, which is why I haven't stopped. So even though, like, I've been sharing like a room for half my career with like the smallest room, we like put two people in this room and I think we put like 10 people in like a five person house. We were just living terribly, like, eating like the lowest of the low food, just barely enough to survive and stay healthy. And like, I think you only do that if, like, I would have stopped if I cared about like money and fame, you know, because I don't know, I think whatever money and fame will buy me is like, like, it satisfied me way less than like, I. I'll just like. Because if I make money and like get famous, I'm just going to do more cool stuff, you know, with that money. So it's like, if I'm already doing cool stuff, why am I going to sacrifice that to make money and then just be boring? It'd be stupid.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Money's a lot cooler than fame.

[Courtney Love]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Because at least if you get paid, you can, like, give your mom and, like, give your mom money and jobs to your friends. Whereas, like, fame is just annoying.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah. I guess eventually I have to start thinking about, like, building a family and stuff.

[Andrew]

Eventually. But for now, just have fun. I wanted to ask you, what's the most fun you've ever had filming a video?

[Ben Schneider]

Oh, I think the LEGO one.

[Andrew]

Really? Of all the videos, I think the

[Ben Schneider]

lego 1 in McKamey Manor. And the reason for that is so it stops becoming fun once they find out I'm a YouTuber, because then they can just block me and ignore me. Right. That's what always happens.

[Andrew]

Who can just so interview sources.

[Ben Schneider]

So, like, when Scientology, I was doing that once they found out about, like, my secret spy glasses. Oh, I'm kicked out of Scientology. Are you attempting to investigate Scientology kind

[Andrew]

of glasses are these?

[Courtney Love]

What kind of glasses has he been filming?

[Ben Schneider]

And every time we go up, they just stand there with their arms crossed and don't say a word. It's like, well, we can't get content out of that. That's what happened with, like, we infiltrated this cult called, like, the 12 tribes. Same thing. Once they found out, we were like, journalists. They're like, okay, like, we just won't give them any more.

[Andrew]

You went to Yellow Deli and stuff?

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah. And then. But the thing with the LEGO video was they found out that, like, where these, like, basically just like, what our schemes are, you know, and then. But they have. They can't just close down their store, you know, they have to stay open. So we could just keep sending people inside to, like, try new schemes to get the stuff back. So we were able to take that one really far. Just because we got lucky that they just had to keep the store. They couldn't hide from us.

[Andrew]

I saw you used a body double at one point.

[Ben Schneider]

I can't just give up on the plan before being sued. So I did a switcheroo with this guy. He's wearing my exact same clothes, and his legal name is also Ben. Oh, yeah, yeah. We had so many plans also that we wanted to do that, but we just couldn't because they started arresting us. But, yeah, we were able to take that one further than the other videos, I think, because they just couldn't block us. I Guess.

[Andrew]

Have they given any of the Legos back?

[Ben Schneider]

Not from my knowledge, no. I think they're all just sitting in that closed store. They closed the store down. They could. They could just unlock the door and it wouldn't even hurt them at all.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Have they made any kind of statement?

[Ben Schneider]

Oh, they make lots of statements. They always. Their main statement is, we tried to give Brian the Legos back, but sadly, he didn't want his own Legos back that he's begging for. He didn't want them for some reason. And then the other statement is, well, the previous owner, she sold all the Legos. She sold them all and didn't pay Brian anything. So their first statement is, we don't have the Legos. And their second statement is, well, we do have the Legos. So it's like both statements can't be true. You know, it's like, what one is it? And even then, I think also both of those statements are probably both false. I want to do a bit for my next video where I contact their PR team because they're paying tons of money for PR right now, and so they're paying this PR team, like, tons of money. And in response, the PR team is giving them the worst advice ever. The PR team is basically just telling them to lie. So I want to make this, like, offer that I would honestly do bricks and minifigs PR for them for free because my. What would I get out of it? Like, Brian would probably get the Legos back if they do the right thing. It'll help their business. But I think I could, like, get them out of this garbage. But they just have to listen to a few things.

[Andrew]

What would you tell them to do if you were their crisis PR consultant?

[Ben Schneider]

Probably first to get out the inventory because they claim they made an inventory list, but they're, like, terrified to give it to anyone. So the first thing would be like, hey, like, probably make the inventory list public so everyone can see what's going on. Like, what Legos they have, what Legos they don't have. That would probably be the first thing. And then if there is inventory on the inventory list, actually give it to Brian. Don't just say, oh, we tried to give it to Brian. He didn't want it, because I guarantee Brian does want it. So actually try to give the inventory that they do still have to Brian. Those would be the first two things. The third thing I would say would be to do the chicken dance. I think. I think that would add humility to them, to be like, oh, we embarrassed all these people. So now we're gonna embarrass ourselves and maybe it kind of levels up the playing field, you know, and it's actually

[Andrew]

a pretty good idea.

[Ben Schneider]

I think if they did the chicken dance, it would gain back so much public support, I think because they would be taking kind of accountability for like what they did wrong or just a

[Andrew]

self imposed humiliation ritual can like bring them out of like villain status and humanize them a bit.

[Ben Schneider]

Because now they're goofy, you know, and it's like, oh, that guy doing the chicken dance can't be a villain, you know, he's like this goofy little side character that was just stupid, you know? And I think that would increase their PR a ton if they did the chicken dance. Yeah, it was just. That's just the first things I would do. But I feel like there's more if I spend some time brainstorming.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I think part of the problem is like the crisis PR industry and I have friends who work it is super exploitative. Anyone involved in controversy or any kind of situation, especially when it comes to like digital media, they sell resolution to people. They say, don't worry about this, like put this in our hands, here's a hundred thousand dollar invoice. Like, we'll take care of this for you. And what they do is just make it infinitely worse because it's so impersonal. I think it may have worked pre Internet, you know what I mean? Like having a lawyer maybe bully someone into being quiet or make some like statement to the newspaper behind like a lawyer. But nowadays, like the easiest way to air out the truth about any situation is the, the reckless Ben route, the Afroman route, the route that I took like two weeks ago. And you see this like groundswell of support from your own community. And that in turn levels the pressure up on the very person that was trying to make you feel small with money. So it's just a crazy moment that we're in right now.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah. I always thought it was weird that they're paying money to make their company worse. Like if they just would have said nothing, they would be better standing than they are right now. The advice, this PR company and I don't want to talk garbage on the PR company because they probably have good intentions, but.

[Andrew]

Yeah, they're old playbooks though.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah. But they're literally paying money to make their company worse. It's just like so weird to me. Like, why would I pay you to like hurt me? That makes no sense. But that's what they're doing, I guess.

[Andrew]

I saw that you made a GoFundMe, too. Yeah, with legal defense funds.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah. It's crazy. So I actually got arrested for that Gofundme because they said I was. I think cyber stalking was the official thing. I was putting the company on blast is what they said. By making that GoFundMe, we're going to book you back into the jail.

[Andrew]

Okay. The creation of the Gofundme, right?

[Ben Schneider]

We're blasting this person all over, saying, hey, he's. So creating the GoFundMe was illegal, and I didn't even think it was that harsh. And then the GoFundMe got taken down for a little bit, and then I had to change it to mystery company instead of bricks and minifigs. So I was like, Brian put his LEGO sets inside a mystery company and then didn't get paid for them. And then the GoFundMe was able to get back up again. But, yeah, it was crazy. Yeah. The amount of support we got, I guess at first, I made it for, like, $120,000. Cause that's why, from our knowledge, is what Brian still owed for his set. And then I thought that once it hits that cap, it just, like, caps. It's like, oh, you reached your goal. Congratulations. You know? But people still kept donating. And so I called Brian. I'm like, hey, Brian, we reached the goal. Like, should we stop the GoFundMe? And he's like, well, actually, we're getting sued right now. I'm on the lawsuit, so I might need a couple hundred thousand dollars for a lawyer. And we're like, oh, no. So, like, it was this happy moment, and then, like, a Sad moment, like, 10 minutes later. And then we ended up just keeping the GoFundMe up because we all need lawyers now, so.

[Andrew]

And you've been able to gain access to the money since then?

[Ben Schneider]

We put what's called an illegal trust because Bricks and Minifigs was trying to take my Patreon money. You saw the CEO come out and be like, you can't take it. So after an extensive review and investigation by Patreon's trust and safety team, we have, in fact, unfortunately determined that Bricks

[Andrew]

and Minifigs can stuff it. We're keeping Ben's page up.

