SvB: Ep154 Theo talks about Avatar Netflix, Influencer Era dying? Mr.Benja's thoughts on The Boys: Gen V

@mrbenja and @the_real_theo_harvey, discuss the hottest stories for this week and circle back to old talks and entertainment. Avatar Live Action, is it good or bad? Hear it first from Theo, The Influencer era is dying down?...or is it? Mr.Benja has something to say about Gen V, the boys spinoff and many more!

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Show vs. Business is your weekly take on Pop Culture from two very different perspectives. Your hosts Theo and  Mr. Benja provide all the relevant info to get your week started right.

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Transcript

Theo Harvey: This is show versus business where pop culture meets pop money with your host, the real Theo Harvey and Mr. Benja did the wrong way. So Mr. Benja, what's been going on with you? 

Mr.Benja: What's been going on? I don't know. You want to start the podcast over again? You're pointing the wrong way. I don't know. Sorry.

I was hoping we keep that fresh take last time. But yeah, so yes, what we got, check this out, man. We got an AI watch a lot of things going on, sore videos coming in. Tyler Perry's got stuff to say. Sam Altman's been asking for trillions coffee, Zilla, the guru checker pocket watcher, if you will for gurus, not JT, the pocket watcher, shout out to him.

He says AI scares him. And, if we just have a little thoughts on these things, we're going to definitely get into that. And speaking of that, some influencers are out there talking noise. They're wondering if their lives are up, their jobs are up. What's going to happen with all these influencers?

Do we even need them? Everybody's losing jobs. Why not influencers? And then we're going to get into some talk on the boys because I saw it all late and I had thoughts. And Theo said, you know what? Let's put it up. And then we have a streaming awards update. So we'll get into a little bit of that towards the end.

And that seems about. It's a good little mod to talk about here, but we're going to have fun with it. And Theo, how does all 

Theo Harvey: that sound? Mr. Benja, I'm super excited as always. This week, Mr. Benja a new TV show came out. Me and my kids are super happy about it. Ready to watch it. Mr. Benja. I don't know.

It wasn't good. It wasn't good. And I'm talking about talking about Avatar, the last airbender. I was about to guess, man. We only saw now grant. We only saw the first episode, but you know how you're watching something that's so beloved. And you're just like, Oh, I want this to be good.

And then every, it's almost what was the other, what was the other one? Star Wars the, what the the last, what's it, the last Star Wars that they did. The Rise of Skywalker. Yes. It was like, okay, I'm excited. I'm excited. And then Chewbacca dies and then Chewbacca shows up again and you're like, Oh no, we've gone totally off the rails here.

And so it was. It was very similar experience. I, the spirit is there. The spirit is there. I see, green shoots that they will basically some some opportunities that get me excited. But some of the casting choices right now, I don't see it right now. The actor plays Ang, he's got to get there.

Zuku. who's really, big main protagonist and antagonist don't see it yet. So like I said the kids, And the kids know it too, just love to hear their voices because they're, what's it called? Gen alpha. So they're younger. And so they're just very blunt. This is not as good as a cartoon.

Just my sister started saying it like eight times. So you watch the cartoon? Oh, yeah. We watched the whole series like during the pandemic, like right before the pandemic. We watched at least the first one, not the Legend of Korra, but the first one. Wonderful series, because, we talked about before I watched it years ago and it was good to rewatch it with them.

And I tell you, man it's tough and it's then, I was talking to my son. I said, we watch one piece and I, we both don't like the anime one piece. Yeah. But the live action is wonderful. Amazing. So it's like, what is going on, man? Mr Benja. So that's my hot take as of Literally last night we saw it and so we're going to start, get into it and maybe improve, but right now I'm not feeling the love of the live action version of Avatar, the last airbender.

Mr.Benja: Yeah, I could see that. Live action is just difficult, but you brought up one piece again. I'm gonna, I'm gonna say what my friend, someone told me, I smacked him in the mouth before I started watching one piece. You gotta wait till episode 260 before the anime. It's good. The story is still there, but like the animation and the way it flows doesn't really congeal until that time.

But we'll come back to that later. Oh man, but 

Theo Harvey: And I would just say this. The cartoon wasn't all great. There's some moments that's real kiddy and jokey and has that little kookiness that you see in anime from time to time. Maybe they just jelled a lot faster and because it was maybe run by folks, I think the creators of us base, and so they understood the U S United States sensibility, but so anyway, we'll see, man I'm hopeful that the live action will improve. So we just have to watch it more. And like you said, it might not get good. The live action might not get good. The season three episode four.

We're going to see, 

Mr.Benja: yeah that's always an interesting thing. But speaking of speaking of comic books and manga and anime, I was up here, doing, we always talk about 80, 20, the focus. And we talk about our guru life, the marketing and all that. And I started looking at stuff and I was like, you know what?

I'm trying to be a hero in my own story. And I put back to like my high school, no, even before high school, middle school and elementary school self, when I was trading comic books and, my first little buzz of being an entrepreneur and I realized, no, this is all this comic book story coming back.

I'm like the kid with a problem who comes up against an incident, and then I try to make things the same, can't do it, I have a challenge, someone challenges me, and then I fuddle around for a little while, I get a guide, my who. And then once I find my guide, then I take that to the next level and start working and then training.

Then the montage happens and then I'm the hero of my own little story. And this happens like every week. It's great. And I was like, man, this is a whole comic thing. And I went back to an old book called Story Brand. I don't know if you ever ran across that one. Yeah. Story brand. This guy used to be a screenwriter and he basically put together a Donald Miller.

I think his name is, and he put together this whole process of building a business based on the story brand or making sure you're telling a story with your website, with your materials that your brand is storied. So yeah, I was just going through that and it's like that full circle moment when all your ideas are coming back to you.

