Cancel Culture Vs Comedy | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 232

Summary

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Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 232: Cancel Culture Vs Comedy

Date: September 28, 2025
Host: UnsubscribePodcast
Guests: Eli Doubletap, Brandon Herrera, Donut Operator, The Fat Electrician, Manly Reviews ("Liam Manly")

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Overview

In this candid, comedic, and wide-ranging episode, the Unsubscribe crew—joined by special guest "Manly Reviews" (a.k.a. Liam Manly)—dives into the challenges of creating edgy content in the age of cancel culture, the thin line between comedy and offense, and the intricacies of modern gaming and content creation platforms. The group dissects reaction culture, algorithm frustrations, and the fine art of not taking yourself—or the internet—too seriously.

The episode's mood is irreverent, deeply self-aware, and peppered with tangents that bounce from creator anxieties to indie gaming recommendations, always keeping authenticity and humor at the center.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Comedy in the Age of Cancel Culture

• Context and Edginess

  • The group discusses the difficulty of making edgy jokes without being misunderstood or canceled, especially in the gaming space, where humor can be weaponized or misconstrued.
  • Manly Reviews highlights shifting perspectives in his own content:

    “I have like gay friends, I have trans friends, I have a friend that's a furry ... and if you didn't know that, you'd be like, ‘what the f---?’ ... There has been a bit of a perspective shift.” (06:00)

  • The importance of context and intent in jokes is emphasized.

    "I feel like the average person understands context. It's like, you can tell the difference between someone who's being hateful and someone who's just making a joke."
    – Eli (07:05)

• Sensitivity and Audience

  • The cast notes Twitch and certain gaming spheres are hypersensitive compared to YouTube:

    “That gaming space, especially the Twitch space. It is so sensitive to words…”
    – Donut (19:37)

  • Joking is sometimes policed by groupthink and overreactions for the sake of online appearances.

2. Content Creation, Algorithms & Platform Challenges

• The Stress of Algorithms

  • Creators trade stories of YouTube’s fickle algorithms, manual reviews, and how a single livestream can tank a channel’s reach.
  • Brandon describes the emotional rollercoaster:

    “I think this is the way things be. And I see... I'm retarded. I'd like to retract everything I've said. And, like, that's just called growing.” (37:50)

  • Frustration at YouTube’s opaque and shifting guidelines:

    “How do I make content that will comply with your guidelines that you haven't written yet that will go into effect three years from now?”
    – Eli (75:30)

• Monetization Woes & Censorship

  • The crew discusses how creators are forced to anticipate unwritten rules, AI moderation fails, and how demonetization can be retroactively applied.
  • Manual reviews can depend on the subjective view of the reviewer’s background:

    "If we get a manual reviewer who's based in Los Angeles and we're doing gun content, they're probably going to try to find some way to smack us."
    – Cody (73:08)

  • Joke about fighting YouTube/Google’s copyright/content policies—with Google being both the gatekeeper and supplier of information.

3. Reaction Culture & Fair Use

• New Legal Precedents
  • Discussion on Ethan Klein's strategic “content nuke” lawsuit against Twitch streamers for streaming his video without transformative commentary:

    “They intentionally ... said, I'm just gon [let] this play so you can watch it here so that you don't have to give him views, which is where it becomes malice.”
    – Eli (86:08)

  • Blanket agreement that true reaction/transformative content is fair, simple content lifting isn’t.

4. Comedy Podcast, Not Political Podcast

• Misconceptions & Choosing Battles
  • The team emphasizes that Unsubscribe is a comedy podcast, not a political one, despite the backgrounds of some hosts (like Eli running for office):

    “I intentionally don't do that. I'll talk about policy anywhere else.”
    – Eli (21:43)

  • Citing Dolly Parton: not alienating 50% of the audience for the sake of strong opinions.

5. Gaming, Indie Titles & Nostalgia

• Game Reviews & Content

  • Extended segment where the group, especially Manly Reviews, shares philosophies on good thumbnails, storytelling, and the value of indie games.
  • Example of balancing research, production values, and staying genuine:

    “The only reason I'm able to do any of this now is because I'm sitting on the backs of people who did better jobs than I did. I'm just trying to learn from them.”
    – Brandon (08:37)

• Favorite Games & Trends

  • Rapid-fire exchanges on indie favorites: Vampire Survivor, Hades, Hyper Light Drifter, and the addictive nature of simple, well-designed games.
  • Tangents on Pokémon card discoveries and MMO nostalgia.

6. Pendulum of Outrage & The Middle Path

• “Both Sides Are Insufferable”

  • Manly Reviews argues that the outrage/cancel-culture pendulum now swings both left and right in the gaming world, with everyone oversensitive to surface-level issues:

    “I think gamers, in a nutshell, are like, the most insufferable group of people when they're on the Internet.” (157:56)

  • The idea that constant outrage—no matter where it comes from—hurts meaningful change by diluting the impact of real issues.

• Fostering Nuanced Discussion

  • Emphasis on being gracious, open to different points of view, and not taking “internet wars” too seriously.

    “Let's. Let's be gracious to both points of view and, and maybe have a handshake in the middle where we can agree that, maybe, here's the actual truth of something, because it's hard to find that in this day and age.”
    – Brandon (163:31)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Edgy Humor and Context

• “Just because you can't handle it doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to do it.”
  – Eli (11:54)

On Algorithmic Frustration

• “You make sure you're set up ... then you don't put any more effort into your content. ... It can go away in like a second.”
  – Donut (61:10)

On YouTube Strikes

• “I've had like over my YouTube career, like five [strikes]… well-decorated.”
  – Eli (100:58)

On Outrage Culture

• “Calling someone a Nazi because they wore a MAGA hat—you're diluting the meaning of actual atrocities…”
  – Donut (159:40)

On Developing Channel Voice

• “I want to be the person that can be, like, the voice of reason between, like, two things.”
  – Brandon (109:06)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Edgy jokes and cancel culture
  [05:31] - [14:57]
• YouTube, Twitch, & algorithm rants
  [36:17] - [70:55]
• Fair use, lawsuits, & streamer drama
  [84:43] - [89:02]
• Thumbnails, indie gaming, & creator struggles
  [47:15] - [62:15]
• Pandemic, politics, and non-political podcasting
  [20:09] - [22:55]
• Reaction to negative feedback in gaming culture
  [157:56] - [162:44]
• Retroactive demonetization and strikes
  [99:48] - [101:14]
• Indie game recommendations
  [133:18] - [136:50]
• Spirited debate on Cyberpunk's story
  [116:31] - [121:29]

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Tone and Takeaways

The Unsubscribe crew’s unique brand of self-deprecating, boisterous, and sometimes dark humor runs throughout, freely mixing absurdity and serious commentary. This episode is a fascinating look at the intersection of comedy, internet culture, and “cancellation”—showing that at the end of the day, the best defense against outrage is context, perspective, and not taking yourself too seriously.

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Where to Find the Crew

• Manly Reviews (Liam Manly): YouTube and Twitch (search "Manly Reviews" or "Liam Manly")
• Unsubscribe Podcast: Regular streams and updates across all major podcast platforms and Patreon

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[This summary omits sponsor and ad reads. See timestamps for references to specific topics or memorable moments.]

Transcript

[Eli]

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[Brandon]

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[Eli]

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[Brandon]

Nintendo f ing sucks, dude.

[Eli]

Take this.

[Brandon]

Mario Kart s gay at restaurant.

[Eli]

Schools ain't a shooting gallery.

[Cody]

Brandon's V for Veteran.

[Donut]

Yeah, that's Brandon's V for Veteran. Shout out to my Betties.

[Brandon]

This guy hates veterans and loves Brandon's friends.

[Cody]

F up his future again.

[Donut]

Say hi to Eli. He's racially ambiguous.

[Brandon]

Brandon.

[Donut]

His hair is fabulous. Donut a dog joke disposition. And there's a fat electrician.

[Brandon]

Welcome to unsubscribe.

[Donut]

Today's Unsubscribe episode is brought to you by booking.com booking.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Eli]

It'S in the Read.

[Cody]

From vacation rentals to hotels across the U.S. booking.com has the ideal stay for.

[Donut]

Anyone, even those who might seem impossible to please.

[Eli]

Whether you're booking for yourself, your partner.

[Donut]

Your sleep light rise early mom, or.

[Cody]

Your high maintenance group chat, you can.

[Eli]

Find exactly what you're booking [e-mail].

[Brandon]

And then.

[Eli]

I'm having a stroke. What's happening?

[Donut]

Fuck, I opened one. Wait, no, I got one.

[Eli]

Wow.

[Brandon]

I can't believe he said that.

[Donut]

I know. Cody got me riled up.

[Brandon]

I gotta leave. I can't. I can't do this.

[Eli]

Fair enough.

[Brandon]

I can't believe you said. That's a lie.

[Donut]

And the boppity.

[Brandon]

Oh, no.

[Donut]

Ready?

[Brandon]

Are we ready?

[Donut]

Yeah, we're gonna hold it up.

[Brandon]

Can I shake mine up first?

[Eli]

You. You have free will, brother.

[Brandon]

Like pass it around. Do a little Russian roulette.

[Donut]

Three, two, one.

[Brandon]

Good job. Good job.

[Donut]

The flex zone.

[Brandon]

Are we not going to open these too? I mean, you. Can I?

[Donut]

Yeah, do it.

[Brandon]

Is that cold?

[Donut]

No, that's a warm one. Which makes it even.

[Brandon]

Listen, listen. I've drank in many monsters that have set multiple days in a hot 98 Chevy Suburban in the bright sun. Like you have been. Loved it.

[Donut]

Living the dream life. Get my notes out. There we go.

[Brandon]

Oh, I thought it was like a bottle opener or something.

[Donut]

It can be, Master Chief. Hi. What's up, buddy? Hi, everyone. Go fuck yourselves. Welcome to today's podcast. We have manly reviews here.

[Brandon]

Also known as Literally who? This guy.

[Donut]

The guy that they were bleeping out at the beginning of the podcast.

[Brandon]

Who the fuck is this guy?

[Donut]

Dude, we're excited. You're. I've Showed your content to some it to all the guys who's like, this dude fit in the group so good, which is extremely rare in the gaming space. A lot of times.

[Eli]

I think we actually all voted against having you on the podcast show fucked up the schedule and included you.

[Brandon]

Anyway, so half my fan base is looking at you guys, like, were they. Is he. Did they like him too much? And like, oh, we don't want you to come on. Like, okay, cool. Everyone's happy. Everyone's. Everyone's okay. We're doing good here. I appreciate you guys having me on. This is my first, like, real podcast. Like, you. You messaged me and you're like, we're gonna fly you out. We have a hotel. And I'm sitting here like, what the. What the fuck? Like, that is insane. That is so crazy because you had, like, an assistant too, which is like, even, like, a step above that. And you're like, I'm gonna have my assistant come in contact with you. We're gonna get that set up. And I'm like, I really hope it's you in, like, a mid dress.

[Eli]

No, this is.

[Brandon]

This is how you.

[Eli]

This is how you get sex trafficked.

[Brandon]

Yeah, well, I was also like, I got groomed at Unsub podcast merch or something like that. Well, we'll see how this goes because you messaged me on Twitter, and I checked Twitter like, once a month, and I'm like, who's this Eli guy? And I look at your numbers. I'm like, those are real numbers. Those are not bots. I don't listen to podcasts much. So I was, like, unfamiliar. And then, like, I told my audience, like, yeah, you guys heard of Unsub? And I'm like, oh, I love unsubscribe. This is so great. Then you came into Twitch Chat and you're like, hey, everyone. I was like, what the. Are you watching me? Like, secretly just, like, judging, waiting for me. Like, is this guy ready? Is he material ready? So thank you guys for having me on, and it's a huge honor.

[Eli]

It's a pleasure to have you on, buddy.

[Donut]

It's rare.

[Brandon]

I don't feel like I deserve to sit at this.

[Donut]

Dude, your number.

[Eli]

None of us do.

[Donut]

Fucking you do. Also, you need to post way more on YouTube.

[Brandon]

I do.

[Donut]

It's criminally insane that you do it twice a year, but you still get 2 to 3 million views twice. Once a year. How often are you posting?

[Brandon]

Yeah, let's go with once. Once is good. Once it's good. There is a new video Coming out soon.

[Eli]

Oh, what?

[Brandon]

On Dark Souls 2, okay, when I say soon, I'm lying up my ass. So you.

[Donut]

You do everything by yourself, which was also another. The level of editing you do is insane. Because this is vfx. This is everything. Green screen, everything.

[Eli]

Editor, play a clip.

[Brandon]

Make it a good clip, please.

[Eli]

Nah, make it a shitty clip.

[Brandon]

Now it feels like a bit of a misnomer to call this thing dlc, when in reality it's an expansion that's bigger than most Souls games. Calling Shadow of the Erdtree just DLC is like calling the Mona Lisa a painting or Freddie Mercury a. Oh, God.

[Donut]

Well, you don't get canceled at all. I was surprised. Well, that's actually one of the questions was how much pushback? Because your jokes land very well with us. Our audience. Yeah, very well. Started dying laughing. But in the gaming space, you get a lot of heat if you make those styles.

[Eli]

Because like first 20 seconds, I think of the first video that I was sent and you're just like, yeah, well, I could do that, but that's fucking gay. And I'm like, oh, hey, the thing.

[Brandon]

Is I get along with this guy. Yeah. The thing is for me, and it's something I'm trying to work on, like, I very much enjoy. We all grew up in like the COD Modern Warfare era days, you know, for better or for worse. And like, I think I try to keep things respectful on the channel, I really do. And like, I think it's on my older content. I was a little bit more like less transformative with it. But I don't know, I've come to be in a position in life where it's like, I have like gay friends, I have trans friends, I have a friend that's a furry and like, they're the coolest people I've ever met. And if you didn't know that, you'd be like, what the. You're like, oh, these are cool people. So there has been like a little bit of a perspective shift. But the funny thing is I'll send them my edits and they're like, that's so funny. Like I said, I said like I censored myself saying like the f slur in like, I think it was a gamer subs ad. And they were like, yeah, I was like, you guys don't care how good something tastes from like a balding. And I bleeped it and I'm laughing at it. It's like, it's self deprecating. It's funny. Like we can laugh about that stuff. But at the same time, I do try to keep it. Like, I want to be respectful because people don't know. Well, it's like, know that I'm like coming from a place of like, listen, I'm okay with joke now. Joke.

[Eli]

The fucking retards don't know. But like, I feel like the average person relevant to the conversation. I feel like the average person understands context. It's like you're talking about you've got your friends. With all these people in different communities, I feel like they can tell the difference between a legitimate somebody who's being hateful and somebody who's just making a.

[Donut]

Punching down to punch.

[Brandon]

It's tricky though. It's really tricky because I feel like. Because I'll tell the story now. Like, I was on Twitch. I've been doing Twitch, like a lot. That's been like a new thing because I think it's really fun to actually interact with people and like, not wait six months to get like. Some comments are like, hey, that was a good video. And I can actually get some like, feedback and feel like I'm doing something.

[Eli]

So the affirmation that you're missing your.

[Brandon]

Affirmation where it's like, I just did like 10 hours of editing. I think it sucks. I'm like way behind. I feel worse. I go on Twitch. I'm like, I had a good day of work. I work out, you know, the hardest job in the world, of course.

[Donut]

Twitch streaming.

[Brandon]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Old veteran here.

[Donut]

These.

[Brandon]

Don't hate me, please.

[Cody]

Oh, fuck.

[Brandon]

Here we are.

[Donut]

Thumbnails again. It goes so far to show, hey, what's important. Thumbnails. That Zelda thumbnail that was.

[Brandon]

You should have seen the original photo. I was like photoshopping and working with the things I had to do to that. I think it took like four days to make it because I try to make the thumbnails before I make the video. There's been a few exceptions. It was a Need for Speed one, which was like a last minute thing. And then like some of the older ones, like the foam one's bullshit. That's like, that's whatever. If you got like the most recent, those are popular.

[Cody]

If you go to latest, they're still really good, man.

[Brandon]

Thank you. Yeah.

[Cody]

Five for five years old. Like, those are really good thumbnails.

[Brandon]

Thank you. It's. It's. The only reason I'm able to do any of this now is because I'm sitting on the backs of like, people who did better jobs than I did. I'm like, just trying to learn from them. So I have friends in the community that were like, hey, we're gonna teach you everything that we just go super retarded over analytics and, like, the data and, like, figuring it all out and, like, what works, what doesn't. Like, how do we make this not look like. Because the thumbnail is the worst thing to make you guys all do content. You know, the pain of, like, I made a video off the thumbnail. I got the thumbnail. But that is the most important part of the video, like, by a mile.

[Eli]

A lot of times, you know, we'll film an entire video and forgot. Or we'll. We'll have forgotten to get a thumbnail out of it. So it's like, all right, well, fuck, I guess we're going to find a screenshot and figure out how to Photoshop the shit out of it.

[Brandon]

Sometimes a screenshot does work, though. Like, I say, there's. There's. You got to play the game differently. So sometimes, like, if you're making a claim, like, I just did some dope ass. Just put a screen grab. Like, I just made this show it. Don't try to, like, fake it, just make it the thing.

[Eli]

Like, if you bought a bomb robot, for example.

[Brandon]

Yeah, well, just show the bomb robot.

[Donut]

The. That one screen grab. That is the thumbnail. You actually. I think the title is. This is actually a screenshot, not a thumbnail. Yeah, the pistol. Who was that cop getting stabbed by?

[Cody]

Yeah, you're talking about the black lady that comes out of her apartment and runs it.

[Brandon]

Yeah, yeah, I just said I just.

[Cody]

Had to get that screen grab.

[Donut]

This is.

[Cody]

She's, like, psychotic.

[Brandon]

Just like. Like, sometimes. Like, that'll be better than, like, some. Like, I made the eyes ten times bigger. Fuck the mouth.

[Donut]

What's crazy is it looks like a. It looks like Cody made this thumbnail up.

[Cody]

Thumbnail or like, nope, I'll throw my face in the corner.

[Brandon]

Good to go.

[Donut]

What do you call that one?

[Brandon]

It's like big black. Sorry, Black cocks. Black search history.

[Eli]

Different thing.

[Brandon]

We'll just go with this. That's fine.

[Eli]

Dude, it was probably like three or four months ago.

[Donut]

Not a.

[Brandon]

It's not a While you're looking that up, though. I was just saying, like, you were mentioning, like, the context of the jokes, and it's like, I kind of understand because when I first was. Was offered, like, the podcast seat, there were a couple people in my chat, they're like, hey, just so you know, Brandon is actually running for government. And I was like, first of All. I'll take anyone that's under the age of, like, 90 in government that's just not ancient. And two, you just sent me, like, two unsolicited videos in Discord with the N word in it before this. So I don't even want to, like, don't even try to be like, oh, they might make problematic jokes. Like, show me your Instagram reels. Like, show me your algorithm. Right, yeah, show me your reels. I know what. Yeah, but the thing is, like, I think the reason people do have, like, a little bit of, like, apprehension is that I think a lot of the humor that, like, we. We dig, and I think it's funny because, like, it's just humor. It is shared by people who are more, like, intense, that are, like, unsavory. You go on Twitter, you see people making jokes, and you're like, ah, this is. This is like, not okay stuff. Like, some people that don't have the context. And then you. You group those two together. You spend any time the Internet, you're like, oh, there's some, like, sick people here. There's some up people. Well, it's just, like, I want to be around, so, like, it's easy to, like, conflate the two. So I don't. I don't. I don't blame anyone that's seen my jokes and be like, this guy's a piece of, like, I'm sorry. You got that takeaway. I'm not trying to, like, dog on you.

[Eli]

I. I just blame.

[Brandon]

That's fair, too. You can blame a little bit, but it's still. I still. I still kind of get the context of, like, everyone's got different walks, everyone's got different experiences. Some people, you know.

[Eli]

That's true.

[Brandon]

No, no.

[Eli]

I. I'm trying to remember who I. I might have been Roosevelt. I don't. I don't remember. I don't want to misattribute the quote, but it was a quote about. No, it might have been a British guy. I can't remember, but it was something about censorship is saying that a grown man can't have a steak because a baby can't chew it. It's like, just because you can't handle it doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to do it.

[Cody]

Yeah, I did give her red eyes.

[Donut]

But that's the red eye that happened.

[Brandon]

She was actually Superman. The most organic thumbnail I've seen.

[Donut]

Dude, isn't that wild? That is just a stage. Just one frame of that video.

[Brandon]

Yeah. I almost feel like that Would be better if you took the red eyes out because it's like, that's actually a frame and not edited.

[Cody]

Yeah, I think we had no red eyes at first and then we just changed it around.

[Brandon]

CTR has to go up a little bit, a few points in percentage.

[Donut]

Oh, I got it. I got it. I gotta see that one.

[Brandon]

Yeah, but most people, like, when it comes to the jokes on there, like, most people are pretty cool with it. Like, they get it. Again, when you look at the comment section, like, do you even leave a comment on YouTube is like, you were in like the 0.5% of people already. Like, kind of not. You're not in the bell curve of like, oh, you leave a, like, you enjoyed the video. If you don't, you leave. That's fine. Most people are pretty cool with it. And if they don't, like, I can't tell you times, like, I made that Mexican joke in the, in the need for Speed one where it's like, we just got like a bunch of Mexicans. A lot of. I'm just like dying, laughing. I'm just like recording lines.

[Donut]

You're laughing in it when you tell the joke. Even better.

[Brandon]

I'm just trying to, I'm ad libbing the whole thing. And I got so many comments from Mexicans who are just like, that was the funniest thing ever. Like, I love that. I'm like, you guys see, like, you guys get it. I also had one that was, I had, I had one joke in there. Or I think, like, people just don't understand that. Like, sometimes I'm making fun or I look, I'm mocking the concept of what I'm talking about. I had one in my Dark Souls video that I probably could have worded better, to be honest, but it was like, I was making the joke that, like, good games just look appealing to play. Like, some games you can look at, like, that looks fun as shit. It sells itself based on the merit. And I, I, I kind of put the metaphor of like, it's like a fire alarm. Like, you see one of those, you want to pull it. I'm like, look what it's wearing. And it's like, pull me. And people. Like, I had someone really mad at that. And it was like, the concept, like, I'm like, obviously, the desire to pull a fire alarm where you can't control it is ridiculous. The joke is that, like, I'm mocking the people that use the excuse, look what it's wearing. I'm not endorsing the concept. I'm Making fun of it.

[Cody]

This dude's pro.

[Brandon]

But like, when you go through this guy, but there's a. Like a.

[Eli]

There's a prerequ.

[Brandon]

Said iq. You have to understand. A lot of people, they hear the topic and just go like, oh, this is. This is bad. You're endorsing it. It's like, no, I'm. I'm satirizing it. Like, we can satirize these things. We can talk about it.

[Eli]

Like, you'd think so, wouldn't you?

[Brandon]

Yeah, you think so. But my feelings, I think most people are pretty cool with it. People are pretty cool with it. And it does give me a perspective of like, I do want people to feel like if I have to tune the joke a little bit to make sure that people understand that it's like, oh, this is in good faith. Like, I'll do that. Because sometimes, you know, you learn. You learn making videos.