[Ben Schneider]

They tried taking my YouTube money. They tried taking the we steal from old people merch money, and they also tried taking the GoFundMe money. Jesus Christ. We basically put all that money in a legal trust. And now, no matter what we do, even if we do, like, the worst thing in the World, it turns out we're super guilty. They can't take it until a court decides for them to take it. So they can't, like, pre take it early, like how they were trying to do with you, you know, like, they can't stop us from using it. From my knowledge, I've never done this legal stuff before. I'm just like, everyone in the audience.

[Andrew]

This is my first time getting sued my whole life.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah. I'm just saying what, like, lawyers have been telling me and stuff. But yeah, this is my first time of actually, like, for real. For real getting sued. I always. They're always like, oh, I'm gonna sue you. And then I always get out of it before we actually go to court. So, yeah, I don't know any of this stuff either. But that's why it's fun, you know, it's like we all get to learn together. And it's actually kind of cool that I don't know. Cause then I can show my learning process and the audience gets to learn with me.

[Andrew]

Yeah. I didn't realize how when someone's lying, if they have enough money, they can just use the legal system to bleed your pockets dry until you have to submit on a total lie in civil court.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah, that's probably the biggest thing I've learned through this video is it's not who's right in court. The winner is who has the most money. Usually. I mean, who's right and wrong has a little bit to do with it, but a lot of it is money. It's like both. Probably 50, 50 of both, I guess.

[Andrew]

How did it feel to see such a groundswell of community support coming in through the GoFundMe?

[Ben Schneider]

I don't know. I was just busy, like, editing. I guess. I would check it for, like, five minutes in the morning. I don't really care about that stuff. I mean, it's cool that.

[Andrew]

But I mean, all these people, like, resonate with your story and, like, they want to make sure that you're not going to get screwed over by the law.

[Ben Schneider]

No, it's been like the most surreal, insane thing ever because. Yeah, I don't know. Especially for Brian, because he's just some local dude who doesn't want to be famous or anything. He's just like, how the heck is this becoming the biggest story ever? This is insane. Just no one believes it. I don't know. It's definitely cool, but I don't know. I just want to do cool and fun stuff. So it's kind of cool getting recognized and Stuff now, but I think the really cool thing is now I can use all this to do even cooler projects in the future.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Is there anything on the plate right now that you're super stoked about that you're willing to. To speak about on camera?

[Ben Schneider]

No, I'm still undercover.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Ben Schneider]

I could say it, but you have to censor it. But I can say it and get your reaction if you want.

[Andrew]

But yeah, yeah, I'll censor it, and I will emote a little bit to the camera.

[Ben Schneider]

Oh, nice. But I'm working on 12 projects side by side, and most of them are already filmed. They're just. The editing just takes so long. I'm, like, probably 60 to 70% done with most of them, but most of them still, like, dead undercover, you know, But. Oh, it's a good one. I did that you might like. We snuck in. He was like,

[Andrew]

oh, Jesus.

[Ben Schneider]

Be like. We change the story, then we go back and then come back.

[Andrew]

Oh, my God, you guys are on a sick one. That's amazing. You need me to censor that?

[Courtney Love]

Oh, yeah.

[Ben Schneider]

I can't even talk about that one yet. Okay, we'll just.

[Andrew]

We'll just.

[Ben Schneider]

We're dealing with two felonies per person on that. Two felonies per person in a misdemeanor, so felony stalking, felony eavesdropping, and misdemeanor trespassing.

[Andrew]

Wow. Wow. I mean, this is the life you chose.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah. And then will probably sue us after that one comes out too, but I

[Andrew]

think he might be good in that department.

[Ben Schneider]

Really?

[Andrew]

He doesn't have much bread to pull from right now. He just lost a major lawsuit.

[Ben Schneider]

I'm trying to think of another one you might like. There's just so many, it's kind of hard to, like, keep track of them.

[Andrew]

Has there been any motion as far as what we talked about with me trying to get you into that one country?

[Ben Schneider]

Oh, I did tell you about that one. The guy reached out. I've been just kind of busy with some stuff, but that'll happen soon, though.

[Courtney Love]

Yeah.

[Ben Schneider]

You've been helping me out with another one. We can't say what that is yet, but we can.

[Andrew]

You told me the premise.

[Ben Schneider]

We can say you're helping me, though. That's cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Andrew gave me, like, a huge win on a one of the. It's, like, one of the biggest videos I'm working on. That's probably one of the biggest ones I'm doing.

[Courtney Love]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

As soon as I heard that story pitch, I was like, man, that's gonna be One of the best documentaries ever.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah. You kind of saved my life. You actually might save my. Like, maybe, like, without this information, I would die. You know, like, actually based upon your

[Andrew]

plan beforehand, I think that's quite likely. Or at least be in prison for a while. Whatever happened with HBO shelving one of

[Ben Schneider]

your projects, that was the. That's. Yeah, they just got scared, and there was, like, three other videos with that thing. They were all kind of connected, but, yeah, they just got scared that we're, like, talking about, like, super elite people that could maybe influence investors with hbo.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Yeah. That's why we just launched a. Like, a streaming platform called C5 now, like, with the sole purpose of hosting documentaries that were too hot for the major streaming platforms.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah, that one's definitely too hot for the major streaming platforms.

[Andrew]

You're looking for someone to take it?

[Ben Schneider]

Maybe. I don't know. We still have a year left on statute of limitations, so the statute of limitations is three years. It's been two years, so. Because otherwise we could go. I think they were trying to put us in jail for, like, 20 years,

[Andrew]

so that sounds like the exact kind of thing we want to host. So let me know when the statue is up and we'll make an offer. Yeah, because it's like, that's what we're trying to do. Like, any documentary that, like, is the subject of a lawsuit that makes it so the streaming platforms don't want to touch it. We'll take that liability off on C5 now. We have five films on there right now. Film number one, the Art of Protest, made by the homies over at Indecline who interviewed a few months back. Film 2, Rat Film by Theo Anthony, set in Baltimore, investigates the lives and times of the rodent population through the eyes of the people who love the rats of Baltimore. Study the rats of Baltimore or are paid to execute and trap the rodents of Charm City. Documentary number three, three Star Cash by Haley Garrigus. An amazing Wall street documentary that follows the lives of market predictors. That's right. Stock analysts who stare at the planets to figure out what's going to happen with the money. Documentary number four is called Physician, Heal Thyself by director Asher Penn. A fascinating lifelong profile featuring tons of archival footage documenting a physician, psychiatrist, philosopher, sorcerer of the mind named Gabor Mate. Very influential. Dude.

[Ben Schneider]

Dude.

[Andrew]

As far as addiction and trauma and healing, he's about as good as it gets. He's the top dog in that realm. So check that documentary out. Documentary number five is my own. Had to put my own Sauce on there to get the train moving. It is called finding Orson, a 45 minute documentary that I shot over the course of a year and a half trying to reunite a beloved friend and elderly community member named Rick Shore with his lost parrot named Orson. Maybe he's just too embarrassed to admit that he doesn't to want want the the bird anymore. So Those are the five films on C5 now. A totally independent creator residual forward, power to the people documentary platform, not gatekeep by Hollywood. And what's unique about C5 now is that unlike the major studios, we're not afraid to take a risk and of course pay creators fairly. The link is in the pin comment and description box of this video. And most importantly, it's not just a website, it's an app on your phone and a smart team TV app. So get your popcorn, get your remote, sit down, it's time to learn. I'll see you guys soon. Shortly after discussing his lawsuit, Ben asked me about my own. Curious as to when exactly Bill Joyner filed suit. Something.

[Ben Schneider]

Is that what you're doing with Bill Joyner?

[Andrew]

No, Bill Joyner got me way before these like elite plans were put into motion. Bill Joyner sued me when I was, I think like 26. And he sued me. He sued me before he even saw the movie. Because you've seen the movie?

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah, it's not even bad. Like about Bill Joyner. Yeah.

[Andrew]

Dear Kelly.

[Ben Schneider]

Like when I heard you were in a lawsuit because of Dear Kelly, I was like, ah, makes sense. And then I heard it was Bill Joyner suing, I was like, what?

[Andrew]

Like, yeah, you think?

[Ben Schneider]

Why is that guy. Yeah, I was like, if anything, you, you kind of were on Bill Joyner's side in a sense. You know, you're like, this crazy guy is after Bill Joyner. Like this Bill Joyner just seems like a normal dude. Kinda.

[Andrew]

Yeah, well, it was like I more looked at Bill Joyner as being like this source of this like unnecessary grievance for Kelly. So did Bill Joyner steal his helm?