You're like, Oh man, I had that idea before it came back and oh yeah. And so I've just been having a, I needed my mind to move forward in some way. We can go over it later, but story brand really popped off in my mind. I'm back on that tip. 

Theo Harvey: Oh, yeah. I think I've heard him his name before.

I'm on his website. And of course, he has a sales funnel, the whole marketing lingo. F. Y. I have gone down that path and built out a full funnel with my team. So I keep you posted. I actually was able to finish my first I'm pretty excited about that. I did some, freehand, but also use a lot of AI to shape it up.

It turned out pretty good. So I'm super excited to get that out there. And that's going to be part of my funnel process. With other things I want to add to it. So deep diving. Deep into this funnel process is very interesting for me to understand how this all works.

So I'll keep you posted. We're officially going to launch Tuesday. So we're going to finish up all our ad campaigns and send it to cold traffic and get into the funnel. So super excited about that and see how that process works. But yeah, and I've been bragging to everybody. Yeah, you could write a book in a week.

Yeah. I can help you. Yeah. Let me show you how to do it. It's simple. You can make all this money. I love when I get in that mode, man, which is like, Oh yeah, you can do a phantom offer. I'll show you how you can just get the market excited. So they'll know that you have something to offer and if they want it, you already got people who say they'll buy something from you.

So I can show you how to make it in a week and it will create a funnel. Yeah. I was getting hype, man. I was on that, that, that stuff, that good stuff, man. I love it. 

Mr.Benja: It's entertaining when you get hyped like that too. I'm over there yeah, go 

Theo Harvey: get them. Man it's, it's, there's always hype before you launch, in the back of my mind, I was like, okay, probably going to be a lot of optimization.

We're doing some split testing, we're going to look at the data. So the analytical side of me is also popping in now. As we get closer to launch. And so yeah, man it's interesting in this marketing thing. And I think, I see why these guys, even like Dan Henry, I'm on his.

We talk about this all the time. It seems like he jumps around a lot too, man. He's like the Russell Brunson before he had cliff funnels. Just he's jumping around a lot of different things. And it's interesting to observe how he flows. I think he's in Dubai for the month and he's doing some, one on one coaching and group coaching overseas.

While I was like the other projects he has, I'm looking at them. It's like they're not growing as fast. So it's interesting to see how these internet gurus bounce around a lot. Some just stay stable because they just know this is all they're going to do ever do, especially the older ones.

But the younger ones, man, it's amazing how much they jump around. It just, yeah, so it's curious to see how people operate, man. And then I'm sorry to put this new world of influencer marketing and, marketing gurus with, yeah. The world I learned from corporate America, V.

C. World and trying to combine them both from child. Okay, I see how they all can match a little bit, because there's some similarities there. They just do different things, right? Instead of they go to, they have marketing events, right? They have lead gin, but it's more of a case study.

Legion. So it's interesting to try to combine both sides of my brain to create something that works for me. But yeah, I'll get there. Okay. 

Mr.Benja: Oh, no, it's definitely interesting. Like we were talking about Kanye West and his rollout last week, like how. You have that space, right?

The marketing space and everybody plays that formula. But then obviously that doesn't parallel to a musician. Exactly. It's not Hey, go join my, funnel and sign up for my email. And I'll send you the album. It does. It's just a whole different game. But it's still the same steps.

And I'm watching how these masters of other genres are doing it. Kanye shows up. album sells out, this YouTube sensation shows up like how he builds his thing and funnelizes what he's doing. Basically. I know this one artist, his website stays blank for basically the entire year.

And then suddenly a picture shows up of something you can buy. It's just an image. No, no text around it or anything. It's just an image of something you can buy. And at the bottom right corner, it's like terms and services. And so you're like, and so when that, when it changes, people like go nuts. It's Oh, and internet lights up.

And by the time you click, of course, it says sold out. So it's just interesting how all this stuff relates. So I'm totally with you there. 

Theo Harvey: Yeah. Yeah. It's fascinating. Mr. Benjamin, what else are we fascinated about today? 

Mr.Benja: You were fascinated about AI. You're right in the book with it.

So let's jump on with that one. It's been a big news in AI. Big news for the past couple of weeks, it's just continual updates and drops. And the thing that's getting everybody hyped up is that Sora AI, man. What do you think of those videos that they're putting out? So open the eyes thing, right?

Theo Harvey: Yeah. Yeah, man. They dropped the bomb on us. Again, AI open the eyes out. He's the streets, man. And showed us the latest video, basically AI that they developed and they call it Sora. I guess it's not released to the public yet, but they put some snippets out there and everybody was just like Florida, how photorealistic a lot of these videos looked at compared to.

Some of the horror, her graphic imaging of video AI, I guess the most famous one is that Will Smith eats spaghetti. I still have nightmares about that one. And then they had the what's the other one? Pizza fun house. I don't know if you saw that one. That was pretty scary too. So now they have photo for photo, realistic kind of videos with Sora and Mr.

Benji, I was blown away, man. Some of that stuff would look really good. And like they always say, man, this is the worst this technology is ever going to look. And so every advancement we see, we're going to say this is the worst is ever going to be. So I could easily see someone mocking our faces and making us seem like AI.

And so it's almost there. I got a, 

Mr.Benja: I got an AI ad. With Elon Musk and people in the comments were like, it's not Elon Musk. This is fake. And other people were like, what are you talking about? This is totally something Elon Musk do. So it's like you had the people who believed it was Elon Musk and we're buying into it.

Then you had the people who were saying it wasn't Elon Musk. And then you had the obvious People in there who were trying to pump whatever scam and they're like, Oh, it's totally Elon. You can tell because his smile is so original. And you're like, what does that even mean? It's just like weird comments.

