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A
A lot of what drives the most viewership on the Internet today is provocative or sensational content that typically leans towards negativity, fear and anger. But our guest today has been reaching millions of people over the past 11 years by doing the opposite, telling positive stories about people.
B
Thomas Bragg is the co founder of yes Theory as well as one of the best storytellers on YouTube. Their channel is basically Anthony Bourdain, parts unknown for a new generation.
A
I think whenever we're asked like, who makes the best YouTube videos, our answer is typically, yes, Theory. And every week I feel like you and I come in when they put out a new video and we're like, how are they still doing this? And what I mean by still doing this is improving. Week after week on long form documentaries about insane travels with beautiful interactions with strangers. It has been an 11 year journey that has been reinvention. This exploration of what storytelling looks like on the Internet and true filmmaking on YouTube.
B
And Thomas and Amar and Stefan and everyone at yes Theory has a deep understanding, as you'll hear in this episode, of what actually not just grabs people's attention, but makes them a part of your community. Makes them remember what you made and the stories that you're telling.
A
Yeah. I mean, if you look at like who has the deepest communities on the platform, yes Theory is one of them. Bound by this concept of seeking discomfort, meaning that the best things in life are on the other side of your comfort zone. And that mantra has really created this global community. Even when I was traveling in India, I, I just reached out to the yes Fam India group and they hosted meetups with hundreds of people in different cities that I was in to hang out, like, because I reached out and that was crazy. It's a really, really impressive movement. Thomas is one of the most impressive storytellers on the Internet. And I think in a moment where, as we've mentioned, this is the abundance era and there's an abundance of negative content, these guys are making an incredible show that's reaching millions of people.
B
Looking back on this recording, I thought about something that you said often, which is that on the Internet, people glance, they don't read. And if you are a creator, a storyteller, a brand builder, I think the value of this episode is learning how to get people to read on the Internet with what you put out.
A
Yeah.
B
I feel like every time I watch a yes Theory video, I've read a book. I have not read a book, but I feel.
A
Yeah, yeah.
B
Like I have done something positive for myself and I think A lot of people are in that same position where you have something positive, you have value to give, but you feel like the Internet does not want to receive what you have to say. And Thomas and everyone at yes, Theory, they figured that out.
A
Okay. We've talked enough about them. We can do a whole episode just talking about how much we love yes. Theory. But let's bring in Thomas. This is our episode with Thomas Bragg, co founder and host of yes, Theory. All right, Thomas Bragg, welcome to the show.
C
Thank you for having me.
B
Third time on the show.
C
Third time on the show. Yeah.
A
Yeah.
C
Wow.
A
I'm looking at the yes, Theory channel, and I'm noticing two things right now.
C
Okay.
A
One, you're at a frustrating 9.93 million subscribers.
C
So close.
A
So close.
C
So close.
A
So close to 10 million subscribers. That's crazy.
C
Yeah. It's actually. It doesn't make sense in my brain when I, like. I don't. I can't think about it because it's just too much.
B
That is so unbelievable, truly, that 10 million people.
C
Yeah. I still feel like I have 10,000 subscribers. Like, in my head, I'm still, like, just starting is how it feels. But I think maybe one will hit. It'll actually process in my mind. But ultimately, I'm just grateful to still be doing this. Like, it's 11 years in. I don't know how many channels have been doing it for 11 years. There's a few like Philip DeFranco, people like that that have just still doing it, but otherwise there's. I feel like there's fewer and fewer.
A
That was the second thing I was going to bring up is that I'm looking at the channel I sorted by oldest and Dancing with Strangers in the street was uploaded 11 years ago.
C
11 years.
A
Wow. So old. It is. It is a new era of YouTube. I think the third stat that I'll say is I looked up how many channels have 10 million subscribers on YouTube. It's actually a really shocking number.
B
You want to guess, I would imagine. I hate the guessing game, but I imagine it's very few. I would say 2,000.
A
He's almost exactly correct. It's 2,600.
C
Oh, wow.
B
I am never raised correct.
C
It's almost like you do a show on the creator economy.
B
It's like I've been preparing my whole
C
life for that question.
B
Can you tell us also what is for the people? We have a very long history, but some people listening won't know about yes, Theory.
C
Yeah. Yes, Theory has evolved a lot throughout the years, but today I'd say it's a travel show about humanity trying to build bridges between people and cultures. I think it's trying to tell stories about the world from a more optimistic and human lens. And in my experience traveling, that's what I've experienced everywhere. Like I've traveled to quite a few countries that probably the average person will not go to. Syria and Afghanistan and Iraq. And those have been some of the most eye opening trips that I've ever been fortunate to be on. Just because it's, it's the place where before you go, every single person is telling you not to go. And then you get there and you realize every idea you had about this place was wrong. And you get to redefine what the world is. And I think, yes, theory today is, I think, trying to represent something good about the world and showing us reminding humanity of the goodness of where we come from. And it's a challenging time to try to tell positive stories because most of the Internet feeds off of negativity. And I think that's the challenge we've always tried to do is how do we make positive stories about the world actually reach people? Because when we started 11 years ago, our channel took a long time to kind of kick into gears. And the challenge was how do we, how do we find the sweet spot between positivity and virality and also create stories that we feel inspired to tell? And I think that's always a trifecta of trying to find the right balance. But yeah, at the core, you know, we have our philosophies of saying yes, being open minded towards the world. We live by the philosophy of seeking discomfort. So we believe that on the other side of discomfort is all of the growth that we are seeking. So I think through the stories that we do, it's not just, not just to experience the world, but also to grow as people. And we try to take something away from every trip, learn something new, speak to an elder on the street and ask them for wisdom. That's what we just did the last few weeks in Japan. And I think I'm very fortunate to be 11 years in and still be curious about telling stories and about traveling. And I hope that we'll get to keep doing it for a long time to just plant seeds and show people that it is possible to tell positive stories and also succeed on YouTube because I think sometimes that has felt at odds.
A
I think it feels at odds right now more than ever. Curious to ask you about what you've learned about the intersection of positivity and virality.
C
Mm. We. We have this saying, which is hide the vegetables.
A
Yeah.
C
That you guys know.
A
Yeah, yeah.
C
Which is that you have to sort of frame things, unfortunately, sometimes through a more, I don't want to say provocative lens, but it has to have some kind of tension or has to have some kind of conflict in the title, in the thumbnail that makes you want to watch it. But then we always try to make sure that in the story itself, there's a very human element. Like, we don't go to a place looking to tell the negative side. We actually really try to focus on meeting the humans who live there and telling their story as authentically as possible. And I think to make it work, you do have to think through how do we frame this in a way that really makes people ask themselves questions about the outcome. I think if it's just surprising. X person with a fun trip. Typically those videos perform less well than traveling to X dangerous place or most isolated place or finding a man living alone on an active volcano. Like these things are.
A
By the way, these are all.
C
These are actual.
A
Of the last eight videos you've made, you just read off a few of them. Your most recent video is 50 hours on Europe's most dangerous island. Quotes, don't come here.
B
It's alert, alert.
C
It's a little dramatic. It's a little dramatic, I will admit, but it's about an island called Mayotte, and it's technically a French overseas territory. And. And it is quite dangerous there. But it also has some of the most amazing welcoming people you'll ever meet. But there is definitely a barrier before going of, are we safe to walk around the streets? And we in the story end up really connecting with people. And we went quite deep. We got totally accepted by this local community, and that is how we like to do things. Going to a place with genuine curiosity. And I think for the audience, I think if it's too vanilla, it's not interesting. Like, there needs to be something. There has to be stakes somewhere in the story. And if there are no stakes, I think it's like a fun, maybe casual watch for a small subset of the community that just like you for who you are. But I think if you want a story to actually perform on YouTube, you have to think. I always assume that even our current subscribers don't care at all about what we do. And how do I make them care. I know that you guys talk a lot about that. You have to make people care. And I always assume every single idea I have, every video I have, that nobody cares And I start from that place, and it's like my job to make people care. That was one of the lessons you guys had in the recent video. That is the challenge, how do you make somebody care? And sometimes, you know, it's. It's. It's literally in how you present it. Right. You take a niche idea that you're interested in, and you have to figure out, how do we introduce this to millions of people to make them actually curious to watch this all the way to the end? And I think that challenge is super fun for me, and I think it's less. I've never been interested in having a small channel. Not because maybe my ego needs the views. I don't know. Maybe it is an issue I have. Save that for therapy. But I find that it's much more interesting to have the challenge of doing both. I want to do something unique, and that is, like, gets me excited, but I also want the video to perform. I think every creator wants that. But I'm not satisfied if I only get one or the other. Like if. If a video flies but I didn't love making it, it's much less interesting for me, and vice versa.
A
If.