[Ben Schneider]

Not from what I saw in any of the pleadings. I mean, it looks like he's cherry picking the facts to support his narrative. I guess you did say, you're like, I am kind of disappointed that he didn't reach out to us for an interview or something. So maybe he was pissed off that you said that. I don't know.

[Andrew]

I think he was just pissed that his name was being brought up in connection to Kelly in any capacity.

[Ben Schneider]

Dang. I guess the moral of the story is watch the movie. Before you sue someone.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Or just realize that if you do sue someone and you're lying, like they can publicize it.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

If they think like you and I,

[Ben Schneider]

I guess from their perspective, like these are like older people that are suing both of us.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Ben Schneider]

So they were probably suing people before the Internet, you know, and so before, because I, I know in my case, the CEO, he sued his own dad and it worked out well for him, I think. Are they like settled and stuff? Amit McNeff, who is the owner of bricks and minifigs, so is his brother Eamon and, and his brother Matthew. And they're suing, among other people, their own dad, Daniel McNeff. No one knew about it because I guess this is all happening with like small town people, you know, that don't really use the Internet and stuff. But I think it's like the Internet grows and grows and stuff. I think we're gonna start seeing less of this in the future. But it's cool to like take advantage of it now while. Yeah, like, let's have these stupid people sue us, these old fashioned people sue us before they learn. And. But yeah, soon it might enough people might learn the lesson where it might stop happening and then I can't make content anymore and that'd be sad.

[Andrew]

Yeah, well, I mean you can make content without getting sued, but it does help.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah, no, the lawsuit's definitely helping a lot. It's really funny how like they think it's like, oh, by suing him it's gonna hur. But then ultimately it just like has like the opposite effect.

[Andrew]

Yeah. I think that part of the reason your story like really caught on is because like the sweetness of the initial collection, it's like this family, they have like have a multi generational, multi decade like Lego and figurine collection. Like it's so sweet.

[Ben Schneider]

They're bullying this. Like nobody of a fan. Like they just, they don't want fame. They're just some small like rural middle class family, you know, and it's like, why would this corporation try to bully that? You know, it just makes no sense. I don't know, it's just such a sad story. Like it's like just give the Legos back, you know, Know. But hopefully this is a lesson for all future corrupt companies. Don't be corrupt or else we'll go and infiltrate you and expose you to the world.

[Andrew]

Why do you think this support has been so intense for your case in particular? Like, what about it made people really galvanized to like want to donate and just follow the story.

[Ben Schneider]

With such scrutiny, Bricks and minifigs is forever going to be a name that lives in infamy. I imagine. From this point forward, a $200,000 Lego collection went missing. And after seeing the cops point guns at YouTube and people get arrested and sued for 1.3 million, I decided enough was enough. I think a lot of people have been screwed over by the police and also, like, big corporations. You know, like how a corporation will screw you over and they're like, oh, contact our customer support. And you're on customer support for, like, four or five hours. And you're like, oh, this can't get solved. So the next day you call them for, like, five or six hours and like, sorry, we can't help you. And they hang up. And it's like, ah, you know, it's like. Like people getting, like, their. In my world, it's a lot of people, like, getting their Instagram accounts deleted or YouTube accounts deleted. You know, it's just big corporations screwing over little people, and then there's nothing the little person can do because they don't have power, you know. And so I think I went about it in a way where I didn't do it. Like, the Mr. Beast method, what I call it, you know, where it's like, I just throw a bunch of money and resources because then it's just like, oh, now we're fighting power with power. But the way I went about it was I did it from the perspective of someone with no resources or anything. Like, no lawyers, no nothing. Like, I did everything a lawyer would tell me not to do. We kind of stood up to this company, you know, and we kind of are kind of defeating them with literally no resources and just from our creativity. And I think it kind of does send a message of like, oh, like, you're getting screwed over. If you're creative enough, you can stand up to this big company too, you know? Yeah, because if I would have done, like, the Mr. Beast method, like, when I watch a Mr. Beast video, it's when he helps out people. The only thing I think in my brain, he built, like, 100 wells for people in Africa. And I'm just thinking like, well, he can only do that because he has so much money, you know, like, if I had a billion dollars, I could do that easy peasy, you know, and it doesn't really inspire me to go out and do good things. My. You know, but so I tried to do this a little bit differently where it was like, well, if you're Smart and creative. Like, you know, like all the schemes we came up with and stuff. It's like you can stand up to this person. You just got to be creative, you know, and.

[Andrew]

Yeah, like what you said about like, you know, the bureaucracy of, like, people picking up the phone for customer support and just feeling like they're a human lost in a sea of robots. And I don't know if it's like, with the advent of AI or if it's just like the growing inequality in the country and just like being treated so poorly by authority figures across the board, but I just feel like there's just this fatigue with these, like, impersonal systems of, like, control and domination of your life by, like, robots. You know what I mean?

[Ben Schneider]

It feels like every.

[Andrew]

Even traveling, like flying in planes now, it's like they're making the seats smaller and smaller. It's self checkouts only like you have to pay for water. It's like nothing is free. It's like people are trying to run you into a slow death by nickel and diming every move you make.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah. And then a lot of times, like, I mean, I felt it so many times where, like, I get screwed over and it's like I'm in the right, but there's nothing I can do because I'm just some person with like, barely any money in my bank account, you know, And I think a lot of people felt that feeling and they're like, fed up, you know, and they want to see the small guy succeed, you

[Andrew]

know, I think that also explains some of the support for Luigi Mangione.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

You know what I mean? Like, if the manifesto is real and he killed the, you know, CEO of a health insurance company because they denied a health care claim for him when he's going through a back injury. You, you know, if that's true, it would make sense that the support is like, people see no solution and they're like, well, this guy just did something crazy and outrageous. But we all are affected by this common problem. So, like, he's a voice for us. Not saying that you're the same, but I mean, yeah, I don't want to

[Ben Schneider]

kill bricks and minifigs.

[Andrew]

No, but you essentially killed their reputation. I mean, no matter what happens with this case, no matter if you go to jail for 127 years or 20 years, or if you're liable in civil court for a million and damages, the public, the greater public will always associate the bricks and minifigs name with fraudulent business practice. No matter what they do, no matter how much money they spend in court to jam you up. Them, along with Bill Joyner, will always live in infamy for the way they treat people.

[Ben Schneider]

I think Bill Joyner could maybe get out of it, but it seems like he doesn't want to. I don't know, like, if he ended his lawsuit and be like, hey, sorry, like, my lawyers just did this without my knowledge and stuff, and said all this, like, I'm a busy man, like this. I just followed my lawyers. They're all fired and stuff. I think Bill Joyner could get out of it. But you're right. I think just from what I've seen, it seems like he probably is just the crooked person Kelly was talking about. You know, there's more people like that than. Because the same thing happened to me with Bricks and Minifigs. You know, it wouldn't be unbelievable for me to be like, oh, he is just a slimy person that wants to get away with stuff, like, drag things out and hurt the little guy. And I don't know.

[Andrew]

So your crisis PR advice to Bricks and Minifigs would be to give the Legos back. Do a Chicken Dance Instagram video.

[Ben Schneider]

They can say that they're sorry by doing the chicken dance, and I will take that as a sincere form of apology. And once they do the chicken dance, then I will know that Bricks and Minifigs is sorry.

[Andrew]

What will be your crisis PR advice to Bill Joyner?

[Ben Schneider]

Ooh, I would say, first off, like, speak the truth. So, like, if what? I just, like, I wouldn't lie and say that, like, oh, it's just the lawyers and stuff. If it wasn't the case. But maybe that is the case, you know, and maybe the lawyers just saw it and he's just a busy business guy and he's like, oh, I just saw this thing. I was getting hate for it and I wanted to sue him. I do a lawsuit every day. I didn't think anything of it. Maybe that is the case. I think transparency is always the best. Just be open. Cause people just don't like it when you hide stuff. If you have something to hide, people take it way better if you just come out and say it rather than. Cause people are like, oh, if I hide it, then people won't know. But if you come out and just say a bunch of terrible stuff, then people will probably accept. I think that's why people like Donald Trump so much. He comes out and just says everything.

[Andrew]

You've called women you don't like fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals.

[Courtney Love]

Your Twitter account.

[Andrew]

Only Rosie o'.

[Ben Schneider]

Donnell. It's terrible stuff he's saying, but people come out. He just says it. And people are like, that man tells the truth. And I like that. You know, one of the best anti cancellation things I've ever seen was probably Sneako.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Ben Schneider]

Because Moist Critical made that video just destroying Sneako. Right? You want me to watch your clips? Watch my clips. These are the only clips I'm watching.

[Courtney Love]

You watch.