You could tell somebody like either use AI 

Theo Harvey: or it is AI. That's comedy. 

Mr.Benja: Yes. Yeah. Or, just, send it off to some. Some farm in Pakistan who it just has people sitting around commenting. My friend actually bought some of those guys, by the way for YouTube video, and it tanks his account.

So don't do that. But but yeah, this text to AI thing, text to video. So you just type in what you want. And this is what a lot of directors and, guys who are putting together the cinematographers do, they okay, so we want to see a this and that, you got a room full of people and you work out storyboards and visuals and the way the camera drops down.

Imagine just speaking that stuff out where it's okay, so I want a, a forest scene. I need a, late summer in Wisconsin kind of forest scene and just start updating and changing the scenery. And you just start talking and texting it out. And Tyler Perry says. You know what? I'm going to put a pause on my 800 million studio expansion plan that I had so I can evaluate AI and reevaluate all this regular technology that I'm doing.

And he says. You know what? I'm also going to say, I'm not going to be hiring as many people. Jobs are going to get lost. Sorry. 

Theo Harvey: Ouch. No. Yeah. Tyler Perry may not be the best example. Me and my wife had a long conversation about his latest movie and how his storylines tend to be very simplistic and he doesn't evolve his branding, so much, but I think his his content is ripe for AI to go easily make a tie Perry scenario, but I digress.

Yeah, man. He wasn't the only one. I think all of Hollywood, this is show versus business. All of Hollywood is now at a point where they're just like, really starting to. Get a sense of what this technology can do. And to your point, creatives, like maybe Soderbergh, right?

Who did sex lives and videotape and he's on the cutting edge of, technologies. He might enjoy this, right? You said like a director can create realistic. Backgrounds, or you think about someone like Robert Zemeckis, right? Who really did dive deep into, CGI and graphics.

He might love it, but you're right, man. A lot of folks, man, I'm going to be out of a job, man, because this is something that could really take over Hollywood pretty quick, quickly and rapidly. And don't let us fall in love, which I can see absolutely happening in probably the next year, a photorealistic avatar that's AI generated.

That becomes has a million subscribers, right? And that everybody is this Cause we already see the live version of that, right? You showed me with so how hard are we, how far are we from a avatar to do that? So it's, 

Mr.Benja: That already exist, right? 

Theo Harvey: Yes. I do know, but I'm talking about grand scale.

I'm talking about like where global phenomenon, this is a pop star that people want to see all the time. I'm, there's stuff like that. Yeah. There's, some corners of, Japan and Korea, but I'm talking Next level superstar. And if that happens, there's a movie called Simone.

Did you ever seen that without Pacino? No, it was a I generated actress that became a worldwide phenomenon and everybody loved her. And, I think they knew she was a I, but the goal. Was that she became, this global superstar. And so I look at this next generation of Hollywood, they're trying to pump out like the Zendaya's or the Timothy Chalamet's.

I think that might be the last class of Hollywood stars that we get, man. The gen alphas. If you put someone that's entertaining in front of them on YouTube and they love them, that would be the next star. And that will not be a human. That's my prediction. Oh, I'm doing predictions in February. 

Mr.Benja: You know what?

I wonder. I wonder if you could create like a variety show where you have one human and a bunch of AI actors or, background characters around them, where it's just like Pee Wee's Playhouse, almost like people walking around. Hey, I don't know what's going to happen. We're going to see what happens when I talk to these AI characters.

They don't say that, but let's see what's it, whatever it has to say. And the little weather guy comes out. Hey, I'm blah, blah, blah. It's really? I didn't know that. Thank you computer for teaching me so much. And there's so many different weird ways this could go. And I'm, I don't want to say I'm concerned, but I'm like super curious.

And every time I see that somebody coming up with an idea, I like click on it and check it out. It's okay, yeah, I thought of that one. No, I didn't think of that one. Oh, that's interesting. Oh, that's really dangerous. And I have all these different thoughts about it. But you sent me this link from CoffeeZilla who's, who, always checking on the gurus. What does he have to say? Cause he he said 

Theo Harvey: something. Oh yeah, man. So coffee's still, like you said, he's out here, doing, 60 minutes style as expose on our favorite gurus. He did one on a Grant Cardone. And just, and one other one, he did it recently.

That was like a big takedown. Yeah, Dan lock. Yep. That was more. That wasn't recent, but yeah, he's been out here in these streets. So anyway, coffee Zilla does is like short little videos. And he said I'm afraid of AI and he pretty much echoed. Everything we saying is basically a couple.

Pretty much take his job, right? It could easily be heck. He almost seems like an AI by the way he communicates and talks and his cheesiness sometimes. So yeah. So for him, this is something, is very, he's very concerned about as a lot of all creators are. And we talked about this, right?

Our creators a lot of creators are leaving because of the burnout. AI doesn't burn out, this AI avatar can have content going 24 seven. Yeah. Coffee Zilla was very, concerned and where this is going and what this could look like. And then they the, and because he exposes scams, his thing was, we'll see, scams just balloon, right?

Because as you just saw, people didn't know who was Ilan, who wasn't. And then even in the comment section, there was misinformation because there were bots fighting the folks that were claiming it wasn't Ilan. And imagine Mr. Benja we're about to hit. Election season. So this is going to be a F it's going to be, it's going to be a cluster.

Yeah. You got to have 

Mr.Benja: AI videos of people like Kevin Hart wearing the Trump shoes. He's going to have to be out there. It wasn't me. 

Theo Harvey: But then they say that's AI because the person that said it wasn't me was isn't AI. So man, these celebrities and so I hope they have. They need to hire us, man. All celebrities just need to hire us.

