3. The Intersection of Art, Vanity, and Commerce

Are you navigating the crossroads of art and commerce? Today's episode promises a compelling exploration of this fascinating landscape. We're peeling back the layers of VidSummit, an annual content creator YouTube conference, and taking a critical look at the allure of vanity metrics in the creative process. Is it possible to make content that genuinely resonates, or are we just chasing views and subscribers?

We're also looking at the societal pressures we all face. We're discussing how self-awareness can be our compass, helping us to steer clear of these external pressures. And, because we're all human, we'll discuss the potential for failure, even when we're putting everything we have into our work.

As we wind down our conversations, we're delving into the delicate balance of art and commerce. We'll examine the psychology of fame and how it can impact artists. We'll discover the power of long-form conversations and how they can unearth new ideas. And, importantly, we'll explore the challenges of maintaining core values, holding ourselves accountable, and making successful commitments. - Ai

If you enjoyed this episode, please consider liking, commenting and subscribing. Thanks for listening/watching, and we'll see you in the next episode.

Show Notes:
VidSummit - https://www.vidsummit.com
Killing Them Softly - https://bit.ly/3PLldxZ
The Wolf of Wall Street - https://bit.ly/3PwyuJs
Patagonia - https://www.patagonia.com
The Founder -

If you enjoyed this episode, please consider giving us a rating and/or a review. We read and appreciate all of them. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you in the next episode.

Links To Everything:

Video Version of The Podcast: https://geni.us/StudioSessionsYT

Matt’s YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/MatthewOBrienYT

Matt’s 2nd Channel: https://geni.us/PhotoVideosYT

Alex’s YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/AlexCarterYT

Matt’s Instagram: https://geni.us/MatthewIG

Alex’s Instagram: https://geni.us/AlexIG

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

And it's been a golden afternoon and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer and summer.

Speaker 2: 0:13

You talked about going to that convention. Yeah, vid Summit. Maybe tell them about Vid Summit, just so there's a context, because, yeah, I think that's probably a good starting point if we're talking commerce and art and commerce, or creativity and commerce.

Speaker 3: 0:33

So I went to Vid Summit last year in Los Angeles and Vid Summit is a big content creator YouTube centric event where sort of being on YouTube is the center of everything, even though there may be people there who are on Instagram or TikTok and either wanting to learn more about YouTube or whatever, but the bulk of the presenters the people that were actually having little ballroom classes or big speeches in front of everybody were all YouTubers, and I didn't really do any research on what the messaging was from Vid Summit. Like what were these speakers going to talk about? What was going to be sort of the foundation of what your approach could or should be to content creation, especially on YouTube, and my big takeaway from the whole event was on more of the cringe side of things, because it felt like it's again this playbook of literally like one of the presentations was these seven steps that you can do to increase your audience on YouTube. Essentially, and one of them that really made me have very yucky feelings was figure out a charity that you can involve in your channel, that you can give to or do a fundraiser for or create a piece of content around getting funding to that charity and that will bring more viewers into the fold. And the whole thing felt like it's all about these vanity metrics like how many subscribers you have, how many views you get, breaking all these records, and for me it's just for me personally it's just this sort of low hanging fruit that people gravitate toward because of gamification. It's easy to understand a one out of 10 video versus a 10 out of 10 video and million subscribers, a silver play button, gold play button, all that stuff. And so I just went away from it, just a little disappointed, and something that I've become more interested in as a creator is sort of shedding any feelings about this video was a one out of 10 or a four out of 10, or I didn't get this many views. That stuff still has an impact sometimes on me emotionally, but for the most part I just go.

Speaker 3: 3:07

Am I proud of this video? Did I make it for the right reasons? Just because my content on my YouTube channel, my main YouTube channel, is tutorial content. It's essentially educational content. Or hey, do you know about this 16 millimeter camera and what you can do with it in comparison to a digital camera? So it's not like it's art in its truest form where you know, like my again, my brother. I bring up my brother all the time. He showed me his video. Oh man, my brother is like the definition of to me the other side of the Mr Beast and the YouTube gamification spectrum. He is someone who just this stuff pours out of him into a video and I watched it and it was like 20 minutes long and I'm like I don't know what I just watched, but I couldn't stop watching it and I want to watch yeah, exactly, and I, you know I find myself wanting to gravitate.

Speaker 3: 4:08

I want people that are pursuing art and creativity through YouTube, who have a perspective on something, whether it's their photography, their painting, whatever. I don't want them to get caught up in everything that you see on Twitter and on articles in your Apple news feed and all these things that just talk about how to hack YouTube and how to get subscribers and how to do this and how to increase your revenue and to really just go crazy about the commerce side of it, how to figure out, like you know, I think about like a fine restaurant, right, like a Michelin star restaurant. You go there. This person worked their whole life. They make this incredibly artistic, creative, well-crafted meal versus, you know, a double cheeseburger from McDonald's, which you could argue is tastes, tastes doesn't taste as good, but it does similar things to your brain when you eat it. Because they had scientists figure out how to engineer these things with chemicals to make them make your brain respond, because they tested it on lab rats and all this stuff.