C
If we were super proud of a video, but nobody watched it, I can still be proud. But it does feel like I missed something, I think, either in how I packaged it or just the framing of it. Because I have experienced things where we sort of reframe things and people cared like we wanted. We always wanted to do skydiving videos early on, and nobody cared. And then we came up with the concept of asking strangers to go skydiving on the spot. Now it's like a thing people have done in short form and not.
A
But that's like an Instagram reels thing now. It's crazy to think that a lot of the ideas that you guys used to do.
C
Yeah.
A
Are now have been adopted for, like, short form.
C
Yeah.
B
I just want to say, too, I spent years of my life worried that either you or Amar was going to ask us to skydive at any given notice.
A
And that did happen.
C
It's coming.
B
Yeah. Please.
A
It did happen.
B
I know it did.
C
Go. Skydive, didn't.
A
Yeah, we did.
C
Yeah, I was shocked. Yeah, we have.
A
So one thing we've talked about before of, like, this moment in the creator economy is this. We talked about it for years and years and years that, like, oh, YouTube is the new Hollywood. Or even Neil Mohan said, like, creators are the startups of Hollywood. But it didn't really come to fruition until this Year where now we're starting to see a bigger investment from Hollywood. You see Netflix working with creators directly. You see YouTube even picking up the Oscars. Like, there's these interesting things that are happening that are actually combining these worlds. And one of the things that a lot of people talk about is that the YouTube channels and shows that are set up for success to meet this moment are ones that rhyme with traditional formats. Would you say the yes theory format rhymes with parts unknown, like Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown? Or is there another type of travel show or, or travel documentaries that you're like, if someone's brand new, they're in the Hollywood world and they're like, so what's yes theory?
C
I mean, my first thought was just, you know, Bourdain's the goat. And I was just thinking, I mean, to even be put in the same sentence, I'm like, you know, just all respect and bowing to him. And I think he paved the way for so many people and I think brought taste into, into the travel space in a way that I think hadn't really been done before. And I think that's why people still love his show today. Right. And if, if I could ever get, you know, anywhere near that, I think that would be amazing. At this point, I'm, I'm, I think we're so focused on telling great stories that thinking about what is the format and how to explain it is not something I think about regularly, but it's something that I've been trying to do better because I feel that my focus is so much in the weeds of just making the thing that sometimes I realize I could be better at explaining, explaining what it is. And I think we're trying to think, through experimentation, define what the format is. More and more, I think at this point I see, like two things that I need to do really well is thinking through a very clever concept that people are going to gravitate towards and then hopefully highlighting an amazing human in that story. Because most of our stories ultimately aren't about us. It's about we're going through a space or we're meeting someone and it's about lifting up another human. Is how I see myself sort of responsibility and how I like to tell stories. But if there's anything close to it, I would say it's probably parts unknown, that kind of direction, because I think it's a morph of many formats. I think there's a nat Geo element to it which is very adventure based. And, you know, back in the day you turn on Nat Geo and there'd be a show about food, there'd be a show about, you know, exploring these ancient sites. And I think for, for us, in a way, we've morphed several shows into our own version of it. And I think because we're following our own curiosity more than anything else, each story ends up being a little bit different than the one before. And I find that that is good for a travel YouTube channel. I think if you get too formatted sometimes I wonder if it becomes too predictable for the audience and you kind of pigeonhole yourself.
A
But.
C
But at the same time, it does seem like the platform in general is moving towards that direction. YouTube wants to do shows. I think it would be probably a very smart idea for us to define more cleanly what is it that we are really doing. Because at this point I feel like we're doing short form documentaries every other week is sort of how we look at it.
A
And by short form you mean just to give people context, like 30 to
B
40 minutes, 50 minutes.
A
These are, these are long movies and
B
sometimes they're episodic too. It's a series where there's three episodes that coordinate with each other.
A
Yeah. I find it interesting right now that there is this movement in our industry and on YouTube, which makes a ton of sense that there's kind of a line in the sand difference between creators that make videos and creators that make shows. A great example is like Michelle Carre. Challenge accepted. Yeah, that's a show.
B
Or even Sean Evans.
C
Hot ones.
A
Sean Evans. Hot ones. Rhett and Link. Good mythical morning. Like when a creator makes a show, they can be packaged and understood and sold in a very different way than when a creator makes videos.
B
Like Ryan Trahan makes videos. Massive creator as well.
A
But yeah, he finds moments.
B
His show doesn't have a name.
A
He finds moments to give shows names. Like his summer series always has a name.
B
And that's often when he's the most talked about from an industry perspective.
A
Yeah.
C
And do you all think that that's the future where, like there'll be fewer and fewer channels that make videos and it's going to be more shows?
A
I think they're just different.
B
Yeah.
A
They'll monetize differently. They'll engage with the broader industry differently.
B
You know, I think it's just. It's when the storyteller decides to storytell about themselves as opposed to focusing on the video, the product.
A
Right.
B
Like if you spent even half of your energy storytelling around. Yes. Theory and what it means to watch it to be a part of it, rather than every individual video.
C
Yeah.
B
Right. The impact that that would have putting your storytelling ability onto the overall brand and how people could talk about it, which generally results in a show, not just bespoke videos.
C
I think that's been the challenge in our journey of evolving has been because it feels like the best way to experiment or to. To figure out where the channel is evolving to is to experiment your way to it.
A
Yeah.
C
Because it's very hard to guess if you're going to enjoy a format or if you're going to enjoy a type of videos. And I think. I think the scariest thing is when you have a format that's working and then you get bored of that format and you feel like you're just in a wheelhouse just trying to put out another video of that same format. And I think we had a format that worked really well, which was asking strangers to go on an adventure. And that's what the channel was known for. 2018, 2019. That's what really make. Made us take off. We did things like throwing a party at a stranger's house. You were in that video. Exactly. We did that one together.
A
Yeah.
C
And that was super fun, you know, and it definitely had this. There was a youthful spirit to it. And then when Covid hit and we couldn't really do those kind of videos anymore, I think we got a bit existential, and the format felt a bit tired, felt a bit overdone, and it sometimes felt gimmicky because we knew the beats to hit. And that's when I went to Afghanistan.
A
Yeah.
C
Which was quite. Quite the plot twist. I was like, I have no idea where this is going to go, but it came from a dream. I was literally dreaming at night about being in Afghanistan, and I didn't know where it came from. I had a vivid dream about drinking tea with a man in Afghanistan. And I told my friend Drew, Drew Binsky, who also makes videos, and he happened to be organizing a trip there a month from that time, and we ended up going together. And that just opened my mind to a whole new possibility of travel storytelling that sort of, I think, has heavily influenced the direction that we're in now and the type of stories we like to tell now, which is a bit more open. There's less of the very clear payoff at the end that we used to have. And it's more about exploring and meeting people and having a very unplanned sort of trip and seeing where the energy takes us. And. And I think that's what makes the format hard to explain is that because by default, I think where we find magic these days is in the fluidity of the adventure and it's in the genuine curiosity. Of course, we do have some sense of where the story is going and what the goals are and what we're trying to do. But for the most part, we like to leave a fair amount fairly open. And I think those are the real moments because it's so real for us, the audience can feel it. And I think that in today's world, I think YouTube did get very formatted, did get very structured. I think people know the beats to hit. And this was our mini revolution in that by specifically under planning sometimes some trips, it forces us to be hyper present whenever we're filming. And it puts us in a state of, I think, flow where sometimes things are really slow when we're filming because we don't. Nothing is happening. And then we meet the person and we just. Everyone locks in and we're just hyper present for. With this person maybe that we stumbled into for like a three, four hour window. And we know that, okay, well now that was like half the video is going to be just this one window. Even though we're here for four days, we know that a very big chunk of the video is going to be just this one meeting. And I think finding that magic is what I would say today is what makes our videos special, I think. Or that's what I'm hoping is the special element because we go into it always with humility and an open. We do a little prayer before filming, trying to set the tone for. Okay, we hope, you know, like we're trying to send out the energy to attract an amazing human and for just us to walk around with an open, curious headspace and then see where the adventure takes us. And that's. It's a bit of unusual. I think it's not super compatible with necessarily a strict format. You know, I think Bourdain did get a bit burnt out by his own format at one point, as far as I understand. And maybe it's because it was too rigid at times. I don't know. I don't. I'm not super familiar with the intricacies, but I know that there was some conflicts there and. And I feel myself getting resistance whenever we get too formatted.
A
Yeah.
C
And I don't know if that's just something I should try to work through or if it's just the nature of how I am. And for that reason I should just let that kind of preference dictate how the channel goes. I. I'm not sure.