We can help them, but I think they need to realize that they need to get their plan of action because you're right. I think there was one recently that happened. I can't remember. It was a celebrity that someone said something was selling like mortgages or something. And then they had to take that down.

Yeah, it may have been or Scarlett Johansson, one of those, but yeah I, to your point, it might not even be something where they, the deep fakes where they're speaking and doing mannerism, it might be something as simple. Like you said, he just wearing the Trump shoes, right?

Or, they did alter image just enough, right? Or there's a little, little symbol someone does. Oh, see, he's a proud boy. And yeah, man, it's going to be interesting times. 

Mr.Benja: So I have two things on that. One is that we're already like you and I are we've come from the real and we didn't grow up.

We grew up with a lot of analog stuff, so we're able to discern more about analog, digital, fake and real. And we have a certain eye for some of the stuff. A lot of people don't. They just don't have it either. They wasn't trained. They didn't grow up using computers. They. They, went to pharmacy school instead of NSB or CIS or whatever, and, engineering computers or whatever they, so they're in pharmacy.

They're like, okay I put pills in a big bottle and then put them into a little bottle. And that's what I do. I don't know. What AI is or which characters are different. And yes, I'm slamming all you pharmacy cats. Get at me in the comments. Counting 

Theo Harvey: bills, 

Mr.Benja: one, two, three. I'm I make my, 

Theo Harvey: Oh, I messed up.

Mr.Benja: Sorry, Mr. Wilson, you're going to die tomorrow, yeah, they take that very seriously. Country pills, right? Yeah, but there's the discernment and education of the people, they don't know what's real, what's not. If it's, I've seen very real things and people are like, that's fake.

And you're like, what are you talking about? That's, it's clearly real. It's what, and 

Theo Harvey: they're like, yeah, real quick. I interrupt you, but coffee Zilla did that. He did there was a video, there was Twitter was going around saying, look AI. And he said, a picture of Indian Indian cop who is doing amazing things in a car.

And it was actually a live action movie that was made in the nineties of an action star from India, from Hollywood. And people thought it was AI. So to your point is it was, he was cracking up because even the real stuff, people don't realize that's not, they'd say that's fake. So it's yeah.

Mr.Benja: Yeah. So first, you have the people's perceptions, right? And then a lot of people are saying we still want the human touch. We still are looking for the, natural real life thing. It's no. You don't understand. You may think people will want that people usually when a new technology comes around It's not like they think the quote unquote real is better They just go for what's available like when fast food restaurants came out Everyone was like, oh you can't have drive ups people want to sit down and enjoy a meal and they really just hammered that Nobody wants drive thru and it's like a lot of people do hey, nobody wants, cheap clothes that fall apart after two weeks It's just Yeah, I do.

I'm only gonna wear it once anyway. It's fast fashion. It's good. 

Theo Harvey: It's called Sheen. Exactly. My wife loves it. But you know what, Mr. Benji, you make a good point. Philip, you think human beings will always choose convenience. Over tradition, 

Mr.Benja: it's it's been an incredible factor of just if you're not looking out for convenience, then you're not protecting your ideas.

If you're just not thinking about convenience as being a major factor. 

Theo Harvey: Yeah, I agree. I think, yeah, convenience can change behavior in a moment, because, Oh, because now it's convenient, to call people via cell, cell phones or to text people, then that becomes a norm.

And then everyone does it and then now it's standard behavior until something else comes along. That's even more convenient. So yes, I agree. 

Mr.Benja: I have a family member who won't talk to me anymore because I don't want to FaceTime with her. So it's pick up my FaceTime. I'm like, listen, just text me what you want.

If it's a deep conversation, we'll get on, but you can't. Can't FaceTime me for something like I'm cooking rice. 

Theo Harvey: So what's our projection, Mr. Benji? Are we bullish? Are we fear mongers here for Soros? 

Mr.Benja: No Soros. Wait, you talking about George Soros? 

Theo Harvey: The woke agenda will be stopped by Sora.

Soros. 

Mr.Benja: Oh my God. The same thing. Yeah. So I think we're about, I'm bullish on AI. I think we're, I still think we're going to see some really fundamental shifts bigger than when electronics entered the workforce, like with computers and, all the paper tracking we were doing bigger than that.

Bigger than the Lotus one, two, three. Oh my God. The microcomputer was a huge change to things, but 

Theo Harvey: yeah, it's a binge of your old man. Lotus one, two, three. Oh my goodness. They'll sleep on Lotus one. And the fact that I know that it's even older.

Mr.Benja: Shout out to the McAfee documentary. I watched last night. Yeah I'm bullish on it. I think that it's so free form that. The amount of applications that are going to come out of this are going to multiply. You're going to see things from different countries where they have different needs and ideas about things.

And it's just going to get crazy and crazier and. I'm not saying it's bad, I'm just saying it's going to spiral out of control. We're about to hit that singularity where we're just like, Hey, we're out of control of this. We don't know what's happening. It's beyond our understanding. We're just long for the 

Theo Harvey: right.

And the scary part right now too, is AI, open AI is very secretive. Now, after the big blow of Sam Altman he's making these big pronouncements. Like he wants to spend 7 trillion on, chip manufacturing, how much 7 trillion. Yes. But I digress and say that, but remember the whole hubbub about open AI, having a board that was open, that's going to help, focus on safety.

What happened? We have no insight onto what's going on at the board. Who's being replaced by who it's just business as usual, open AI, and it's secretive as ever. And they just dropped stuff like this out there with no sense of, so what? So you send that out there, but they don't say anything about, okay, we're working on.

Good thing is they didn't just drop it on people. So that's a smart thing. But Are they just looking at reaction or did they say, Hey, we're going to putting a plan together to make sure there's a road out safely. So it's very weird, man. Just they're very secretive. And and, it's getting to that corporate thing.