[Ben Schneider]

They're mags, not clips. You absolute fucking dummy. The same way that this is also a mag. They're all mags. Like, he was like, destroyed. And then they literally Sneaker was like, cold and moisturizing, like, let's do a live stream together. And they just talked it out. And then by the end, Moisturiz was like, I'm not even mad at Sneako anymore, you know, and then I think people aren't really that mad at him anymore, you know, but I think he was just, like, open and like, he was like, yeah, I did some terrible things, you know, but he was just honest about it and people, like, forgave him, I guess. I'm officially retiring the Soy Boy image. I forgive everybody who advocated for my cancellation or made documentaries about me, and I'm ditching my attacking style of streaming, and I apologize to Moist Critical.

[Andrew]

So the more you retreat from conflict or controversy, you feel like the bigger it will rear its head in the future when you try to outrun it?

[Ben Schneider]

Maybe. Probably, yeah. I think. I think people just get upset when you're, like, trying to hide things, you know, because they're like. What's like when you're trying to, like, hurt someone else for your own gain? You know, people hate that too. I haven't been canceled yet, so I don't know.

[Andrew]

But you've been sued and you have criminal charges pending.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah, I mean, that's been my strategy

[Andrew]

canceled by the law.

[Ben Schneider]

I get sued and I'm just like, hey, here's everything. I've been starting to release all the raw files and stuff because they're trying to claim I'm like, editing things to fit a narrative. So I've just been. I think in the last three days, I've released two major conversations of just the raw footage. And so I can just be like, hey, here's the footage. You can just see it for yourselves, you know, and people are really liking it. I mean, there's a few things in there where people were like, oh, you put. Probably didn't handle this the best. Like, I think the owner told me to Leave. And I didn't leave, you know, so people are like, oh, Ben didn't handle this perfectly, but I'm glad you posted it, you know, and now I can see what's actually going on. And it gave. Even though I didn't handle it the best, it got me even more public support, I think, you know?

[Andrew]

Yeah, I think so, too. I mean, I wouldn't have known about it if you didn't, you know, take the route that you did. I'm curious about some of the schemes that you took in the legal system to avoid or just to kind of shake things up. Specifically when you tried to transfer the case from a civil to a criminal matter by creating a lottery in Oregon.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

How did you think of that?

[Ben Schneider]

So I'm kind of stupid when it comes to the law. They kept saying, it's a civil case. I'm like, what's that mean? I knew civil meant, like, court stuff, you know, but I didn't really know what it meant. So I just Googled, like, okay, what is a civil law and what is a criminal law? And I just, like, went down, like, all these, like, websites of, like, okay, here's all the list of civil laws. Here's all the list of criminal laws. And one of the things I saw in criminal was stealing from a lottery. I was like, well, what if we just sold one of these sets through a lottery? And then if they don't give the prize and they're stealing the prize, that would be criminally illegal. Now the police have to do something. And so I don't know, I put probably, like 10 minutes of thought into it, maybe. What if we do a lottery?

[Andrew]

Yes.

[Ben Schneider]

But that was my, like, train of thought. That's like, all these things. I kind of. I went to school as a mechanical engineer, so I'm used to just, like, coming up with experiments. So what I was taught in school is you create an experiment and you just record the results. You don't really be like, I hope this happens. I hope that you just, maybe this could happen. Like, I have a hypothesis. Like, maybe it could go this way, maybe it could go this way, but at the end of the day, let's just do the experiment and record the results. So I treat all these schemes the same way, where it's like, maybe this works. Let's do a lottery. And that's like my science experiment. And then we'll record the results. And the police. I gave the police the law book. I'm like, it says right here, it's a criminal crime. And they Basically, shut the law book. And they were like, we're leaving. We don't want to deal with your schemes. Well, I don't think we broke the law. I want your scam. That part doesn't matter here. It's pretty black and white. Because right now, you guys said the wall we broke is the falsifying the raffle. Let's do this. Let's just call it. And we'll just go from here. All right, guys, just please, please. So that was the result, and I recorded that and then put it in the video. That's kind of the format I used for that video, was just experiment one, record the results. Experiment two, let's film it. Record the results. I just did it like a science experiment.

[Andrew]

As far as the criminal case, do you have any schemes you're cooking up right now? Like maybe the insanity.

[Ben Schneider]

Oh, that's a good one.

[Andrew]

Yeah, just start. But it's hard to fake, though, because people try it all the time.

[Ben Schneider]

I think Nathan Fielder did that, right? Didn't he take some guy and he was like. I think it was the. The TV episode where he's like, we went through little doors. We put an alligator in there. And then he's like, this person's insane. You know, we put an alligator inside a small door, a small room, basically, with a small door. And we would have customers coming in to get a $1 TV, basically.

[Andrew]

Is this insanity we're witnessing or I'm seeing psychosis?

[Ben Schneider]

Okay. I'm seeing delusional thinking. Is there any way you could put that in writing for me? And then that way, if he got in trouble for the scheme, they could plead insanity. Yeah, maybe that's a good idea. I like that idea. I mean, I don't want to copy someone else. I feel like I would be copying him if I did that, but.

[Andrew]

Well, they moved the whole case to Utah, despite the fact that the store was in Oregon. Because the company's based in Utah.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah. And I think also the judge is Mormon. And maybe they're like, oh, if we get a Mormon judge, I mean, you can see they got that TRO without even letting them hear my side. They got no bail. Normally you have to put a bail, like, a huge bail in case you're wrong. Then, like, that bail can pay for the damages and the judge grants it with no bail, which all the YouTube lawyers were saying. Like, that's crazy. Like, how could that be? Like, we've never seen something this ridiculous. Like, there must be some collusion going on. The other thing that has come up here is a local police need to be investigated. And that goes without saying. They've done some things here that clearly are shady, if I had to guess. Maybe that's why. I don't know.

[Andrew]

Do you think that if you were like a traditional journalist with a press card or a helmet Instead of a YouTuber, you'd be taken more seriously by the Mormons out there?

[Ben Schneider]

That's a good idea. Maybe I should make myself a press card and just be like, hey, I'm actually the press. A lot of people have been telling me to get a private investigator license. They said it's like 200 bucks. You just fill out a little piece of paper and you get like, you don't have to do anything. You just. Just pay like 100 bucks or something. And then they were like, oh, that could make you have a lot of credibility. Something about doing that.

[Andrew]

International press corps, too is like 200 bucks. So put in your info, like, show them your portfolio and you'll be good. You get a press card. I'm just saying, if you want to convince old authority, like boomer institutions, that's not fun.

[Ben Schneider]

Because then the audience is going to be watching at home and they're like, oh, well, Ben can only get away with this because he's the press, you know, or he's a private investigator. Like, I want to do all my schemes from, like, the point of view of, like, the person sitting at home. Like, I want the person at home to be. Be like, I could have done that, you know?

[Andrew]

So do you think everybody being sued right now should just make a YouTube channel?

[Ben Schneider]

Maybe. Because if you're not a good storyteller, no one's going to watch it.

[Andrew]

Yeah, it's true. You'd have to, like, get some broadcast lessons or, like, figure out how to package a story for entertainment value. Any extroverted person getting sued, I believe should create content of some form if they're, you know, innocent and being bullied in civil court.

[Ben Schneider]

What would be cool would be to, like, start a podcast where you'd have those people on, you know, and then they just like, tell their story. And then it's like, if the podcast is already has a lot of subscribers and already has, like, a fan base, then then people could hear their stories, you know, that could be cool.

[Andrew]

Should we open up an email address for this?

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah, that's what I did. I said, if you have a problem the police can't solve, email me at this email.

[Andrew]

And you've gotten 10,000 emails in like, a week.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

And you Were in the Burning man line, sifting through them in the heat last year.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've been waiting in line for Burning man for like 14 hours now. So we posted it as we were on our way to Burning man and the line for Burning man because it rained. I think it was like a 22, 23 hour line actually. No, we were actually in the line for over a day. For sure, sure. So there's like three of us just like going through the emails for like a whole like 24 hour period.

[Andrew]

And that's how you got the minifigs lead.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah. And all my other leads. Yeah.

[Andrew]

Oh, sick. So the users really help you like get. Get new stories to cover?

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah, no people. You have a bigger audience than I do, so you'll probably even get more than that.

[Andrew]

Well, half the time it's like people lying because they want to hang out.

[Ben Schneider]

Really?