[Eli]

Especially if there's. If it doesn't take away from the joke.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Eli]

If I could. If I could phrase this slightly differently to have less butt hurt, then sure, yeah.

[Brandon]

Like, I. Like everyone loves calling things gay. And like, I feel like I'm quitting a drug. I'm trying not to call things gay as much I know they're like, well, it's been a good show. Like, we're done here. But like, it's just maybe I can do other things here and push myself. Like, even though it is like, fuck, I gotta say it, I feel it.

[Eli]

I feel like it's coming back. In fact, it is definitely coming back.

[Brandon]

I think a lot of gay people are like, yeah, that shit's gay. Like, it's funny, but at the same time, like, there are people who don't know that and are like, maybe he just, like, hates me. It's like, okay, obviously not possibly.

[Eli]

I don't know.

[Brandon]

You.

[Eli]

You could be a bad person.

[Brandon]

You are sitting pretty close to me.

[Eli]

That is true. Just cuz this guy told me.

[Brandon]

Oh.

[Donut]

Look what he's wearing, though.

[Eli]

I am wearing this excellent poncho.

[Brandon]

A couple extra buttons come undone as the podcast goes on.

[Donut]

Meats flowing out.

[Eli]

We got an hour and a half left. We'll see what happens.

[Donut]

Do you want to borrow my ghost bed pillow?

[Cody]

Does it smell like you?

[Brandon]

Yes.

[Donut]

Do you feel that? Cooling technology.

[Cody]

It's definitely not a hot pillow.

[Eli]

I gotta get out of here. Give me my pillow.

[Donut]

I'm the one that has to sleep here. You guys have your own houses and your own pillows.

[Brandon]

Quit touching it.

[Eli]

All right, real question. Can the gang do a pillow fight?

[Donut]

Not with these Slow motion pillow fight. No, they're heavy. It'll hurt.

[Eli]

Are they really?

[Donut]

Yes, they're premium. Dude, that would actually, that's actually.

[Eli]

I don't think I'd want to get smacked with that.

[Donut]

I'm swinging it hard. Okay. Your son. You walk up and just pee off on your kid.

[Brandon]

If I smack you with this, you're.

[Donut]

Going to be a ghost. And get this.

[Brandon]

They're built to last with a 20.

[Donut]

Year warranty and they have a three.

[Brandon]

Month free trial period.

[Eli]

What do they do with all the used mattresses that get returned?

[Brandon]

Not black lights. They have a complete sleep setup for spooky sex. Boo. Ghostbed has it all.

[Cody]

Adjustable bases, sheets, pillows and full bundles to upgrade your whole bed with over.

[Donut]

20 years of sleep expertise, which is really amateur hour.

[Eli]

I've been sleeping for at least 30 years.

[Donut]

Family owned and handcrafted in the USA in Canada.

[Brandon]

Ew.

[Donut]

Ew Canada. Entrusted by thousands of happy sleepers like Cody, Brandon and Nick. Yep.

[Eli]

They have over 60,000 five star reviews. And you get an extra 10% off when you use code unsubscribe at checkout.

[Donut]

Head over to ghostbed.com unsubscribe to get started. That's ghostbed.com unsubscribe.

[Cody]

Use the code unsubscribe to sleep better and stay cooler.

[Donut]

What was the, the most pushback you had on one of your jokes? Because you are as wide as they come. When it got, I like on that camera I was like oh shit. Okay.

[Brandon]

So I usually the nice thing is like if you, if you make a joke or something like that later in a video, chances are the people sticking around are cool with it. So I haven't had that much like pushback like at all on like Twitter or anything. Yeah, I think it really was that one. Like, I hate to say it, like the joke, you have to probably censor that, but that was the one where people are like that's dude. Like I watched people reacting to my.

[Eli]

Video and it was the fire alarm bit.

[Brandon]

The fire alarm bit? Yeah, that was the one that had the most.

[Eli]

That is so mild.

[Brandon]

It's crazy. I was like, that's the one. But like when I watch people reacting to it, which I love watching, they're like haha, this video's great. And I hear that. And they're like ooh.

[Donut]

Which is wild. That's the reaction.

[Brandon]

Like sometimes I'll leave a comment like hey, thanks for watching. Just to let you know, like I'm actually not endorsing, which is a Crazy thing I feel like I have to say. Here's the question you have to deal with way more than like, brother, this guy hates veterans and loves God.

[Eli]

Cut that, please. Just bore all that.

[Brandon]

You're the one that said it. That is the shit. I say it.

[Eli]

That's the sort of shit I do have to deal with, though.

[Brandon]

Oh, I bet your political opponents, like.

[Eli]

Yes, the thing that does bother me about shit like that, where you're talking about the reaction content. I say that you're up on the screen. I'm not like, the thing that bothered me about you motherfucker.

[Brandon]

Yeah, no, it's me. But it's like a big target.

[Eli]

The people who do, like, the reaction stuff, and they do the. Oh, oh, my God. Ooh, that's probably too far. It's like, would you have thought that if there wasn't a camera pointed at it?

[Brandon]

I've wondered that.

[Eli]

That's the context. It's like, these are the people who failed, like, that category. And like, testing. When you were a kid, like, reading comprehension, like, a little. You just. You saw a word and it did. Oh, my God, he gave me the bad feeling. And you missed the entire point.

[Donut]

That's. That's. I. We've talked about it multiple times. It's that gaming space, especially the twitch space. It is so sensitive to words. And that's where we're like, that audience in particular, because the audience, not me.

[Brandon]

I love my audience. My audience is great.

[Donut]

No, they're good. No, they. If you're part watching this gangster, if you have problems a lot of the times with simple jokes or, oh, my God, they crossed a line. That's where we.

[Eli]

Because they don't. They don't go outside. We don't talk to real people in the real world.

[Donut]

Yeah, I'd rather have.

[Brandon]

It's a huge. It's a huge thing where it's like, sorry, I don't mean to cut you off.

[Donut]

You're good.

[Brandon]

You just cut me off. Because I will just not shut the fuck up. Really. But, like, the whole idea. I think a lot of people are sensitized to topics because, like, you bring anything up and it's immediately, like, defensive position. Like, it's a defensive position. You even mentioned, like. Like, like, for example, I mentioned this podcast and. And you were like. They were like, oh, Brandon. Political. Like, already people hear politics and like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm like, guys, it's. You can have. You can disagree with people. Like, I'm sure we don't see it. Eye to Eye on many things, but at the same time, like, I get to hang out and make jokes with you, and it's a blast. And like, keep it above board. That's how you have adult conversations.

[Eli]

And if we talked about a policy thing that we disagreed on, I wouldn't be like, oh, wow, I'm sorry. That's problematic for me. I can't be seen around you. I just, I can't. I can't follow you anymore. And if you associate with him now, I'm sorry, Eli, we can't be friends.

[Brandon]

We can't communicate. We're done. Like, we can't even be seen in the same room, which is like insane to me.

[Eli]

So we'd have a three minute conversation about it. Like, all right, well, cool. Anyway, you want to grab a beer?

[Brandon]

Yeah, that's normal.

[Eli]

Fucking people.

[Brandon]

Let's go hang out, have fun. Let's go play warzone or something.

[Donut]

Wild. Wild concept and crazy again. Even with people thinking this podcast is a political podcast, we've been told that or been shied away. It's like, well, that's a political podcast. Like, evidence. We don't talk about politics on this podcast. It's been run. One of the main running points was like, eh. Like the most we get into is if we do talk about, like some firearm stuff or when Brandon's running, but then it's not targeted.

[Eli]

Even then I saw somebody comment. They were like, hey, you need to talk more about policy on Onsup. And I said, no, I intentionally don't do that. I'll talk about policy anywhere else.

[Brandon]

That's your political opponent being like, you need to talk more about politics.

[Eli]

No, trust me, my farm, you. Right now, my political opponent hates it when I talk policy because that's the one thing he hates talking about. I'm like, that's the only thing I care about. But at the same time, I understand, like, this is a comedy podcast. And I, like, I appreciate the support of the audience and like, they. They know me for who I am and whatnot. And that's. That's great. But I just, I'll talk policy other places. I feel like it's inappropriate here because that's not what we're about.

[Brandon]

Yeah, it's not what you're not. You're trying to, like, not be divisive. You're just trying to have, like, a good time.

[Donut]

You're not alienating 50% of the audience because you're trying to take a firm stance. I didn't realize Dolly Parton was one that said that. First she was like, no, I'm not cutting my audience in half just because I might not agree with one thing. I'd rather everyone have a good time, listen to my music, and get along than. Nope, here's what I think. Fuck you if you don't think that way. It's like, hey, let's. Let's create a nice middle ground where people can communicate, talk, and actually maybe make a change versus no you. No you. Nothing gets done.

[Brandon]

Find some common ground too, you know?

[Donut]

Wild.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Donut]

And that's where the word retard. That's our common ground. We all can agree.

[Brandon]

That's why I stand the line on YouTube, because they're like, I get comments of this day like, I can't believe you said retard. I'm like, that's such a normal. Like, that is not. Like, there's no way. I'm like, I'm drawing the line here. Like, we can censor all. Like, fine, you win. But, like, retard is fine.

[Eli]

That's a hill. I will die.

[Brandon]

I know. Like, like, my entire twitch is mainly just autism daycare. That's what I do. Like, that's what twitch is. And they're. They like group two. And it's like, everyone I've known that's autistic and on the spectrum has been like, yeah, retards are great. Yeah. Like, I have not met a single person that has been like, I feel deeply offended by that. And if you are like, most people who are like, oh, I don't like that word. Therefore, that's still on me, though. And I'll just, like, choose to, like, not engage. I'm like, respect. Like, I fucking respect that. Like, that's okay to have a boundary. And, like, okay, you don't like that language that upsets you. Fine. Like, if you recognize that and be like, yeah, I'm gonna take responsibility for it. Like, like, great people. I think that's, like, super mature.

[Eli]

Yeah. It's like saying, like, oh, I don't like body horror in movies. So nobody can do it.

[Brandon]

Nobody can ever do it ever.

[Eli]

No, Like, I understand. If that's not something you enjoy, then just don't watch the movies that have it in it. Oh, is that what these are for?

[Brandon]

Oh, I was wondering what the spoons were for.

[Eli]

I thought we were fucking Chicago Live show.

[Brandon]

I also got needles too, if we want to just go direct inject. This comes from Mama Manley herself.

[Donut]

Dude, Mama man, Manly made some dope ass. Oh, that'd be good.

[Brandon]

It's good.

[Donut]

70000 gallons of bee honey.

[Brandon]

I got a little excited. 40. 40. Really close.

[Donut]

Immediately you were like. I don't know why I said thousand. It's not.

[Brandon]

It was 0.6 billion on everything. Just heads up.

[Donut]

Flew in on bees. It was crazy. They dropped him off.

[Brandon]

He's allergic to him. Swelling right now.

[Donut]

That's how he landed. Softly. He has a balloon. Stick it with EpiPen.

[Brandon]

10 subs first 10 subs and then we'll get the EpiPen.

[Donut]

Yes.

[Eli]

Oh no.

[Brandon]

Jim says I won't use the EpiPen. I will accomplish the VOD every third.

[Donut]

Every hundred dollars pushes it off by 30 seconds.

[Brandon]

Money's tight.

[Eli]

You got subs and bits that are fighting each other as to whether or not to give you the EpiPen.

[Donut]

See we're businessmen first.

[Brandon]

Don't give them ideas. Please. What happened? I was telling Eli last night that happened on Stream where I. I had bought the wrong. So I'd like the worst food allergies ever known to me. And it's like, well, some of them. Sure. People have it worse. But it's like, that's good. I'm deathly allergic to like eggs, dairy, nuts, peanuts, shrimp and sesame and everything. Now every, like, every bun company puts sesame flour in their foods because it's more convenient for them to do that than to list like, oh, made in production. Made in a facility that has sesame. Which, like, they would have to go to some legalese to like, make sure it's safe. They don't do that anymore. They just go, we're just putting sesame in there. Fudge you. There's one brand that doesn't. They came out with a new bun. This story sucks. There's butter on the learning. I ate the butter bun on the hamburger midstream and was like, this tastes terrible. I took another bite and was like, this is weird. I checked the ingredients and it was like panic attack. I was like, oh, God. I, like, like, ran back out the studio. Like, hey, guys. I'm going through a mild medical emergency. Please don't freak out. Everyone proceeded to, like, freak out. So I'm sorry for scaring everyone. You're gonna die. I was like, I have to end stream now. I'll be okay. I'll keep you guys updated. And I was like, EpiPen on the standby and was just like, all right. Here we go. So that's terrifying. But that somehow to do with what we were talking about on the podcast that was somehow intertwined. Oh. We were talking about the bees. Thanks.

[Eli]

Are you Allergic to bees.

[Brandon]

No.

[Eli]

That's good.

[Brandon]

The one thing in life I'm not allergic to, I somehow dodged bees. Not fucking kill you, but yeah, bees, totally fine.

[Eli]

Allergies. Not the bees.

[Brandon]

Oh, God, not the bees.

[Eli]

Thank you for picking up.

[Brandon]

Not the bees.

[Donut]

Yeah. The degree I'm not used to. When we go to a restaurant, you're like, hey, I.

[Brandon]

Hey.

[Donut]

I will die if any of this enters my.

[Eli]

We were talking about this earlier. Thank God.

[Brandon]

God.

[Eli]

You didn't sign the agreement to get a free trial of Disney plus the Disney plus arbitration.

[Brandon]

Just like, oh, cool. Well, I'm dead. That's insane. That's like, you're sure, like, able to happen. You want to, like, speak more on that or.

[Eli]

Oh, yeah, no, it's just kind of crazy that, like, if you sign up to watch the new season of the Mandalorian, that Bob Iger is legally allowed to shoot you in the head.

[Brandon]

They do have that. I do remember reading that, actually.

[Eli]

Oh, you read.

[Brandon]

Everyone reads those, right?

[Donut]

Oh, yeah.

[Brandon]

You don't read your 20 page contracts all the time.

[Donut]

Before I hit enter, I'm like, get out the old reading glasses. Swipe through it. Swipe through it.

[Brandon]

No, no, no one does. No one uses any of that. It's crazy that, like, that's like an accepted thing nowadays. It's like, oh, cool, we can just put in whatever we want and no one's gonna, A, understand it and B, say no to it. It's like, what are you not gonna.

[Cody]

Like, I use Netflix.

[Brandon]

Like, take it over or something. Yeah. It's like, okay.

[Donut]

Well, we were. Cody would register anyone that's a parent. That's the most terrifying shit of that level of allergies. And you're just winging it with your baby. It's like, oh, I'll give them. As the doctor said, oh, just give.

[Brandon]

Him cheese straight up. They're like, it's probably fine. Test it out. It was not fine. It was not fine.

[Donut]

Baby's dying.

[Brandon]

Like, it's twice the size now. What do we do with it? I don't Even know if EpiPens were a thing back then. I don't even know. Like, I know they have. You can buy, like, epinephrine vials because.

[Eli]

You said you're a 95 baby.

[Brandon]

Yeah, 95.

[Eli]

I would have thought, right?

[Donut]

It's been around. I don't know if it was readily.

[Brandon]

They've had that patent for a very long time.

[Donut]

You gotta charge that.

[Brandon]

Oh, Yeah. I mean, EpiPens right now are like 800, 1000. Yeah. Jesus Christ. Oh. And they expire within, like, a year. So it was.

[Eli]

So the first patent was issued in 1977.

[Brandon]

Okay. So it's quite a while.

[Donut]

Quite a ways away, but you still have.

[Eli]

They were first brought to market in 83, bro.

[Donut]

Imagine John being allergic to. And you don't. And you're just rolling that dice on, like, well, I'm gonna introduce a new food. And then deathly allergic was something that happens. You just be like, oh, I. I'm not giving my kid anything.

[Cody]

Yeah. I also think that if a kid in a school has a peanut allergy, he should be allowed to take peanuts to school. Because, like, that's not my problem. Your kids.

[Brandon]

That's like, that's an extreme. Like, the airborne. Like, that's real. That's pretty rare. And that is, like, I feel bad for.

[Eli]

Super rare.

[Donut]

Right?

[Brandon]

It's actually not that. So, like, peanut allergies. Rare. But you can usually be in the room with them. Like, that's usually not a contentious point. It's. Some people, though, have, like, extreme. Extreme sensitivities to it. Like, they can't even be in the same room.

[Eli]

Like, if it's. If it's on my breath. I have murdered you.

[Brandon]

Yeah. Like, I will. I will have an anaphylactic. I don't have that. I just said, like, if I ingest it, I get it. So, yeah, no nuts for me.

[Eli]

That's wild.

[Donut]

That's a hard one. I see. Cody's point is, like, the one kid that. Because right now it is, you just pretty much cannot bring peanuts to school anymore. Like, peanut butter sandwich.

[Brandon]

Is that a thing?

[Donut]

Really?

[Brandon]

Is it really a thing? Yeah.

[Cody]

That's the school that my son has gone to so far. He's 16 now.

[Brandon]

Really?

[Cody]

He can't have peanuts at school, period.

[Donut]

Like, you're not allowed to.

[Cody]

There might be one kid that has an allergy.

[Eli]

I can only imagine the European response to this. It's like, oh, really? That's what you're not allowed to bring to American schools?

[Donut]

We're sorry.

[Brandon]

Have the gun. Not the peanut, though. I just saw, like, what caliber is that peanut?

[Eli]

I just saw, like, two Brit bongs in my mind that are like, oh, really?

[Brandon]

Oh, really?

[Eli]

At least our schools ain't a shooting Gary.

[Brandon]

Call of Duty video game.

[Eli]

Like, yeah, we attack Europeans in our audience.

[Donut]

Put their hands down.

[Brandon]

Well, that own sh. Oh, I don't.

[Eli]

Yeah, come to the uk. No, never mind.

[Brandon]

Get shined at north boy. Hold up.

[Donut]

Hold on one quick second. Hey, first off, how goes the fitness Journey? I'm actually gonna go box right now. Which is how we're introducing today's sponsor, Black Force cocoa flavonoids. Here's something big chocolate doesn't want getting out. That's the insane health benefits from cocoa. Flavanols. That's the compounds found in cocoa that boost nitric oxide levels, improve heart health and regenerate brain cells. I need that now. Why Black Forest? Well, it's backed up by a Harvard doctor. That guy is smarter than me. He's a scientist. Dr. William Lee. Look here, he's saying it.

[Brandon]

Clinical studies have been done with high flavanol cocoa to show that in like men who are in their 60s with heart disease, they could actually eat. Just have two cups of dark chocolate hot cocoa a day for a month. And they doubled the amount of stem cells in your bloodstream and D vitamin. Their circulation improved measurably.

[Donut]

That's right, dark chocolate. But here's the thing. Flavanols are the good stuff found in the cocoa bean. Unfortunately during the chocolate making process they get destroyed. And that is where Black Forest supplements come in with the first ever high flavonol cocoa powder. And it's packed with everything your body actually needs. You can mix it in your coffee or your protein powder. I do. The protein powder tastes amazing and it's only 20 calories. Now Black Forest Supplements is offering 40% off for the next 48 hours. Head over to black4supplements.com unsubscribe and get some. Now that's black4supplements.com unsubscribe. The link is down below. Go get your cocoa today. Just really quick. We got upgraded. This will probably come out before we are now upgraded into a. Wait. Our warm up show was the small one which is supposed to be like 900 seats. And here in San Antonio, San Antonio still home city. We're fucking stoked to do that. We wanted to perform here. And then next year was actually the goal to play the Majestic. That was next year's goal. We sold out under a week. So our warm up show is now our largest show at 2300 seats.

[Brandon]

That's crazy sweet.

[Donut]

I know. I was like, holy shit.

[Brandon]

Your Max has become the warm up.

[Eli]

Yeah, we did that accident on accident. We did it a little backwards.

[Cody]

We were too successful on accident.

[Brandon]

It's so sorry to hear.

[Cody]

Yeah, it's terrible.

[Brandon]

Pour one out for you guys.

[Donut]

But Ben called and he was like, hey, Eli. So this is what's going on. They've offered this. Do you need to talk to the Guys, I was like, no, 100%. We're going to take that. 100%. We will take that. We're not doing two shows and like, no, it just upgrades to this venue now if you want.

[Eli]

Yeah, I would much rather do the bigger venue than two shows anyway.

[Donut]

Yeah, dude. Especially. It will look really good.

[Eli]

Let's get on the horn with Des Moines.

[Donut]

Hey, can you just make a larger. Combined two venues together, we'll be good.

[Cody]

This theater, cram them together.

[Donut]

But to have that size, that's where we watch rife. Yeah. That venue, dope. And now we get to play it. And that is a wild experience. This is.

[Brandon]

Is it scary for you guys?

[Cody]

Yeah, yeah, I'm terrified.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Cody]

I hate public speaking. I hate anything that has to do with it.

[Brandon]

Picked a great career. Nice job. We started behind the camera.

[Donut]

That was my dumbass. It was like, guys, I'm forcing you.

[Brandon]

We.

[Cody]

One of our live shows that we went to, like, you're looking out in front of you and you can see a couple hundred people. And then mid show, I think it's Brandon or Eli. Someone nudges me and he's like, look up there.

[Brandon]

Like, there's another fucking balcony. Oh, God, there's more. I didn't think you were nervous enough for the show. Just wanted to make sure there's actually 500 more people above you looking down at you right now. No pressure. No pressure. Fun. You'll do great.

[Eli]

Because the lights were on, you really couldn't see it. Unless you can't see it.

[Brandon]

No, you can't see anything.

[Donut]

Like, hey, and do you.

[Brandon]

Do you ever keep the house lights on at the show so you can see the audience?

[Donut]

No, we keep it dim. And our audience, it is one of the best, funnest times because they are. It's a very interactive show.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Donut]

Our very first show, and I was a dick for doing this. I made a joke about Cody not talking or saying something. I was like, everyone, if Cody makes a sound, fucking cheer. So he'd be like, yeah, so.

[Brandon]

Dude.

[Donut]

He just gave up talking because they would not let him say.

[Eli]

It was like the Butters from South park bit.

[Donut]

Cody's just looking at me like. I was like, I didn't tell him to stop.

[Cody]

I didn't do it.

[Donut]

You clearly did it. Yeah, keep going. The entire show.

[Brandon]

Somewhat good, though.

[Cody]

I gave up and just was like, I'm going to get drunk now, fucking you.

[Donut]

Everything you said was that much gold, though. The crowd went like, just ape shit every time he said, spoke.

[Cody]

It's fun. It's good time.

[Donut]

It will be a good time. I'm actually super stoked that we get to open up with that. That'll be good for the voting stuff. If we could talk about that.

[Eli]

Sure. No, I, I think it's great just to. Especially just capitalizing on the audience we have here in San Antonio because I mean a lot of, A lot of the folks that are in the audience that are here in, in this area of Texas, I mean, I feel like we underutilized them last time. There's a lot of people willing to volunteer and like really get the message out because we're fighting the, you know, multimillion dollar Washington machine the best way we can.