And I think these tools are weapons of mass destruction. So that is my hesitation with, some of the eyes, the people who control it are the ones who are, really not Being as open about what's really going on behind the scenes and that's disheartening. But but on the other personal side, to your point, I'm bullish and I've been even deep and diving deeper to your point.

I'm starting to use an AI for more brainstorming. 1 thing from future. I'm really starting to dig is the, show me your reasoning and the AI is giving me insight into the thought processes as I'm starting to do more consulting type. And that's helping me in communicating in my communication style.

So I'm going even harder on AI, Mr. Benjamin personally. But globally, I do have some concerns about where this is all going. 

Mr.Benja: Hey I got a weapon of, mass. Information destruction over here. I'm going to use it, but I don't think everybody else should. 

Theo Harvey: Now everybody else is who could chose it?

Hey man, you get, you got, it's the time, man. If you ride the tide, you get pulled under. That's how I look at it. 

Mr.Benja: Yeah. And Influencers, where are, we were talking about the AI influencer that could pop up. And is this a real concern right now? Cause some of them are already burning out. They're hanging up there.

They're hanging up there. They're a colored lights,

They're chained. They're putting away the hot tub and everything. What's influencer space. Shout out to the hot tub Twitch 

Theo Harvey: channel. I love it. I love it. I don't know. Mr Benjamin, what do you think? I would say my, I'm relatively new. I was a YouTube university guy for years, but it was really doing a pandemic that kind of opened my eyes of what you two could really be about.

And then my kids watching their growth on, getting tied into the influencer market. And so now he and these influencers have been doing it for so long and really, probably a lot of them, probably my guess, they had explosive growth during the pandemic. Now we're four years, since then, they're probably burnt out.

They've been doing this for eight, nine, 10 years. And so a lot of them are realizing, is this a sustainable path right to where I want to do long term. And some are realizing maybe it's not for them. And you have influencers like Heinz, who is, I did know this guy before, but I started looking at some of his YouTubes and really dig his vibe, more calming, relaxing vibe.

Not that, Mr. Beast in your face style. We're gonna blow up a million boats 

Mr.Benja: and maybe 

Theo Harvey: one could be yours. Nah, Heinz ain't doing all that. Heinz 

Mr.Benja: is more like, to contrast with that, hey. We are on a boat, and the boat is good. I really appreciate that everyone's here on the boat. Just relax with the boat.

And if it blows up, it's okay. You won't get hurt. Just a little wet. We're here with Hindsight. Hey, make sure you join my community. Hindsight. Yeah, it's just That guy's 

Theo Harvey: chill, man. I love it. And that's the way he has to be. He should be, because it's you zag when everyone zigs, right? Or you zig when everyone zags, and so Mr.

Beast is Mr. Beast, right? And everybody's trying to follow that style to get more and more attention. But, it's almost becomes the misery returns. I think the more calmer, relaxing style could work, but just like anything that could get boring too. So I don't know. And then now what I'm seeing too is we're seeing a lot of these influence we're seeing celebrity influencers getting the mix, right?

So obviously we have the podcasters, we had, first it was just regular folks, right? They call me your daddy podcasters, right? They got like 60 million, Joe Rogan, he was pseudo, known famous before he got into the podcast the world. But now you're seeing like, actors like Jason Bateman.

What's the what's their site? What's it called? I can't remember the name of the podcast, but it was Jason Bateman. Our net. And Sean Hayes, they create their own podcast in a pandemic and sold it for 60 million. So I say that to say that the influencer market, you have these very charismatic stars and celebrities anyway, starting to create their own podcast channels, right?

Like the Shea club or Stephen A. Smith from sports. And they're becoming more popular. So it's like these influences like, wait a minute. Yeah, I built an audience for 10 years. I have some charisma, but now you're competing against the highest levels of charisma, people who've been on a platform television that has nothing but gatekeepers making sure that the content you have is at the highest quality and now they're entering the space.

And then now you have AI coming in. We just talked about, man, how did he, I see why these influences, man, are looking at themselves and is this something I really want to do for another 10 years? 

Mr.Benja: Yeah, that's a good point. And this was, this burnout was happening even before the, the issues that you said, it's wow, they've been running all these videos and, tight schedules and they were all looking to be like that Mr.

Beast level. You only had a few, it's like Mr. Beast, PewDiePie like the top guns of the influencer space. And after that somebody like CoffeeZilla even. That's got to be taxing on him because he's not at that higher level, but he's well known, but him I'll even throw beyond the trailer up in there.

Like Grace will keep doing her thing, but that's a hard sell, man. You gotta work at that. And she lives in New York too with that rent. 

Theo Harvey: The rent too damn high. Yeah, she's out. She does it like every day. She has a live every day. She does reaction, but you can tell she's narrowed her focus.

This is mostly reaction videos and review spoiler reviews. And that's pretty much it. But, that's what, I think it's a labor of love for her because I went through her content. Mr. Benji, she's been around for like almost 17 years, when she was out in these streets, man, talking to folks.

I don't think she'd get in the streets anymore. 

Mr.Benja: Yeah. And when they put the hammer down on reactions and start really pulling in the reins tight on some of that copyright, cause they've been doing this. They've been doing it slowly but at some point they're just going to be like, all right, we've said fair use and everybody's just like using our stuff or whatever we're about to put the clamps on that 

Theo Harvey: and go.

Okay. I didn't see that coming, but yeah. So yeah influence the life. Mr Benja. Like I said, I enjoy it because as a businessman, I'm more into, the cheapness of distribution, right? You'd be able to distribute your channel and create your community.