[Andrew]

Yeah. Like, we remember we opened up editor applications. Half of them just showed up and they're like, what's up? We're like, can you edit? They're like, no, but I'm really trying to learn how. I love your shit. I'm just like, no, dude. Well, I appreciate the enthusiasm, but like, the hard part about hiring editor is like, we have a very specific vision of how we want things to be. And when you hire someone, it's just like if they can't hit it. Exactly. It just feels like you're wasting time.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah. It's so sad.

[Andrew]

Yeah. But I really think you should get some editors. I just hired five editors.

[Ben Schneider]

Dang.

[Andrew]

I used to have two or three. Now we have eight.

[Ben Schneider]

Whoa. That's sick. Yeah. Cause that's like the main thing. Like I. Most of my videos are already filmed. They just need to be edited. It sucks.

[Andrew]

You said you have more than a dozen videos in the chamber right now?

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Dude, you gotta get some editors.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah, I know. Well, I did just hire some like a couple days ago, but I haven't really seen any of the drafts.

[Andrew]

Because that makes your life so much easier. Especially you're like me. We love to be in the field. We don't want to be sitting in an office all day editing.

[Ben Schneider]

Oh, I love it all. I love storytelling. I love filming the stuff. I love turning it into something that, like, I feel like I'll enjoy in the future. I love everything, like the whole process.

[Andrew]

The only part, I love the positivity, but for me, I don't know if it's a repetition thing, but just like the process of Adobe Premiere editing, I don't know it's become this, like, pet peeve where I'm just like, oh my God. Because it's just so administrative and like, clerical. Like, I'm just not very, like, tech. And I just. I wish I could film every day. My favorite part is the doing. And, like, I love filming.

[Ben Schneider]

I'd say so too.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I love filming and posting. I love seeing how people react to stuff and I love capturing it. But everything in between just feels like nails on a chalkboard for me.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah, I don't know. It's a good little, like, break for me of, like, to like, recap, like, what I did and, like, learn, like, oh, I could have done this better, you know? Cause you don't really capture your mistakes when you're filming because you're like so in it, you know? But then when you're like back at the editing thing, I'm like, oh, I could have done this better. I could have said this. I could have been better here. Like, oh, I chickened out. But now I'm in the editing room. Like, why did I chicken out? That wasn't scary. Now that I'm not feeling the nerves and stuff. So then next time I film, like, okay, I'm not gonna go back to the editing room and be pissed off that I chickened out again. So I really gotta do it. And I feel like it gives me extra pressure to go harder, I don't know. So I like it. But it would be cool to have some helpers though.

[Andrew]

You definitely need some. So where are you living nowadays? I know you're from Ohio, but you're living in a couple car in LA for a while. Do you have a home?

[Ben Schneider]

I do now. Yeah. Just in Hollywood.

[Andrew]

Oh, sick. Like Hollywood proper? Yeah, like walk of fame style?

[Ben Schneider]

No, East Hollywood.

[Andrew]

Oh, that's a great area, man. Have you been to the Bolt Coffee Shop on Sunset?

[Ben Schneider]

No, I don't go out to eat, really. I just eat the same food every day. I want to spend all my money on YouTube videos, you know.

[Andrew]

Oh my God.

[Ben Schneider]

I just meal prep like every Monday and it lasts a week. It's quinoa. Well, it used to be pasta, but I upgraded to quinoa. Nice job because quinoa is way healthier. It's a little bit more expensive. Before I couldn't afford quinoa, so I. That's why I did pasta. But I finally upgraded to quinoa. I just put in like six or seven vegetables, like broccoli, green peppers. I don't even know. I just take vegetables. I just toss them all in, like, mushrooms and stuff and onions. And then I usually get some type of meat, like chicken. It's like the healthiest meat, I think. So I usually do chicken, and then I get pesto sauce, and I mix it all together and put it. The Tupperware's like, this big. Takes up, like, a whole thing in the fridge, and it lasts me, like, a week. That way, all my time and all my money just goes straight into YouTube.

[Andrew]

YouTube. So you don't have any real hobbies outside of this?

[Ben Schneider]

Hey, what up? Hey.

[Courtney Love]

This is my old mansion.

[Andrew]

Amazing.

[Ben Schneider]

Oh, no way.

[Courtney Love]

Yeah. John Silvo was here.

[Andrew]

Hey, you can come on in here if you want. Great to meet you.

[Ben Schneider]

What up?

[Courtney Love]

How's your life?

[Andrew]

How's it going?

[Courtney Love]

Did you begin with you?

[Andrew]

Yeah. You can be on camera, though.

[Courtney Love]

Hi. Hi. Courtney. Hi. Nice to meet you.

[Andrew]

It's so great to meet you.

[Courtney Love]

Her name is Courtney Love, the widow of Kurt Cobain, Rock's quintessential bad girl. This is my old manager's office. Nirvana's old manager, John Silva.

[Ben Schneider]

No way.

[Courtney Love]

Yeah. Beck. Beastie Boys. Yeah. This is my own Management for 1997.

[Andrew]

That's crazy to think about, because now it's like a ghost town around here.

[Courtney Love]

Yeah, I used to come up here all the time. Money, drugs, dances.

[Ben Schneider]

In this room?

[Andrew]

Yes, in the room.

[Courtney Love]

Yeah. This is the corner office. Danny Goldberg of this floor. This room right here, corner office.

[Andrew]

Who worked here?

[Courtney Love]

John Silva. First Danny Goldberg, then John Silva.

[Andrew]

Oh, my God. So you've done drugs in this room before?

[Courtney Love]

Well, yeah. Advances pay, lawyers for lawsuits, SEC journalists. I did a few interviews in here.

[Andrew]

That's pretty cool. It'd be awesome to get.

[Courtney Love]

Are you clearing up misconceptions? Is that what you're doing?

[Andrew]

Well, thankfully, the Internet's fully on his side.

[Courtney Love]

Yeah, I know. I'm on his side. We're all on the side.

[Andrew]

We're.

[Ben Schneider]

We're on the opposite side now.

[Courtney Love]

We're on the side the crooked judges

[Ben Schneider]

or the journalists being sued.

[Andrew]

What do you think about the ongoing lawsuit?

[Courtney Love]

I am fully on pen.

[Ben Schneider]

Yes.

[Andrew]

In your decades of experience in this kind of game, do you think he's going to come out on top?

[Courtney Love]

Yeah, I think so. I think that people can see all sides of it. I don't think there's a monoculture, like, just on their side. It's very clear that, like, the narrative. Because he always had cameras. The kids always had cameras when they're saying, oh, they had heroin, Jimmy. Like, back in the day, the grownups would have just entirely been Believed.

[Andrew]

So you feel like now I see

[Courtney Love]

how that could have happened. So as somebody who that happened to, you know, I really obviously I could like feel, you know, what was happening to those kids, to him and those kids.

[Andrew]

So do you think that in your day, if you had the power of the media to like speak your truth, things would have been different?

[Courtney Love]

Of course not, no.

[Andrew]

But I mean like if you had a big platform, like, I mean you came up in the pre Internet times.

[Courtney Love]

Yeah, I came up in the monoculture culture, like fighting these grown ups in this. Right. You know, it's like it was pretty futile, but it's really nice to see. Yeah, you guys like take take control of.

[Andrew]

It's really great. Definitely.

[Courtney Love]

It's called the over culture now. It's like mainstreams and mainstreams. And you know, I think just like I changed my algorithm, I like, I started like different accounts on, on Instagram. Like all of a sudden I'm like, oh my God, like you have seen is really big. Like Shakira is really fucking famous.

[Andrew]

Do you think it's cooler now or cooler back then?

[Courtney Love]

It's like there's a lot of, there's a lot of different mainstreams and people stay in their algorithms and they believe stuff.

[Andrew]

And what you said is so crazy and so true. Like in the 90s and before, like if you were famous, like everybody knew you. Now there's like eight or nine or a thousand pockets of fame. So you could be famous to one group and like nobody would know who you are.

[Courtney Love]

It's like I looked at Kai Channel Trump, she's a Trump granddaughter. I looked at the comments in Kai Trump's account and they're saying, my son's in the military, would you meet him? Somebody's under the comment and they say, our first family, they're so beautiful and they only marry multi millionaires within themselves. It's literally like a peasant class who is like, oh, you know, that's all they do and that's okay.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Courtney Love]

And I'm like, oh my God. I just felt really bad. If you just cheated, change your algorithm, it would be okay, that's all.

[Andrew]

Well, I guess you'd have to like, like pictures of dogs every day or pick like a really specific niche.

[Courtney Love]

The liking is a weak signal. No, you gotta engage with the comments. That's why I found like ufc, like UFC is big, but you know, change your algorithm, change your mood.