[Brandon]

It's just like, please don't win. Please don't win. We just want, we just want our little safe guy in Congress.

[Eli]

We want to be able to do our bidding.

[Brandon]

Yeah, exactly. You don't need.

[Eli]

We bought the last guy.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Donut]

We can't buy you.

[Brandon]

There's a lot of people.

[Eli]

There's a lot of those types. I wish there's certain stories that I'll tell maybe down the road, but like there's a lot of people in that world that don't know what to do with people like me that like, I'm not interested in your money.

[Donut]

So I think like individual. Anyone that goes into it might be the first. Yeah. Yeah.

[Brandon]

Just be the first.

[Donut]

It's terrifying because like we can't buy. It's like an Elon. We can use him as a reference. It's that scary. Well, we can't. This dude's gonna do what he wants. He does not need any outside money from us.

[Eli]

For better or worse. Money can't influence that guy.

[Donut]

No.

[Brandon]

For better or for worse, like there's. That's a two sided coin.

[Donut]

He's really good at that one game.

[Brandon]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Eli]

It's like such a weird thing.

[Brandon]

So good at ignoring like the team chat going on right there.

[Donut]

It's like, oh, come on, man. But it'll be good, I think if we use that to sign up more even do your. We talked about that at the gym. It's like, here's your civic duty. Make sure you do your research. But also here's an opportunity to register because that's.

[Eli]

That is something that drives me crazy because.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Eli]

Like we were mentioning in the gym the other day, like the. There's this weird thing where people are like, I have to go out and vote. It's my civic duty. I have the opposite opinion.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Eli]

If you are not informed, like if you don't know who's on the ballot.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Eli]

Like, what are you doing?

[Brandon]

I. I thought, like, I was kind of seen as crazy for saying that too, because I was like, I don't. I'm kind of like, I play video games. I don't know what's best for this country. I can't speak on that. I change my opinion, like, every week on everything. Like, I can't tell you how many times I'm like, I think this. This is the way things be. And I see, like, a couple. A couple links. I'm like, I'm retarded. I'd like to retract everything I've said. And, like, that's just called growing. And, like, so many people are like, I want to vote for that person because they look like this. That's wild. Brilliant idea. I think that. You know what? Great. Nothing can go wrong.

[Eli]

Physiognomy check.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Eli]

No.

[Brandon]

Jesus.

[Eli]

I feel like if you wipe.

[Brandon]

If you have a.

[Donut]

That's political tinder. God. You're like, no, no. Yes.

[Eli]

I feel like if you have civic duty, period, your civic duty is to get informed. Like, your civic duty is to get informed before you vote. That makes sense. But, like, people like, oh, I have to show up. I'm like, do you know who's on the ballot? No. No clue. Tell me. Like, I can't fathom getting out of bed, driving all the way to the polls, knowing when the election is, but having no clue who's on the ballot or what they stand for. It's like, that's got to be a little strange, right?

[Brandon]

Dude, it's crazy. Me, I. That's why I do kind of respect. People are like, I've done so much research, I'm going to vote whatever. Like, cool. Like, I think it's. I think it's a good thing to do as a person to be like, I want to do my due diligence as best I can. The problem is right now, I feel like it's so difficult to just find anything that's valid. Like, you go out there, you start searching, like, who the knows we are. We used to be, like, in a day and age of information where it's like, if you want to learn something, it's out there now. It's like, you can find whatever you want. And, like, now you have to exercise discretion, which is a problem, because trillions of dollars are spent on making sure they influence your discretion. And it's like, oh, I want this thing. I think I believe that thing. It's like, that has been paid for by so many companies to, like, influence that or bots or whatever. I'm getting into the deep end here.

[Eli]

But that's the thing. The powers that be figured out that in the age of the. Or in the age of information, you can't hide things anymore. So what they do is they just hide it in obscurity through misinformation.

[Brandon]

Everything else.

[Donut]

Here's final.

[Brandon]

Final. All these truths you now have to process. Good luck finding out the real one.

[Eli]

Yeah, it's the truth.

[Donut]

And then we'll put misinformation on everything else. There's a bunch of bullshit in there. But if you dig deep enough and you do the proper research, you will find that one thing.

[Brandon]

And it's hard to do.

[Eli]

Like, you can spam enough misinformation at somebody that you can gaslight the truth.

[Brandon]

Out of them easily.

[Eli]

It's kind of crazy.

[Donut]

That's.

[Brandon]

It's. It's not like. I mean, how many times have they done that? I love psychology, and I'm going to probably say some, like, wrong shit. I think that stuff's fascinating, like, how the brain works. And there's been so many studies done where it's like, okay, everyone's put in a classroom. Everyone's in on the joke. They're going to ask you a question, like, two plus two equals. And then they're going to ask. The audience are gonna be like, seven. And the person's gonna be like, it doesn't equal. And they're gonna be, like, raising their hands for, like, the wrong answer. And then they'll be like, I guess it's seven. It's like you don't realize, like, how susceptible you are to propaganda and just like, public groupthink or what you think is public group think or like bots or like, any conversation you look at, it's like, is this even, like, real? That's terrifying.

[Cody]

Makes me think of the line experiment. Remember that one? It was from back in the day. There's a line of people, actors, just standing in line on the street.

[Donut]

Oh, people just.

[Brandon]

People just started going in line. Yeah, that's so.

[Donut]

Same for elevators. Have you seen it? When they get an elevator, one actor will get in just to show how he can influence other individuals. And he will walk in an elevator and he will stand facing the back of the wall. And then you see people looking and they all turn and then face the wrong way in an elevator too. Like, oh, that's crazy.

[Brandon]

I totally believe it.

[Donut]

Small.

[Brandon]

I mean, go to an airport, like, just watch somebody like, yeah. Oh, my God, dude.

[Donut]

Just the NPCs of real life just.

[Brandon]

It's crazy. Like, you like to think that, like, people as a collective are, like, smart and cunning, and then you go to an airport, you're like, oh, no. Like, this is actually insane.

[Eli]

And those are just the people that could afford to fly.

[Brandon]

True. Like, it's just. It's just nuts. Like, I flew out of Portland Airport. I'm, like, from Oregon.

[Eli]

Oh, dear.

[Brandon]

Like, I. It's. The airport's beautiful. It is a. Like, they've remodeled it. It is the most pretty airport in the world. Can't say the same for the people inside it. It's. It's crazy. Portland. Like, you. You leave Oregon and you realize how, like, beautiful people are everywhere else. And this isn't like some, like, I'm not even saying, like, the blue hairs or anything. Like, I've seen, like, you go to Portland. Like, the trans people there, they, they. They pass way better than the general population. Like, everyone's like, oh, the homeless is so bad. Like, no, that's just the people. Like, that's just the people in Portland. Like, it's just like a schlubby. It's weird.

[Eli]

That guy has a seven thousand dollar a month apartment. He's not.

[Brandon]

Oh, yeah. Oh, no, he's. He's rich. He looks homeless. Like, they're wearing, like, tatter. I don't know. I don't. I don't get it. And, like, there's good people in Portland. Like, there's tons of them. Great people, passionate. Like, I like it. I love, I love the city. Like, it really is cool and I support it. A lot of cool people there. But, man, it is just, like, weird. It is an interesting place. So being back in Texas, it's like, oh, yeah. Like, I got off the. I got delayed in Denver. I had to sprint to the connecting flight. And I got off the plane, I'm like, oh, I'm in civilization. Like, there's just, like, nice, like, people.

[Donut]

Hi, how you doing?

[Eli]

It's like, well, they're all normal. They all kind of look like Brandon.

[Brandon]

And Eli, but scared. I got off the plane. The first two people I saw had, like, the best skin complexion I've ever seen. I'm like, oh, it's Wendigoon. Oh, sorry. It's not like, oh, it's another Wendon. I'm like, ah, damn it. It's not.

[Donut]

Oh, like, Isaiah is perfect. You've said that, babe. He has really nice skin.

[Brandon]

It's insane.

[Eli]

Like, look at those Voluptuous lips.

[Brandon]

Oh, my God.

[Cody]

That question drawing.

[Eli]

If we got to show the meat canyon drawing of Isaiah in front of the.

[Donut]

The Waffle House dude, it's on his Twitter.

[Brandon]

I think it's gonna be, like, handsome Squidward or something.

[Donut]

No, it's just popping meat. Being.

[Brandon]

Through that mind of creative genius like that, I'm kind of scared to.

[Donut]

He is.

[Brandon]

You should be. Yeah.

[Donut]

Such a good dude. We got, like, you meet individuals like Windigoon or Papa Me, and you see why they're so successful. They're just great humans. They're hard workers. Also hilarious. Just do not give a shit. We actually are trying to get Windigoon for a couple of the live shows.

[Eli]

That'd be dope.

[Brandon]

Yeah, I think it's cool. Like, you can see people in, like, a podcast format, too.

[Donut]

Me, canyon one. Yeah.

[Brandon]

The lips are like, half the face.

[Cody]

The other one's worse.

[Donut]

Oh, to the down. Nope. Down and right. Yeah, one right. Yeah, that. That's the one. Me Canyon drew. Open that one up. Open that up.

[Brandon]

The first thing shows up, like, can I sue?

[Donut]

Scroll down, babe. Yeah, scroll right there. If you click on, like, one of those, maybe just his little ears right out the side of his lips. Oh, Papa Me.

[Brandon]

That's crazy savage, dude. I saw the first one, like, that's. That's pretty good. And the second one's like, oh, God. Got those thumbnails Nightmare fuel version of it.

[Donut]

Just so good. So good.

[Brandon]

Oh, my God. It's the perfect jeans, right?

[Eli]

I can leave Brandon.

[Brandon]

Really? Get on his shoulders up here, big boy. Try the perfect jeans out as earmuffs.

[Donut]

Brandon, how perfect are they?

[Eli]

Feels like the perfect jeans.

[Donut]

They're so flexible.

[Brandon]

I'm fat. I can actually do squats on them.

[Donut]

Usually that's an issue.

[Brandon]

I'm not kidding.

[Eli]

I'm picturing you do. Doing squats in the gym with these jeans.

[Brandon]

Jeans. I could.

[Donut]

Dude, they are like.

[Eli]

Eli's just mogging on the audience right now.

[Donut]

Ben, make my dick talk. Now you're watching the ad, and pant season is almost here.

[Brandon]

It's always pants season if you're a adult.

[Eli]

It's August in Texas. We're all wearing jeans.

[Brandon]

The perfect jeans.

[Donut]

That's right. Today, we're talking about the perfect gene. Brandon, how my jeans feel on your neck?

[Eli]

Feels like I need to talk to.

[Donut]

Hr but they were comfortable, right?

[Eli]

Absolutely.

[Donut]

This brand, the perfect gene. It's actually perfect. It's real denim, but not the heavy stuff.

[Brandon]

I just like how they finally say that. We can say your khakis which works great pretty much everywhere except for Boston, I'm sure.

[Eli]

Just means the valet is quitting. For a limited time, our listeners get 15 off their first order, plus free shipping at ThePerfectGene NYC or Google the.

[Donut]

Perfect Gene and use code UNSUB15 to get 15.15percent off. It's finally time to stop crushing your.

[Brandon]

Balls and wear comfortable jeans. By going to the perfect gene NYC.

[Donut]

Our listeners get 15% off their first order, plus free shipping.

[Brandon]

It's lighter, softer, stretchier, and it's not a sex toy.

[Eli]

Not with that attitude.

[Donut]

Use that one.

[Eli]

And again, that's free returns, free exchanges. When you use code unsub15 at checkout.

[Donut]

That'S 15% off at checkout for the perfect jeans.

[Brandon]

Connor loves perfect jeans.

[Donut]

He does. They fit him really nice.

[Brandon]

Oh, pants.

[Donut]

When did you actually start doing your videos or what got you started?

[Brandon]

Oh, yeah.

[Donut]

Going back to. You actually do it proper as you want to see. If you just follow the analytics and work with a good group of friends, like, oh, I'm gonna figure out how to do thumbnails. I'm gonna figure out how to do titles, and then I'm going to really deep dive and learn every aspect of the video. Because when you have. Again, I was blown away. You're tracking and all the little things on the VFX side, I was like.

[Brandon]

Do you guys know you come from, like, the world of, like, even. Even crazier stuff? So to hear that is, like, he does.

[Eli]

We don't.

[Donut]

Yeah. To see that level, I was like, holy. And then to find out, you're like, yeah, I do it all. I'm like, bro, what the.

[Eli]

Cuz, it's. It's high production quality.

[Brandon]

Thank you.

[Eli]

You're genuinely very good.

[Brandon]

It's the easy part. Like, the editing is the easy part for me where it's like, I can just sit down behind a computer and just shrimp over at the PC and be like, how do I just make this look better? And then it's the writing and everything else where I'm like, Like, losing my hair. All seven left. I'm just like. I don't know what to. I don't know what to say. Like, I just. I delete more than my right. And then when I get into the editing side, it's like, oh, okay. I can just make it look pretty. And then. And then through, like, some, like, probably, like, I probably just. I'm, like, way too insecure about the video itself. So I'm like, I got to make it look flashier and I'm like toning. I'm toning it back a little bit because I think some of it is like distracting from the video.

[Donut]

I don't know.

[Brandon]

I do think it's fun to do. It started. To answer your question, it started because I was. I was actually touring at the time in the band. It's like, that was like, what do you. The big pick Me. The big pick Me. I used to be in a band. I do drums. That was like my whole life. Like, that was. It was like the only thing I wanted to do in life was just like, be good at drums. That was like, this is my self worth drums. And I got the job. There's some cool people. I don't like to say, like the name of the band. They changed directions and did some other things. And I don't. I don't all make. I wish them like a huge success. We didn't see eye to eye musically in a lot of things, but they did give me, like a lot of amazing opportunities and, like, taught me a lot of like, really important just life stuff to just like being with that family and like living with them. They brought me on, we started touring, and I was like, this is my dream job. And then a month passed and I was like, maybe. Maybe, like doing this for 45 minutes a night. Okay, 30 to like an hour. And then the rest of the 23 hours is like, oh, this is different. Like, touring, you guys know, like, touring, touring.

[Eli]

Probably not the same touring with us as touring with a rock band.

[Brandon]

Probably. Yeah. But like, you know, we still like a. Like, we had a good life. Like, we're in like a Mercedes Sprinter. It's like customized. Like, it's nice, but, like, we're sleeping in that every night. It is like, you are just every second of the day. It's like you don't know what's coming up. You have no idea what you're doing, and you just got to kind of make it work. And also you've got to kind of be. I was like the tour shepherd. I was sort of like, godspeed, the responsible one. Like, me and my manager were like, he's like, you're in charge of like, keeping this shit together. It was his sons. It was his sons that were like the guitarists. And like, you know, they're great, but it's like family dynamics. Maybe they're off doing something else. They're going like, I had to be like, the one that's like cortisol all the time. Like, where are we? We have sound check and we don't even know. And you're off at, like, a different state, eating lunch, you know, but it's like, that would happen many times. We have sound check in five minutes ago. Shit.

[Eli]

And I'm like, that was us on the tour. She's like, oh, we have sound check in 20 minutes. Where the are Cody and Brandon?

[Brandon]

Yeah, but your sound check is. Test, one, two. Okay, we're good. That's your sound check. Your sound check isn't like, we have to test, like, 14 lines in front of house and, like, the backing tracks and everything else. And, like, that's very fair. A drum set. And it was so. That was. That was, like, the life for a long time. And got to go to, like, some amazing experiences, like, really shout out to them. Like, they have been. They have been. They. They blessed me with, like, a really cool. Like, people would kill for that job. And it was, like, my dream job. And I was like, I. I don't see this going super long because I'm eating, like, dog food again. Food allergies. Living on the road, living off of Chicken McNuggets. Like, every meal in, like, cold cuts from, like, a grocery store. When you have five minutes to stop at a Walmart to, like, grab and go.

[Donut]

And then how often. How many shows are you doing?

[Brandon]

A. A tip? Typically? It would typically be like three to five, back to back. And you have, like, one rest day where you're driving for, like, 17 hours, and then.

[Donut]

And. Oh, okay, three to five with one rest day, and then you're back. Three to five?

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Donut]

For how many months?

[Brandon]

Typically? Typically, they're only like, a month at a time, so like, 28 to 35 days. And then the thing is. The thing is you get in the flow, and you're just like, this is it. This is what we do now. And then it's weird because it's like, I know you guys are. You did military stuff, which, like, you shout out, like, that's. That's tough shit.

[Donut]

That's. Brandon's like, I know you're not.

[Brandon]

I know you're not dated.

[Donut]

Shout out to my Betties, my fellow kids. Brandon's like, why? Why?

[Brandon]

Are you.

[Eli]

All right, Richard?

[Brandon]

Sorry, Brittany.

[Donut]

Cody gave me ideas, and then he made the joke, and then it's funny.

[Brandon]

And then it stayed forever.

[Donut]

We feed off of it.

[Brandon]

Sorry.

[Eli]

Everybody made the joke, and it was funny.

[Brandon]

You go for me. And, like, we need all jokes. Like, all right, we need some jokes. Maybe a limit on some of them. I know you're around, but. Oh, yeah. No, Yeah.

[Eli]

I usually like, any. Any other context, I'm like. I'm the guy who's like, nah, keep pushing.

[Brandon]

Keep it. Take it farther.

[Donut]

Now, Brandon, for this next few months, he's like, can we just pause.

[Eli]

On paper?

[Donut]

So you're doing three to five. You're driving state. But a month of that is so much. You cannot until you've done it. Because it does sound easy.

[Brandon]

It sounds like the easiest thing. And then you do it. You're like, america is fucking huge. You don't realize how big America is until you have to drive from, like, Texas to, like, a state in. In New Mexico. And you're like, oh, yeah, it's two states, no problem. You're like, we're still half. We're not even halfway through Texas. It's still in, like, all of Texas. Like, Dallas, Houston. It's like you've got a lot of, like, maybe you have, like, where that, like, one shooting happened. Like, what specifically? Right? Which one? No, the. The big one. Like a Walmart? Yeah. We've actually. We filmed a music video in El Paso a month after the shooting happened. There was the weirdest thing, like, walking through that town. Everyone was just like. It was odd. Like, you could feel, I don't know, weird energy. It's a weird energy. We drove past the Walmart, though, to see it, it was just like.

[Donut]

It was just like, what the.

[Brandon]

The being that close to it. So. Damn.

[Eli]

So, like, my district goes all the way to El Paso from here. Oh, wild. I.

[Brandon]

That's, like, half of Europe.

[Eli]

It's one of the biggest.

[Brandon]

So Texas.

[Eli]

Well, people don't realize Texas is bigger than the biggest country in Europe, which is Ukraine.

[Brandon]

Really? Is that actually, like.

[Donut]

Yeah. Oh, yeah, dude. Texas is Texas versus Europe.

[Brandon]

Any, like, shapists in chat that can.

[Eli]

That up? Oh, no, I'm wrong. I was wrong by 30,000 square miles. So it's close.

[Donut]

I mean, that's.

[Brandon]

What even is that in comparison to Texas. That's like a.

[Eli]

Wait, hold on.

[Brandon]

What? A pin drop?

[Donut]

Yeah. When you look at it like that.

[Brandon]

Though, Braden, it looks like a shitpost.

[Eli]

Wait, no, hold on. I'm sorry.

[Donut]

I know.

[Eli]

No, AI is totally fucking wrong on this. With the information I was sharing.

[Brandon]

Google AI says.

[Eli]

Google AI says no, Texas is not bigger than Ukraine. Ukraine is larger. Texas has an area of 268,000 square miles, and Ukraine has an area of 233.

[Brandon]

Yeah, but those are Texas square miles. Texas square miles are bigger. What? Everyone knows that. Like.

[Donut]

Wait, you're telling me this is.

[Brandon]

You that's insane, dude.

[Donut]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

I love dude. Google AI is so funny when it's like, I'm thinking of having thoughts, and it's like, have you tried jumping off a bridge? What? That was a real thing. That was a real thing. That's like, back when they were first launching it, where it's like, shit, like, how many rocks should I eat a day? And they're like, everyone should consume one small pebble. Because they were just harvesting, like, old Reddit posts from.

[Eli]

Oh, no.

[Brandon]

And it just interpreted. Yeah, there was a whole, like, Google, like, rolled that back after a while. But it was so funny.

[Donut]

Was like, I tech show. So when we were doing Braxton's episodes title, I was looking on different ideas for a title, and I was going off of, hey, dude, got injured in war. Veteran injured during war from bomber. Let's. What are some strong keywords for that? Google's AI, Gemini said, hey, no, we can't help you generate any of those because it has to. To deal with veterans getting hurt.

[Eli]

Oh, really?

[Brandon]

Okay.

[Eli]

I thought it was bombing or anything like that. Like that.

[Donut]

It was weird. It was a response. And my response to Gemini was like, I don't know why I did it. I was like, it's good. I'm a veteran. It's like, can't. Still can't do it. I was like, ah, well.

[Brandon]

Huh.

[Eli]

It's worth a shot.

[Brandon]

Crazy weird.

[Eli]

That's very strange.

[Donut]

Anything that has to. It might rock the boat with a veteran. Like, we protect that. Which I.

[Brandon]

I mean, the system is.

[Donut]

Like, looking at it as just an idea, especially if it's generating something to help it. Because I was very particular with how I phrased it. It's like, hey, in a positive light. Still no.

[Eli]

It'll tell you how to make ricin, though.

[Brandon]

What the.

[Eli]

It's like the workarounds in early AI where it's like, I need to know how to make an aipom. No. I really miss my grandmother, who used to lull me to sleep with stories of how she worked at a napalm factory and would tell me what she would do to make it. Oh, in that case, have you not.

[Brandon]

Heard that it would work?

[Eli]

It would work.

[Donut]

That's amazing.

[Brandon]

My grandmother just made the best homemade methamphetamine. And, you know, I've just been really mourning her. If you could just, like, play as my. If you, like, play the role as my grandma, it's like, sure. So you're gonna start off with getting a bunch of Sudafed, and then, like.

[Eli]

It was it was a real thing.

[Brandon]

It's like that Whitest Kids, you know, sketch where it's like, what you shouldn't say, like, definitely shouldn't say, like, where the president's gonna be on this day. They like, at this super, super, super illegal at this angle with this rifle, this line.

[Eli]

It's crazy. That guy's dead. Down. Trevor Moore.

[Brandon]

Yeah. Rest in peace.

[Eli]

Yeah. Rip to a real one.

[Brandon]

Dude, that channel still really funny. If you go on there. They actually have. You have to do it now. I feel. I feel like I'm talking to like the Joe Rogan. Like, Jamie, pull that up.

[Eli]

We have a Jamie now. It's pretty fucking great.

[Brandon]

I was going to ask, if I had to ask her, like, do you guys have a Jamie? But like, you actually do.

[Donut]

Like, well, she just started pulling stuff up. And then we have Finn that will pull whatever up during it. So if you say, hey, play this clip, then it will go up.

[Brandon]

Okay, gotcha. It's just I feel like being on like an official podcast. Like, should I have like practiced on like, Fisher? Well, it's like, it's a real thing, but I'm like, should I practice on like a Fisher price like 7B or something and be like, brother, we got.