And there's always opportunities for that. And so super excited about that. But Mr. Benji, what's funny. I've, I think I sent this to you. There's a lot of these influencers are looking for a way out. And they're trying to go back to old former television, the network sitcom. Can you believe that?

Mr.Benja: Oh, tell me how this, tell me how this finishes up. 

Theo Harvey: So have you watched Abbott Elementary at all? 

Mr.Benja: No, I only know the little short that Ooh, he got money. I only know that, but that was before 

Theo Harvey: the show. Yeah. Quinta Brunson. Quinta Brunson. She was a viral sensation on the internet, right? Way back in, and she was on was it BuzzFeed?

For years, doing those little silly skits with her and her crew. Funny stuff, right? And then she got into television, people liked what she was writing and doing. So I think the first thing she did was the Black Lady Sketch Show, and that's when they saw her, her chops when it came to television.

I gotta look that up. 

Mr.Benja: What's that? That just sounds funny. Black Lady Sketch Show. 

Theo Harvey: Wow. You never knew about that, Mr. Benja? Nope. Off my radar. Oh, wow. I'm surprised you never talked about that. It was a funny show, man. I knew it was going to last too long, but it was a moment in time where, dreams are possible and you can have a specific demographic comedy show, sketch show, called the Black Lady Sketch Show.

But anyway. Quinta showed up on that and then she got a chance to pitch her sitcom about elementary school teacher and this what's really happening. It's like a mockumentary style office style kind of comedy. Funny, but also heartwarming because it gives you a sense of what teachers are dealing with now.

I say all I have to say. Yeah, it's a good show and it's a network show. So it's and she won, I think she was the first one You know, comedy actors to win from, like network, basically old school, ABC, NBC, CBS, show for 10 years. It's always been like streaming or has been HBO or somebody like that's been winning.

So anyway, what she's doing now is she's starting to bring a lot of these viral sensations from the Internet onto network television, which is the old, it's yeah. By standards of what we watch on television. You're talking about 22 episodes in a season, 32 minutes, you got commercials, all that, man, it's not streaming is not one off.

It's not this as you bring all these viral folks into the show to get broader audiences. So it's Oh, yeah, it's Oh, here's an old, pickup truck. And let's get, the Kardashians in here. Let's get, the shiny, fancy people to see if we can, make this a little bit more energetic.

So we'll see what it's almost like to become a finishing school for these influencers 

Mr.Benja: has has your boy Jordan, the stallion been on there, Jordan Howlett. 

Theo Harvey: Not yet, but he's getting big time, too. We're going to talk a little bit about him. Yeah. 

Mr.Benja: So you know, I've seen this guy before I, he shows up in my feed a lot.

But he's always got the phone. He's so I was out at the mall and I don't know if you know this about malls. But let me talk to you for a second. Guess, come closer. That guy. Seems like an extremely simple premise where he just, it is, it's very formulaic but he does paint within the boundaries and does a lot of good creative stuff in there.

But yeah why is this guy good? I hadn't actually thought about it. I hadn't thought about it until you actually typed it out. I was like, yeah, why is he good? But he's got an appeal, man. What do you see in him? 

Theo Harvey: Cause you brought him up. Yeah. Yeah. Like you said, I put my reasons why, right?

Like you said, it's a very simple premise. Not a lot of bells and whistles, but within that he's very expert. He knows exactly what he's talking about. He has a funny style deliver deliverance. And he has a simple value equation every time he speaks to you. And the value is usually around sharing secret recipes that you can make at home.

And, but he tells a funny, endearing story to why, how he came about, figuring out this recipe or why he's delivering the recipe. I, he told one story about how someone was. Pissing them off at one. But I think it was Popeye's or somebody and they laughed at him. He said, Oh, it's not like you're the guy that shares these secret recipes and you show him in this bucket of chicken.

Is this? So it's just he just very well and how he delivers his content. That's entertaining, but also informative. And I think that's really the best, format to do you have. The style is his own style unique style booth in there. The formula is about. Entertainment and information is a good mix.

Mr.Benja: Yeah. It's funny. It it's, I'm going to parallel this to early sitcoms because there's a certain vibe of reality to it. Like we know this is a real guy talking. And like sitcoms obviously weren't real, but when we were talking about good times last week and even Seinfeld, it's these kinds of things that like, yes, we know this is set up, but it just has this veneer of being real, relatable.

It's not trying to fake you out and say, Hey, we're real when we're really fake, but it's just no, just understand we, we, this is coming from a quote unquote, real space and yeah, he actually does go out and get those recipes. He's always been into food. I watched a little documentary and him and his friends had something like the secret food club or something like that.

I forgot what it's called. 

Theo Harvey: And, he's very disciplined. You saw that story about how he tried to be a MLB baseball player starting at 16 and his story and his journey for that shows you that he'll put in the work in. And and I, as a creative, we talked about this before.

I think I asked you about this, I think, you probably your most creative, the more constraints you have. And so the more, I think he put himself in such a constraint of what he'll deliver that he became so good at delivering that. And that's what probably makes it stand out. And I think, when you talk about sitcoms, they have, they can only be on for 25 minutes or, because they have commercials and within that they have act break. So they know when they're going to have something that's interesting to make you want to come back. So now the writer is okay, I have to write toward a goal, even within that, I could do whatever I want, but it better be interesting, at this minute mark or, people gonna throw in the trash.

And then now you have other creatives looking at your eight minutes. To determine if that's great or not. And now you're battling to find out what's the best ideas. And that would make, in constraint comes creative mastery. Maybe I'll throw that out there. I like that. 

Mr.Benja: Damn it. That was, that quote was far better than anything I had.