[Ben Schneider]

No, I think the same thing. I think you say the same thing all the time. Like.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I mean like basically if the algorithm knows that you are outraged by something in particular. They can keep your eyeballs for longer with cortisol than dopamine. Dopamine. So, like, if they know something makes you mad, they will feed it to you. And over and over again, like, their goal is to make you as pissed as possible about any variety of things

[Courtney Love]

as it only benefits me when somebody puts a nasty comment. Yeah, my. Like, the people that leave nasty comments on my are good for my branch. And, like, they keep getting served. Courtney. Shit you. I'm like, those. Those people are really good for me. But, like, they don't understand why they're being served. Courtney. I piss off a lot of people. Courtney's brash behavior has struck a nerve with her followers who air their opinions

[Andrew]

on the computer Internet. Yeah.

[Courtney Love]

My dislike in. In the Gallup poll is a big, healthy, nickelback size, like, dislike list. You know, that's the price to do a business in this office back in the day. So, you know, I get served to those people and they don't understand they're being completely manipulated. I have checked with the dark Overlords. Like, this is how it works. By the way, those offices at CA didn't say, hey, Courtney, change your own algorithm. They were like, staying, Courtney, stay this. But this is, by the way, how it works for your brand. So I get served. The brand me gets served to those people. By the way, you weren't in my algorithm.

[Andrew]

I'm not.

[Courtney Love]

I had to shirt you like, oh, is he a thing? You're a big thing. And you're in John Silva's old office.

[Andrew]

Hell, yeah. Can we get a pic together real quick?

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah, for sure.

[Courtney Love]

Wearing makeup. Can we?

[Ben Schneider]

Oh, no, it's fine.

[Andrew]

We'll face tune it with the phone.

[Courtney Love]

Can you facetune it? That was a really embodied conversation for not wearing your makeup. Do it again.

[Ben Schneider]

First this is Donna, then it's uncle, then it's reckless Ben. What were we talking about?

[Andrew]

We were talking. I think. I think it was the editing capacity. If I had. Not that you need my advice, but I'll just tell you from personal experience, it's made my life so much more fun.

[Ben Schneider]

Really?

[Andrew]

Yeah. Cause I can think, dude. The weight of having amazing footage that I love, love unedited is like, the worst feeling. Knowing that, like, you have, like, some you care about so much that's just sitting on a hard drive because you don't have the time to sift through.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah, that's my situation. Yeah, dude, it's my. It's like, so much footage. Yeah. I just haven't had the time to edit it yet.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I was gonna say it's like having aids, but it's not. Having AIDS is worse.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah, I would rather have. Yeah, for sure.

[Andrew]

But having unedited D. I mean, you know, we're talking about how you kind of don't have many hobbies because of the YouTube grind.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah, I haven't worked out in like two months. It sucks. I usually work out every day and it's been just so busy.

[Andrew]

What do you do when you're in there?

[Ben Schneider]

So I rock climb usually, and then muscle ups, like one arm, pull ups.

[Andrew]

Oh. Cause you're skinny enough, you can do crazy calisthenics.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah, like human flag stuff. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I don't really like working out because it's like boring. I like it being fun, you know, it's like rock climbing for me. It's like working out out, but it's like a game, you know, it's like you can see yourself get better. You can see yourself do routes you've never been able to accomplish. And you see the self. It's not just like lifting weights for the sake of lifting weights. It's like, oh, I have like a goal, you know, it's fun.

[Andrew]

Are you. Do you have any vices, advice?

[Ben Schneider]

Like, like, like do you spend time partying and.

[Andrew]

Or not really.

[Ben Schneider]

No advice. Maybe heroin,

[Andrew]

substances in the vehicle?

[Ben Schneider]

No, I'm just kidding. I've never tried heroin. Trying to think. No, probably not. Really.

[Andrew]

Like, you don't go to like Dairy Queen at two o' clock in the morning and just like get yourself on like a real preschool?

[Ben Schneider]

No, I. I just eat that same food, breakfast, lunch and dinner.

[Andrew]

Because they say no man is without vice. I'm wondering, like, whenever you want to get out of your grind set mode, is there anything that you do that people would say, geez, that guy's nuts.

[Ben Schneider]

I like exploring abandoned buildings and stuff. It's fun.

[Andrew]

That's pretty crazy.

[Ben Schneider]

I don't know if that's a vice. It depends who you have. Yeah, maybe it's a vice.

[Andrew]

I mean, Urbex is definitely. So maybe breaking the law is the vice.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah, but I don't do it in a way to hurt people. I do it for like exploration, you know, trying to think of other cool vices I have.

[Andrew]

I guess that counts. Just like breaking into stuff. Just like something to kind of like stimulate that part of your mind that's like, I'm breaking loose.

[Ben Schneider]

Oh yeah. I'm trying to think. I don't know. Usually I just film everything I do. Usually I'm either filming or editing. I feel like that's, like, pretty much it. Cause that's, like, what's fun for me, you know? Anything else, I'm just like, oh, I'm kind of like. Like, if I was to, like, go out to eat or something, you know, I'd be like, what's an hour I could be spending editing? You know, I could have just like, made a quick meal in, like, five minutes, and I could have been like, watch, like, eating while watching raw footage, you know, Like. Like, I don't know. I'd just be, like, sitting there, like, doing nothing. I'm like, this is. I'm wasting time. If I had unlimited time, I would love going out to restaurants, you know, It'd be so fun. But, like, it's just not my top priority. It's like a low priority, you know, it's not like I don't like it, it's just not my top priority.

[Andrew]

But it seems like you do it because you love creating content and capturing investigative footage. Unlike Clavicular, who's just doing it because he feels like he'll lose status without metric success online.

[Ben Schneider]

Oh, no. That's so sad. Dang. I watched that interview. That's actually how I found out about Clavicular was from your interview. I thought it was really funny how he stormed off.

[Andrew]

If you want to be completely disingenuous, that's fine with me. I guess there's just no point to continue. All right, thank you for your time.

[Courtney Love]

Thank you. All right.

[Andrew]

But it was weird with him because everything was going. Everything was going pretty well.

[Ben Schneider]

It seemed like it was, like a good interview.

[Andrew]

And then I think he wanted me to, you know, ask him about looks maxing advice because he thought I was saying, cripplingly insecure about something, which I'm not. I mean, if I had.

[Ben Schneider]

I mean, are you really happy with how you look?

[Andrew]

Oh, definitely.

[Ben Schneider]

In the morning, you like, you really.

[Andrew]

If I had my. If I had. If I had a dream situation. Situation, I would be 10 pounds lighter because I'm 196. I would be 186. 185.

[Ben Schneider]

Really?

[Andrew]

Yeah. And I would get rid of all acne forever. But that's basically it. I think those things are doable. So, like, I wouldn't seek looks maxing advice because that would imply that I need, like, peptides or bone smashing or some kind of protocol. I'm pretty sure if I stopped drinking beer, went to the gym more often, and Just, you know, was on a balanced diet. I could deal with those things. I didn't want to tell Clavicular that because. Because he was fishing for, like, any insecurity to sort of take control of

[Ben Schneider]

the conversation, to then sell you a product. It's like, what Scientology does. They find out, oh, where are you unhappy? Oh, we have a solution. And they give you the worst solution ever. I feel like Clavicular would probably do the same thing.

[Andrew]

He would go far in Scientology.

[Ben Schneider]

Well, you're not happy with how you look, you gotta smash your jaw.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And he's used to truly like, talking to people who view him as like, a legend and they're genuinely, like, have weight problems, like, severe aesthetic issues.

[Ben Schneider]

What can I help you with?

[Andrew]

You want to start looks maxing

[Ben Schneider]

and

[Andrew]

you know they're paying him. How do I get sexy Clav? And he's like, here's what you gotta do. Take Ozempic, inject steroids into your ass and lift.

[Ben Schneider]

Is he allowed to advertise steroid use? Cause I've heard the same thing. He just advertises like, steroids and stuff.

[Andrew]

I mean, there's no one to fire him.

[Ben Schneider]

I mean, not fire him, but, like, sue him. Would some parents. Oh, yeah, I'm sure be like, oh, my 16 year old's doing steroids. This influencer told him to do it. He paid money for that. Can we. Is that like a suable thing?

[Andrew]

I mean, I'm sure looks maxers die all the time.

[Ben Schneider]

Really?