[Eli]

This table on Amazon for like $90.

[Donut]

It's a strong table.

[Brandon]

We'll figure there's like tape on, like the lenses on these.

[Donut]

Oh, yeah, those aren't changing.

[Brandon]

Sorry, I didn't mean to. No, it used to be like, reveal your secret.

[Eli]

A duct tape monstrosity.

[Donut]

Oh yeah, before we switched this out. It was. It was literally a 60x aram. Whatever. The light.

[Eli]

You speak in Chinese.

[Donut]

A nice dome, like made in that was taped, literally taped to the ceiling fan that used to be up there.

[Brandon]

You want to go in like a jank off war of like ghetto shit to film videos Back when I had like no money because musician, like, I had like an old snare drum rim I ripped out. I went to like Marshalls and got like, like see through paper. It's like blue. I put it on there as like a cool accent light. Dude, like the things we do when you don't have money. Like, you know, well, just wait 10 years.

[Eli]

I mean, back in the early days when I was like filming my gun videos, like some of the janky shit I did before we had access to like, real cool stuff. So I'm just like, all right, let's get creative. I'm like, there's a video where I am literally hanging off the back of a U Haul shooting A flamethrower with one hand with my buddy driving the U Haul. Like, I don't even remember how we set that up, but I was just like. I look back at some of that shit, I'm like, oh, man, this U.

[Brandon]

Haul'S like, all right, put on the do not rent list. I'm. We have a. We have a new flamethrower policy.

[Eli]

I'm certain that this falls under the dangerous acts section of YouTube now. Like, there's no way.

[Brandon]

Oh, yeah, we used to. I mean, it was for a bit, but like, it's a joke, dude.

[Donut]

And it's what separates a lot of.

[Brandon]

People professionals on a closed course.

[Eli]

It really was because it was during COVID We were pretending it was like a zombie, like 28 weeks later kind of thing.

[Brandon]

Oh, okay.

[Donut]

Yeah, I'm just having a good time. It's doing. Not making excuse of why you can't do it. All of us were just, hey, let's figure out ways to save money. We can't afford it, so we'll make this work no matter what. It's just doing a blue accent light with a piece of paper.

[Brandon]

Doing anything you can at the artwork.

[Cody]

When we first started this, we used three cell phones.

[Eli]

Yep, yep.

[Donut]

God, I hated that. The dumping of the data on that was the biggest bitch. For whatever reason that was the hardest thing is just ripping those hours. Thankfully, at that time it was an hour podcast. Yeah, 30 minutes to an hour.

[Brandon]

They're pretty, pretty good now though. It's pretty crazy. Some people are like, oh, what camera should I buy for Twitch? It's like you have a phone that has like the most expensive engineered, like, lens that's mass produced. You have it right there. It works pretty well.

[Eli]

Everybody has 4K in their pocket. Yeah, that's a crazy 3000 FPS.

[Brandon]

It's. It's nuts. It's a little scary. Yeah.

[Donut]

Compared to where we start, especially 2010 era, 2009, you had the T3I cannons. I don't know what you shot on at first when you first got into it.

[Cody]

Oh, God.

[Brandon]

I was.

[Cody]

I was just using a webcam. Like a Walmart webcam.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Cody]

You can tell in my earlier videos. It's so shit, so bad.

[Brandon]

It's blurry, it's out of focus.

[Eli]

But you weren't thinking like, oh, I need to invest because my entire full time job is about to become YouTube.

[Donut]

You're hoping for that?

[Brandon]

Yeah, Yeah, I wish for the money.

[Eli]

Never plan on it.

[Brandon]

And even once you have it, you don't have it. Because I Can go away in like a second. Yeah.

[Donut]

You make sure you're set up and you a lot if you do take that leap where. Okay, I'm gonna stop this job. A lot of the times it is when I go into this field though, I'm going to go above and beyond. It's not going to cut corners. Not that I made it so I can do this now quit. And then you don't put any more effort into your content. It's okay. I just stopped that. I'm going to now mass produce content. I'm going to stop.

[Brandon]

You have to keep the ball rolling like so many ways. And like everyone says, like, oh, it's so lucky. It's like that's 10 years behind that. Like overnight success. Like there is a lot of time there is luck. Like there is luck a part of it. Like some people just. It doesn't hit until later.

[Eli]

Sometimes you just hit the right chord.

[Brandon]

Yeah, yeah. Sometimes you just strike the right. It's like the algorithm figures out like who your audience is at the same time. Like that can also disappear. Like that is a. Like that is a reality. And I've seen like you guys have probably seen it more than I have. You've been around the block forever. Like how many creators have you seen? Just like Brandon.

[Donut]

Brandon Cody. Call him the one word win.

[Eli]

AK50. I sense the disturbance in the force. What's up?

[Donut]

How do you like those Turtle beach noise canceling headphones? They're the Stealth 700.

[Eli]

They're fantastic. The noise canceling is so good. All I hear is tinnitus.

[Donut]

Ah, God, these are comfortable.

[Eli]

They're really comfy.

[Donut]

Yeah, those are dope.

[Eli]

Turtle beach makes them range ear pro.

[Donut]

You want junior? Actually, Cody actually like put those on. Oh, nice. Those are legit. Legit, comfortable Turtle Beach. What you doing over there, girl? You making some hot ass stuff?

[Cody]

I like your Squishies 3D spatial audio to improve your gaming. That will work really good in Tarkov, hear people's footsteps.

[Donut]

And in pubg.

[Eli]

I can't wait to use a Turtle beach headset to listen for footsteps. And Tarkov running the new AK50 while I get still killed from a wood line. I can't see what Eli, There's a glass global cabal that's working behind the scenes to control all media, banking, politicians. And that's why we should have never gone off the gold standard.

[Cody]

Hey, hold on, hold on. 80 hour battery life.

[Donut]

80 hour battery life. Holy sh. There's a lot of switches. Can't stress enough how comfortable these Are. And if you've been in a long gaming session, which I'm sure all of.

[Cody]

Us have, unfortunately, I wear adult diapers when I play World of Warcraft.

[Eli]

You should be euthanized.

[Donut]

Hair also controls headphones. Great. This game hard.

[Eli]

Head to Turtle beach and use code unsub for 10% off your entire order.

[Donut]

That's 10% off your entire order. @turtlebeach.com with using code Unsub after your.

[Brandon]

Purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them.

[Cody]

Please support Unsub and tell them where you got them.

[Donut]

Tell them Unsub sends their regards.

[Eli]

I remember, like, five, six years ago, I was visiting with Matt Carricker for the first time. Demolition Ranch.

[Brandon]

Oh, yeah.

[Eli]

I went out to stay with him because he had just copied one of my videos, like, as a joke. And he reached out and he was like, hey, man, do you want to do some content together? I'm like, yeah, dude.

[Brandon]

Like, here's the dream. Demo Ranch. Blowing up cars is like the ultimate male fantasy.

[Eli]

I was like. I was a relative nobody at the time. I was like, 100, 100, 200K, something like that on. On YouTube. Like, I just, I just started in my. My arc, I guess. Right.

[Brandon]

How long ago was this?

[Eli]

Like six years, something like that.

[Donut]

Yeah.

[Eli]

I want to say something along those lines.

[Brandon]

Feels like two. Probably.

[Eli]

Depends on the day, man.

[Brandon]

I feel like the last five years have just been like. And it's 20, 25.

[Eli]

But it's weird. The reason I bring it up is because he. He had reached out. We. We went to go hang out, and at the time, I was just on the. The.

[Brandon]

The.

[Eli]

The end of my first video kind of going viral and blowing up. And we had kind of followed it up with something. So I, I. In a very short period of time, I went from 20k subs, which is where I was stuck, like between 1820 for a while, and had blown up to 100k. And I'm like, oh, this is.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Eli]

Oh, my God.

[Brandon]

You're like, oh, my God. And then five times it died.

[Eli]

And I was kind of water. I was talking, not dead in the water, but like, the, The. The spike had died off. And I was just talking like, hey, man, I see. I just. I don't question it.

[Brandon]

It's so real, though, on YouTube, where it's like, I'm the. I'm the king of the jungle. Look at the algorithm. Figured it out. Oh, you're done. But I asked characters did that to.

[Cody]

That second channel I started.

[Donut]

Yep.

[Cody]

I got. I got 100,000 subs in two weeks. And then suddenly it went.

[Brandon]

And just.

[Donut]

Yours was fucking wild because Cody is doing two, two to four videos a day, right. And you're getting a minimum 100,000 views.

[Cody]

Oh yeah, it was nice.

[Donut]

And this is again four, two to four times a day. And then overnight they just cut it.

[Cody]

Off and you can see where they kind of cap the views somehow because it's like straight 20, 20, 20, 20, 30, 2020. When it was last month, it was a hundred, 400. One of them hit a million.

[Eli]

And you can go back in your analytics and see how many people YouTube is serving it to. Yeah, like how many.

[Brandon]

The impressions are like the lifeblood.

[Cody]

And I didn't change anything.

[Brandon]

No, that's when you start getting to like the gambling rituals where you start like swiping the screens. You're like, I must upload exactly at 4:32. And if I don't, it doesn't get views. Like people start getting to like crazy voodoo of like, how do I, what do I do? It drives you mad on YouTube. Like that's, that's like the reality of it though. Like, like nothing. No fault of yours. I had my need for Speed video that was like the first real video I made that was like I want to do a 30 minute thing. That's like a passion project. And best performing video I ever had. 140000 views within like, I think it was like a day I had. I had like, I think not even like 70000 subs.

[Eli]

And I got.

[Brandon]

It was an age restriction like, and it just kneecapped it. And I went to YouTube and I was like, what did I do wrong? And of course you can immediately be like, oh, there's probably like 30 things I did wrong. But like nothing that bad. And then they came back a nice brisk five days later, like our bad. We're so sorry. Like our mistake. Yeah, I mean, at least I guess. But so like it was just kneecap forever.

[Eli]

Sorry we killed all that growth.

[Brandon]

Yeah, we're so sorry. You had like the best video you ever made in your life. But I was still sitting there like happy with the numbers. And then a year later I was at Vidcon with, with my friend. My friend Scamboli Reviews is like one of like the best anutubers in the business. Funny guy. You guys will love him. He's the guy that actually told me to do YouTube. You asked about that. He was like, he saw like memes. He's like, you're for not having a YouTube channel. I'm like, it's all luck. I can't do it. He's like, I did this a year ago out of my bedroom because I was having fun and I have a 300,000 subscribers now. And now he's up to like a million. I'm just like, okay. And he, like, helped me. Like, I have a channel thanks to him, honestly. Shout outs, scam. But I was at VidCon with him and then the need for Speed video got a million views in two days. Dead, dead, dead, dead. And just went like, all right, you're good to go. And then dead after again. Oh, yeah. It was so weird.

[Cody]

We've had videos too, where it'll get like, It'll get a cool million views and then eight months down the road, it suddenly shoots to like 3 million.

[Eli]

Yeah, it just like, we used to see like consistent spikes. At least I did like a week or two after posting, it would shoot up like that. But anyway, when I was bringing up character, like demo ranch, like me, you know, fresh off the big first success, I was starting to see that like, plateau and I was kind of like asking him about it. I'm like, hey, man, you're the. You're the guy who's been in this business for years. Like, what? And he's like, oh, this is your first time. Like, literally the, you know, new first time. He's like, dude, it always comes back. He's like, at least in my experience, he's like, don't get me wrong, you could be fucked. I don't know. But he's.

[Brandon]

The only way to find out is to keep doing it. Yeah.

[Eli]

He's like, in my experience, it always comes back as long as you're not doing anything crazy or anything like that. Like, this is it, ebbs and flows. And I. I took that with me because sure as shit, throughout over the years since that time, it's probably blown up and then stagnated for me maybe 10 times.

[Brandon]

Yep. Sounds crazy.

[Donut]

You have those fears where we. The hardest part is YouTube doesn't tell you what will with stuff. And then they will actively like. No, that doesn't kill or read anyway.

[Eli]

Like a live stream.

[Donut]

Yeah, like live streams don't hit or hurt your algorithm. And we've seen across the board, it has hurt everyone's. If they've done a single live stream on their main channel, the next. How many videos will.

[Eli]

Oh, dude, it was five even. And you could see where it was like capped. It was. My views got cut in half, really. And my. My views are usually pretty consistent with it.

[Brandon]

So what was the number from and the number two not to make this like an analytical.

[Eli]

After a couple days my views are usually around like a million 1.1, 1.2 at the time. And it was immediately cut to like 490, 500 consistently.

[Donut]

It was multiple.

[Eli]

It was in a row. It was just like I heard it in my head whenever I uploaded like the Red Dead 2 like dishonor. Like every. Every fucking time I uploaded.

[Brandon]

You're making me love upload videos. Uploading videos on your platform YouTube. Nothing. Nothing like YouTube incentivizing their creators. They give you. Or it's like it grow your audience by live streaming. It's like nice try, nice try. See what you're doing.

[Eli]

It was. It was like a month and a half before I recovered from that.

[Brandon]

That in off of like one livestream. Yeah, I have, I have like some theories on it because I feel like when I go live again a lot of people on YouTube like they're not there for live streams and it's like you ping them with notification and YouTube and people see they're like oh, I don't want to. I'll turn off notifications. But like a shift from a million to 400,000 is like insane.

[Eli]

It was, it was not great and it was, it was some banger videos in my opinion too. Like the M70, the 40 mil thumper video. Like shit that I was prepped. I was excited for for a while and because it fell in that rut in the algorithm now there's always the. I'm always open to the idea like oh, shadow band, whatever. Like maybe I just suck. Like that's a total possibility that maybe this is my fault. But when you see statistical anomalies like that really like alright, if I, if I put out one shitter video it doesn't do so good. That's on me, you know, Always.

[Donut]

And we have a.

[Eli]

When I do one thing that's different and then it's five in a row. That's come on it's.

[Donut]

And all of us have a pretty decent finger on the pulse to what we'll do good. We'll have a within 10% margin of error. Like hey this is how many views this will probably get or around here or where it will fall in our 1 through 10 ratio.

[Eli]

Like if we're really proud of a video it'll do like shit.

[Brandon]

Yeah, exactly.

[Donut]

That's.

[Brandon]

It's always the ones that like you want the most, like you believe in the most that usually end up Being the worst. And then you'll have some video that like just pops off. Like nothing. You're like, okay, I don't know what I'm doing.

[Eli]

Creator curse.

[Donut]

No time into that in it. You just, you just took off.

[Brandon]

Just never know. It's terrifying stuff.

[Donut]

And then you have also, like, Cody gets on. Just start censoring. Censoring. And Leon Lush, he has one where he couldn't cuss for a long time. Like if he said one curse word demonetized, and he would ask unsub, how the hell do you guys never get demonetized and you curse?

[Brandon]

Wait, he was getting demonetized from cursing?

[Donut]

Yeah, it happened. Wild summoning salt. That happened.

[Brandon]

Oh, yeah, he. Well, it was. He had like a. He had a clip of Twitch it. That was the. I think that was the Mega Man Speedrun. Yep, he had the Mega Man Speedrun. He had a pop off clip of a streamer that was like, holy, holy. And I think that's what got him in hot water. But the, the crazy thing with that, it was. It was insane. But the, the crazier part was YouTube got back to him and was like, oh, our bad. Like, we'll reinstate it. And then they did. And then they didn't. They took it down like, oh, it's child safety. Or I may, I mean, I may be misquoting it. No, but it was some. Like, this makes zero fucking sense. And like they kept going back and forth. And he's like, he had to re.

[Donut]

Upload the whole video.

[Brandon]

Yeah, he, like, of course, didn't do like, nearly as well. Or I think, I think it made a pretty good comeback because the people were like, rallying. But it was the first. Like, YouTube does not give a fuck.

[Eli]

I think I've got a good analogy for this.

[Cody]

It's super subjective to whoever the manual reviewer is to like, for instance, when it comes to our content, like, if we get a manual reviewer who's based in Los Angeles and we're doing gun content, they're probably going to try to find some way to smack us. Where. If we get a manual reviewer that might live somewhere on the. In the south, they might be like, oh, this gun content.

[Eli]

Or how do you. Malaysia. Which they totally don't do.

[Brandon]

Yeah, America.

[Cody]

Yeah. They don't contract out around the world.

[Brandon]

World.

[Cody]

They don't do that.

[Eli]

The best analogy I have for this is, let's say you're in a NASCAR race or an F1 race or some like that. You're like, all right, you're all in the starting line.

[Brandon]

Boom.

[Eli]

You go. You've got momentum. Like, you're. You're moving pretty good, and you're, like, pretty close to the front of the pack. Right. And then YouTube will come in and hit you with a penalty. Boom. Now your speed's minimized to 10 miles an hour. Everybody else is still going the same.

[Brandon]

They can all. They can all start lapping you.

[Eli]

And then after an hour, they come back to you like, oh, never mind. Our bad. That wasn't really a penalty. You can go now.

[Brandon]

You're good.

[Eli]

Now I have to go back to the normal speed.

[Brandon]

Like, you don't have employees that you're paying. Yeah, I'm still our silly little oopsie doodle.

[Eli]

I'm still.

[Brandon]

Are you freaking kidding? Yeah, it's. Oh, it's insane like, that. They. They make it seem like it's just this little, like. Oh, it's like. No, you don't understand. Like, you just killed six months of hard work.

[Donut]

Yeah. Especially for you.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Donut]

With that level of work, dude, working on a video for one month, two months, and then it gets kicked back, demonetized. It'd be heartbreaking.

[Eli]

Oh, yeah.

[Brandon]

So there's actually a way you can check in the creator studio under monetization if your video has been manually reviewed. Do you know?

[Donut]

Yes.

[Brandon]

Yeah, every single one of my videos has been manually reviewed. Pretty much every single one. And they don't. It doesn't happen until the video gets views. So I think there's something where, like, if you want to get in the algorithm, there is some form of check or like, they. Some. Something. I don't even want to say somebody, because I feel like that's giving them too much credit. Something like scans. It.

[Eli]

Remind us after we're off the podcast, there's a. There's some. There's some stories, there's some things you can do.

[Brandon]

Yeah. Oh, interesting.

[Eli]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

Oh, interesting.

[Eli]

We'll, like, make a little mental note on it.

[Brandon]

Okay.

[Eli]

We can. We can kind of help you out with that a little bit.

[Brandon]

But still, I'd love to hear it.

[Eli]

I hate that we have to. We have to try to jump through hoops to just to do our job on a platform and try to comply with their guidelines. Because we all do try to comply.

[Brandon]

Whatever those guidelines may be.

[Donut]

The shifting guidelines, like, yeah, move goal post, move goalpost.

[Eli]

I'm saying, whatever.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Donut]

Oh, dude, those are the worst new guidelines.

[Cody]

And they're like, oh, this affects your.

[Brandon]

Yeah. All your videos. You have now, like, lost your channel because, like, 20 views got striked at the same time, which happened to a lot of people.

[Eli]

And talking to YouTube, you're like, how do I make content that will comply with your guidelines that you haven't written yet that will go into effect three years from now? I don't know how we're supposed to do that.

[Brandon]

It's, it's like crazy how loose they are with that. And they're, they're of course, like, I think nebulous on purpose so that they don't find people screwing the line. Be like, oh, we can just sort of say whatever we want at any time and I have liability. And it's like, like you don't realize, like, how much pressure that puts on creators. Like, just mind read. Like, we're not mind readers. Like, like idiots in a bedroom. Like, what the. Like, we, like, we're in good faith. We want to make good videos, we want to like, entertain an audience. We want to, like, play by the rules. Like, I'm happy to like, appease YouTube for the opportunity to make a video. Like, I hate that I have to do that. But, like, you know, that's reasonable. At the same time, it's like, help me out. I'm trying to help you guys. Like, every creator knows, like, the stress and fear of like that email. It's like, you banned email. Or like, you've been like, what's worse.

[Eli]

Too, is that YouTube. While, you know, we all have our, our issues with the way the platform is run, they're probably the best compared to other things, like meta. Oh my God, meta's horrible.

[Donut]

Meta is especially.

[Brandon]

Is that a surprise?

[Eli]

Not really. But like, they're like, at least Google, I will say, makes a conscious effort to try to be fair about their enforcement. And like, they'll, they'll, there's at least a line of dialogue that's open. Meta, they don't give a fuck. They're like, oh, this doesn't comply because you're trafficking illegal goods. I'm like, I posted a what AR15 mag. Like, what. What the. The deal? They're like, sorry, we manually manually reviewed it. Which mean an AI manually reviewed it and we determined that you're, you're still at fault. Go fuck yourself. You're shadow banned.

[Donut]

Like, and side note, there is no customer service on Meta. If you've never seen it. There is zero.

[Eli]

You.

[Donut]

There is no way to get a hold of somebody to talk to at Meta. And that is on all our levels. We have no access to a human being at Meta.

[Eli]

No period.

[Donut]

Unless you're paying tens of Thousand dollars.

[Brandon]

They don't have humans. They don't even have humans there. Like.

[Donut]

And you're like, they don't even have.

[Eli]

A human to run it.

[Brandon]

Yeah. Marks is sort of like, they don't have a number.

[Donut]

Try to find a phone number to call about an account.

[Eli]

He's too busy.

[Brandon]

I can't do anything.

[Eli]

The Harkonnen or whoever from Dune, he's just sitting there in his giant mud bath. Sweet baby rays, barbecue sauce.

[Brandon]

I'm here making sweet baby rays. He's blinking, like, four different directions. I don't compute. I'm now one with the kids, though, because I have a broccoli here. Wow, that's insane.

[Donut]

Today's unsubscribe episode is brought to you by booking.combooking.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Eli]

Cody, how much do we have to travel?

[Donut]

We travel a lot, actually, with the live tours. We use booking.com to set up everything as we go on this next journey of life.

[Eli]

Because God knows it's a lot of travel. And anything to make it easier is much appreciated.

[Donut]

Brandon. So when you have to book for your partner, but they only want 800 thread count sheets.

[Eli]

Oh, that's easy, Eli. Get a new partner.

[Donut]

No, Go to booking dot com.

[Eli]

Oh, before we had any sort of relationship with booking dot com. I have used the service before, genuinely. Sometimes they have really good deals.

[Donut]

One of the great things about booking.com is it provides really accurate reviews. Like, really detailed reviews. It saved me once. Cody did use booking.com when we stayed at that sweet vacation home.

[Brandon]

Heck, yeah.

[Cody]

What else would I use other than booking.com.

[Donut]

Find exactly what you're booking for booking.combooking.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Donut]

Book today on the site or the app. No, Twitch right now is going. I mean, look at what some people are allowed to do versus others, and.

[Eli]

That is like, endorse terrorism.

[Donut]

Yeah, exactly.