Speaker 2: 5:13

At the same time it's decaying your.

Speaker 3: 5:16

So I don't want people that really have something to say or a perspective to offer to be thinking well, how do I hire my own scientists, you know, to figure out what elements of my video are going to make people respond in very primitive ways and get addicted to it? And I just worry that we're seeing a platform that could have incredible artistic expression get overshadowed by all these thread boys on Twitter and the gamification and the vanity metrics and all that stuff. And I want more people like my brother who, like I, don't give a shit if this gets a million views. I see something in my mind. I made it and I'm going to put it out there. And do I want community? Do I want a response? Do I want to make more of it? Do I want people to enjoy it? Of course, but if it's not the number one video of all time on YouTube, like I'm not going to consider myself a failure, I think it's interesting.

Speaker 2: 6:15

I mean, this is, first of all, this is what America does to everything right. When we get our hands on it's just the incentive system that we have set up is going to push us to make it more efficient. Let's make it. How do we metrics and how do we take all of the human aspects?

Speaker 3: 6:34

out of it Jersey, killing them softly with Brad Pitt.

Speaker 2: 6:38

I think I've watched the. Is that James Gandolfini?

Speaker 3: 6:41

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 6:42

It's about the 2008, right, the financial crisis and it's impact on some hit men, but not in a jokey way.

Speaker 3: 6:51

Anyway, one of the last scenes is Brad Pitt trying to get the full payment he's owed for the hit that he did. And they're having a conversation Obama's on the TV, whatever and Richard Jenkins says something to him and he says something to the effect of America is in a place, it's a business, yeah absolutely no, I mean my.

Speaker 2: 7:13

I mean my. I got hit with that realization. I was a finance major in college and, partly because it was just like, it came pretty naturally to me and I understood it and I was like this is going to be useful no matter what. But it wasn't necessarily. I was interested in photography and film and didn't want to corrupt it.

Speaker 1: 7:35

Right, it was my innocent childlike.

Speaker 3: 7:39

Which I love about you, that we had these conversations about art and commerce.

Speaker 1: 7:43

And I can say that. And then when you told me you were, a finance major.

Speaker 3: 7:46

I was like fascinating.

Speaker 2: 7:48

Well, somebody said Audrey was talking to somebody the other week and they were like they had no idea you were a finance. I'm like, yeah, but I wanted to do the Wall Street thing Because I just thought it was interesting. I just thought it was like, wow, that's fascinating.

Speaker 3: 8:03

Do you think your fascination with it was the result of the art you consumed? Not like? You watch the Wolf of Wall Street and you're like, I want to be that guy. Well, it's funny, that's actually what I'm getting to.

Speaker 2: 8:13

But I mean, I was just fascinated with the mechanism of it, you know, and I was fascinated with the mechanism of American capitalism. And we just always have to do more and more, and more. Then I saw the Wolf of Wall Street and this is probably why Squash Izzy. So I mean that was I probably seen Goodfellas or something? And then I saw that when I was like I mean this is college age, so what 18?

Speaker 3: 8:39

Probably 18, 19 years old.

Speaker 2: 8:44

And that film really just changed my entire perspective of it was like this is and you're doing that, and then I'm reading, I'm learning about the financial crisis. I'm reading all of this stuff and it physically made me ill and I think that's my biggest problem is that I have this. I'll make a moral judgment on something I think I'd be a lot better off financially and just in terms of, like you know, I'd probably be more quote-unquote successful if I didn't have that but and I'm not trying to say that I this sounds awful, I'm just hearing myself say these words and like this sounds terrible.

Speaker 2: 9:31

I'm not trying to talk about, I'm just making the observation. But I saw the Wolf of Wall Street and I was like, wow, that's Film can do that. Yeah, you know, and I got, I knew before and like I was at a distance, but I was like that's really powerful, it's just completely shifted. I know, wolf of Wall Street it's not like I think it's a great film. Yeah, I love it, it really is. But you know, I just that, paired with everything that I was consuming, I mean I finished the degree, obviously, and I've still interested and it was came easy to me still and I Enjoy it and I think it's a good thing to know, like you have to know how a system works, if you can operate. Yeah, and I think you know it's absolutely beneficial. But, um, no, I mean, seeing that, it's like, oh man, it's just disgusting how everything is. You just take it more and more and more until it destroys you.

Speaker 2: 10:17

Yeah and I think that's what's happened with you. That's what's happened with anything good. I mean. You know you a lot of music and you have art that gets, whenever commerce comes in, at a high enough level. I think it destroys things. And you know, my take to YouTube has always been more of a Like I. My dream is to create things that are like a, like a Patagonia, like you're operating within the right, this system, the financial incentive system. You're operating within this. You know capitalist structure of that you have going on, but then you're, you have your own thing. That you know it's. It's helping a lot of people, it's serving a lot of people. You're not too big, you're comfortable. Everybody, nobody's complaining. You're taking care of everybody. You're doing you know what I think is probably more good than harm and I'm like, wow, that's the best way. I think. And you know you can't do that at a massive scale. No, you can only do that to a certain point and I love artists. That you know.