I was like, let me say something provocative about creativity and you got me good one. No, there's a lot, there's a lot to be said for that. And then it's It's like they always say, you can't really break the rules until you really know them. That's one of the things I see with a lot of people out here when they're creating, they have all these tools and they're just creating random stuff, but then somebody finds a format that works and then it becomes a discussion between.

The creator and the audience where the audience is expecting certain things to happen on certain beats. They're expecting certain things to happen at certain times. They're expecting certain figures. Like we were talking about the story brand earlier, they're expecting a guide to show up.

They're expecting a challenge to show up. And this is the way we tell stories. We becomes a shorthand, a meme, a series of memes, basically ideas. And. Yeah. So you see whatever I was putting, coming up with doesn't touch this in constraint. There's creative mastery. So I'm just going to stop right there.

I'm not constraining myself 

Theo Harvey: here. I love it. 

Mr.Benja: Also Kai Sanat we didn't talk about this last week, but he made big news. He becomes Nike's first streamer signed. To the brand. So authentic athletic apparel has signed Kai Snott. One of the bigger streamers out there gets paid. Like I think at one point he was making 400, 000 a month from from Twitch and his other outlets.

Yeah. Nike signed him to wear tank tops and flip flops. Not being very athletic, but kid is fit. So it works out. 

Theo Harvey: Yeah. Like I said, I don't have too much on this one, but you've been following this guy's career for a while, but kudos to him, man. He was at the NBA All Star weekend.

He was actually in the dunk contest helping out one of the dunkers. So Kudo probably put it on Twitch while he was getting dunked on. Flus, flus gonna influence. I saw this one Hollywood Stone just did a profile of what's that one guy? You've seen him before. He's in all those commercials now.

He's got like blonde hair. He's like an influencer, a comedian, influencer. Dang, I can't remember his name right now. He'll come to me later. But yeah this is this is what we see happening. More and more influence is going to get bigger and bigger brand deals. Mr. Beast will probably be a billionaire by the next five years, maybe three.

That's why all the kids want to be influencers now, Mr. Benja, until, you know what I do feel like this influencer market is like almost, it's like anything, it's going to change because with AI, I don't know, being an influencer is going to be as much fun as it is now, because it's, I have a prediction that it's yeah, if you didn't get in, be an influencer, like a super big influencer now and build that community and that audience, it's, it might be a wrap to go down that route because AI might just take that over for us.

But that's just my two cents on it. 

Mr.Benja: Yeah. Yeah. Somewhere between AI and the big corporations like ByteDance trying to steal all your data and just making everything silly. Yeah, that happened by the way. Everybody found out that CapCut, the popular app that everybody was using, stealing all their data, just or not just but very similar to.

The other series of apps they have, including TikTok. So interesting stuff over there. But I don't know. That's all I got on influencers and things. You got more on that? 

Theo Harvey: Nah, man. I think fluencers are going fluence. That's what we're talking about. 

Mr.Benja: Basically. So yeah, you know what, dude?

I watched the boys, finally. I was telling you about this. The boys, Gen V. So I'd watched all of it, but I hadn't watched Gen V. I actually watched the cartoon leading up to Gen V, that that precursor to the actual show. And I'm watching Gen V. And in the first episode, they got this.

This scene, of the, of a male member out there, and you're like, Oh, okay, interesting. And I see the way they're presenting, male genitalia and the way they do sexuality or they show sex scenes in the show and it's, it was a different take and I'm like, okay, whatever.

Not too concerned. It's a style. Whatever. Get all the way up to Gen V. And there's a scene where this girl is running around in a tank top and I'm like, okay, sure, whatever. And then I'm like, wait a minute, there is no way there was no nip slip in that. That's impossible. The way her, she had this super baggy tank top kind of shirt on and she's just running around.

I'm like, no way in the world. And I'm thinking they just go all out on Gen V, right? They just show whatever, but I'm like, there's no way and I'm mad at you for calling me out on this one, but I was like, this is crazy. I gotta research this. 

Theo Harvey: Okay, Mr. Skin. I hear researching nip slips. I love it.

Mr.Benja: I went back. I went back through the scene like twice and I was like, Okay. Yeah, absolutely no nip slip. And then I caught one scene where like it should have been. I, it literally should have been, and I paused it right at the moment. Dude, it's like I saw the tape holding the shirt down so there wouldn't be a nip slip.

Now, to be fair, the actor in question may not have wanted to show anything. That's fine. Awesome. Go about your business. My thinking in the show is, it got me to think, wait a minute. Why is This whole idea of showing sex in a series so upside down, not upside down, like wrong, but it's showing much more male sexuality and much more, not nothing in terms of the female.

That's what I was like, why isn't there a nip slip? And then it made me think so there, this is extremely intentional. And I don't know if anybody's out there talking about this, But it seems like a lot of people are into it, just the idea of it. I don't know if they're actually into it, but yeah, it's it just jumped over the taboo of showing, male nudity.

So it, it went there a few times. Any thoughts on that? Cause it was just, 

Theo Harvey: I think there's a bigger conversation to be had, hate to bring this out here. The diplomatic voice comes in. I know there's a bigger conversation and it's just this woke. Agenda that we hear the right say about Hollywood and, how there may be over indexing on female skewing stories, under representation and stories and, and it's getting out of hand.

And as. Two woke bros, two woke negros, obviously, I skew a little left leaning. I'll just put it out there, but, even I can tell, sometimes this is a little too much. And I wonder if that's the cause of just fandom, changing a little bit.

Gen V is a perfect example. You called it out, Mr. Benjamin, when you said, Hey, this is because you're right. Very they show Mildred and tell it all the time. And typically when they show it, it's probably exploding in your face sometimes. And so that seems like a pilot choice. Yes, violently.