[Brandon]

Twitch, right now, their leadership is. I mean, most people are not happy. Like, most people are not happy with, like, the way that's being handled at all. It's a shame because I think Twitch. Twitch is very fun. I think they have the best tools for, like, creators and, like, you know, donating. There's a really fun community in Twitch. And I know we kind of got. We got off this later, but I was like, I know Twitch is like. We talk about gaming. We talk about Twitch and, like, being safe spaces and all that stuff. And it's like, I. I understand the gaming space being a lot more, kind of. I think, a little bit less jokey in those things, because that is like, it is A lot of people that are online all the time, like, they don't want to be around like politics or edgy humor. I think gaming attracts that. That audience. And like, I get that. So I try, I try to play by that rule and respect it. But at the same time, like, Twitch itself is. I've seen a lot of creators, like leave off of it. There is not like some competition for them. I think they are feeling that heat a little bit. They are trying to make. Make changes and like, I don't think they have.

[Eli]

What kind of changes are they trying to implement?

[Brandon]

They've. I think they've upped their like moderation pretty well. I think they're doing a better job in which direction. Enforcing. I just think, like, I think they're. Oh, I have some. I can't say a couple. I'll tell you guys after the podcast. Sure. I'll tell you later. But I think there is hope for it is all saying just so you. I do agree though, like, the reality of the rules of like, oh, this creator said that like slap in the wrist. Like, I remember, like, what was that one creator like fro again or something? I was at TwitchCon when that whole panel happened and they were just sort of like, oh, it's like they're like ranking.

[Eli]

Like, oh, the, the race ranking.

[Brandon]

Yeah, the race ranking. I saw that. I mean, like, how I thought that was. Did that get green greenlit?

[Eli]

I thought it was a joke when you first brought it up.

[Brandon]

Like, that's not real. It's like, oh, that was very real. Like, they actually eventually were like, fine, we'll do something against it. But it's like it's.

[Eli]

It's clear favoritism is the, the annoying part because I'll tell you this point blank, I have never met a community of creators on any platform that had as much fear of the ToS and the platform itself as Twitch creators. Yeah, really terrified versus like YouTube, you know, Facebook, Instagram, whatever. Like Twitch, they're just, oh, tos, bro, tos. Like, I didn't know what the fuck that meant until I started streaming on. On Twitch. Like it was a brief period I streamed there.

[Brandon]

Yeah, there was a time where to us is like really touchy. I think, I think now it's more of like a cultural thing where people say like, oh, this could be tos. Like it's. I think a lot of that is tongue in cheek because I think the rules on Twitch are like actually pretty clear now where it's like, I. I was playing La Noire great game, by the way. And like, there was just like one part where I had to like, inspect like a naked on the ground that was dead. And I was like, you could just call him for one.

[Eli]

I think I'm starting to see where the.

[Donut]

Sorry.

[Brandon]

Sorry. Well, it's like, it's like it's a video game character.

[Donut]

I'm with you.

[Brandon]

I know you are.

[Donut]

I know this naked.

[Brandon]

Sorry.

[Donut]

Have you guys. Here's a red pill. Let me tell you about why I hate women. Oh, dumb slut that deserved everything. You see when this was wearing nothing. It's her fault.

[Brandon]

Why am I getting so much hate? I don't understand.

[Eli]

Like, wow, they will get more upset about a clump of pixels than a clump of cells.

[Brandon]

Yeah, I guess so. I don't understand where all this backlash kind of like, like black and white filter kicks in. Like this dumb deadbell. I'm sorry.

[Eli]

I'm apologizing to it now. Now, now on Twitch now you've gotta self flagellate for the next three days.

[Brandon]

I'm so sorry. I'll cover myself in ash.

[Donut]

Uh oh, blackface.

[Brandon]

Oh, shit.

[Donut]

Four days.

[Brandon]

That's why I got banned.

[Donut]

I was for ash. Damn it.

[Brandon]

You're like, I. I got banned because.

[Eli]

I call someone a bitch. No, it was the active blackface.

[Brandon]

You guys don't put on red lipstick with the ash on everything.

[Eli]

No, not unless your name is just right.

[Brandon]

Well, yeah. That's so crazy. Do you. I have so many friends. Canada. Like, I like Canada. It's a beautiful place. And like, our America is so racist. America, so racist. I'm like, first of all, have you heard of this whole country or continent called Europe? Like, you think America, like, America has the most progressive places in the world.

[Donut]

People don't realize that America.

[Brandon]

So it's like, dude, what are you talking about? Like, they're writing about this shit in Europe every day or something like that. Like, there's like you go into counter strike, into European servers, you will explode.

[Eli]

Go to Poland.

[Brandon]

Go to. Yeah, go to Poland. Poland. It go anywhere. I don't know, but like the whole Justin Trudeau thing too.

[Eli]

It's like, oh, sorry we derailed you on La Noir.

[Brandon]

My brain will just follow like a thousand different. I. I swear I have like the adhd just like a thousand different, like at once. And they're all wrong.

[Donut]

We all do. No.

[Brandon]

Oh my God, you pulled it up.

[Donut]

Well, it's.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Eli]

Dear God, I forgot it was that bad too.

[Donut]

It's. That's a good example of Twitch moderating. Some they're like, no, they're fine.

[Brandon]

They've gotten. I think they've gotten better at it now. I mean, now that they like had some heat, been like, hey, how come some streamers are saying this? And then others are saying that she.

[Eli]

Would have Zach getting twitchy.

[Cody]

It's the most pathetic looking group of people I've ever seen in my fucking life.

[Donut]

It is them just being. And they're all what, Three of the. Two of Two or three of those are getting a lawsuit right now.

[Cody]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

Oh, really?

[Cody]

That called me insecure because I said something about idubbbz.

[Eli]

Oh, because you said you, you wouldn't want your. Your, your fiance or excuse me, your, Your wife to be on only fans.

[Cody]

It was something like that.

[Eli]

She said, well, that's because you're insecure.

[Cody]

Yeah.

[Donut]

Yeah. Two of you know they're getting sued, right?

[Brandon]

No, I had no idea what you do you not. I don't follow. A lot of twitch drama.

[Cody]

Speaking of, I think they're holding up ahead of Ethan Klein.

[Brandon]

Yeah, I think the Ethan Klein bit was the one that was like, whoa.

[Cody]

And now they're being sued by him.

[Donut]

Yeah. Ethan did the largest chess move.

[Brandon]

Ever.

[Cody]

That was cool.

[Donut]

He did a content dump. What was it called?

[Eli]

Content.

[Brandon]

Oh, the content nuke. Yeah, yeah.

[Donut]

And he put that out. And then before he put it out on purpose because he knew certain individuals would react, not speak during it, and then use it as a form. Like, hey, watch it here. So you don't give them views. So he went to a lawyer, he.

[Cody]

Did a copyrighted copy, every single bit of it, any which way, shape or form he could copyright it.

[Donut]

So he did all of that and then put the video out. And then they reacted exactly how he knew they would on stream live, talking about it, making sure that. Don't watch it there, don't give him money, doing everything that is against free, open, fair use. So actively against fair use.

[Cody]

And. And they're sitting there for like three minutes at a time not saying anything.

[Eli]

And they, they intentionally. They spoke about it beforehand. They said, I'm just gon this play so you can watch it here so that you don't have to give him views, which is where it becomes malice.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Donut]

And then once that came out, he's like, gotcha. And then he sued three individuals. Two are on that stage because he, he shows it on the video. He's like, see what you did? This is what I did prior to this to set you all up. And now they are. I mean a lot of them just Shut up. Well, two should have shut up. They didn't. And one actually was smart and was like, I'm gonna just not. I fucked myself.

[Eli]

Someone who had a good.

[Brandon]

Someone like, had it like, don't. Some counsel.

[Donut]

Yeah, hopefully you figure a lot. Did not have counsel.

[Brandon]

So what's the lawsuit? Because I don't really know much about this. I kind of stay away from, like, more. More this side of, like, the content stuff. It's just not my world. I'm not smart enough to know anything about that. What are they suing for?

[Donut]

Fair use. They. He set it up. Babe, can you bring up.

[Brandon]

So is it just. Is it just for, like. Is it more like a defamation thing or is it more just.

[Eli]

It's not just defamation. It's the fact that they're actively stealing his content. And he can prove that they're doing.

[Cody]

It maliciously because they've constantly come after him for years now. Because I think it's because him and Hasan broke up and they've been having a few. And like, one of those girls is one of Hasan's mods, and the other one just sucks him off and loves everything he does.

[Donut]

And there you go. Ethan Klein suit. Three Twitch streamers. Frogan Denim. Casey Tron in the June 2025 alleged copywriter infringement.

[Eli]

Oh, but yeah, so it's copyright infringement without transformative commentary, which makes it against.

[Donut]

Fair use content nuke. Without adding transform. Yep.

[Brandon]

So he's making the argument like they've stolen, like, views from him or something like that in the past. And that's sort of like you're. No, he did.

[Donut]

They will on that video. That's.

[Brandon]

Well, the video specifically is the one. They're getting him for that. For the legal. But I feel like in the realm of content creation, like, when someone makes a video and someone reacts to it, I would think there's a bit of.

[Donut]

Of.

[Brandon]

Even if it's. Even if it's obviously, like, in contention, there's a bit of, like, buzz, and that's like, pushing the videos further. Like, I would think that's like kind of a. Almost like a net prop. Like a net profit off of that.

[Eli]

If you have.

[Brandon]

They were like, drama like that.

[Eli]

Where they were having. The problem is that they were intentionally just like, hey, if you want to watch this video without giving him the views or the credit or the money, you can watch it on my stream instead. So you could still see the content I'm taking from him.

[Brandon]

Sure.

[Eli]

Without giving him any.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Donut]

I'm not reacting to it because you have to React or have.

[Brandon]

You have to have like an actual. Okay, okay.

[Donut]

And they didn't. That was the biggest.

[Brandon]

So they didn't even say anything about it. They just, like, streamed it.

[Eli]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. They didn't let it play full screen.

[Brandon]

That's lousy. Because I was gonna say, like, if it's just like, oh, I thought he was striking it. Just because, like, they're doing commentary. There's like, that's. That's. I don't know. I feel like you should be able to do that, like, in the sphere of creatorship, like, have some danger back and forth. If it's just like, oh, well, that's why he did.

[Eli]

It wasn't. Yeah, there was no commentary. It was literally like, I'm gonna let this play for 12 minutes. I'm gonna go get a soda.

[Donut]

Because, yeah, if he would have went Hassan, he would have.

[Brandon]

Okay, that sounds. I have a thing on my channel where I have like a button where it's like the B. Right back screen. It just says, like the Hassan chair. And it just stops. It just spins kind of like.

[Donut]

So that's why he didn't sue Hassan, because Hassan reacted to it. He actually talked during the breakdown.

[Brandon]

He actually, like, did a thing. Yeah.

[Donut]

So he's like, oh, can't sue that.

[Brandon]

I'm very pro. I'm very pro. Like, like, don't abuse fair use. If you are transforming content. I've had people react to my videos and it's like, if you're cutting it up, if you're doing something or transforming it, more power to you. Even if it's not what I want you to say or if I agree or disagree, I think it's cool that people can do that. I think it's fun. But if you're just doing it maliciously, that's fucked. And I think there's definitely been some content creators that I think, what was it, three letters? The guy who talks like this. Qc. Thank you.

[Donut]

The meat canyon.

[Brandon]

Oh, God.

[Donut]

The maze.

[Brandon]

That was like crossing, like the little gold thing. That was such a good video because I think he would also do that too, where it's like, all right, try. Want to put a video? And then it's like, disappears. And then like, that's. If you're doing that on a stream, I think that's fine. Because again, like, you play a video on stream, whatever. People aren't like, you're not taking views away from a YouTube video. And then when you. You upload that as like Xuc's reaction to this 20 minute awesome video. And it's just like him taking a piss while the video plays in the background. It's like you're now ranking higher than the video when you go to search it. Like, that is. That is like, that's up. Like, you were just, like, leeching off of someone else's hard work, which is.

[Eli]

It sounds like we have the same opinion, though, on, like, reaction stuff where, like, I love watching stuff when it comes up in my algorithm occasionally where people are reacting to my videos.

[Brandon]

Oh, yeah.

[Eli]

And I'm very interested. I watch it occasionally because I'm invested. To see, like, hey, did that joke hit the way I wanted to?

[Brandon]

Absolutely.

[Eli]

What are their questions like, especially if they're not really big gun people? It's like, did I explain this well enough that the average person could comprehend it? And sometimes the answer is no. And I, like, write that down. Hard drive. Like, fuck. Okay. Explain that better next time.

[Brandon]

Do you find that people, like, often laugh at stuff that you never thought were funny? Sometimes, yeah. It's. I've only. I mean, I'm obviously like. I'm not like, some, like, huge, like. Oh, mainly reviews or whatever. It's like, I get, like. I get a couple, like, content ID things. I'm like, I always watch it. It's always a blast. It's like. Like, I take notes. I'm like, all right. Did they laugh at this? No, they didn't. They thought this was funny, though. And like, this, it's. You never get to see the people watching your videos. You never get to see the reactions people have to something that you put your passion into. And then to see someone be like, that was so funny. Oh, I love that he did that. It's like, oh, that guy's a piece of. It's like, I know.

[Eli]

Damn.

[Brandon]

It's like, I know.

[Donut]

I was surprised.

[Brandon]

You usually don't see that, though, too much.

[Eli]

No, I don't really see a lot of. A lot of the reaction. Guys are very, very polite. They're very kind.

[Brandon]

I mean, if, like, your content's pretty, like, here's what we're talking about. Like, we just have fun here. There's nothing, like, polarizing. You're not talking about, like, here's this gun anyways, about the Middle east conflict.

[Donut]

Like, well, yours. I was surprised your content never got served to anyone because I didn't. None of us knew about you. And you've been posting for how many years up to that?

[Brandon]

Probably like, four. Four years.

[Donut]

It was that thumbnail with link. It was the.

[Brandon]

The Twilight Princess one. Right?

[Donut]

Right, yeah, the Akira.

[Brandon]

Oh, no, the Akira. Okay.

[Eli]

That was the one where Zelda had the bone arrow.

[Brandon]

Yes.

[Donut]

Yeah. Killing Ganondorf is one of my favorite.

[Brandon]

Yeah, we got a gamer here. You're familiar with the content? Yeah, yeah, cool.

[Donut]

That.

[Brandon]

That's.

[Eli]

I was. We were talking about this the other day. Your shirt that, like, what if Zelda was a girl?

[Donut]

Yeah, I have.

[Eli]

That's even funnier in 2025.

[Donut]

People see, it's so.

[Brandon]

That one's not that one. Zelda's not Gamer card removed. Which one's Metroid? I forget.

[Donut]

I love Metroid, man. She's so hot. It's like.

[Eli]

Okay, actually, Samothoran.

[Brandon]

I'm actually.

[Eli]

Can we go back to fucking La Noire?

[Brandon]

I am so invested in that story, in this dead. Sorry.

[Eli]

I just wanted you to say it twice.

[Brandon]

Yeah. Damn it. You got me. That was. That was like. That was a moment where I had to be like, can I show this on screen? And it came out like, I actually can if I. If I. Since I'm in the category of La Noire, it's like, this is a mature rated game. You are actually allowed to show this and whatever the game has on screen, as long as you're not like. Like, look at the naked tits on screen. Like, I obviously can't do that. That's not allowed. But maybe not twist it. They do have it, like.

[Eli]

Well, I think, like, several games, like, I think cyberpunk at it too, where it had a streamer.

[Brandon]

They have a streamer mode for that. If. I think if you have a streamer mode, you're supposed to use that. But I think even. Even. Because, like, obviously, like, not every game has it. They do have. They do have, like, language that's like, yes, like, you can show this like, or do not do that. It's pretty clear. It's like I had a thing on. On YouTube where I had a. I had to get some root canals and I wanted to do like a fundraiser for it because I was broke still kind of am. I'm not as broke anymore, but I had to do a fundraiser where I was like, for every $10, I have an Airsoft gun and I'll shoot it at my leg. Leg, Which I thought would be really fun.

[Eli]

Self harm.

[Brandon]

Self harm. Well, YouTube was like, have fun. And. And so we, you know, we raised like, I think like, three grand on that. My leg was just like. I had to put a towel down and everything was just. It was like.

[Donut]

It got amputated. Right?

[Brandon]

Yeah. Yeah. This is.

[Eli]

This is a Process. Ironically, it required a more expensive surgery.

[Brandon]

Tooth canal that was missing, so we had to do a follow up. I'll be shooting myself in the other leg this time to pay for the last one. Thank you for your service.

[Donut]

Yeah, he's gonna be a veteran in no time. Wheeling.

[Brandon]

I did my years. It's streaming. You guys don't know how hard it is.

[Eli]

He's getting his free golden corral buffet, brother.

[Brandon]

That was the plan all along. But I want to do that again on Twitch. I just think it's fun. Like, it's just fun to kind of like have like a little, you know, self harm. That's not the best. Maybe to a degree. And I looked it up and like, you cannot do that. And I was like, okay. YouTube would be like, you just don't swear in the first seven seconds of the video. Like, and then maybe. Maybe we'll demonetize you. Maybe, maybe we don't YouTube. I co stream to Twitch and YouTube and I have had several streams cut from YouTube because I showed something in a web browser before Twitch ever did anything. Like, I was like playing Spongebob episodes or doing anything like that. And YouTube was like, Nope. Music taking it down. You're done, you're over.

[Eli]

They are really sensitive.

[Brandon]

Chris is like, oh, you just. You're playing Spotify live with the song right here. Like, okay, cool. Meanwhile.

[Eli]

Meanwhile, Pepper Box.

[Brandon]

All right, you do what you like.

[Donut]

Yeah, Pepper Box. We don't give a shit.

[Brandon]

Download videos here at Pepper Box, Pepperbox, Torrent, download your favorite Disney plus.

[Eli]

Well, because, like, even. Even on some of my. My videos, we'll do like, for the. The range portion, we're like, man, we would have loved to use this song for like the montage. It's like 30 seconds, right? It's not actual, like anything actionable, DMCA or whatever. But YouTube's super sensitive.

[Brandon]

YouTube is.

[Eli]

So we'll just put the unset. We'll put the song we actually wanted to use on the Pepper Box cut.

[Brandon]

Yeah, that's great that you can actually, like, do it there because, like, sometimes that song makes. Makes the cut. I had a. I have a second channel on YouTube where I solely have that I can upload tests because I use copyrighted music. A lot of my bits where it's like, I want this song. I want this one from like Splinter Cell. This one's awesome. I want it. And I had to. The things I had to do, the music, like, reverb it, compress it a little bit differently, warp it, time, stretch it, and YouTube will catch it. And then I find the Wilbur. It doesn't. I'm like, that's the one.

[Eli]

Yep.

[Brandon]

And I'll put it in the video. It's like get away with it every single time. But like it is a gamble on there. One of my friends, the channel Pyro. He pyrocynical. He spent I think like 70 grand. Like he. He gave up a 70 grand ad deal because it was late for the video. Just cuz he wanted one song. Like an edit he was really proud of.

[Eli]

Holy shit.

[Brandon]

Yeah. He wanted.

[Donut]

How use did that video get?

[Brandon]

Oh, he. I think he lost money. It was like 5 million I think. I. I don't know. But we were talking about. He was.

[Donut]

That's a risk. He's like, I'm paying them.

[Brandon]

Yeah. But he was like, he was like this is such a passion project of mine that like I am going to put like I'm gonna forgo the ad except I'm waiting for like the licensing deals. Because he like tried to pay YouTube like I will go through copyright. I will get the license and everything. So I don't get like ad structure. He's like fuck it, I'm gonna take the hit. And he got, he took the hit and just like made the video. I'm like that's. I respect that. Like that's crazy.

[Eli]

I've done that several times. I do it every year on my B channel because we do like the broomstick cowboy. It's just like the year in review thing. Like we do a montage at the end.

[Brandon]

You're in review.

[Eli]

What year in review? Not urine review.

[Brandon]

He's about to go for one right now.

[Eli]

He's doing a urine review.

[Brandon]

I have to check the.

[Eli]

But we'll do that. We're like, we know we're using a song that's gonna get us demonetized or copyright struck or whatever. We just do it anyway because it's like yeah, fuck it.

[Brandon]

This is especially when you have like a B channel. It's like you can take a hit their YouTube like they're not gonna. They're not gonna. Your future video uploads because you used copyright. Fortunately. Yeah. Which like is a scary thing. You wonder like is like am I gonna lose money on the rest of my channel because like get enough strikes and like, I mean the whole copyright strike with thing with YouTube is like so backwards. Like the fact that you have to like dox yourself just to like fight a claim that anybody can like. I mean anybody can just like take your audio from A video and be like, oh, it's mine now. I went to like a website to copyright it. And like they don't check.

[Eli]

It's. It's really scary. Like they, the checks and balances do not favor the creator at all.

[Brandon]

Like at all. Like, it's. It's because like, again, like DMCA stuff that is like ancient, ancient law for like a different time period of the Internet that does not take into account like the way we use media and share media. Like the concept of like social media back then when that was written was like, what?

[Eli]

So, yeah, I think a lot of it's like trying to protect people from like people who are burning CDs from pirate.

[Brandon]

Yeah. Like, it's like you download a house type people. It's like, yeah, well nowadays that's how, that's how, like, that's what like labels do. They like, they hire creators to like use their music and like a thousand tick tocks or whatever. I love just to get popular, those old commercials.

[Eli]

Like you wouldn't download a car. Like you wouldn't download a gun. Meanwhile, print, shoot, repeat. Well, I kind of fucking have. Have actually.

[Brandon]

You're not going to believe this. Can't wait to download the house.

[Eli]

They've got 3D printers that are doing houses.

[Brandon]

Yeah, they like lay the concrete and like the little tubes.

[Eli]

Don't get me wrong, it's. It's probably suboptimal. Probably. And the machine's probably more expensive than.

[Brandon]

The house a million times over. But I don't know. How do you like the wiring in there? Like, how do you have a concrete house? That's the house. Do you have like a glorified drain pass under a bridge somewhere? Okay, that's.

[Eli]

But you have a window.

[Brandon]

Oh, that's true. Yeah. You can leave, I guess. Slightly nicer.

[Donut]

We're gonna. It's going to talk about going back in time with demonetization when YouTube did their really big thing.

[Eli]

Which one?

[Donut]

I know, but the full autos, 30 round mag suppressed. And then all the guys are like, no, you're not going to. It's not retrograde. And then sure as shit, no grandfathering. Hey, actually, sorry, now we're deleting. We're demonetizing age retroactively, right?

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Eli]

You were completely compliant with all the rules when you posted this video. We're still gonna age, restrict it, make sure you make no money.

[Brandon]

The crazy, like the fact that they didn't plan that ahead of time is scary.

[Donut]

Now imagine you get how many. I mean, like you grant them they got hit with Kentucky. Hit with a lot of videos at once.

[Eli]

I still get hit with one like.

[Donut]

About once a week, which is old content. And it's like, nope, nope, nope.

[Brandon]

Still no, no, no. They haven't like changed the wording on that at all.

[Eli]

No, it's just, you know, in the backlog, it's. It's something that's sitting on somebody's desk at YouTube, like, oh, I will review this at some point. And like that's old content. I don't really care about it that much. But it's just a pain in the.

[Brandon]

Ass that it's also terrifying to see like the little pop up in YouTube studio. It's like you have now like received maybe a strike if you.