[Andrew]

We had one die a few days ago from injecting something widely promoted by Clav and others. He started doing the gold injections. The gold was for two reasons. One was for Looksmax thing to change his skin color. The issue there is that Clav isn't making these methods up. They're common methods in looksmaxing. So you can't, like, sue a culture. Like, Klav goes on looksmaxing forums for information about what to do to make himself have, like, an angular jaw or a facial harmony score, as they call it. You'd have to, like, sue the movement. Maybe bricks and minifigs could do it. You know, you'd have to have a lot of money. But. Okay, back to the legal stuff. Do you think that the US Is in need of court reform? Do you think people should be able to sue each other to the extent that they're allowed to right now?

[Ben Schneider]

It is so strange to me how. Yeah, it's like the more money you have, the more likely you are to win, which doesn't make any sense. To me, like I think in words other. Other countries, isn't it? Who's ever legally in the right should win and who's ever legally in the wrong should lose. I think, yeah, I think some other countries operate that way, but nobody has

[Andrew]

our civil system except our legal system in the civil courts is like a joke. It's insane.

[Ben Schneider]

So then what's the solution to that? I've thought of what's the problem? What's the solution? I haven't thought of a solution because what's the solution? You fire all lawyers and just have me fight against you? But then what if I don't know the law? Like you should probably have someone, I should be able to hire someone. And if I can't afford one, one should be appointed to me, which we have. So. But then the one that's appointed you is bad. And I'm the public defender. I have a right to be here and I have a right to spend. If you want to fight, let's go out back and I'll just.

[Andrew]

Well, I think there should be civil public defenders in the same way that if you're charged with a crime, you can get a public defender in criminal court in civil. Either have to represent yourself, which is super hard and time consuming and time is money, or you have to hire a lawyer or get someone to work pro bono, which is hard. My personal take on the situation is the barrier to suing someone in civil court for things like defamation. Should one be extremely high, so high that you have a series of judges and courts review it over and over before you're even allowed to serve somebody. And secondly, anybody being sued should get a great civil public defender, especially if it's a bullshit case like mine or yours. Cause if you get charged with a crime, you get defended no matter what.

[Ben Schneider]

Well, we have anti slap law.

[Andrew]

You still have to hire a lawyer.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah, you still have to hire a lawyer for it. But so the anti slap laws are really good. I think that's a good step in that right direction. But yeah, it just something. There's something so weird to me about me because I was in a couple situations where it's like, shoot, I might actually go to jail for a really long time. Oh wait, I have $5,000. I can pay this lawyer. Oh, okay. I can just get out. And I'm like, I'm good now. You know where I wouldn't have been good. It's like what happens if that person. If I didn't have 5,000, like what if this happened to me two years ago? When I was still living in my car, you know, like, I would've just been in jail for like 20 years maybe, you know, and what? The action's the same, but the result is different because of money. And that makes no sense to me.

[Andrew]

I can't help but think it has to change.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah. Maybe with basic universal income. I don't know. Then everyone will just be rich and the robots will do all the jobs we don't wanna do. Yeah. And we'll all get money and then we can all afford lawyers. It'd be sick.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Who's someone you look forward to maybe being sued? Buy in the future.

[Ben Schneider]

Be really fun. Can't talk about that yet.

[Andrew]

You can talk about like, okay, shoot,

[Ben Schneider]

that's a cool one. I kind of just take my projects like one at a time. I don't. I guess I have. There's like 12 Pro, but I can't like, mention them because.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I get it.

[Ben Schneider]

It sucks. I'm like, still undercover. Like, even the. I'm still undercover. Like, I still think I'm like a 17 year old kid. Like, I haven't like revealed myself yet to them.

[Andrew]

So I think you could pull off 17. I think that over time, I think if you become so recognizable that you can't go undercover anywhere, you'll be able to have a little army of people to do the bidding for you and you can be more editorial.

[Ben Schneider]

Oh, yeah, yeah. That's what we did with the bricks and minifigs thing. I got trespassed within the first like five minutes of the video. So the rest of it was just me sending in people, you know, on my behalf. I guess me and Tyler are staying back because we're already trespassed. It sucked because I put on my Instagram story. I'm like, hey, like, I need people to show up. And I'd have like four people show up, show up. But now it's like, I feel like like hundreds of people would show up and be crazy.

[Andrew]

Do you ever worry about your fans going too far on your behalf? I do.

[Courtney Love]

If.

[Ben Schneider]

If they go too far. I think that's a wrong way to word it. I think people have actually graffiti the bricks and minifigs store, which I'm like, super against. They're like harassing innocent locations and stuff, so that could be considered going too far. But I don't say it's on my behalf because I say, don't do that. I've been on like every single news station. I've been on every single interview. I've always said Harass the innocent stores. Corporate is also screwing them the same way corporate screwed Brian. So by you harassing the stores, you are siding with corporate, you know, so I don't think that's on my behalf at all. I feel like, if anything, that's on corporate's behalf, you know, so if people are going too far, it's not on my behalf, you know?

[Andrew]

Oh, I totally agree. I just. After I made my fundraiser video, they added an amended complaint to the new lawsuit where they were like, oh, people keep calling us and saying, like, what's up? Something. They kept saying that. The people kept calling.

[Ben Schneider]

Well, do you want them to do that?

[Andrew]

No, not at all.

[Ben Schneider]

Well, then it's not on your behalf. They're doing it against your behalf, actually, because you said not to do that. So in the lawsuit, they should actually correct that by saying the fans are disobeying Andrew. Andrew told us not to, but the fans are doing it anyway. So Andrew actually tried helping us in this situation. More pissed off at the fan. So maybe they need to.

[Andrew]

I can even do right now, if you're a fan of mine, stop harassing Bill Joyner's lawyers. I disagree with what they're doing, but it reflects poorly on our support base. And it's also just not good in jail to harass people. At the end of the day, lawyers are humans too. And like I always say, all lives matter.

[Ben Schneider]

So now Bill Joyner's gonna have to update his lawsuit and say, hey, Andrew told him not to harass us. They're still doing it, but Andrew tried, so it's not on Andrew's behalf now, but. So now it looks like they've to update their lawsuit now.

[Andrew]

I believe so, man. Well, I wish you the best of luck with all your future lawsuit stuff. I hope you hire some editors if you want to, and overall, I hope you don't get sentenced to jail time.

[Ben Schneider]

Oh, nice. Oh, nice.

[Andrew]

If you do, hopefully your friends can keep the Free Ben movement alive.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah, I want to figure out a way to, like, storm off this interview, but you're saying, like, very nice things to me, so I don't know what to, like, upset it and storm off about.

[Andrew]

Well, I don't have anything mean to say to you.

[Ben Schneider]

Well, dang it.

[Andrew]

You're not really the kind of guy I want to be mean to.

[Ben Schneider]

Oh, thanks.

[Andrew]

And I'm sad that people.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah, you too? I feel bad storming off too. I just kind of wanted to. That was just such, like, a legendary moment when that happened. I felt like, yeah, maybe I don't storm off. Maybe we'll just. We'll just end it peacefully.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Maybe we could overlay the footage of you and I. First may meeting.

[Ben Schneider]

Oh, nice. That's sick.

[Andrew]

Area 51 outside the gas station.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah. Low key. Even if there are no aliens in there, we're gonna make history. I'm gonna be the guy that's known for hopping the fence. Ben Schneider hopped the fence. I remember you told me, you were like, I have this, like, dream where I'm gonna become this, like, big interviewer guy with this rv. And you're like, it's gonna work out. But that's, like, what everyone was saying, you know? Everyone was like, oh, I'm gonna be big and famous someday. And then you actually did. It was really funny.

[Andrew]

Yeah, man. So did you.

[Ben Schneider]

You had, like, a vision that worked well, it took me a long time because I think at the time, I was still just, like, a slack. Like, I just wanted to do slacklining.

[Andrew]

Yeah, but you said, I want to be able to make videos as my full time.

[Ben Schneider]

Oh, I said that? Yeah. Oh, no way. That's sick.

[Andrew]

Yeah. You were like, I just started doing this, but it'd be sick to, like, do this and, like, not have to work.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah, I remember I just broke my neck, like, two or three days before the Area 51 thing. It's my second time breaking my neck. The doctor said, stay in the hospital. And I was like, I'm gonna hop this. So I think I was, like, probably really feeling it. Like, I need to give up this slacklining thing.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I think so. I remember you just saying, like, that, you know, you do it as a hobby, but it'd be cool to not have to be in the workforce. You and your buddy are both saying that because you guys were just getting started. I just remember you were like, yeah, it'd be cool. I'm just out here having fun. Like, you never were into it for, like, the money or the status, but I'm happy to see that, you know, you're doing it well.