So it's like you see a dick is going to blow up. Sorry, they beep that out. But that's what happens. But if you see, but you're not going to see any, thing. And it does seem purposeful. And I want to, put that together with some of the things that, I think grace had hinted at grace from beyond the trailer that they had to, recent show movies that were female skewing movie, the plot, the storyline, the stars are all females.

It's a female, female standpoint point of view. But guess who went to go see those movies? Not females, not women. It was mostly men. Like for instance, the marbles, they said the box office demographic, 61 percent of the movie girls were male, only 39 percent were female and similar numbers for madam web, which are literally not only was it just one lead female, both movies, but there was multiple women, sub leads and characters, who were superheroes are doing something. And so it's so are we, is Hollywood pushing a woke agenda, Mr. Benja on our superhero fandom? 

Mr.Benja: We didn't get into it, but you could even say that it just seems like somebody's trying a lot of stuff let's see how it works if we totally flip flop it, not even try to ease it in, totally flip flop it, go hardcore in the other direction.

And you can even see this with a I the Gemini, right? The Google's Gemini used to be barred and they're in a little bit of a stink right now, because if you say, give me an image of a Pope, I saw it in. I saw a Native American Pope. I saw a black Pope. I saw a Chinese Pope, Asian Pope.

I don't actually no, there was definitely a Filipino Pope, but all of these ethnicities and if you ask it to show. A white character, it'll actually say, I'm sorry, I can't do that because we have to be sensitive about is really interesting stuff. Wow, interesting. Yeah. If you haven't seen those articles, it's like, how did this slip by?

How did you release this? Or. How did you think that this was going to go over and once again, my thought is no, you can't just like the nip slip. It's no, you can't just think that's happening. This is intentional. They're trying something and want to see how far they can get. I don't know what it means, but from somebody who used the word woke before it got hijacked by the popular left and was like, faithfully used by black people from do the right thing in school days, staying woke.

I got problems with this. I want to know what's going on. 

Theo Harvey: Oh man. No, that's fair assessment. Mr. Benja. I wish I could tell you, but it does seem like there is a concerted effort to Yeah. Agenda, to 

Mr.Benja: That word is always funny to me. I don't mean to throw 

Theo Harvey: that out there, and it goes to Laten over at the ringer network and, used to be a part of TMZ.

He said at one time, like maybe a couple of years ago, I heard him say on podcast, he said, look, sometimes. When things have been so out of balance, when we try to overcorrect, sometimes we overcorrect right to get it more imbalance. And so I do feel like there's somewhat of an overcorrection because I think it's so noticeable now is because you got to think a lot of these decisions that were intentional that we're seeing, like the nip slip, like the green lighting of the marbles and the green lighting of madam web were probably done in the midst of to say what's it the me too movement, right?

Or. George Floyd 2020. And so those decisions were made are baked in now. And so now that, culture has shifted because we're seeing like, wait a minute. All this stuff is here because we made those decisions in the height of controversy, right? When things were crappy. So of course we're going to see things.

And now I guarantee two years from now, when all the movies are back to, white cis males. Everybody's going to be mad because we're making decisions now based on the reactions to culture. Cause it's always too, because these movies, it's a pendulum. It's a pencil. Yeah. These movies take two years to, to come out and in the writing and all that.

There's been a big recent hubbub about only if you watch true detective is a TV show that came out on HBO, like 10 years ago with Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrison. Big success, about, cis white males, doing detective work, being hardcore. So they, had all these different iterations of it.

And then recently they had a version of it where it was two women. One was bi and a native American indigenous person. And, one was an older white lady and they were the leads. Of the detective show, the creator of the, so he's no longer part of the project. The creator of the original true detective went off.

He went ham on the creator who is also a woman of color. Who create, the show runner and everything. And he went off on her and it was like, what is going on? Because, there's a sense that they co opted his storytelling, even though he's getting paid. Not because he's still executive producer on the concept of true detective.

His name is Nick. Dang. I can't remember his last name, but he created it. The current showrunners. E E. Well, you know what? Shoot I need to get these names right 'cause I wanna get it right. 'cause I don't want people coming after me. But I would say this, that it better not be Nick Fuentes.

No. Don't say that. Nick Palazzo. So he, yeah. And then Issa Lopez is the current show runner and she's a woman of color. And then Nick Palazzo is a creator of, the true detective brand. He just went off and just said, the storytell was a great and And then now there's this sense of this white cis male against, women creators and in his play box.

It's almost like we talk about one of the things I thought about too, was like we talked about this too, the colorization of, or, making Batman black, or, Superman black. And what does that look like? And do we need to do that to get representation? 

Mr.Benja: Yeah.

My short answer to that is no, it's not because. It's a whole hand me down. I don't want your hand me downs and second place trophy. And here we come with Captain American Falcon Black. 

Theo Harvey: It's but all the while the black superheroes gotta have electricity powers, 

Mr.Benja: even that little kid in Logan.

Do you remember that? Yes. I rewatched Logan and I saw the little kid, little black kid lit up with lightning. I'm like, 

Theo Harvey: I could count on one hand as a spawn. And then what's that dude that sits on a mountain. He's Aborigine though, but he sits on a mountain and he teleports everybody. Oh, and Bishop.

Oh, he just in charge of stuff. Those are the only cool ones. 

Mr.Benja: Yeah. Storm is electricity. And no one's talking about milestone comments, which we need to get. All right, man. I'm, you got me riled up now. 

Theo Harvey: Everyone. Nah, this has been great. Mr. Benji. I know we always have a good time talking about. All this wonderful stuff.

So everyone, please subscribe and comment at show versus business on X YouTube and Instagram. This is at Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Go check us out. Also on our website, show versus business. We have all the latest, greatest and information. Mr. Benja have a good one. Peace, my man.

Stay woke.