[Eli]

It's like bailiff, whack his pee. Pee, Whack his peepee.

[Donut]

Brandon's one strike. Brandon's like, yeah, yeah.

[Eli]

Oh my. One strike.

[Brandon]

I've had several.

[Donut]

Oh, I didn't.

[Eli]

Oh, dude. I've had like over my YouTube career.

[Brandon]

Like five well decorated.

[Donut]

Right?

[Brandon]

Damn.

[Eli]

What's up?

[Donut]

One stuck.

[Eli]

Well, so they, they age out. So like 90 days, I think 90 days and a strike goes away.

[Brandon]

I'm gonna pee real quick. I'll be right back.

[Donut]

Go pp.

[Eli]

Yeah, like strikes. Strikes do age out, thank God. But otherwise I would be.

[Brandon]

I would be so. God.

[Donut]

I wasn't sure on how those worked.

[Eli]

I think you get like one, One freebie, like one mulligan, which my mulligan was wasted on the dumbest shit. It was. I did a video making fun of my friend and it was like our April 1st thing or something like that. It was James Reeves from TFB tv. Still great guy. Love that dude. He. He uploaded a video making fun of. I can't remember what it was. I think he was. He was making fun of AKs. I was making fun of Ars. And we were making fun of each other directly and just like making like jokes about each other and shit like that. But we both uploaded it on the same day with the same title and like same similar thumbnail and everything like that.

[Donut]

And that's it.

[Eli]

It was like a feud video. But like it was very clear to any English speaking non AI person that this was all satire. Right? It wasn't even like calling it like hardcore names. It was just like, we're fucking around. I got community noted for earth, not community noted. I got a strike for bullying. He didn't. He never did. And I was like, what the.

[Donut]

It was a one way strike.

[Eli]

A one way strike. And I'm like, Don't get me wrong, I'm glad he didn't get a strike for it. But I'm like, what the fuck, YouTube? And because it was my Mulligan strike, they're like, yeah, whatever.

[Donut]

Cody, have you got any strikes?

[Cody]

I've gotten. I used to get a lot. I haven't gotten any. I don't think in probably this year.

[Eli]

At least I haven't either. I don't think I haven't gotten a strike in a while.

[Cody]

I think we've been good boys for. For a minute now.

[Eli]

I think my last one was the Shinzo.

[Donut]

Yeah. Yeah. And you were like, yeah.

[Eli]

After they explained it to me, I.

[Brandon]

Was like, all right.

[Cody]

The first time I watched that, I said, brandon's gonna get a strike for this one.

[Eli]

Even in the video, I'm like, I might get a strike for this, but I did it. I. Even in the video, I went out of my way to do so certain things to, like, not show manufacturing.

[Donut]

Grandma made me meth when I was growing up.

[Eli]

But, like, the actual manufacturing of the gun. Like, we didn't show any of that. Because I'm like, all right, I want to try to keep this compliant. They're like, yeah, but you showed a screenshot of your Amazon shopping cart.

[Brandon]

Oh, yeah. That is kind of reasonable. Yeah. Like, how dare. Okay. Yeah.

[Eli]

I'm like, you know what?

[Donut]

I didn't show them how to do it. Just give me ingredients.

[Brandon]

I even.

[Eli]

Well, I even called out YouTube at one point because I was like, yeah, I'm going to show you. These are the ingredients of gunpowder. I'm not going to tell you the mixtures or anything like that of what we're using. Like, I'm not going to give you the actual recipe, but YouTube, if you try to me on this, you can go to the company that your company is owned by, Google, and find this on the first page of results.

[Brandon]

So straight up. Oh, my God. It's like your parent company will tell you instead of.

[Eli]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, don't let me do it.

[Brandon]

What? That's really funny.

[Donut]

What's your next video you're working on?

[Brandon]

So the next one right now I'm working on slower pace but still working on is Dark Souls 2. That is the. That's like a game that is very near and dear to me that I think, sadly, I think has. It's a fascinating story of its development. I'm not gonna go into it really, but. Because that's the video. But like, Super Nation, super nerds.

[Donut]

Also, like, I cannot stress. Yes, super nerds. When it does come to gaming.

[Brandon]

Okay. I don't know if you guys are like Souls fans or whatnot. I love those games. They mean a lot to me.

[Donut]

Cody's not.

[Brandon]

No.

[Cody]

Elden Ring was pretty cool. I've never really gotten into the Dark Souls games.

[Brandon]

Fair enough, fair enough. Everyone's got their.

[Cody]

Is it two is your favorite one.

[Brandon]

Won'T say like favorite. The all three do something uniquely shitty usually. So like each one has their own drawback.

[Donut]

Just really quick. Cody, have you heard of Baltro?

[Cody]

Yeah, I think it was Hunter. I saw someone playing it the other night on Steam and got to looking into it.

[Brandon]

He's the one. Fun. I cannot believe you haven't heard of it.

[Donut]

He was like, well you've never heard of this. I was like, I've never heard of this game. I was like, I'm gonna screenshot it. Cody would be the one to ask. On one of these indie style games.

[Brandon]

It might be like one of the best just like small package single developer games I've ever.

[Cody]

I know everyone seems to love it.

[Brandon]

It's really fun.

[Cody]

Yeah, I got to look into it.

[Donut]

And I was like 10 of like.

[Brandon]

That and like Undertale are like neck and neck of like the like greatest like single like developer type deal games. I can't believe you haven't played it. But the, the Dark Souls thing, I bring that up because like that game is. There is so much misinformation about it because it's like, it's arguably one of the most contentious video games like ever created in terms of like just the long discourse about like is it good? Is it? And people go back and forth like every other weekend on it. And sadly most videos I talk about it are usually pretty in their own echo chamber. So they don't acknowledge arguments on like the other side or like measure practical impacts of certain choices within the game dev. So like the creation of it is fascinating. Like the like the temperature of the people. The temperature of like, like is this game gonna suck? Is it good? Even before the game was even being developed, it was like, like this like and they started releasing things about it wild.

[Eli]

It was like this game sucks before it even started development.

[Brandon]

I mean you see like, you see that a lot nowadays. But back then like on a beloved game you're like, I don't know. Basically the, the long story short is like Dark Souls one was like, it turned out pretty well and like we're going to do Dark Souls 2 and then Skyrim came out. Skyrim shaped like the media that came out for like the next six years, like at the minimum. And everyone was kind of getting not fatigued. But a lot of games were abandoning their formulas to be like, we're just going to do Skyrim because holy, holy fuck money. Yeah, literally, Basically, Dark Souls 2, like, one of the stories of Dark Souls 2 is like, they're developing it. There are some leadership changes. I'll talk more about that later. But basically they released a trailer and the trailer was like mountains, dragons. And everyone was like this, like, this is not Dark Souls. We're not like creepy dungeons, weird magical worlds and everything. And everyone was pissed at it. And so, like, right before even the game came out, people were like, Dark Souls 2, worst one ever made. And then they were like, oh, shit, bad, bad press. Let's show you everything else we have in the game. And then they did and everyone was like, this, this is the coolest thing I ever seen in my life. Like, holy, this is awesome. We're so hyped. Like, dark. Like, we're so back. Like Dark Souls is back.

[Eli]

And then, and then they executed the guy who made the first trailer.

[Brandon]

So they didn't. Well, they, they kind of executed one of the developers.

[Eli]

Oh, really?

[Brandon]

So well, it's kind of hard. They went for it through two different years. They, they, they, they, they fell off.

[Eli]

Of one of those weird shaped buildings in New York.

[Brandon]

Just happened like crazy car crash.

[Eli]

Like, oh, wow.

[Brandon]

Yeah, just one of those, one of those like mysterious things that just like.

[Eli]

He started talking about the Bolsheviks and then all of a sudden.

[Brandon]

Yeah, just like got really out of nowhere. Just like rip, you know, happens, I guess. Yeah, they kind of, they had two directors. They hired the first one to be like, oh, we need a new game engine. You know, the game engineer, you're working with us, and then he's like, I want to do all these things. And they were like, that's a horrible idea. We're going to shift that around. And there's. I have to do more research on this, but I'm like actually buying some magazines that came out in 2012 and 13 that like actually have some of the detail in them, but you can't barely even find them online. So it's really cool, like to do the research on this. But basically the game is super contentious. I want to give it like a fair shot. I do have like an opinion on it. I think it's a pretty great game, has some drawbacks, but there's been so much propaganda either side that no one knows what to think. And they just like, you say with everyone else. They just echo opinions they've heard on Reddit. They haven't even played the game. So many people. There are some people that played it for 10 hours and, like, I didn't fuck with it. I'm like, cool. Like, great. There are people that are like, that's the worst game ever made. It's like, you've never played it. You got your opinion on, like, a Redditor who got it from another Redditor who got. Who just is some other guy that's lying or something. So that's kind of like the main thing in the works right now. And it's. It's something that I want to kind of like, take the. The channel a direction where, like, I want to be the person that can be, like, the voice of reason between, like, two things. I think it's really hard because you mentioned this in the gaming sphere. It's like, I make edgier jokes. I do all this stuff. I don't do it to be edgy. I do it because I think it's fun. Yeah. And I think it's.

[Eli]

That's the way it should be.

[Brandon]

It's the way it should be. It's not like, I'm not going to be like, yeah. Like, I'm like, no, I don't. I don't. I don't believe in that. I don't think that's right. I really don't. Like, I think we're all that stuff anyways. Anyways.

[Eli]

You know who else is good at that is DJ Peach Cobbler.

[Brandon]

Yes. That is a fantastic channel.

[Eli]

Love that.

[Brandon]

He does a. He does a ton of, like, history stuff, too.

[Eli]

I'm glad.

[Brandon]

All right.

[Eli]

You were.

[Brandon]

Oh, dude rocks.

[Eli]

He's one of my. One of my favorite creators nobody knows about for whatever reason.

[Donut]

I can't believe I've never heard of this.

[Eli]

He reminds me of Connors. Didn't he used to do humor?

[Brandon]

Didn't you used to do, like, COD stuff too? I maybe think of another guy that has, like, a similar profile picture. I remember. I've seen a couple of his videos.

[Eli]

He does a bunch of video game reviews that, like, you would you forget halfway through it's a video game review, because he's, like, tying it back to, like, something in the mid-1800s or some shit, or, you know, ancient, you know, Roman or Greek history. Like, he goes on these crazy historical allegories and wraps it perfectly back into why Fallout sucks. Or like, something like that.

[Brandon]

It's. That's. But, like, that's really good. In a video like that, it's like anyone has an opinion on a video game. If you can make it a story, like, give some context, like, tell, like, shed some light about everything else. Use it as, like, a jumping. Like, we all love, like, New Vegas. Like, talk about the politics going on there. What did this. What inspired this? Where did they take ideas from? And then going back retroactively, looking at that, I think it's such a fantastic way to do content. You gotta check that guy out.

[Eli]

He's one of those weird creators that, like, every time it comes up in my feed, I'm like, that's a TV video. I'm gonna. I'm gonna watch that when I get home.

[Brandon]

You put YouTube on the TV for that?

[Donut]

That's my summoning salt.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Eli]

Straight up, somebody.

[Brandon]

Oh, yeah. I feel like summoning salt can be a little bit more like, you go to bed for that. Like, you. Like, yeah, that's not a diss. Like, that's not a dis. Like, that is, like, the best videos in YouTube are six hours long. About, like, Eve online or something. And it's like, cool down the rabbit hole. Love it. Like, monotone. Like, I just want to hear some interesting tidbits and, like, I'll fall asleep and I'll watch it seven more times. Like, that is a perfect video.

[Donut]

But you go into super depth on your. If you have. I cannot stress it enough. When people watch your content is the level of information you present. Even on a Zelda, you're like, hey, I hated this. This is great. This is stupid. Yeah, I tried more stupid. Why the. After the first one, didn't you learn this is stupid? Holy. But you give it a really good shakedown. Even cyberpunk. I know Brandon loves cyberpunk.

[Brandon]

Really?

[Eli]

It is one of my favorite games.

[Brandon]

Martha listens to her favorite band all the time.

[Donut]

In the car, gym, even sleeping.

[Brandon]

So when they finally went on tour.

[Eli]

Martha bundled her flight and hotel on.

[Brandon]

Expedia to see them live. She saved so much, she got a seat close enough to actually see and hear them, sort of.

[Eli]

You were made to scream from the front row.

[Brandon]

We were made to quietly save you more Expedia made to travel level savings.

[Eli]

Vary and subject to availability.

[Brandon]

Flight inclusive packages are at all protected.

[Donut]

Really.

[Brandon]

And that's why.

[Donut]

That's one I wanted.

[Brandon]

So there's just a little context on that.

[Donut]

That's one I was like, oh, I.

[Brandon]

Was thinking about this the other day on the podcast. Like, I wonder if we're gonna talk about cyberpunk. Because first off, that video I made in Cyberpunk was when I had, I think a thousand subs. So I had no idea how to make a production value. Still, really. Thank you. I mean, like, thank you. I, I, that was a really fun thing. Thing again, it was like unemployed covet. It's like, let's just spend two weeks making the intro, like, learning. I'm learning how to work a camera still, like, having fun with it.

[Eli]

It was one video he sent me. It was one of the first ones. Not the first one I watched, but it was one of the first ones. I only got like a couple minutes into it because I had to like, go do something else, but just because.

[Brandon]

It was shit, I hate it.

[Eli]

No, it was, I just got, I got Busy in an YouTuber is like.

[Brandon]

It'S hard as a YouTuber to watch other YouTube videos. Like, I don't know, I find like, the more I do YouTube, the less I watch. Like, I don't want to, like, take things from other people.

[Eli]

And like, I mean, I, I enjoyed it, but at the same time, I, I saw when you had posted it and it was, you know, when Cyberpunk first came out and I'm like, ooh, yeah, it was the post Phantom Liberty. It's a completely different game.

[Brandon]

Completely different. That's why, like, I still get comments in that video. And it's funny because, like, a lot of them are in agreeance with it, which is like, huh. I think it's because it knows the demographic, but I do get a couple. You know, people are like, you're wrong for all these points. I'm like, you're probably right. Like, it is a, it's my opinion. I, I realized like, on the Internet, like, you really, people don't give you the benefit of saying with like, in my opinion, and then stating things like, yeah, it sounds like you're just saying, like, this is dog shit. You're, you're retarded for liking. It's like, no, I didn't say that.

[Eli]

Also, the first thing I did was check the date, check when it was posted. Yeah, I, My pet peeve is people who will click on a video and assume that whenever they saw it is when that video was posted.

[Brandon]

I know, dude.

[Eli]

Like, they don't check the date. I'm like, brother, that was. It's like four years ago.

[Brandon]

I'm a different person by now. Like, you don't even know. Like, this is gonna be like, completely like out of date information. You're like, you're act. I get people like, they leave paragraphs on videos. And it's like, first of all, you're talking to a YouTube video, so I'm not sure what's going on in your world. Like, everyone's like, I don't know how you justify, like writing like a three page. I get them all the time where it's like, well, see, in my perspective, like. And you're really not factoring this. It's like, okay, I understand you're passionate. You might even have some good points. But, like, this is not an appropriate space to like, have an argument to a video. Like, message me on Discord. I had someone do that that sent me a 20 minute unlisted video of like, their complaints against, like, Fromsoft and why they're an evil company. I was like, you're insane. But I respect it. I respect the hustle there.

[Donut]

But yeah, first off, really pissed, bro. You're gossip beef to send a. How long was the video?

[Brandon]

Probably the video he made. Yeah, it was 20 minutes. And that was on top of the like the wall of text of information. How FromSoft was like the worst company ever. And I was like, this is just wrong. Like, I can't even respond to this. What?

[Eli]

Fromsoft? Which one of the dark souls.

[Donut]

Oh, armor core. Yeah, makes sense.

[Eli]

I never really. I never really got into those. Like, I understand how people could, but, like, it's just never been my thing.

[Brandon]

That's fair.

[Eli]

You see how we just did that where we have a difference?

[Brandon]

No kiss anyways, you guys.

[Cody]

Grab your dick and twist it.

[Donut]

Grab a stick.

[Brandon]

Twist it.

[Eli]

That dead.

[Brandon]

What?

[Donut]

That's. Now that dead. What is going to be your merch from us?

[Brandon]

Oh, dude.

[Eli]

Dead.

[Donut]

What?

[Brandon]

Side trick trail. Side trail on merch. I want to make a shirt so bad. I was at the gym, I had this like, dumb idea that came to my head. This should cut me off at any point. I want to make a shirt that's like, anyway.

[Eli]

What are you up to, Cody?

[Brandon]

Where it's like, yeah, this is not if it's not the time. But like the idea of like those like old trucker shirts where it's like, I'm a grandpa from, but it's like, you couldn't handle my Instagram algorithm and it's got like a car crash. Like censored racism, like amorphous.

[Eli]

Or like, I Dev, I got in a divorce with my ex wife because I blew my balls off at the cracker barrel of my 45.

[Brandon]

Like June 23rd in March and I'm born on vac. It's like some like, like advertised. I love those shirts. Anyways, I have no idea how I got into that. No, before that. Cyberpunk.

[Eli]

Oh yeah, Cyberpunk. There you go. Yeah, no, I, I honestly, I enjoyed it when it came out because I like my PC. I just gotten a new PC and so I get ran. I had no bugs. Like I had a bugless experience in cyberpunk the first time I played it.

[Brandon]

I also did too.

[Eli]

Really? Okay.

[Brandon]

I had a really. I would have known that if I watched it. It's funny if. Well, yeah. I even made like an explicit statement in that video three minutes in that said like I'm not even going to talk about the bugs in the game. I'm. I don't even care about that. It's not about, it's not about the performance because I played the game. I had a 2070 super at the time, which I think was like decent.

[Eli]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

And I ran it and like I had problems but it was nothing. Game breaking for people on console, that's a whole different story. Like the fact that they had to like pull the game off because it was like so bad.

[Eli]

They pulled off of PlayStation 3.

[Brandon]

Yeah, they pulled. They pulled off like most stores did.

[Donut]

They make it for the PS3 and that was one of the biggest four. But then they also.

[Brandon]

Five I think it was it four. I don't think five is.

[Donut]

I think it was. Hey, we're gonna make it for the system. Oh, the system made it really big.

[Brandon]

They didn't optimize it well and they knew it. Like they, they released it were like this is not ready because they've got some forces that are like.

[Eli]

Which now then started the CD Projekt Red Apology tour afterward where they're like. They spent the next couple years fixing their game which is where like Phantom Liberty was a. I cannot express how much. I mean this is the most we talk games on Unsub in a long time. But.

[Brandon]

But I know it's been a while.

[Eli]

Phantom Liberty was a reboot of Cyberpunk. Like it changed. It wasn't just a DLC like most.

[Brandon]

It went back and I think it changed like the gameplay like in so many ways dramatically.

[Eli]

Like the entire skill tree was completely revamped. Like it was an entirely different player experience the entire way.

[Brandon]

I'm still so shocked that you, you enjoyed that game as much as you did. Like I. I'll kind of go into why. But I like the story.

[Eli]

Like the story I think was really good in my opinion.

[Brandon]

That's funny cuz I hate hated the Story.

[Eli]

Really? Okay.

[Donut]

That's why I was like.

[Brandon]

The entire debate was specifically me just being like, I think this is like, I probably didn't word it as eloquently. I'll be honest. I'll take the L on that. I was probably like, this is the word. Like I should have been more like, to me this is not a well written story in the way that it should have been. And I'd love to kind of hear your feedback because I've kind of forgotten most of it, to be honest. But I love sci fi. I'm a huge sci fi guy.

[Eli]

I like that stuff.

[Brandon]

I think it's a huge kind of like cancer in sci fi when everything is just like this nihilistic, like, oh, dude, in the end it doesn't even matter. Like there's nothing. Isn't it so crazy how like this. Somebody should check on that guy. Yeah. Oh God.

[Donut]

Jesus.

[Brandon]

They just. What? Bennington? They just. A new album, right? Like that'll be fine.

[Eli]

I don't know what you guys are talking about anyway.

[Brandon]

Cyberpunk. Wellness check. Yeah, just. Just in case, just. Oh God.

[Eli]

Well.

[Donut]

That'S. I love this group of boys.

[Cody]

Specific universes or there wasn't a jump.

[Brandon]

Cut there at all.

[Eli]

But like he was talking about like cyber punk and like how it's just like so dystopian. He like, it's kind of like his not or like you said, it was.

[Brandon]

Like a scourge on the side. I think. I think there's a lot of stuff in sci fi where they, they set up these beautiful worlds. Like, I think cyberpunk is a good game gameplay wise. I think there's a lot of good things there. The. The world is, is beautiful. I love looking around it. I love driving around in it. I. I think it's such a crime that the story of the game, at least when I played it was just this neutered, like nothing matters. You're. You're this like generic like douchebag guy who has like. No, it can't really like make him any different than like what he's railroad to be in the end. Like you're stuck fighting this company that is this. Like you can. The one thing you cannot do in cyberpunk is take down Arasaka. And the whole game is about like, we gotta take down Arasaka. It's like, geez, I wonder if that's gonna work. And then can I say spoilers on a game at 6 years old? I mean, like you kind of like, they're all pretty, like, bummer. Endings. And it's like, to me, I much rather get invested in the people in the world there and just see, like, there's so many stories. And I think. I think Phantom literally did a great job of this. If you see the anime.

[Eli]

Yeah, I love it. I.

[Brandon]

Edge Runners, the story of the base game. I actually agree.

[Eli]

I agree with that.

[Brandon]

Cleared it. The idea of, like, having, like, oh, you can, like, put in cyber modifications to your body, but if you do too much, you go fucking nuts. And finding that balance of, like, how far can you push yourself and, like, lose your humanity and, like, lose your.

[Eli]

Like, cyberpsychosis and the risks.

[Brandon]

And, like, the story of there is, like, they have such a good risk reward in a storytelling. Like, there's so much tension. What does that say about the world? Like, you could. You could extrapolate a million different directions. And cyberpunk was like, nah, we'll make that a footnote and just be like. It felt like a safe company being like, let's make an edgy game about taking down a company without, like, really giving it balls to me. That's what I felt. And I'm here, like, curious to hear.

[Eli]

If you're like, I agree with your take completely about Edge Runners. I like. I. I don't. I'm not a big anime guy. Like, I just never got.

[Brandon]

I'm not a huge.

[Eli]

Loved it. As soon as I got two episodes in, I'm like, man, and one of these days, Eli's gonna follow my advice and actually watch it. Because it's really good.

[Donut]

Two episodes, three episodes in. I just gotta finish it. I'm a piece of. Usually I have no problem watching anime. I'll let Brandon talk to you.

[Cody]

I am making. I'm putting on.

[Eli]

All right.

[Donut]

Brandon has, like, hell, yeah. Minutes. And then we'll have to continue the podcast without Mr. Brandon, because I did.

[Eli]

Have some wrong world I've got.

[Brandon]

Oh, I'm sorry to hear.

[Eli]

Unfortunately, like, meetings and.

[Brandon]

Yeah, sure, I know.