[Ben Schneider]

I was a mechanical engineer. I was in a cubicle for two years. It was terrible. I hated it. Having a boss tell me what to do. And I, like, wanted to create all these cool contraptions. I couldn't. I felt like I was, like. It was, like, too slow for me. I don't know. I wanted to come up with cooler ideas, but it took a long time. It's living in miserable conditions for, like, six, seven years. But it paid off. I think I had fun. It wasn't comfortable but it was fun.

[Andrew]

When you say miserable, you mean, like, roaches and stuff?

[Ben Schneider]

No, just, like, I had a $2,000 car with no power steering, no window. My windows got shattered, so it would constantly rain, and then, like, it would get moldy inside. I remember, like, just, like, wanting a window because I was like, if there's, like, a crazy person, he can just, like, reach through the window and, like, mess with me, you know, But. And then all my life's belongings were in that car, and someone could just unlock my door and steal my stuff. I don't know. The door didn't close all the way, and that was my house. So it was kind of miserable. But it was also really fun because I could just do whatever I want, whenever I want. So it was, like, good and bad.

[Andrew]

Nah, I feel you. I missed you. Right, R.V.

[Ben Schneider]

yeah, I wish I had. R.V. would have been sick.

[Andrew]

Yeah, it's like, you can borrow mine

[Ben Schneider]

if you want, because I was just sleeping. I could, like, recline to, like, this. That's how I slept every night.

[Andrew]

You have any message out there to, I guess, young creators of video content who feel like it's not working for me. I'm just gonna become a telemarketer and put the camera down forever.

[Ben Schneider]

Oh, no. It's so sad. That's the same situation I was in, dude. It's. I don't know. I would say, don't do what I did and just become homeless. That's, like, probably bad advice because, like, once you're homeless, it's hard to get out of that because. Cause it's like, the rich get richer, the poor get poor. But I would say save up some money, and once you have enough money, just be creative and think of, what can I do that no one else in the world is doing? I think that's what's always helped me, is what can I do that no one else is doing? If you can't think of anything, then what do I want to do that no one else in the world is doing? Because you're right. Maybe you're not special or unique yet, which most people aren't. But the only difference you have with everyone else is you want to be special and unique so you can go and figure out what you want to do and practice harder than everyone else. Because at the end of the day, the reason the people that are the best are the best is because they practice smart. You know? So if you go out and practice more, then you'll be better than everyone else, and then you can be more successful than Everyone else.

[Andrew]

Yeah, that's really. I did the Shia LaBeouf interview and I remember I asked him, I was like, have you always been talented or what talent do you think it took to get your first role in Even Stevens? And he said, there's no talent, Andrew. There's only push ups.

[Ben Schneider]

Do you believe in talent?

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Courtney Love]

Tell me.

[Andrew]

I think as an interviewer, like, listening is a talent, but I do look back at certain things. That's a skill. Okay, so talent would be like juggling or.

[Ben Schneider]

Which is also a skill.

[Andrew]

Being able to exhale for two minutes straight, which is also a skill. So then by that criteria, I guess there's no talents. Correct.

[Ben Schneider]

There is only push ups.

[Andrew]

And it's true. Like, you know, nobody's born talented.

[Ben Schneider]

I mean, I'm just saying just go out and do a lot of push ups and you'll be the best. But essentially it's just. I get the metaphor. Yeah.

[Andrew]

Practice doing what you're doing every, every day. Don't be afraid to fail. And most importantly, don't let ideas be stuck on the drawing board for too long. When you have an idea, try it, put it out. If people don't like it, it's okay. Lessons learned. Do it again. Try something new. You know, I can't even tell you, man, how many amazing documentary filmmakers I know who are sitting on like earth shattering, paradigm shifting footage. And they have been for like five or six years. But it's sitting on a hard drive, already edited even. But they're such perfectionists about it that they can't put it out into the world. They're scared of being judged. They're just scared of, I don't know what. It can't bring themselves to put themselves out there in the public sphere.

[Ben Schneider]

That's the other thing is, yeah, no matter how good you think you are, your first video is gonna suck. I do this exercise that I tell people a lot. I say, who's your favorite YouTuber? Go to the oldest setting and watch their first, like three videos and watch how garbage those videos are. And now think to yourself, can I make a video as good as these videos? Probably yes. You know, and like, okay, so I'm at the level that my favorite YouTubers were at when we're first starting, right? So if I just do whatever these YouTubers did, I will be there in like five years, you know, like, if it took them five years to get good, then if I just do whatever this YouTuber did, I will also be there in five years, you know? Cause pretty much everyone starts at the same place, which is we suck. You know, if you look at my first couple videos, they all suck. And all of my favorite youtubers, all their videos suck too. So we all started out the same. We all suck when we start.

[Andrew]

I made a semi scripted documentary film called George's Addiction about my buddy George. He couldn't stop smoking cigarettes. That's my first video. I don't even know if you could find it on YouTube. But it was just about how George couldn't stop smoking. And then like, the footage was so bad that I had him just like improvise with, like scripted scenes. I was like, go try to buy cigs without paying at the store.

[Ben Schneider]

Hey, man, can I get. Give me all your cigarettes, man.

[Andrew]

You know, it's just like slow motion videos of him, like, crying because he didn't have enough money for cigs. You know, I'm like, yo, just do fake crying. It's literally the worst video I've ever seen of. But I was proud of it at the time.

[Ben Schneider]

That sounds like better than most first videos I see. Like, you know, Mr. Beast, his first like 300 videos were just like the most garbage videos ever. And now he's the biggest YouTuber. I mean, you even had your channel before All Gas, no breaks, right Where. So you had a lot of practice before you even started this new channel. So if people go to watch your oldest videos, they're probably not gonna suck, but it's because you had practice beforehand.

[Andrew]

And by the way, if you're Inspired by Channel 5 or All Gas, no breaks, and you want to make your first interview. MAN ON street style interviews don't make it about minorities invading, quote unquote, parts of the world. I know it's an easy way to get clicks for yourself, but negativity has a very short lifespan. So keep it player and make people's lives better.

[Ben Schneider]

Shoot. I think people are doing that.

[Andrew]

So sad. That's the easiest cop. That's what I hate so much about all my bastard children online is that they. They take what I was doing, which is like giving a voice to people on the street who don't have, like a platform. And they're like doing the agenda of like, the current US Government and going to like, different minority neighborhoods and like antagonizing Indians with questions about on the street. Or like asking Jews like, how much money do you get from the government? Or like asking black people, like, why do you do so much crime? And they package it as investigative and they use AI keyframes of like, you know, like Whatever the stereotype is. And these videos do, like, 10 million views, way more than anything positive. And all the comments are just like, our country's being attacked from within. And so what that looks like in real life is a kid getting bullied at school because he's black or brown or anything, you know, like.

[Ben Schneider]

But, oh, yeah, all his. All the kids at school, they're like, in sixth grade, they don't know any better. They're like, oh, I saw this video that gets millions of views. I want to be cool. Like, this video of making fun of this.

[Andrew]

It's creating the conditions for children to be bullied based upon race. And, you know, I was a kid at one point, and I know how fucked up kids are. And so I just see this content. It makes me genuinely sad. So, yeah, if you take inspiration from me, give a platform to people who don't have one.

[Ben Schneider]

Don't. That's what I want to do on my platform. Like, I find people that are, like, using their power for bad, and then I use my Internet power to equal them out. You know, it's called punching up humor. Not punching down humor. And punching up humor, it's way harder, but way more satisfying. For sure.

[Andrew]

You have a fan base that actually likes you. They don't just like that. You spread hate, you know, and it's such a big difference. It takes longer, but it's definitely more worth it, you know? And you might get called, like, a softy or whatever because you're not going around being a tough guy, bootstraps guy. But it's worth it. The slow grind is the better one because your fan base, when they're with you for longer, they feel more of a connection to you as well. They see the growth. Shout out to my fans. Shout out to all of our supporters. Shout out to Ben's supporters. Shout out to my own. Thank y' all so much for donating to my GoFundMe for legal defense.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

And to his as well. We hope to keep getting sued in the future. So if you're someone watching this and

[Ben Schneider]

you have a corrupt company, please feel free to sue us.

[Andrew]

File the litigation. Don't even do a cease and desist. Just go straight to the lawsuit.

[Ben Schneider]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Any final message?

[Ben Schneider]

I feel like that was a great final message. If you're a corrupt company, we welcome your lawsuit. I feel like it's amazing. Yeah, It's a great way to end this.

[Andrew]

All right, man. Thank you.

[Ben Schneider]

I appreciate it.

[Andrew]

Great interview. Thanks for coming.

[Ben Schneider]

Sweet. Yeah, thanks.

[Andrew]

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