B
I was. I was just on, like, Gemini right now asking the difference between Parts Unknown and yes Theory. And it said that Parts Unknown is more so about understanding the world, whereas yes theory is more about participating in it. Not that you're both. You both have elements of understanding the world, but I think even what you're talking about of, you know, you're on an adventure, and then all of a sudden you realize, okay, this is actually the lane, this three hours that we spent with this person. And I think the distance between you and Staphan and Amar and the camera and the edit is so much closer. It's truly a participatory experience. And even at the core of yes Theory is about seeking discomfort, it's about participating. Whereas I think Parts Unknown is much more of a Observe, let's go and observe, eat a meal, observe and talk about it. But you watch your videos and your channel, and it is. You guys are fully participatory in every adventure.
A
Yeah. I mean, you also know the extent of the crew. I think that's really different.
C
Yeah.
A
Right. Parts unknown. I didn't know who the cameraman were. Yeah.
B
A lot of us learned after the fact.
A
Yeah. When Bourdain was filming that you don't know the crew, but in your videos, you know, either you're holding a camera or it's Corey, and you show the guys on, like, who are holding the camera. It's like it's a unit of people who. You were like, oh, I know everyone who's there. I don't. There's no surprises as to like, or there's no hidden camera operator there.
C
I think that's how, for me, as a fan of YouTube.
A
Yeah.
C
I like that. Yeah. I want to feel like I'm a part of it. And I don't like it when someone's pretending there isn't a cameraman or pretending a moment is candid. I think it's. I think you can read through it. I don't know if it's just because I watch a lot of YouTube or because I make it, but I enjoy it. When they break the fourth wall, the cameraman turns and says something themselves or appears. You know, I think that's. That's cool because it's. That's the real experience, you know, that is what's actually happening. Right. And so we try to be very, very thoughtful with who we bring with us because we want to introduce everyone. So even it's the whole Translator is a character. So we don't want to just pick a random translator. We want the translator to. We want to be able to explain who the translator is and why they're here and why it's kind of interesting and relevant. We don't want to just have hire a random person to be the translator because it just doesn't feel as human. And I think that's what, like, we're trying to do. Stories that are real, right? That really feel real, because they are real. And. And I think if you. If you hide part of the process, if you don't show that there's a cameraman who's also dangling off the side of a cliff, you know, and you're not showing that, um, I think that's maybe what makes it feel more like a TV show. And I think for YouTube, what I've always appreciated is that it. It feels you can. A part of. You can visualize yourself in it as well. And even if some of the things we do now are not maybe the most relatable, we try to make people really feel like they're there with us. And I think that's something that's very unique to YouTube in general. I think that in. In the past, you know, people ask us like, oh, so it's like a. It's like vlogging. It's like, well, not really. And it's not a documentary either. Like, so I say we have like a documentary camera and then we have a vlog camera. It's kind of how I. Yeah, I see it.
A
I think we adopt. We adopted that quite a bit from you guys. Like when we started doing our doc format, like when we went and went behind the scenes at Beast Games, Mr. Beast Amazon show, we did that exact same thing. We had a dock camera and a vlog camera.
B
I don't think I've ever acknowledged that. That it was probably you guys. I may have given ourselves credit.
C
I think we probably gave ourselves credit. It's a good format.
A
No, but it is. I wrote down three things over the weekend of, like, what is the creator mindset compared to the filmmakers mindset? And we've experienced a lot of the filmmaker crew, the legacy production company, even when we went to Beast Games, like the production crew from more traditional reality TV versus Beasts. And I wrote down three things, and maybe you agree, maybe you don't. Maybe there's other things to mention. The first was being contextually aware of the distribution platform. I actually think that is so different than, like, in traditional entertainment. Oftentimes there's not as much acknowledgment of the platform in which this is going to be watched on, because it had to be built for so many different things, like a movie theater screen, a TV screen. Like, people would be watching this in different places. So you were kind of contextually agnostic. You were like, this is just for screens. But when we make something, we know that it's in this environment that we're so aware of. And we're also aware of, like, we want it to be aware of YouTube, which. Which is. Which is very different. Second thing is empathetic to the audience's experience. So what I mean by that is, like, we are empathetic to the fact that. That the audience could click another video on the right side of their screen at any moment in time. And so to be empathetic to that, you have to kind of tell a story in a way where you know that they have other options. You are not entitled to their time right now. Right. Like, you know that they have other options. You know, they could do other things. And the third thing is collaborative with the audience. Meaning if I'm an audience member on YouTube, I don't want to feel like a creator is just making something and I'm not a part of it. That could mean acknowledging a comment. It could mean even just acknowledging the exchange. Even saying, I don't know, you know, you guys said we should do this, or, you know, last time we did this, you guys really liked it. Even saying stuff like that creates a collaborative show environment that is unlike any other platform. So I've been thinking about those. As, you know, the Hollywood world and the YouTube world are colliding because, like, those three things are very important. Even as creators go to Netflix, it's almost like to adopt that mindset, you also have to be contextually aware of the environment you're in there, that you're in someone's lit. I don't know how to explain that further, but those are 100 that I've written down that I think make up, like, what the modern filmmaker is now.
B
Yeah.
C
And I think there's a culture on YouTube as well. Right. I think that people that watch YouTube are aware of, and I think we're hyper aware of it. I mean, I watch YouTube every day. I'm sure you guys do as well. Like, yeah, I've been watching it every day for, you know, almost 20 years. You know, it's. It's been a. It's been a while. And I think I'm. That's also why I want to make an amazing YouTube show. Like, that's what I really enjoy making. And I do think sometimes about TV format or something along those lines. But right now I'm just having so much fun doing this and I don't know if I would ever have the same amount of freedom doing something else. But I'm hyper aware that this is for YouTube and I'm trying to keep it relevant to YouTube because we can just hire a second cameraman and not hold a camera ourselves. But I think then whenever we've tried that, it's felt like we're a bit too removed from the audience. Versus if you hold it yourself, it feels like you're speaking directly to them. And we could have a cameraman just film us saying something. But again, it takes away the personal aspect. And I think that sometimes when we meet a person, we're holding the camera in like not an optimal angle, but we're speaking to that person, making full eye contact and I'm holding the camera sort of like this. And that makes the moment so much more real than if we just said, okay, pause for a second. Let's set up multiple cameras, let's lav them up, let's make this perfect.
B
Let's have a boom mic.
C
Let's have a boom mic. And I think we've been able to connect with people so deep, deeply, because it's. We try to experience first and then capture is sort of how we do things. And then we have amazing cinematographers like Corey that we work with a lot. We also work with Quentin Tyler. And yeah, it's, it's when you have someone who can match your energy and also not make someone feel overwhelmed, then I think you can really capture something very raw and very human, which I think we kind of need to feel these days. I think that. I think it's easy to feel disconnected when you're on the Internet and to feel numb. And our goal is to make people feel actual emotions and to try to bring that out. And for that to happen, I think you have to be able to create a very vulnerable real life moment with another person. And I always consider it like I am a bridge in a way by telling this story. And it's not my story, it's this person's story. And I have to do the best job at being a bridge between them and the audience, to lift them up as much as possible. So it's my job to ask the best question and the best order of questions so that they feel comfortable opening up and sharing something that is Very vulnerable. And sometimes we don't even tell them what we're filming for until after, until the end. We never, we, we. For the most, for as long as possible. We try to avoid saying, oh, it's for this channel with 10 million subscribers.
A
9.93.
C
9 point. So sorry about that.
B
Are you honest with them about the subscriber?
C
I'm going to go, actually 9.93 subscribers.
B
And they go, oh, that's enough.
C
That's. I thought it was 10. Yeah.
A
You guys, 26.
B
That I could do whatever you want with the footage.
C
Exactly. Oh, you're one of the 2,600. But it's. We try to avoid it because sometimes people get nervous, you know, or they, their energy changes. So we tell them at the very end. So sometimes it's really fun. We've spent a multi day trip with someone without telling them what we're filming for and they don't ask. And then at the end of the trip we're like, by the way, it's for like a, like a pretty big YouTube channel, you know, and never had any problems saying. We of course are not hiding the fact that we're filming but we just don't want them to get all worked up about it or feel like they need to overthink their words. Yeah, yeah.
B
And that is a competitive advantage of you guys. Yeah, he's maintaining that sort of honesty and earnestness of the people that we
C
try to look like. We try to shoot everything professionally but look as unprofessional. Not look as unprofessional, but we try to. Not to see. Physically disheveled. Exactly. We sometimes. Anyways, I was gonna say a joke, but I don't think it's appropriate. We, yeah. Try to make it seem very low key and that's a feedback that we get from people we film with that they feel very comfortable being around us. They don't feel like they need to perform or that we're judging their words. It's quite the opposite. And I think that's a fine line. I think a real moment when you're filming it is so. Can so easily tip over into being performative and to keep the moment real. That takes like a very good group to hold the space for a person to shoot it in a beautiful way but still not shove the camera in their face. If there's anything I think we're good at, it's capturing a real moment and not let it affect the realness of the moment and in fact almost make it more real because everyone is Hyper present. No one is doing anything else. We're all 100% listening to that person. And I think when you scale things up and you become a TV show, inevitably people know that they're being recorded to a different degree. And I think that's what YouTube has enabled and made very possible. Like, you can go out and have a show that reaches millions of people that has incredible scale shot on red cameras, but that is still very human and very raw. That also has a vlog camera. Yeah, I'm. I'm loving experimenting with that. And I don't know, you know, sometimes I think back about, oh, man, you know, like, there was a golden era of. Of travel TV shows that kind of like, doesn't really exist anymore. But I wonder if we'll look back at it now, you know, at the time now and be like, this was the golden era of travel. YouTube that then got so saturated or, you know, changed or shooting things this way is now just standard. But currently it feels like the Wild West. Like, there are no rules.