[Eli]

So all good. Anyway, I agree with your take on Edge Runners. I think the story was probably superior. I didn't mind the aesthetic because so many of the elements of, like, the cyberpunk universe, to me, strike a parody chord where it's like, it's satirizing this nihilistic future universe.

[Brandon]

You thought it was satire.

[Eli]

It kind of feels like satire in the same way a little bit.

[Brandon]

Yeah. I can kind of see it. It is kind of like. It feels.

[Eli]

It feels like that in the same way that Starship Troopers is to a lesser degree.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Eli]

It's like, it's a lot of like darker Starship Troopers.

[Brandon]

I'm just gonna limit myself to that. The. I think, I think there is a bit of parody in there. Like the goofy, like, cart, like the advertisements at the GTA type things. Or like, there is a bit of like, we know what we're doing in this world. It just felt to me that like, like I. I hear that to a degree. It just felt like you play. The game was advertised as an rpg where it's like, you can be anything. Yeah, yeah, you can do anything. You have life choices, which I thought was like, brilliant. Like you have the corporate life choice. You can choose like the Street Wrath, the Street Rat. You can choose whatever the other third one is like, like Corpo Street Rat, a Twitch streamer.

[Eli]

But that was a huge one because you, like, it didn't really.

[Brandon]

It didn't do anything like, at all. And I remember being like all they had. And I made this point in the video where it's like, imagine a game like this where you choose the corporate lifestyle and now you have to masquerade as someone in the company and balance this double agent lifestyle. Like, okay, I'm like, trying to fight the company, do all these other things. I'm not a. Like, I don't know shit about video game writing. It's hard to do. But like, imagine like having to balance that with like, oh, you have to build trust with the company too. And like, maybe that puts. Puts pressure on your relationships outside of it.

[Eli]

I've done multiple playthroughs now because, like, I. This was like my comfort game for a while, right? I've done multiple playthroughs and it does change things to that degree a little bit. Not in a way that like, largely affects the game, but there's one mission where you have to go in like Arasaka Corporate and like go up a bunch of their. And like, if you, if you are a corpo, there's just a dialogue auction, which is basically like, I'm a contractor, let me in.

[Brandon]

And I like that.

[Eli]

Like, I like that you completely skip one of the bigger fights of the game.

[Brandon]

There are like, to the game's credit, there are a couple moments like that where there is like, you do have like a unique thing of dialogue there. I would just love to see that. I think the game, if you realize the game was like, people, people forget this. Cyberpunk was one of the most hyped games in the history of the gaming industry. Before like 2000.

[Donut]

Like before which I remember that trailer.

[Cody]

For Cyberpunk 3, I sat beside Doug Bowser at E3 2018 and watched the trailer for it.

[Eli]

Keanu Walk.

[Cody]

I didn't get to see that part.

[Brandon]

Like, the Mantis Blades come out. Out. I think that one chick that's just like. It's like a slow mo thing.

[Donut]

OG Trailer.

[Brandon]

Yeah, it was so cool. Like, it was like Witcher 3 in the future was slightly.

[Donut]

For context, how the audience go for you, though. Like, it was.

[Cody]

It was pretty great. So they did, like, that initial show. I wasn't invited to that one, but they did, like, an after one where Keanu wasn't there. But we saw the same thing. It was really cool. Yeah. I'm sitting next to this guy, and all these nerds keep asking him for pictures, and I'm like, who the is this guy? And then I finally asked him, like, who's this guy? They're like, oh, that's Doug Bowser, the. The president of Nintendo usa.

[Donut]

You're just sitting next to.

[Cody]

Oh, I was sitting there the whole time, drinking a beer, talking about everything.

[Brandon]

Nintendo sucks. Mario Kart.

[Donut]

Gay.

[Brandon]

Imagine charging, like, 90 bucks for Mario Kart.

[Cody]

Imagine not having any backwards.

[Brandon]

You actually were the one that gave him the idea. You're right. 90 bucks, it sounds pretty good.

[Eli]

Hey, you know those. Those licensing agreement. Nobody reads those. You can put whatever in that shit.

[Brandon]

No, they don't actually own the console. Yeah, we can brick it remotely.

[Donut]

I don't get mad at that. This is a great idea.

[Brandon]

You were trying to say something before you had to run, though. Oh, yeah. Just.

[Eli]

I think that's part of the context of why I enjoyed Cyberpunk so much. I didn't have any hype to it. I had no clue this game was even coming out.

[Brandon]

I think that that definitely makes it easier to enjoy, because this game, like, was like. Everyone was like, we just want Skyrim, but in the future, like, Grand Theft Auto style, like, this is the game. Like, 10 years this game has been hyped up to. Like.

[Eli]

And, like, I was told, like, hey, this is a big game.

[Brandon]

You should download it.

[Eli]

And I'm like, all right.

[Brandon]

I think that. I think that's actually a great argument for a lot of games that don't live up to the hype of the franchise, where it's like, this is a great X Game as a. As a. This franchise game. It doesn't live up to the others. That would be really hard used against a lot.

[Donut]

That's actually a really good point, because imagine making Expedition 34. Let's just say that's it. That would be such big shoes to fill where you're like, I kind of.

[Eli]

Upset we didn't talk about Expedition 34.

[Donut]

Now we could actually talk about and BR's like, I want gold.

[Brandon]

I mean, I'm still here tomorrow. Like.

[Eli]

There you go.

[Brandon]

I'm not against it.

[Donut]

Just add on to it. I'm fine with that. I love that game. I know.

[Eli]

Brandon, you have to go to Ron. Sorry guys, but no, I. Dude, it.

[Brandon]

Was a pleasure, absolute pleasure, man.

[Eli]

We have to have like.

[Donut]

Like he's here for two more days.

[Brandon]

So I'll see you around. Love you.

[Cody]

Love you, bud.

[Brandon]

Good luck at whatever, you know, saving the world. Back alley glory. Holy rat. Yeah, good luck.

[Eli]

What a man does in the comfort.

[Brandon]

I still have 20 bucks. I got 20 bucks on me. So see you around.

[Donut]

Oh, I'm just picturing he just winked at me.

[Brandon]

He just winked at me.

[Donut]

The glory hole. After. After they're finished, Brandon pushes a vote for Brandon shirt through.

[Brandon]

The campaign's doing so well. That makes so much more sense.

[Donut]

I'm sorry, Brandon. My brain went to directing. Like, that's a funny beat.

[Brandon]

On this episode, the boys lose the run for.

[Donut]

Brandon and it's all our fault.

[Cody]

Every time Brandon's friends up his future again.

[Brandon]

Every time, every time with we're really good. I feel like, I feel like they're like this. I know I'm not like endorsing or anything, like politics, whatever, but I see, I do think like having. Having something like this where you. Where you're like you are a person on the Internet, like resonates with people. I'm like, I wish this is more of a commonality thing where it's like, it's not this like I. We've. We've set out a list of like 32 talking points. We're going to hit all these and then edit the ones we don't like, fuck. Like just be a person. It gets that hard.

[Donut]

Like again when we're doing this stuff, it is like, hey, let's get. Get some. Like we have some just in case we start. Of course that L. But past that, I know here's a topic and I know that it's gonna flow like, yeah, Cody's gonna have opinions. Brandon's gonna have opinions of opinions. Guess what? Opinions. Or we'll make jokes and we'll go on off side tangents. We'll have fun. Everyone will laugh. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Versus edit, edit, edit.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Cody]

I wonder how many politicians could have a decent podcast, you know?

[Brandon]

No There's. I don't think. I don't think. I don't think you're going to heaven. See, we know you're not.

[Eli]

See, buddy.

[Donut]

Right with my God.

[Brandon]

All right.

[Donut]

Love you guys.

[Eli]

Love you.

[Brandon]

That was great, dude. If they. What a pleasure. It.

[Donut]

It is something. It's like a politician. If they just acted real. I don't know if Brandon talked about it, but even when they were giving him him, they're trying to coach him on how to talk to a camera or on a podium.

[Eli]

Oh, God.

[Donut]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

And training. Yeah, dude.

[Donut]

And they're like, you're using your hands too much. Yo. 90 of communication is non verbal.

[Brandon]

Yeah. You want to communicate.

[Donut]

This is how we.

[Brandon]

Hold on. We.

[Cody]

I want you to sit here and talk like this and just look into the camera.

[Donut]

Why? Cody, that is a very good point.

[Brandon]

This.

[Donut]

Oh, Liam. How is your wife doing?

[Brandon]

My wife is. Hold on. My wife is doing. Not dead.

[Donut]

Congratulations.

[Brandon]

I did not beat her. I did not.

[Donut]

I did not hit her.

[Brandon]

Where's the guy? She's feeding me. Where is. Where's the line? Where's the line? Line? Where's the line?

[Donut]

The one who had it coming, Liam, in that naked.

[Brandon]

It was a video game. I swear.

[Cody]

She had it coming.

[Donut]

You see what she's wearing?

[Brandon]

It's just all these lists of things.

[Donut]

On the back of it.

[Brandon]

Oh my God.

[Donut]

Every bad joke just comes back in.

[Brandon]

Someone combo like, oh God, we're gonna.

[Donut]

Make that shirt two weeks from now on bunk your branding. We'll make money from it. It's gonna have your face.

[Brandon]

I don't consent unless it's 10%. Just a little. Just a little something.

[Donut]

Do it. Spit and shake. Dude, have you ever played. So Cody's big into, I mean, FPSs, but indie games too. You are one of the largest indie game players outside of. Yeah, I'll suggest them. You'll suggest some. We'll do like Vampire Survivor. You ever played that?

[Brandon]

I actually have not. Dude. It's. It's hard. I feel like indie games, it's tough to find out on the basis of reviews. It's kind of hard to find the good ones from the bad ones because on Steam, like any small game has overwhelmingly positive. If it just has a couple hundred positive things. So it's kind of tricky to navigate what is the. That's the winner or like I can't tell you in time. Someone has been like, dude, you gotta play this game. This game's so good. I'm like, okay, I played. I'm like, that was Nothing. And I talked to other people. Like, yeah, it wasn't that great. I'm like, how the fuck does it have a perfect rating then?

[Donut]

Oh, like the cat game you were talking about.

[Brandon]

There was a stray was decent. That was different thing. But, like, I played a game called Rat Shaker. It was like a horror game where, like, you shake a rat and it's funny for, like, half an hour.

[Cody]

Caleb Francis was telling me about that.

[Brandon]

Yeah, it's a funny game.

[Cody]

He said, it's fun. It's funny as hell.

[Brandon]

It's super. You just, like, shake this rat and it, like, talks to you. And it was funny for, like, 10 minutes. And then they, like, added on this, like, horror story that had nothing to do with the rat.

[Donut]

And I was like, here's a joke.

[Brandon]

Yeah, it was like, you're. You are. Like you wrote a fourth grade essay. Like, you're late to class and you gotta turn this in. Which I get. It's hard to. Making a game. Like, there's. There's so many. I'm not trying to, like, say this. Like, this game sucks. Like, it was. It was a good experience, but, like, it's not. It's not what people make it out to be sometimes. And especially when it's like, a younger audience or something that, like, it's their first horror game. You get a lot of skewed reviews where people say, like, this thing is, like, so good. You have no idea. And they're like, oh, it's just five nights at Freddy's. Like, this is not okay. Okay, like. And that's, you know, it's hard to navigate.

[Donut]

You get Vampire Survivor. I played that when I was like, oh, I think Cody will really enjoy this. I have my baselines where in my head, if it gets me hooked, and it's simple, and I'm very big right now. And, hey, can I just hop into this, have mindless fun, and then check out. Yeah, right after. And Vampire Survivor, dude. I was like, okay, anything can run this. This is a blast. Cody min max the shit out of that game. He was like, I have this many hours. Here's everything. And I introduced it on. Jesus Christ, dude, what the fuck? What?

[Brandon]

Yeah, I mean, that was like you explaining Claire Obscure to me. You're like, oh, you got to get this game. By the way, I just did 47 million damage with this, like, these, like, 38,000 combinations. I don't get overwhelmed, though. I'm like, okay, cool, I'm here. Like, how do I parry? You have, like, your 20,000 setups. Right. Yeah.

[Cody]

You told me it's just a chill game. It is a chill game. But I don't know, I got into it so much. I put 530 hours into it and I'm like making builds on it. Like you said min maxing the whole game now.

[Donut]

And this is Cody. Explain Vampire Survivor. It's just a 2D pixel game but.

[Cody]

Over the top view. You just have weapons that you choose at the first and you walk around and things come from all directions.

[Brandon]

Is it like isometric where it's like a fake 3D or like it's not quite 2D?

[Cody]

Kind of.

[Brandon]

I. I need to see like a picture.

[Donut]

I'll show you.

[Brandon]

I do love talking about games I've never played and on or praising them. Like I do that on stream all the time where people are like, what are your opinions on this game? I'm like, I'll tell you, never played it. Oh, I have seen this. I've seen this. Yeah. It's like a bullet hell, dude.

[Donut]

It is the same fun.

[Brandon]

It's kind of got. It has a little bit of that. Is it a roguelike? Yep. Yeah. Okay, so it has that binding of Isaac sort of maybe like progression system.

[Donut]

You have your third 30 minutes. Right. You have to survive for 30 minutes.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Donut]

And then death comes and then there's. Okay, you're building up new characters with gold you buy and power ups and exploring the maps. New maps unlock more maps and the maps have secrets. But the maps are like these massive. Randomly generated.

[Eli]

Massive.

[Brandon]

Yeah. And they're random. Right. So you never know what you're getting into.

[Donut]

Exactly. And then you. Some might be, oh, you only can go up and down like the castle. Some are, oh, you only can go left and right. But the creatures start pouring out and then the individuals you use, your main characters, their talents completely shift to what they do or how you start with it. And then the combination system you get with. Oh, this item and this item actually make a super item item. So you start stacking, learning. And it's $2, $5, something like that.

[Brandon]

Some like just like I would I happily pay a hundred dollars for this experience.

[Cody]

So yes, 100. I put 530 hours into it. Like you can do it on. It's optimized for Steam deck too.

[Brandon]

So I.

[Cody]

When we fly, it's all single player.

[Brandon]

I love being on an airplane. There's not enough. There's not enough. Just like games you can just pick up and play and put down without having to like do this whole ritual of like I gotta get into it then even just saving, like, where am I want to come back to it? Like, did you ever play hades?

[Cody]

I never played 80s what the.

[Brandon]

What the.

[Cody]

You guys got me adding so much to my list.

[Brandon]

He's arguably like, one of the best games I think I've played. The music combined with like, the guy who did the voice acting for the main character also made the music. It's so good. Like, it's like the metal thing in the final stage. I didn't know he was. Oh, yeah. Darren Corb. Yeah. Fantastic artist. The visuals, it's so beautiful and like, they tie it into like, all this Greek mythology so well. The dialogue is so great. Like, that's just like, that's a treat in and of itself is when you get a little bit like, the lore of what's going on. There's a lot of. Well done.

[Donut]

Fuck. There was another game like Hades that was a super Nintendo style, more pixelated.

[Brandon]

Metroid.

[Donut]

No, it was a slash. You dash around.

[Brandon]

Hyper Light Drifter.

[Donut]

Yes.

[Brandon]

That was so good, dude. I loved Hyper Light Drifter.

[Cody]

I've heard of that one.

[Brandon]

I would say. I would say play. Play Hades first. Hyper Light is. It's a little bit more like, I would say not as in depth. Hades is a roguelite where you, like, you get to build all your powers over time and it gets really, really fun. I think Hyper Light is more of just like, it's sort of got that like, Zelda Metroidvania, where you just sort of explore stuff. The music, the environments were so beautiful. Like, I got chills. I got chills watching the intro of Hyper Light Drifter. Like, the, the intro cutscene where, like, the monoliths pop up and like the skeleton.

[Donut]

I'm like, did you buy the collector's edition? No, it comes with an SNES cartridge.

[Brandon]

Wait, what?

[Donut]

Yes, dude.

[Brandon]

Can you actually play it?

[Donut]

Dude, is. The most gangster collector's edition they had was Hyper Light Drifter.

[Brandon]

That was. They not sued to oblivion by Nintendo on that. That.

[Donut]

Here, let me.

[Brandon]

That is crazy. I had no idea. That's an old game. I played that back in like, 2014, I think.

[Donut]

And the coloring, the artwork, bro.

[Brandon]

Yeah, it's beautiful. Oh, it's got the blue case too. Yeah.

[Cody]

I remember seeing. I I. Oh, that's cool.

[Donut]

I think I told you. I was like, hey, you should get this.

[Brandon]

The art style alone in the game is. Is breathtaking. It is so well done with pixel art. I love pixel art stuff like that where, like, kind of less is more and it makes your imagination Fill in the gaps. And what they do with the scale and the perspective in that game is so great. And the gameplay's fun too. It's so rare. I've said this before. It's so rare to get a game where you have. You have art style, you have the presentation and the graphics and the music all together in one thing. Like, normally one of those suffers, like games as an art form is. It's really hard to pull off because, like, it is a game after all. So it's like, I've seen beautiful, beautiful releases. Like, I don't want to play it, though. Like, my dopamine receptors are not that functional.

[Donut]

Naota Noida. Yeah, yeah, that's the one we haven't played.

[Brandon]

Talking about it. That's a game you can lose yourself to.

[Cody]

I'm trying to search all this up as you guys are talking about.

[Donut]

Oh, dude, Cody, what are your. Your OG games? Dude, Some of the audience. This episode's either gonna do really good.

[Brandon]

I was prepared to say at the, like, welcome, Melee. Respond, Mike. Welcome to the most unviewed video and up sub on sub. I can't even.

[Donut]

I love this. This is the. We haven't talked about in so long. So it's just fun.

[Brandon]

Well, it's fun because I come in the. I've seen some of the podcasts and, like, I've seen you guys talk. It's like, oh, we brought in this, like, crazy ex military, like, Navy SEAL who did like 36,000 tours in, like, countries you don't even know exist. And I'm like, I play video games.

[Donut]

Like, but I'm really knowledgeable.

[Cody]

We do too.

[Brandon]

Am I?

[Cody]

This is a good break in. In between those periods.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Cody]

When we bring on super Delta Soldier man seal.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Donut]

It's like, great, you killed Osama. Awesome.

[Brandon]

Tell me about the indie games.

[Donut]

Yeah, tell me about this.

[Brandon]

Can we just pause so I can watch that one now? That sounds way cooler than this. You're like, fuck, don't leave. Please don't leave.

[Donut]

You play, like, right now. What are your three you're playing. Ooh, they just had an update on one game. Game. And you started talking to the owner, the creator of it.

[Cody]

Oh, God, I don't know.

[Donut]

The farm. Was it the farming one?

[Cody]

Oh, you're talking about Stardew Valley.

[Donut]

Was that the one you're talking to?

[Cody]

I've been. I've been putting so many hours in the Stardew Valley Stardews because it's an easy one to sit down with my fiance, and it's on every platform. So we put it on the PS5 and we'll sit there and just have our little farm split screen. And it's like the chill is night. But that I'm getting back into.

[Donut]

Wow, you're actually playing. Wow. I did not know that.

[Cody]

I'm been kind of dabbling in it. Retail is ass. But I'm gonna do. I'm starting a hardcore classic character to play on there.

[Donut]

That would be fun.

[Brandon]

Have you.

[Cody]

Have you seen the hardcore mode they have now? I mean, you know, it's just like old Diablo hardcore. Your character dies is.

[Donut]

That's wild. For an MMO to do a hardcore run is insane. Especially when you grew up in like OG vanilla.

[Brandon]

Wow.

[Donut]

Or EverQuest days like, those games were brutal.

[Brandon]

EverQuest was shout out of Mana.

[Donut]

Dude, dude, Dude.

[Brandon]

My favorite was out of Mana.

[Donut]

That guy right there is a. What? He can watch a streamer kill his entire career and still double down.

[Brandon]

It's insane.

[Donut]

You know what we're talking about?

[Brandon]

Pirate software.

[Donut]

Oh yeah, his Lulu Zoid.

[Brandon]

He didn't.

[Eli]

He.

[Cody]

He made a big decision of his T or he. His team over when they were doing a raid.

[Donut]

And then he made.

[Brandon]

It was a series of like, bad decisions. And then like he tried to like, kind of defer as like nothing. And when people called him out, instead of him being like, oh yeah, this is clearly like the, like, it's like, oh, like my bad. Like, I should have seen this. He just like doubled down. Like there was just zero. And then people like, he kept doing it. It was just continued exercise, a continued lapse of judgment where like, he just never took accountability for every. Anything ever. And he kept doing it over and over and over. People are like, what is wrong with this guy? He cannot like take an L. And he's making his own game and all this stuff, which I'm sure is a lot of work. But at the same time it's like, dude, people are like calling out on his own game. Calling him out on over here. It's like valid. Like he. Like, people are seeing some like salesman's pop up. And instead of being like, yeah, I could have handled that one better. It's just like, no, you're insane for thinking that. And here's some like, warped logic. I'm like, why? If people are like, this does not make sense, like, what is wrong with you? Is this crazy fall off?

[Donut]

He had a therapist, like a psych, the Dr. K video, a psychologist and him actually were on a live stream together. And the psychologist starts breaking it down. He's like, I just here, tell me this statement. And so he gives his statement of what was it? Oh, I. If somebody's wrong, it's. I just explained it better.

[Brandon]

Yeah, I just have to explain. Well, that it's hard. It's hard to word. It's hard to word. To say like, exactly what he said. But basically the concept was like, he cannot mentalize how other people perceive him. So when he makes decisions, he's doing it because of, like, some, you know, he's like, very factual and logic. He's like, okay, if I'm doing something, it's because of these reasons. Reasons. So if I'm doing something wrong, it's because you don't understand my reasons. As opposed to like, well, actually, maybe you're not taking in the bigger picture. And he genuinely could not comprehend it. And it was this, like, we had like, the very qualified therapist, like, walking him through empathetically, through the steps with kindness and like, being like, hey, like, let's try a different exercise here. And like, it was this. This, like, oh, my God, this is narcissism.

[Donut]

Says.

[Brandon]

Well, I don't even know if it's narcissism or it's like, you just lack in ability because narcissism is a lot of like, you have. You have like. You can't see blind spots. You can't understand things that you don't. You can't see outside yourself. And it's like, this might just be like. I don't want to say disorder, but, like, it's just like, as it is, he can't mentalize how other people could perceive what he's saying as. As. Like. And correct or wrong to the degree.

[Donut]

Of losing 700,000 subs.

[Brandon]

I. I don't even know the number now, but it is 700,000 subs.

[Donut]

And you're still. Look. No, I'm right.

[Brandon]

The language he uses, though, it's like anytime someone calls him out on something, he's like, hey. And like, people would do it. Kindly be like, hey. You know, I think, you know, in fairness, somebody is saying this, I think. And he'd be like, chad, that's insane. And like, ban him all this stuff to the point where he would make videos saying, like, if you disagree with me, this. This, like, harassment is, like, costing me my employees. Like, you're gonna kill my ferrets. He's as a ferret rescue, which is cool. Like, he does some cool stuff. He has a ferret rescue. He has like a team. Team of all the stuff he's like, you're gonna cost me my employees, so I'm not even gonna like engage the argument. And it's like, dude, like, understand how you're being perceived on this. Like, it looks horrible. You're putting, you're like using all these things as deflection mechanisms instead of saying. Instead of like taking accountability and be like, maybe I could have worded this better. I'm sorry, Let me, Let me try to like work this out.

[Donut]

And people have brought up, they're like, dude, if you just apologize or said, hey, like I said, up, that's all it would take. And a. All this would go away or a majority would go away. And then he doubles down, triples down, quadruples down.

[Brandon]

It's not even just like saying sorry because I understand the idea of like, maybe someone calls you out and you don't want to apologize. But it's like people have like, you have made obvious mistakes. Like, they like, accountability needs to be taken. And there's like a lack of accountability on all of it. It's like you're not even like, oh, your patrons are like won your game up by a certain thing. You're not even being like, yeah, I'm sorry it's taking so long. I'm going to work together it done. Here's the timeline or whatever. Or maybe I'm late in the timeline. It's like, no, Chad, here's the reason why it's late and it's not my fault. It's just like I had this thing that came up. I had Covid for like eight months.

[Donut]

I never talked about what like you.

[Brandon]

Just said you didn't in this other thing. It's like, it's this whole miasma of. Anyways, it's dude, yeah.

[Cody]

Gotten the lore. I've been seeing it all over Twitter, but I haven't really gotten into it.

[Brandon]

It's maddening. It's. It's maddening.

[Donut]

It is. It's one of those things where you're like, dude, you are costing yourself hundreds of thousands of dollars every single month that you double down and you're doubling down on stuff where it is, man. What was the one I never bring up that I worked at Blizzard. And then that montage of him dad.

[Cody]

Like his dad worked there and he.

[Brandon]

Yeah. Or something like, because I talk about on stream a lot, right. I make this parallel where it's like I always mention like, oh, touring, life, drumming. And it's like every time I do it, I always roll my eyes. I'm like, oh, like one the Of I was a drummer back on tour and it's like, it gets annoying to the point, but, like, there's still, like a story I want to tell. He would just be like, I worked at Blizzard. Here's why. Everything I did is, like, genius. It's like, well, okay, I think you're. You have some credit. You may have some accreditation. There you are. You are overdrawn on all this experience. But he talks as if, like, there is the only way to do it and it's his way. And so many people have come out and been like, oh, my God. Working with him was just like X, Y and Z and all this stuff. And it's like, yeah, it's this whole thing. You're not familiar with the drama, so it's like, I don't want to.

[Donut]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

Like, inundate you with it. But anyways.

[Cody]

Wow. Hardcore account looks really cool.

[Brandon]

Yeah. Yeah, I like that. Definitely. Definitely stream it and then, like, intentionally make some really stupid mistakes and then blame everyone in your party. You'll go viral, dude. That could be the move. Could be the move.

[Donut]

How far are you?

[Cody]

I'm not. I'm not too far yet. I'm trying to figure out what character I would want to do because I want to stream it because I. I grew up on Classic. I played it the first. Yeah, I played it the first week of release. Like, I was one. I was like, ranked 11 or 12 on. On PvP back then. Like, I was nasty in a while. Almost felt high school because of that.

[Brandon]

So many people have stories of like, wow And Runescape. Almost ruined their life. Yeah.

[Cody]

Yeah, completely. I was obsessed with that.

[Brandon]

Yeah. I came from, like, the. Oh, sorry. I'm sorry. I came from, like, the. The family that was like, wow. Is from the devil. Like, so is Harry Potter and all that stuff, which is like, wow. I kind of get Harry Potter. That's a bit of a reach. Pokemon. All right, now we're just kind of making stuff up here, but shout outs. Shout out to my dad. You guys are the best.

[Cody]

I. I had the same thing when my. When I was around, like, 12, 13 years old, my mom found some magic. The gathering cards I had. And, like, they were super, super heavily into Southern Baptist.

[Brandon]

They sent you, like, right off to, like, gay conversion.

[Cody]

They tried to.

[Donut]

Yeah, that's. They don't burn the cards. It's like, he's gay. He's playing magic. Where did we fail?

[Cody]

I just remember my mom crying because she found magic cards. She was like, the preacher says they're evil.

[Donut]

Like, preachers just cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars. These are worth so much money now.

[Brandon]

It's rated 10, Mom. You just ripped it in half. Wait, how much is it worth?

[Cody]

Okay, no, like, I'm 38. I'm about to turn 38. Like, that was back when first edition alphas were around and I had some pretty fucking good magic cards, but those went into the trash.

[Brandon]

We all have our. We all have our miss the boats moments, financially.

[Donut]

I will give Jared's sorry to hear. Oh, that's binder, dude. Our buddy Jared, they do time for pie. And I was like, do not post that on the Internet. Make sure you do, like, multiple videos on that before you.

[Brandon]

You.

[Donut]

You announce that.

[Brandon]

Because.

[Donut]

Holy, dude. He's like, what? He had a binder from his childhood that was upstairs. He went home, found it, opened it. It's all first edition Pokemon cards. Charizards, like, pristine.

[Brandon]

Found, like a bitcoin wallet in there too.

[Cody]

Basically, like.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Donut]

And they were like, perfect shape. And I was telling him, I was like, brother, you have of. Dear God, those are.

[Brandon]

You've got nothing. It's actually worth nothing. I'll just take it off your hands.

[Cody]

That's what he says. Like, thank God that Eli's a good friend. Otherwise it'd be like, hey, I got like 300.

[Brandon]

Yeah, I guess I'll take it for 10 bucks. Oh, my goodness.

[Donut]

And I was explaining. I was like, dude, those are in.

[Brandon]

Is it in good condition? It's hard to tell from the photo.

[Donut]

Oh, dude, they're pretty flawless.

[Brandon]

Like, the perfect corners. I don't know, like, that much about Pokemon cards, I'll be honest.

[Donut]

So there's at minimum $250,000.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Donut]

And that's what's crazy.

[Cody]

He has like, Shadowless Pikachu or Shadowless Charizard.

[Donut]

Yeah.

[Cody]

In great condition and still.

[Donut]

And never been touched since 98 or 99 when they were opened.

[Brandon]

Or just like me, I've never been ruined.

[Donut]

I mean, 95 is when I miss my uncle. Uncle Tom.

[Brandon]

You were such a nice guy. Loved playing Pokemon with me.

[Donut]

Cody's big games are what we were saying. Wow. And then what are the other ones you're playing right now? You, like, you have your. You rotate.

[Brandon]

I don't.

[Cody]

Yeah, I know. I've been streaming so much lately, I haven't been playing.

[Brandon]

And you stream more police, like, work, right?

[Cody]

Yeah, yeah. I can't do shootings on, like, Twitch.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Cody]

But just like, dumb. Getting arrested at the beach with bikinis.

[Brandon]

On and you do the thing, like, you try to, like, Analyze it. Right? You try. Yeah. Here's what's going on to like. Yeah, it's like. Yeah.

[Cody]

I try to break it down from the cost perspective.

[Brandon]

I feel like all that stuff gets so heated so fast where it's like people see one clip and it's like, oh, I can't believe. It's like. It's probably.

[Donut]

There's a backstory. A lot of.

[Brandon]

Some of them maybe there's not. But like, some of like, think you don't need to see officer, like, shooting like a puppy. Like, sometimes. Like, most of those aren't that, like, typically, bro. Okay.

[Cody]

Video games, half sword. I've been playing that on stream.

[Donut]

That's the one.

[Eli]

Oh, okay.

[Brandon]

I think I've heard of this.

[Cody]

I'll like, break up some of the. The police content with just jumping on a half sword game. And you're just this little rag doll dude with medieval weaponry against other rag doll dudes. And it's hard as to control.

[Brandon]

So I control all the stuff.

[Cody]

Or left mouse button is like left, left hand. Right mouse button is right hand. But then you, like, got to swing your mouse, like the direction of this.

[Brandon]

Oh, you have to. Like. That's kind of fun. It's like a. It's like a quap game or something.

[Cody]

So it's. It's quap, but with medieval weapon swords.

[Donut]

Half sword.

[Brandon]

D. That's like a. That's a blast from the past.

[Donut]

Getting over it. Sorry.

[Eli]

I got to see what this is.

[Brandon]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Donut]

So that is clicking or you have to.

[Cody]

So that's. He's holding down both mouse buttons to use his fist, but he's doing this to make his body do that.

[Brandon]

He's doing this a lot. He's.

[Cody]

He's doing this, and it thrusts and then. Yeah, I've gotten really good at it because it's about.

[Brandon]

Did you ever play. Did you ever play for honor? I don't know if that was like. Because that's kind of like that where it's sort of like, like rock, paper, scissors, but like medium high, low blocking.

[Donut]

Does that have a Still a large follow player base?

[Brandon]

I don't know. I think it. I think it kind of was a bit of a flash in the pan and then, like, it sort of murmured out. It was a fun idea. I don't think they. They. It's. It's Ubisoft, like, going through, like, the whole Ubisoft launcher right there is like.

[Donut]

Through this. Cody, you like. This is rock, paper, scissors in the. I mean, you have to. Let's Say you go do a move. I have one second less to react to it by seeing.

[Brandon]

Yeah, it's like sword fighting, but, like, you have to choose, like, stances, like, high, medium low. Then, like, the angle of your swipe. You can parry, you can block. Do you, like, jump, do duck? It's, it's, it's pretty cool, actually. I think it's one of Ubisoft's, like, better titles recently. Low bar, but, you know, low bar.

[Cody]

I know Kingdom come, Deliverance 2 came out recently. Recently, and that's kind of like medieval.

[Brandon]

That was pretty good. It was weird watching streamers play it because, like, everyone in that game had, like, a low taper fade. If you saw that, like, all the hair, it was just weird. I'm like, why did they all look like On God? On God. For real. For real. I was like, what?

[Donut]

Oh, they do.

[Brandon]

It was a cool game, though. It looked cool. I just looked like a bit of a chore simulator. And it's like, oh, grab the beans and, like, walk them over to the, like. I don't know. It didn't seem super exciting. Like, I know you guys are like, Red Dead fans. I could not get into Red Dead. Well.

[Donut]

I mean, I played Red Dead. Brandon, did you have to get past the first mission?

[Brandon]

Otherwise it, I got halfway through the game. Oh, just, Just putting that out there. I got halfway through.

[Cody]

I, I, I couldn't get through the tutorial. I was so bored.

[Donut]

That tutorial killed everyone's about the amount why I stopped the first time. Time was it why Brandon stopped the first time? It was.

[Brandon]

Oh, I think it's an amazing game. But, like, the thing is, the tutorial is kind of the rest of the game in a lot of ways, where it's like, the missions are like, go here. Something goes wrong, shoot it out. And then it's like you don't really have much options on, like, how you want to conduct your missions. Like, it, it does has an amazing story, like, a fantastic story. But as a game, like, going through some of the gameplay choices, I was just like, like, sitting there on my phone half the time, like, trying to enjoy it. I'm like, I'm not, It's not clicking with me. I've got, I've got, I need, I need more, like, stimulus or something going on.

[Donut]

It's like Sky. Skyrim or what? Which one do you like more, your Skyrim or Fallout?

[Brandon]

That's a, it's kind of a dude.

[Donut]

He is.

[Cody]

That's a hard one. Because I was, I mean, I've Always been huge into, Into Fallout. Like New Vegas is probably one of my favorite games of all time.

[Brandon]

So. Good, good choice, choice. Good.

[Cody]

Skyrim. You know, I quit Navy SEAL school to play Sky.

[Brandon]

Skyrim was. I want to make a full channel video on Skyrim. That's like, it's such an insane game because that was the first I remember being in like, Chris, I was in like Christian high school. Like, I had to go through like all that all my life in like a sheltered area in the middle of like Nowheresville in Oregon. And I remember my friend Taylor, she like works on a farm, all this stuff. And we're talking about Skyrim and like she turns over, it's like, oh yeah, I'm like a level 72, like one handed battle mage. And I was like, shut the up. What? You're playing this? And I realized like that was the game that like bridged, like just kind of like the way Fortnite kind of is now. Like, that was the game. That's like you had frat bros. You had like nerdy dungeon guys that are playing like, wow all day. Like you never see him. But then you have like. It was like the first time everyone in gaming was like, we can set aside our differences and just, just play some Skyrim. That game, that game changed everything. And it's a piece of. And I love it. That is.

[Donut]

That is so cheap.

[Brandon]

It is such a piece of dog game. And I love it and everyone loves it. It's the perfect, it's the perfect example of like something being more than the sum of its parts to create this experience of like, I'm picking a direction on a compass. I don't know where it's gonna take me. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna find some cool ass. I missed that. I missed that in a lot of games.

[Donut]

That's what I loved about MMOs back in the day. There wasn't. They weren't data mined to shit. So when you were exploring those worlds, it was a first time people didn't know jack and shit about dungeons bosses. You were going in blind and you were learning it.

[Brandon]

Yeah, there's like an issue. It's a shared experience of people that aren't just like looking up meta plays on YouTube. It's like, oh, what happened to you when you played it? Oh, that's crazy. I had a different story. You have a different story then everyone just like, like you just keep playing it. You have these crazy experiences. It's such a fun. That's why I love the Dark Souls games. Because they were all about, like this idea of like, we're all kind of suffering but on the same page and everyone's just like sharing tidbits and information and no two stories are alike, even though we're all playing like the same experience. I think it's a beautiful thing when a game can pull that off.

[Donut]

Like, yes, I think on that one, I think that's a beautiful note to move to the after show that went.

[Brandon]

Hell yeah.

[Donut]

That was two hours and 30 minutes.

[Eli]

Okay, cool.

[Donut]

That was a long one. I didn't even think it was.

[Brandon]

I'm telling you, I can yap. I can yap, dude.

[Donut]

No, it's. We haven't talked about gaming shit. And all of us love. I mean, we nerd out about it. We. It will game, you guys. Game offline. Will game offline depending on what's coming out. It's just something we don't talk about too much because when you talk about all the time, it's the same story.

[Brandon]

Versus a lot of the same story.

[Donut]

Story versus. Hey, breaking it down stories. Hey, what are you playing? Hey, why are you playing that? Oh, okay.

[Brandon]

There was. There was one thing I wanted to bring up and I'm happy to do, like, reshoot this at another point or whatever or just talk about like your own personal thing, but I really am fascinated with like, the change in gaming demographics and like, and this is on both sides of like, political spectrum. What do you want to call it? Of, like, I remember in 2015 and maybe I'm getting into it now, but it's like, like I remember like the social justice warriors, like, the easiest, like, oh my God, like the worst way to get anyone to hear you out is to just annoy them to death. And like everyone just being like, raw on that front line. And I feel like I have seen the pendulum and it's swung a couple ways, but I feel like it's almost swung a bit of the other direction where I think a lot of people that are on like, that used to be on that, like, front way. Like, yeah, this, that, the other thing like this, this messaging is dumb and like, like you're forcing it down our throats like no one wants. It has come the other way around where I feel like there are so many, like, triggered people like, on the anti SJW front that like, do not know how to let certain things go. And I think it's. I think it's been really pervasive in gaming. I'm kind of curious if you've seen that, because I've seen, like, a lot of gaming takes where people are like, I can't believe that there's a black chick in the video game. It's like, listen, I get that, like, they may be pushing agendas in certain ways, more so than others in other games, but there's also the other side. It's like you are crying so much about everything that nobody takes you seriously anymore. And it's like, it's really kind of a shame to see because I think, like, again, that middle zone. I think gamers, in a nutshell, are like, the most insufferable group of people when they're on the Internet. Like, let me tell you, like, arguing. Okay? At least they're arguing over something. Like, maybe important. But these are like, these. These are video games and entertainment.

[Donut]

And it's like, no, veterans are.

[Brandon]

No, it's like, no, they're not at all.

[Donut]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

I feel like I've seen so much stuff come out where it's like, it's hard. It's hard to, like, get an accurate take of down something down the middle. That's what I wanted the channel to be. To be like, all right, these guys are saying that. These guys are saying this. I think a lot of it's. But some of this is too. And we need to call this out because the more you guys keep doing that and like, Crying Wolf, then, like, no one's going to take it seriously and then you lose all credibility. Like, how many times have you seen, like, I remember when Oblivion remake. Did you play the Oblivion remake?

[Cody]

Oh, hell yeah.

[Brandon]

Yeah, it was awesome. It was pretty. Pretty damn good. Like, there's some changes, I think that could have been made, but I remember seeing, like, the front of my feed on Twitter, which I don't follow anyone. I try not to, like, manipulate it. I want to see, like, an organic thing of, like, what people are saying. People were crying over, like, the gender types I've seen. Like, it's. It's. It's body type 1 and 2. And they were like, this is so lame. Like, SJW has effect. Like, I understand the idea of, like, male, female. You made a change in the remake. But the way they were crying about it was like, this is ruining the game. Boycott the game. I was like, this is not the way to have that discussion.

[Donut]

Like, it.

[Brandon]

No one's going to take you seriously.

[Donut]

It's no difference in, like, calling somebody they're Nazis.

[Brandon]

It exactly. It is exactly holy.

[Donut]

You have now downplayed actual true atrocities and dumbed it down to somebody. Didn't agree with you. Or they wore a MAGA hat and now that is a Nazi. Which you're. It is that very big spectrum. Hey, let's pull back that you don't have to go to that degree on calling something out.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Donut]

Oh my God, there's.

[Brandon]

It lessens the impact of what something really is. Like, you're actually taking away from like these terrible things on like both, both extremes by jumping to them so quickly. Like, and then it waters down all medium. Like we are at a time where like anybody can say anything, but meeting is at like an all time low when it comes to words. And it's like, I think the same thing is happening with like gaming discussion. And then what happens is nothing changes. Yeah. So like you don't actually get any improvements. You just end up screaming. And then people who don't agree. Because I'm all about like, again, like, I make. Sometimes I make edgy content. It's not trying to be edgy, but I like reaching across the aisle and seeing like, oh, someone that doesn't agree with me. Why. And then picking that apart and be like, oh, it's actually because they thought I was saying this thing that I wasn't saying or maybe I wasn't wording something. Right. I like, I like finding that middle ground and then going from there being like, all right, so how do we move forward here? And like, how do we actually have some form of like, interaction? And then in the gaming sphere, it's just like, like, oh my God, like, this is terrible.

[Donut]

I think we've seen it with, with the video game Hollywood where it was this big swing on how far Disney or whoever was pushing it to get a message across. Like, and then you have, this is dumb, this is dumb, this is dumb. You can see it losing money. It's dumb. And they're still pushing it. And now you have the pendulum.

[Brandon]

And I'm not saying like, either side is wrong. I'm not saying either side is wrong. Like, there is valid, like a lot of other things that you can point to. It's like this is done just because they wanted to put it in. But it's like, yeah, like, it's because that's what they, they thought. Or like, maybe, maybe this is. Does it detract from the game? Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. And like learning to pick the battles, the hills that you die on is an art that most people do not know. And then of course, everyone on like one side is like, oh, they're just insane because they're Just saying all this crazy, like, they're Nazis and the other side's like, they're just a bunch of crime. It's like you guys are both like, missing the plot.

[Donut]

I mean, Cody's content. You're the perfect example of. You can break down. Here is the shooting. Here is why. It was justified. And still Cody is a piece of. With every fact. Because who will call out both sides if it's a bad shooting, bad cop, whatever it is? Cody will be the first one to say that. And then vice versa. It's like, no, this is justified. Here's why. Here's all the research, but does not matter on that side. It's like, here's all the research presented to you. What will you do with that? You're a piece of.

[Cody]

I'm a Nazi bootlicker.

[Brandon]

Yeah, they'll just, They'll. They'll. They'll. I think they'll just go with like, whatever bias they want to see reinforced. So it's like you either say, yeah, their echo chamber. Exactly. It's like, oh, yeah, you. Of course. This is like justified. Like, thank you for confirming. Or they'd be like, oh, wait, you disagree with me. You're the worst, Pete. Like, you're not. You're not fair.

[Donut]

You're typical white former police officer. Officer probably hits his wife.

[Brandon]

And it's like, Junkie made that video about, like, first off, two things can be true.

[Donut]

Whatever.

[Brandon]

Two things can happen at the same time. I remember Dunkey. Sorry, just real quick. Dunkey made a video about like reviewing games and like, he made this great, like, satirization piece where it's like every 10 out of 10. Every comment section in that video of like, IGN would be like, excellent review, IGN. 10 out of 10. It was a masterful game. Anytime IGN was like, this wasn't the best thing ever. People, like dog revered, you know what you're talking about, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's like you don't understand, like, the gamer space. Like, like common sense is like, kind of, I don't say an all time low, but it is a. Maybe a bit of a younger demographic or. I don't know, it's. It's. It's tough to navigate. So I, I try to be more of like, I think what you do in your cop videos. I try to be more of like the, like, let's. Let's be gracious to both points of view and, and maybe have a handshake in the middle where we can agree that like, maybe like, here's the actual Truth of something, because it's hard to find that in this day and age.

[Donut]

But you will get shit on for that approach. It is a lot of times it is a lot harder to have that middle approach than to.

[Brandon]

You'll piss off. Yeah.

[Cody]

I get called a fence sitting.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Donut]

Which is wild. It's like, Donut is a fence sitter. You're, like, for real. That is that. What.

[Brandon]

That's insane that people like you can't. You can't please everyone. So.

[Donut]

Oh, no. That's why you just stopped trying. And on that beautiful note, we'll move to the after show. Cody close. Well, first off, where do we find you?

[Brandon]

You can find me. My address is 332 Rosegold Street, Southwest Portland. This man just said my address. Wait a minute. Wrong. I got the wrong prompt at first. My headset. I'm so sorry. You can find me at Liam Manley on YouTube or Manly Reviews. Both things will show up. But you can find me on Twitch if you want to hang out there. If not, that's totally cool too. But I am. I am, like, beyond thankful for you guys to have, like, have me on. I hope I didn't embarrass myself too much. And that was.

[Cody]

We just hate you now, dude.

[Brandon]

It's cool. Awesome. Never coming back. Burned a bridge. Nice.

[Donut]

We're going to kill him right now.

[Brandon]

Brandon was like, yeah, five minutes. I got to make something up.

[Donut]

Okay.

[Brandon]

Politics. Yeah.

[Donut]

I got Mexican dagger. Mow a yard.

[Brandon]

Lot of lawn. Lawn scissors. I don't have the lawnmower anymore. It's gonna take a lot of time.

[Donut]

Mexican stuff.

[Brandon]

Yeah. I hope. I hope it was good for you guys. I hope the episode does well. And I. It was an honor to be here.

[Donut]

Oh, dude, that was a blast. When it goes like.

[Brandon]

Like, suck you guys off, but it is cool.

[Donut]

That was good. That was fun. Cody closes out. You beautiful son of.

[Brandon]

Bye, everyone.

[Cody]

Thank you for joining the unsubscribe podcast. I was joined today by Eli Double Tap Manly reviews.

[Brandon]

Myself, donut operator.

[Cody]

You can catch us here in a minute on the after show on Patreon.

[Donut]

You.

[Eli]

Sa.