A
Yeah.
C
Like no one is telling us how to do things. And we're trying to figure it out as we're going and experimenting live, as we are changing the format, evolving the format, following what feels good to us and what the audience is clicking with. And I think, because there is no. There is no playbook, I think it's super exciting because you get to write the playbook yourself as you're doing it. And that is what gets me fired up every day, is just figuring that out, like, how do we write the next playbook by doing it.
A
What's refreshing to me is what you said about it being real. And I think there's like a hyper awareness over the past six years of the business of being a creator, how to run this as a business. What are the strategies? Like, you know, how does the modern media industry work? And it creates a lot of not necessarily real content. Yeah. And travel is probably one of the last real formats because it's just like, that's what's happening. You're just traveling and I'm watching you do it. How do you think the surrounding videos have changed around you and yes, theory over the past couple years? And what do you think about this moment right now on YouTube? Like, what are you seeing that's around you that you're competing with, that you're a part of as a channel that's doing, you know, average 3 million views a video right now can get up to like 8 million views. Like, there's a gravitational pull towards your Guys videos. But what is the environment that you're existing in from your perspective?
C
It's definitely changed a lot throughout the years. I think the channels, when we started it was. Casey Neistat was the biggest.
A
Right.
C
I don't think he ever cared about what title or thumbnail, at least at that time. Right. And I didn't, I didn't care. I would just watch everything he uploaded. And that's changed now. I think with the algorithm being a much bigger weight of what gets shown. People have had to, people have figured out how to gamify the algorithm and then creators have become hyper aware of the algorithm, I think. And so it's so more rare that you see channels starting, I think from where you can see that they're just genuinely creating from their own self expression. Feels like now most small creators are very hyper aware of how the algorithm works and wanting to, you know, adapt and adjust to it. And I think that YouTube has gone very strategic for many, many channels. But I'm seeing many of the channels that seem to be the most beloved are the ones who you could tell they're just creating. There's a couple channels I really like. Magnus Mitbu, I don't know if you know him, he's a Norwegian rock climber, amazing creator. And every video is like very different. He's like trained with the Norwegian army, he does rock climbing videos, he does sort of, you know, outdoor boys survival videos. Like it's sort of whatever he wants to do and some of his titles and thumbnails are a bit chaotic but it, it's working and I, I enjoy. Because you could tell it's just him doing it.
A
Yeah.
C
And I, I been texting with him a little bit, I haven't met him and he's just says he just. Yeah, he's coming up with. He's no team, it's just him and like a videographer and an editor and he's just winging it and you could tell and so it's very real. But his videos are doing well and people are enjoying it and you can feel that there's like a core audience who really feels connected to him.
A
Yeah.
C
Mike, ok is another one who's done really well in the travel space the last couple of years. And again it's because it's just, it's following his own curiosity. So I think there's a swing back in the not optimized direction where the stories are still compelling, the topics are still unique and interesting, but I think people are enjoying the slightly more stripped down formats because they feel, oh, I'm watching a real human being. I think that in my eyes, I think that's only going to become more and more valuable because AI is going to be able to create so many formatted type of videos that I think the hyper structured and hyper polished is going to be less valuable to people. And when they feel that they're genuinely interacting with a real human being who's capturing real authentic moments, I think those are going to be the channel that people are going to love and follow the most. And those are the channels that I enjoy watching the most as well. I think when I can sense that oh, this has been hyper optimized to cater to a very specific algorithmic sort of optimization, it feels less interesting to me. And maybe it's just because I'm so in it. I mean those videos still perform so it's not like, it's not like it's not working. But I think that even Outdoor Boys is a good example. Just one guy with a GoPro like
A
no music noticed his son is making videos. Videos.
B
That was the whole thing when he left that he was going to continue helping his.
A
I guess I remember that, that note, but I didn't. I'd never come across the videos and then I just came across them. They're pretty good.
C
I have not seen his son's channel, but I think he's a great. I mean he was 30 million views per video or something. Insane.
B
So much of that because it was just a guy with a GoPro like you felt the true stakes of wow, I'm, I'm alone with this guy. It is me watching and him going on this experience.
C
And I think you build a relationship that way. Which is what I think some channels lost when they hyper optimized. I think with Casey everyone had like a weird parasocial relationship with him. Like I felt like I knew him. So when I met him it was definitely, I was definitely weird because I was just like, I know him for sure.
A
And I went to a studio for the first time in October of last year and I knew my way around it.
C
Yeah.
A
And I'd never been in there. It's weird. Yeah. Felt really weird to sit in there and look around and be like, I know every corner of this place.
C
Yeah. But again, Casey was a master at expressing himself and putting him like creating something unique that people felt connected to. Still is a master, but he's just uploading less. But I think that's what people are craving. I think they're craving real connection. And I think that the Internet is losing some of that as we become hyper aware of the business side of things. Because every creator, when YouTube started was just doing it for fun. No one was making money. Right. So you knew that every person here is just doing this because they love doing it. And now I think it's been mixed with people that use it more as a business opportunity. They're business people, but then they happen to make content because it's good for their business, which is, there's nothing wrong with that. I, I think that makes perfect sense and I think that's the nature of how the world works now. Like, if you, if you want to have a startup, the best thing to do is to tell the story of building that startup. So I think that's a, it's good and it's exciting and it's bringing new opportunities. But I think for, for me, I think there'll always be a demand for real human stories. And I think if you put too much of the strategy as the number one thing that you're doing, you lose that. Like, for me, I'm really focused on experience first and then business later, which is, you know, I think, you know, there's probably people that have made been more successful than us financially, even with smaller channels. But I think the moment that priority shifts, I think you lose touch with what, why are you doing this in the first place? And for me, it was never about business first. I, I want to grow, I want to, you know, get to a place where I can be financially free and all of these things. But my main priority is to create something that I myself am a fan of. Like, am I a fan of my own videos? And if I'm not, how do I become a fan of my own videos? And that's what I'm always striving for is how can I be a little bit better so that I can one up myself, you know, and so that a year from now I look back at what I'm making now and be like, oh, that was so, you know, I'm so much better now. Yeah, I think there is, it's the founder of School of Life, amazing creator and thinker. And he says, if you're not embarrassed by who you were two years ago, you're not growing fast enough. And you know, that could be a little extreme to some extent. But I think that I look at my growth as a creator of, I want to always feel like when I look back, I know that I could make it so much better today. I don't ever want to look back and feel, oh my, my prime was back then, you know, I want to always feel like I'm improving. And that's how I look at everything that I do is how can I be a little bit better of a writer? How can I capture something both in a more cinematic way, but also more real? You know, how do I, like all of these little things are constant experiments and tinkerings that I'm saying me because I'm speaking from my own perspective, but us as a team, we're doing because we're. There's 10 of us making this, you know, and co traveling a lot now with Stefan. And we're always thinking about how do we go deeper, you know, how do we push the limits more, how do we up the stakes for real by us really not knowing what's going to happen. And I think, yeah, I think it's a journey of always keeping it exciting and following the genuine curiosity that we have for the world by exploring it, but also in the creative process of exploring, how can we, how do we keep this fun? How do we stay on our toes, you know, how do we do a different shoot, a completely different intro? How do we, you know, set the stakes for this one completely differently? How do we go to a place that no one has made a video here before? We don't know if people will care about this. How do we make people care? How do we go to this, you know, the honey hunters in the Himalayas and figure out how to make people
B
care about that sounds like authentically. How do we actually enjoy this experience and feel that it's new? We were with Josh Richards on a panel and he said something really profound.
A
Do you know who Josh Richards is? You don't need to know who Josh is.
B
When TikTok really broke out, he was one of the early faces of TikTok and, you know, famous for dancing, following trends. And you could easily look at his old stuff and think like, oh, this is a not much talent here, right? Like, you could easily look at some of that early stuff and think like, this is just like a good looking kid following early trends and he's evolved a lot in his career. But, you know, recently we were on this panel and he was asked, you know, what's your one advice for creators? And, you know, I think I may have like judged him in my head a little bit, thinking like, what does Josh Richards have to say to this room? And he said, if you're not having fun making it, how can you expect people to have fun watching it? And it's so true. It was really profound. Like, the audience feels that immediately, and that has to do with you when you get to a new place going, how can I experience this differently? How can I make a new intro? How can I actually have a true experience? And that pursuit of real is even something that. In our most recent video, a lot of the people in the comments were like, I could tell you at a good time.
A
Yeah, that was my favorite comment was, I can tell you had a good time making this, because we did have a good time making.
B
It was a great day. It was a fun day.
C
I love that video. It's amazing. Thanks, man.
B
This pursuit of real keeps coming up.
A
Yeah.
B
And it can feel like it's a new thing that's happening because of AI, but it's also the basis of good unscripted entertainment. And I think it's. It's easy to look at real and get confused with strategy. Like, Hot Ones. Right. Like, the reason Hot Ones is so great is. Is because it came up with a mechanism, which is strategy to make people real, like, really hot hot sauces that made people have visceral real reactions. I think it goes even further to right now with Justin Bieber at Coachella. I know Samir wrote about this, but there's a moment when Bieber is on stage at Coachella and He's pulling up YouTube videos, and it's buffering because he's not getting good Internet. And that's one moment where I think everyone there, 150,000 people, are like, oh, my God, what a real moment. And I think that extends. No matter what type of content you're making right now, is the pursuit of, like, an honest moment,
C
100%.
B
And that's what I feel like. You even just in you describing your organization.
C
Yeah.
B
Try and set yourself up to do.
C
It's every time we bring someone new on a trip, they're like, I didn't realize it was like this. It was like this. You know, like, we had a new videographer recently who was shocked at how, like. Like, he was. Oh, it's. It's like, you guys don't know what's happening. We're like, no, we're gonna figure it out today. And we ended up meeting an amazing character that, you know. But we went to the place having zero idea what was gonna happen.
A
I mean, dude, I remember when we did that throwing party at a stranger's house.
C
Yeah.
A
I remember. I was like, oh, they probably have it all planned. And we'll, like, go shoot a couple scenes where we like, knock on doors. And then I remember we were just out in Venice and it was like, wait, we actually have to convince them for real to let us throw a party at their house.
C
That's so uncomfortable.
A
And then I was like, oh, this is. This is real. And I think to Colin's point, when reality TV first started, it was real. Like the real world. The first season of that was real. The challenge is once you become aware of. Of something that's working, like awareness cuts reality pretty quickly. Right. And cuts honesty pretty quickly. Because once, you know, once I see that what you're doing is working and I try and do what you're doing, which is kind of the basis of YouTube in some way, shape or form, then mine version is much less real because I'm trying to replicate your version, and then you're trying to replicate something over and over. I like that concept of the pursuit of real because I think there's one side, which is the strategy side. We've been inundated with strategy. Scroll YouTube shorts or Instagram reels. You're going to get an opening shot with big text, and it's just so strategic to capture your attention. The other side is, I think, a conversation we had a couple years ago now, but it feels more true today than ever, which is the increase of absurdity in the world. When you can wake up to the. The White House posting, like an AI generated video or memes kind of poking fun at war or something, then your sensitivity to absurdity has gone up. Every day goes up a little bit, A little bit, a little bit more. I mean, even to the point where within the past year, I remember sitting here on the day that Charlie Kirk was assassinated here at the lighthouse in Venice, and everybody had it up on their phones. Everybody was scrolling through Instagram and TikTok, watching this, watching somebody die. And then I think within five minutes, you look around and everyone has gone back to work. And you take a step back and you're like, we're at a moment in the Internet where we have become very desensitized to absurdity. And I think the bright light on the Internet is when you see, like, real human interactions that are positive, but those are really hard to come by. And again, they're not as appealing because of our sensitivity to absurdity.
C
Yeah, I think it's a very strange time to be alive. And as you said, you can watch something like that and then resume your day. It's a very strange experience that I think we're all witness, like, experiencing quietly. Yeah, we're all living like this and then just having to resume, you know.
A
Yeah, I don't think we're talking about it very much of like, you can see some pretty wild stuff or hear some wild stuff or get exposed to a lot of things, and then just. That's just. Now that was like five minutes while you're in line for the bathroom and now you're moving on. Yeah.
C
I think creating is my medicine for the madness in the world. Like, I think it's a healing experience for me to do it. And I hope to try to counteract some of this by telling stories that are real. That's my goal. That's what I'm aiming for. Because I think it is a strange time to be alive. And I think people are also desensitized to the absurdity, but also I think tired of the performativeness of some think. I think you, you. I think we're all craving something that feels real because the, the world, the base world, doesn't feel real. Everything feels strange. Since COVID I feel like it's like a different timeline. And I think everyone is searching for something to make us feel human and to make us feel connected to each other. And I think in some ways, social media has made us feel very disconnected and very separated from one another. And I think, I hope that more creators will be inspired to try to tell real stories and to see that as a way to, I think, stand out in this future world of AI But I think also as a way to actually bring something positive to the world. And my favorite creators are the ones who are doing that. You could tell it's them doing it. And there you have to be aware of the platform. You have to. You know, I still look at studio, I still care about how the videos perform, but it starts with what am I genuinely curious about? And then how do I do it in the realest way possible? And you know, there'll always be creators who will hyper optimize and do great, but I think I wish for more new creators to start from a place of genuine creative expression and curiosity more than starting from the place of optimization and more so having the optimization as like a toolkit that they're using to then think about how do I turn what I love making into something that can click? Because you have to still do that, right?
A
You've done a lot of crazy ideas, you've gone to a lot of places in the world. How do you look forward and go, oh, I know I'm gonna keep, I'm gonna keep showing people Things they haven't seen before. Because I feel like every time I look at one of your thumbnails, it's something I've never seen before. How do you keep doing that? Like, last year you made 25 videos, or you uploaded 25 videos to the tune of 75 million views across them.
C
Like, I didn't know that step.
A
Yeah. How do you. How do you keep, like, even this year, are you. You're like, how planned out are you? How many ideas do you know? Like, how do you find the things that haven't been done before?
C
I spent a lot of time. Every day I'm thinking about ideas every single day, always looking. And it takes a lot now for me to be impressed or excited about an idea.
A
Right.
C
Because I've heard tens of thousands. I've come up with tens of thousands myself. So I think my bar for what a great idea is, is quite high at this point. And I think it has to peak some genuine curiosity. There has to be something in there that I go, I have not seen that. Or I think we could do it in a way that it hasn't been done before. For example, last year we did a story about the Tokyo Drift underground scene. And I didn't know it was possible to even film with them. It had never been really captured properly. And I had a friend who's got an amazing YouTube channel in France. His name is Simon Press. And he. He did a story with them and captured some of it, and he basically had an in with that world. And that opened up a whole opportunity that I didn't even know was possible. And so I think at this point, I've just spent so much time digging for unique places that I think I'm good at finding them. And I think I know what I need to do in my process to find things that haven't really been explored or done before. So I spent a lot of time in random rabbit holes. Sometimes I'll just spend hours on Google Maps just scrolling around. I was like, what is this island here? Yeah, hours. Like, I'll zoom in and I'll be like, what? And I click on it and I see there's a few houses. And then I'll look it up. And it's like a really remote scientific research station. And I'm. We're trying to get permission to go to this one place. It's like, impossible. No one's ever been allowed to go.
B
I just imagined like a match. Cut to Johnny Harris's house and he's doing the exact same thing.
C
Johnny Harris has the same hobby. Yeah. And, and I feel like sometimes when I talk to Johnny I'm like, wow, we must, yeah, there's not a lot of us sit and. Yeah, yeah, I, I. Modern day, I mean, Johnny is in a whole other level. I think he's, he's like, you know, up there when it comes to maps. But I, I just, yeah, Mr. Maps. I spend like a very absurd amount of time scrolling, looking for stuff, zooming into places or. And so that's how we come up with some of the things that we come up with because we just end up down rabbit holes that people haven't really explored before.
A
Yeah, I want to, I want to pull up an example because I want to talk through like how you've presented these ideas. One of, one of the most that your, your video that you just mentioned in Japan is called Inside Japan's Illegal Drifting Underworld Tokyo Drift. It did very well. Six million people watched that. And then one of the highest performing videos recently is from eight months ago and it's exploring the paranoid country with 374,142 bunkers to hide everyone.
B
Just great, great video.
A
Can you just talk through like both the concept and the presentation of the concept?
C
Yeah, I mean, first of all, talking about Johnny definitely got inspiration from him because he had done a story about Switzerland and its bunkers and, and whatnot. So that video was, was inspired by him for sure. And I just. This concept of bunkers is a bit absurd to me that we are the only species that are like afraid of our own destruction. You know, these bunkers are to protect ourselves from each other. You know, And Switzerland during World War II was so paranoid about being like conquered by Germany that they built enough bunkers to fit literally the entire country. And they've kept them so and built more. So now they have an insane. Like, when you drive through Switzerland, every mountain has like tunnels in it with bunkers that people can hide in, which is a very absurd thing, especially when you know and when you think about Switzerland, how peaceful it is. So the contrast there was interesting to me was wait, this is like a place that I imagine to be the most peaceful, neutral country in the world. But the bunkers to me came at odds initially. And what I learned during the experience is that they actually come together because for them it feels to them it's a protection of their freedom and of their safety. It's to know that at any moment, if anything happened, they can all retrieve into the mountains and every Swiss person has a bunker assigned to them.
A
No way.
C
Like, you know where you're supposed to go if something happens. And some of the younger generations now don't always know where they are, but there's a number you can call, and it tells you, oh, yeah, your bunker is here. And most of the houses built since the 70s, I believe, have a bunker in the basement. So our videographer is Swiss. His name is Quentin. He's got. His mom has a bunker in her basement that was built as a part of the house. And for the average person, they just store their bikes and stuff there. They use it as a basement, but it's a fortified bunker that is in your basement, which has, like, an air vent. And you can. Some people have air filters in case there's, like, a nuclear, you know, thing. And so for me, I was just. I. I just felt I. I have to see this for myself, because it sounds hard to believe, and it's hard to even imagine that this is actually true. And so we were able to find a good fixer who had good contacts who got us access to really unique bunkers. And then our story was more exploring.
A
So do, like, wealthy people have nicer bunkers?
C
So now some of the massive military bunkers that they built during World War II went up for sale because they're so expensive to maintain. And some of the tech in it, like, they want new stuff, so they sold those. So we met a few private owners that own massive. Wow. Bunkers. And they sell. They have so many rooms in them that there are. I don't know how much of this I'm allowed to say, but they. Wealthy people have bought basically, like, if something happens, I want to have this room. And they, like, rent it to have it as a contingency in case something happens. And he's got a certain, like, number of months of electricity and water and everything that he can provide. And there's people that pay to rent that space. So for us, it was just the. I think a big part of our channel is trying to understand humanity and the world. And this was just one of those questions that I had over, what are we. What are we doing here?
A
Also, the. The text on the thumbnail is so good. It says, what are they hiding? Yeah, bunker that's open. I mean, that's like. You want to talk about curiosity?
C
That's like, we have to spice it up.
B
Hiding empathy for one another.
C
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I mean, the thing is, it was also in the bunkers. One of them had tanks and tons of weapons. And. And so it's. It was one of Those moments where we ourselves didn't fully understand the scale of what we were walking into. And so it's just a question of, like, what. What. What is going on? You know, what is it really that. Why would a peaceful, neutral country be this hyper paranoid, you know? And we learned that to them, it's not paranoia, it's actually knowing that they have somewhere to go if something happens makes them actually feel at ease. So it's the opposite for them. It's. It's. Yeah. It's how they feel. Like they can just be free fully.
B
So can I ask a question about Stefan?
C
Huh?
B
He got frostbite.
A
Yeah.
B
In that video with the Finnish army.
A
Yeah.
B
How's it doing? Is he.
C
It took months. So Stefan is at this point, me traveling partner. Yeah.
B
Episodes I've ever seen.
A
And that's this video right there.
C
We train with the Finnish Arctic forces, and this was the first time they'd ever allowed a YouTube channel to join them. We just kind of cold emailed them for like a year. We were talking. Eventually they allowed us to. To come and capture it because obviously they're quite secretive with their training, so they never really allowed someone to film it. And there were some things we weren't allowed to film and part of the program we didn't do. So there was still some secrecy.
A
Yeah.
C
And it was minus 35 Celsius, which I don't even know what that is in Fahrenheit. Very cold. And Stefan ended up getting several toes just get frostbite. And he didn't. He lost feelings in those toes for months afterwards. It took him months to feel his. His toes again, which was worrying. Definitely worrying. Because after, like two months, you're like, should be back by now. Right? Like, you should feel your toes. So luckily, I'm pretty sure they're basically back now.
A
Yeah.
C
But it took a while. That's definitely one of those moments where we're like, okay, this was. This was a very real moment that we have to be also cautious of because it wasn't. There was. No. We realized very quickly when we were there that this is. No. No joke. This is not entertainment. And we did it the real way. You know, they asked us, like, do you want to, like, do it a bit? And then, like, you know, yeah, camp somewhere else warm. And we were like, no, no, we want to do it. Like, put us through the whole thing. And. And they were just like, okay, yeah. But they didn't think we would do it. They thought that at some point we would tap out. But we told Them like, we want to. We want to do it. But Stefan almost had to leave that experience because his toes did get actually in quite a bit of danger. Luckily, he was okay. But that was definitely a wild one.
B
I only bring it up because it's in those moments and I watch you guys religiously, but it's in those moments where you continue to confirm to me that you are these guys.
A
Yeah.
B
Who want this discomfort.
C
I just go, I'm getting old, man.
B
Because I'm always watching. It's like, Sunday morning, I'm probably under a blanket. I got a bowl of cereal. I'm happy as can be. I'm warm, and I'm like, oh, Thomas is doing it again. Like, I just. I'm always amazed that so many years in, you still have the motor to do it.
C
Yeah.
B
But you love it.
A
I'm curious if you can look through some of these recent videos and just even as I'm scrolling and pick out any that stick out to you both for, for better or for worse, of like, oh, man, that one's really great. Or, oh, man, you know, I could have done that one so much better.
C
I really enjoyed this story we did in Poggen. We went to this man who lives alone on an active volcano. And that one. You can't find that story on the Internet. Like, we found out because we were traveling to this stretch of islands in the US Called the Northern Mariana Islands. It belongs to America. No American that I've ever spoken to knows about them. They're north of Guam, but they're technically, like, a separate sort of jurisdiction. They have their own native languages, the Chamorro and the Carolinian. Super interesting. It's where the planes left during World War II to drop the nuclear bombs on Japan. So also a very historically heavy place. But while we were there, we ran into a subscriber who said, you guys got to go to Pagan. There's a guy, apparently, that lives there alone. And I think it's almost impossible to get there. Like, there's no way to get there. So we charted a fishing vessel to get there. We got stranded on the way there, ran out of fuel. And that was one of those moments where we really felt like we're out here looking for. This is as far as you can go. Like, there's no. Like, this is. You can't go further than this. And I think that's where we really felt at our edge, because it was genuinely, fully in the unknown. And those are the kind of stories I know I can't do. Several of Those a year because they do take a lot of physically and mentally, because it is. The stakes are high and you are on high alert quite a bit of the time. And there's so many uncertain elements. Being out on the ship above the Mariana Trench, which is the deepest point in the ocean, running out of fuel is like, not for everyone. And it's not like an everyday experience. But the thing is, I'm very confident in our team now to manage and especially I feel like Stefan and I, and Corey as well, and Quentin, our team is good at handling uncertainty and we're good at staying calm even when things are quite high stakes and to make good decisions and to not push it beyond. Because I think when there's a camera around, I forget what the name of the effect is, but there's an effect of pushing yourself to do crazy things when there's a camera around. And I think we're very hyper aware of that. And we try to be as cautious as possible as we seeks to stretch the limit of the possibilities when it comes to travel storytelling. And in a way, I think these days, because so many amazing travel stories have been told around the world, you have to stretch, you have to go quite far these days to find a story that hasn't been told. Right. I think if we go to Vietnam and just do a story about Vietnam, I'm sure there's amazing stories there, but just a broad story, I think people will be less interested because people know a bit about Vietnam. It's not like a complete mystery, right. And I think the reason why people care about Afghanistan or Iraq or Syria is because nobody has really filmed there before now. A lot of creators have gone and filmed it, but it's. I think what makes it interesting is that the story hasn't been told. We don't know much about that place. And when you find a part of the world that has that, where you realize this story has not been told or has not been told in a modern way or at the, at the level that it deserves to be told, that is, you find that diamond in the rough. And I think finding those diamonds is what I'm always searching for every day as I think about ideas and people pitch me a lot of ideas. And most of the time it's things that I've like thought of before or heard of before. So when I find one where I genuinely have never heard of a place or of a story, that's when I know, okay, there's, there's something to look at here because I've never heard of that. And I spent all my time looking at, for. Looking for those gems. And we have a story now that I'm not going to say what it is, but we're looking. We don't even know how to get there. Like, we don't even know. It's barely possible to get there. And we're trying to figure out how to. How to do it.
A
And is there civilization?
C
There's. There was some, yeah. But it's like. It's like as remote as maybe the world can get. And it might cost around like six figures to get there. So it's just. It's just like, how do you. We need to convince a brand to just, like, help us do this. So I'm super pumped about it. And those are the kind of stories that I think I. I live for, is just knowing that the logisticality of getting there and solving that problem is like gatekeeping the story in a way. And I think if we can solve that, I think we could tell an amazing story that hasn't been told before. And I think as travel, as travel storytellers, that's what we look for is that diamond in the rough that has not been found yet.
B
How do you. Even as you're just talking about going to one of the most remote places on earth, or earlier you were talking about the guy who lives by himself on an island. I think one of the criticisms of travel content is that it can feel exploitative. Like you're going to film people who aren't looking to be filmed, who didn't ask for it, let alone someone who lives by themselves or people who are on the most remote island. But, you know, I watch, obviously, I'm a huge fan. I watch your stuff. And even with the guy who lives by himself on the island, you. You left with a real genuine friend and connection. And you didn't even speak the same language. How do you approach that as you look to invest money, travel really far, bring people with you and risk that you could get there. And the people are like, I don't want to be a part of this at all.
C
I think it starts with a deep sense of respect for that person and their story. And I think it starts with, I never. Or we never go into any trip thinking like we're trying to extract a story, like, we're going into it fully thinking about how can we bring out this person's magic and show that to the world in the most respectful, authentic way. And so we spent a lot of time building a relationship with that person or with those People off camera. So we always try to capture the first moment of meeting, but then we make a point to put down the camera and to show. So it's always a balance. Because we want to capture the authentic first moments of meeting. Right. We don't want to have to recreate that.
A
Yeah.
C
So we have to film a little bit at the beginning, but then we make sure that they really feel like we genuinely care about them as humans, which we do. I'm not there to try to, like, take something from them, you know, I'm trying to understand who they are and figure out how do I tell this person's story and what is it about them that is unique that I think the world should know or what is something that the world can learn from this person. And I think that's what we aim to do every. Everywhere we go. And I think. I would hope that that's how people feel, because I think if you go into it with a hyper focus on what's the content I'm going to extract from this person. I think it could feel that way, but my goal is always to feel if I filmed in a community that has not been represented or not been represented very well. I'm hyper aware of me being, like, privileged, coming in here filming, you know, and this being my job. Like, I. I'm trying to be
A
a
C
lot on the defense when it comes to, like, not just showing up and taking over a situation, but instead finding the. The human relationship with whoever I'm with and then figuring out the. The small ways in which I can really make that person feel comfortable. And for us to develop a genuine bond that exists so that then when we're filming, we're just continuing the bond we already have. And with this man, Jordan, he was very. He was quite shy at the beginning, and his social cues were a bit different. So it was hard to, like, read him a little bit at the beginning. But the first evening, we spent the whole evening without filming. We just hung out with him for hours and just asking him so many questions about. Because his upbringing was extraordinary, like, so unique, you know, and how he ended up in this situation. And we sort of spent the whole evening getting to know him off camera. Like, it could have been an amazing interview to record. You know, we were looking at each other like, oh, my God, he's saying the craziest stuff right now, like, we should be filming, but that's not. That moment was about us becoming genuine friends with him. And we were laughing so much. And you could tell the next morning when he woke up, he was so relaxed, you know, and we felt like we could ask him anything and be recording and he wouldn't care because we'd now had a great relationship with him. And then I think we take the responsibility and edit very seriously to. To, like, the worst thing that can happen is we upload a video and someone's not happy, you know, or just feels like they were represented poorly or there was like a gotcha moment in, like, how they were, you know, quoted or how we cut the. The story. So for me, the most important thing if I go to a community that has not been represented very well is to see in the comments that people from that community feel seen. And I think that's what we hope to achieve. And I think if we ever fail at that, then I think everything, like, doesn't matter how the video performed, then I think we failed completely. Right. And so I do take, and we do as a team, like, the respect for the person or the community that we're with is very genuine and we're all eager learners. So when we are in a place that we don't know that much about, we have genuinely so many questions that we want to know so that we can also tell the story the best way possible. I think we have to deeply understand the intricacies of the community, and a lot of this happens off camera to really understand, okay, what is it like to live in Syria? Like, I need to understand that on a deeply intimate level if I'm going to tell a story about this place. Like, I need to understand the different communities that are.
A
Yeah.
C
In the country and the different, you know, sort of mini conflicts. Even if I'm not going to include that in the video, it's important for me to be aware of that so that when I tell the story, if I'm recounting the history of the place, I'm aware that, oh, okay, these two religious groups have been in conflict. So I got to be mindful of how I position this, because if I focus when I try to summarize the history of a country in a minute, what I keep can, you know.
A
Yeah, yeah.
C
Can be really bad if I only highlight one thing or another.
A
And so I remember that with the Iraq video. Yeah, yeah, Iraqi Kurdistan.
C
Exactly. That's a hugely sensitive. Is a very point for the Kurds who don't have their own country.
A
Right.
C
You know, we called it Iraq, but it's Iraqi Kurdistan. And there is a difference. I think these kind of things are really important to be aware of, to really not come across as, oh, I'm just here to, like, take this story. Like, you have to understand the. The things that matter to them so that you can make sure to value them in your story as well and learn a lot, for sure. I mean, I've been. Now I've like. I like the challenge of telling a story about a place that doesn't feel like they've been represented before. And I take the responsibility extremely seriously. Like, I don't. I don't ever take it for granted to have the opportunity to tell the story of a place, and especially if it's a small indigenous community or a country that has been at war for a long time. I'm very hyper aware that people that looked like me have come to this place and have done irreversible damage. So sometimes I'm met with skepticism.
A
Yeah.
C
Some people are like, well, what is it that you're filming? You know, what's your angle? You know? And that's when I really know. Like, okay, I gotta put the camera down and really talk to them so that they can feel like I'm just genuinely here and I'm genuinely curious. And I want to highlight them in the best way possible, because then when you can earn people's trust, you can really capture something that hasn't really been captured before. And. And that challenge is. Is a. It's an EQ challenge. I think that's the main thing that we sort of have to do most of the time filming is. Is. It's more about the human questions and. And things than it is about anything else. Like, I think the getting the beautiful angle is bonus. You know, I think that's what makes it visually exciting to watch on YouTube. And then you can put amazing music behind it, and it feels like it has more life. But the. The real magic is in how do we make people feel when we're there, and can we make them feel fully comfortable, to express themselves as authentically as possible? That's when we know we've succeeded. And I think that that's the real craftsmanship. I think.
A
I think you guys did that beautifully in what eventually became a series, but originally was just a video. I paid a taxi $10,000 to see how far it takes me. Yeah, it's one of the most beautiful videos on YouTube that I think I've ever seen. But, you know, you meet this taxi driver reg, and I'm curious if you can just paint a bit of the picture. But it feels like as we're even talking, it's like you find a Way to find a place we haven't seen before and show it in a different light or meet a person and show them in a different light.
C
Yeah.
A
And this experience felt like we saw a person in a really beautiful light. Yeah.
C
We had this concept of like it was, it was a bit more on the YouTube end of concepts, the things than we had done in a while. And the idea was, where do we end up if we hire a taxi and keep driving until we hit $10,000 on the meter? And we decided that London's iconic black cabs were the best visual way to do that. And we'd also find an English speaking taxi driver which was more adapted to English speaking YouTube channel. And we went to London and before we even started filming the first, because I hopped in a taxi from the train station, the first man that I met was regular, this amazing character who just immediately I could tell had something, had a spark. There was just something. I've never had a taxi driver like that in my life. And what's bizarre is I was almost reluctant to get in a taxi because I had a feeling. I think the first guy I'm going to meet is going to be perfect. Genuinely, I felt that way. So I like was standing there on the side of the curb for a while. I was like, should I get a taxi? Because we haven't started filming and I feel like it's going to happen quickly. And then I was like, okay, you know what, whatever, I'll grab a taxi. And then I waved him down and he did pull the illegal UE to come and pick me up. There's a taxi lane where people are waiting, but I just cut the line and just waved him down. And just the way he was speaking and how open he was, I could sense that this man had a story to tell. And he's also a cockney Sikh. Yeah, London Indian man. And so it's a very unique cab driver. To have a man with the Sikh turban and attire and then have a really thick cockney accent was amazing. I'd never met anyone like that in my life. And he's been a taxi driver his whole life. And we knew we wanted someone who was one of those original taxi drivers in London because that profession is. They've tested London taxi drivers and those are the people with some of the best memory cognitive abilities in the world because they have to memorize every single street in London to get the taxi license. So before there was gps, they had to memorize everything. It takes years to practice it. And we ended up Going on such an incredible journey with him. But we spent weeks with him. Now I've spent probably a collective of a couple of months in my life with Reg.
A
Yeah, he became a character on the channel.
C
Yeah. And we genuinely connected with him, and we could sense that he has made so many friends along the way of people he's driven, but he also was at a tricky time in his life, juggling quite a bit of debt and other things. And initially, when we filmed with him, he didn't really want to speak about it, but we wanted him to so we could help him, you know, but he was. We just became. He started calling us his sons. You know, we kind of developed such a deep relationship with him and got so comfortable that it really felt in that moment that we. This man had deserved to shine his whole life. And there was finally an opportunity for his personality and for the kindness that he's spread for so many decades, driving people around London to shine. And I think that's what I consider. I think a blessing to be. Is just. Can you highlight. There's so many amazing people in the world working hard, trying their best, who are also struggling, maybe not thriving, you know, but they're still showing up, they're still being kind, they're still being generous. And I think highlighting those people is one of my favorite things to do because it shows us that, you know, I think in moments where we might lose hope for humanity, when you open the news and then you can see a person like Reg, who's a taxi driver, who's showing up, who's amazing to everyone he meets, those things, to me, feels more inspiring than anything else. You know, it wasn't about where the trip. In the end, it just became about our dynamic with him. And I think you sort of forget throughout the episode that, oh, yeah, they're like driving. But you kind of forget that after a while that you. You. That you want to find out where we're going. It was just. It became a mechanic for the connection.
A
Right.
C
And I think that's what we look for is just when it comes to the concept, what is a. What is a. A mechanic that can allow us to deeply and authentically connect with another person so that you have an excuse to do this and. And the audience has, like, a structure to know roughly what.
A
And enough intrigue to click into it. Yeah, yeah.
C
And once in a while, I think you. You get fortunate to meet and connect with someone like Reg, who makes everything so easy because you can just point the camera at him and he's going to do something amazing. And when you meet a personality like that, I think those are the moments where, I think when, eventually when we, you know, hang. How do you say? Like, you know, stop doing the.
A
Hang it up.
C
Hang it up.
A
Yeah.
C
I think we'll look back at people like Reg and be like, that was the highlight. I love the adventuring and the exploring. I love the idea of kind of redefining what modern day exploration looks like and. But ultimately what I love the most is having the opportunity to meet and highlight characters like him. Because I think it's. I think those are the moments where I feel the most human as well, because I'm, I'm there, I'm with this person and we don't know what's going to happen. We're on this adventure together and I think there's a genuine friendship that was made like that. Gerardge texted me yesterday, like photos, you know, of just like what he's up to, you know, and it's. I don't think it'll be the, oh, we have 10 million subscribers. Like, I think that's amazing to look at, but genuinely, I think it's going to be. And it always, at the end of each year when we reflect, we think about the characters we met and how the concepts we came up with became amazing excuses to somehow run into these people. And if we'd never done that concept right, which for a while felt a little silly to us, we were like, is this silly to do, like driving for $10,000? Is it too gimmicky for where we're at now? And if we hadn't done it, we would have never met Reg. And so sometimes thinking about these formats and thinking about how do we package this in an interesting way brings us to come up with ideas that we would. That puts us in situations that we would have never been in otherwise. And I think I know that those will be the things that I'll look back at and feel most fortunate for because it's. Yeah, I think life is an experience and I think if you're fortunate enough to be in a position to travel or to just even just leave your hometown, you know, to meet another person, I think those are the things we remember. Right. When people are on their deathbed, they don't think about, I wish I created more things. They think about the people that they met and that they connected with genuinely, deeply. Right. I think, yes. Theory and what we do now, it's always been about people and I think it will continue to be. And if we have a Format. I think it's about highlighting amazing humans. And the format is just people. Ultimately, can you come up with a creative, clever excuse to meet amazing humans? And I think, can you come up with a better job? I don't know. I. Like, I'm still doing it. I'm tired, but I'm still doing it because I don't think I could come up with anything more fun.
A
That's really cool. That's beautiful. And I can't wait for you guys to cross that ticker of 10 million. That's gonna be great.
C
It's coming.
A
It's gone.
C
I haven't even thought about, like, sometimes I thought about the other day. I was like, we should do something for that. Right? Like, I don't know what. We'll figure it out. If you guys have ideas, what do people do when they hit 10 million?
B
How would we know?
A
How would we.
C
Yeah, what do we. Is this something we're supposed to do? Like, we're supposed to throw a party or.
A
Yeah, it feels like maybe celebrate the
C
team, kind of be good, right?
A
Yeah.
C
We've been trying to think about, and this is like, can we fly in every stranger we've ever done a video with?
A
Put them in a big red circle.
C
Put them in a. Yeah. And. Yep. Lock them in a mall. Win this mall. No, just. We've been thinking about what do we do? And. Yeah, we'll see. But ultimately, I think I'm. I think it's such a blessing to get to do YouTube for 10 years. I'm. I'm so grateful for the platform and the liberty that it's given us to explore these things, and I feel quite fortunate and lucky to have had the longevity that we've had. I think it's. I think every creator, whenever you hit that 10 out of 10, you get like, oh, well, that was it. That was my run. That's the last one.
A
Yeah.
C
People don't care anymore, and I'm never
B
going to get it back.
C
Yeah. It's how it feels like. And I've been through so many ways of that now that I feel never fun to get a 10 out of 10. But I feel the patience to. The process of reinvention never ends, and it's never over. As long as you still feel like you have something left to say. I still feel like we have a lot left to say. And so until I feel that, okay, I've told every story I want to tell, and now I just, like, need to do something different until I feel that way, which I don't feel today. I'm gonna keep going and we'll see. I don't know for how long, but for at least another couple of years.
A
Yeah.
C
Yeah.
A
Dude, it's always great to have you in the chair, man.
C
This is my first time being here alone. I just. Yeah, I was thinking about that before. I was a little. I was like, okay, I haven't done this by myself, so it's great.
A
I think if there's one thing that people take away from this conversation, it's the pursuit of real. I love. I just kept thinking about that, the whole conversation. That, like, that's. That's the important thing about this era of modern media, is that we can do it ourselves, which means we can pursue real things. We don't need to add so much to make it manufactured. Like.
B
Yeah.
A
And that's the beautiful part about the Internet and Internet storytelling.
B
Strategy was a new thing. Strategy was a new thing because pre Internet storytelling, there was just storytelling, which was also based in.
A
Well, no, Hollywood had a lot of strategy.
C
Sure, sure, sure.
A
There's a lot of strategy.
B
But when it comes to. Like, even when you talked about the beginning of reality tv, like, the beginning of it is always based in just what's a good, real moment.
C
And it still is today. Yeah.
A
Cool, man.
C
Amazing. Super grateful to be here with you guys. Always a pleasure. Your next chapter in healthcare starts at Carrington College's School of Nursing in Portland. Join us for our open house on Tuesday, January 13th from 4 to 7pm you'll tour our campus, see live demos, meet instructors, and learn about our associate degree in nursing program that prepares you to become a registered nurse. Take the first step toward your nursing career. Save your spot now at Carrington. Edu Events. For information on program outcomes, visit carrington. Edu Sci.
Guest: Thomas Brag, Co-Founder of Yes Theory
Date: April 22, 2026
In this episode, Colin and Samir sit down with Thomas Brag, co-founder of Yes Theory, for a deep-dive conversation on building one of YouTube’s most beloved documentary channels through the pursuit of real, human stories—often in contrast to the negative or sensational content that dominates online platforms today. They explore Yes Theory’s unique approach to positivity and virality, the evolution of their format, and how to make people truly care in the era of the creator economy.
Thomas on Hitting 10 Million Subscribers [03:41]:
“I still feel like I have 10,000 subscribers. Like, in my head, I’m still, like, just starting is how it feels. But I think maybe when we hit [10 million], it’ll actually process in my mind.”
Thomas on Conceiving New Ideas [53:49]:
“I spent a lot of time. Every day I’m thinking about ideas...and it takes a lot now for me to be impressed or excited about an idea because I’ve heard tens of thousands.”
Thomas on Avoiding Exploitation in Travel Content [69:35]:
“I never...go into any trip thinking like we’re trying to extract a story. We’re going into it fully thinking about how can we bring out this person’s magic and show that to the world in the most respectful, authentic way.”
Thomas on the Importance of Real Human Connection [81:46]:
“When people are on their deathbed, they don’t think about, ‘I wish I created more things.’ They think about the people they met and that they connected with genuinely, deeply...That’s what we look for.”
Throughout the episode, the central thread is the "pursuit of real"—a conscious decision by Yes Theory to seek and show authentic human experiences despite the abundance of strategies pushing creators to optimize and sensationalize. Thomas emphasizes that the process, the connections with people (like taxi driver Reg), and the courage to stay curious and open matter more than viral metrics.
“If there’s one thing that people take away from this conversation, it’s the pursuit of real. That’s the important thing about this era of modern media, is that we can do it ourselves, which means we can pursue real things.”
— [87:05, A]
In Their Own Words:
This episode is equal parts creator masterclass, ethical travelogue, and meditation on how to make people actually care on the Internet—proof that authenticity, not just strategy, wins hearts and builds lasting communities.