Speaker 2: 11:25

I think that's the secret to longevity with any artist is, and some of them get to like a super high point and then they even out. But you know, it's just you don't try to constantly seek yeah, more and more and more. You just find that doesn't mean you're not, you're not trying to be original, you're not pushing yourself and challenging everything and constantly evolving. That's not what that means. But you're not, you know, picking out a predetermined system of incentives and trying to exploit that right, which is I Think that's what you get at like the highest level of YouTube or whatever I'm interested to. So you talked about vid summit and you, you told me that story. I was just like Sounds about right, unfortunately, yeah, and. But I didn't know. I was very super curious. I was like, oh, I wonder what this is. And it was one of those situations where I was like, well, matt's, you know he's taking the time to go there, it's, there's definitely probably something that's worth, you know and the thing that was worth it for me was going.

Speaker 3: 12:29

Ick, yeah, I, I don't want to succumb to that approach, to like the Ray Kroc approach to building a restaurant that dominates the world and Going. How can I take these two men and this is just based on you know what I've understood from? Yeah, a movie and articles and stuff, but how?

Speaker 1: 12:52

do I take what these two men created about him.

Speaker 3: 12:55

Yeah, and the movie, of course, which you know again take yeah, that's not there's the truth, and then there's whatever you see in a movie.

Speaker 3: 13:01

But but the gist of it, being someone who saw an opportunity to take this mission-based approach to creating a hamburger restaurant, yeah, and you know, assembly, line a fire into something that can take over the world. And then, even beyond that, you know the revelation that well, let's not be a restaurant business, let's be a real estate business, and we'll buy the land and then the franchise system, like everything that was done to just like, like, like, hack the system to make as much money as possible.

Speaker 3: 13:34

So, dominate the world like that's. That's not something I'm interested in with my approach to the work.

Speaker 2: 13:41

Do you think I'm interested? There's so many things like bouncing around. Yeah, that just came away. But, but like you said though, patagonia like these brands, yeah, and I mean chill there there are people that are like like is Is gone to the the side of the commercial, like there are people that say that just with the quality standards and Licensing out stuff you know brand their brand name and things like that. But do you think there's a point like so we talked about Apple, yeah, and you know Apple.

Speaker 2: 14:18

Eventually it there's tons of people that would argue that they're already, they've already kind of sold out or whatever, I think there's also people that argue that they they have stuck pretty close, but they already sold out in the 80s. You know, in the 1980s they, and then Steve, they came back and said hey, this is what this is why we did this in the first place.

Speaker 2: 14:38

Do you think that those are two things that can coexist, or do you, like you know is, is Patagonia like, as big as it is, it gets where? I mean, and I'm sure there's people out there that have a negative Take on Patagonia I don't know, I haven't talked to them recently, but I'm sure there's some people out there.

Speaker 2: 14:59

I'm sure there's good and bad with everything, but in terms of a company operating within a system and doing something really well and Having a very strict set of values that they seem to hold to right over anything else, especially profit, do you think there's a level where you outgrow more responsibility? Do you think it's it just money corrupts, absolute power corrupts, absolutely like. What do you think Like if you got to 500,000 subscribers Because you made three videos where you're? You know I teach almost people how to edit.

Speaker 3: 15:37

Yeah, yes, exactly you know what?

Speaker 2: 15:40

I just want to explore that a little bit. There's no direct question there, but I think you kind of have a.

Speaker 3: 15:44

I Saw some yeah, I, I mean, I just think, I think you know whether it's a company organization In an individual. You know these are the forces that are constantly at play in our lives and you know you're trying to. You know at least I am try to deploy self-awareness because you are going to have the, the culture of the world around you, america as a business, and the things that we see on social media and print magazines, all the stuff that we are being sold, sold the American dream. Go buy a house. All this stuff, like like you're just being assaulted with with, with Companies and people in positions of power. You know that. You know you drink more milk. You know America needs to support the dairy farmers, so let's make a big ad campaign Got milk to get people to buy more milk. And you know those influences. So, trying to deploy self-awareness and go.

Speaker 3: 16:40

You know what forces are pulling me in one direction or another. And what's the truth behind that? Am I succumbing to pressure to be successful and have my retirement all situated to have, you know, a Ford Machi and Mike in my, in my driveway next to you know, a Honda Accord, like because that indicates Amongst my peers that I'm doing well? Yeah, and if that isn't, if I feel like that pressure to to obtain that Is there, am I going to then make my content more of the McDonald's method method to try to achieve those goals by Making every video a one out of ten, figuring out what Audiences are responding to with my content, like we've talked about, I could do something on my channel. That's like you know.

Speaker 3: 17:42

You know, a veteran editor tries to edit a YouTube video in In a snowstorm you know and like the thumbnail is me sitting at a makeshift desk out in a field that's covered in snow, like I edit for yeah three days straight. Yeah, I'm gonna live stream, I'm gonna live, live edit on my live stream until I hit 50,000 subscribers, and if it takes me 47 days to do that, then so be it.

Speaker 1: 18:10

Yeah, like you know, you know what I mean.

Speaker 3: 18:14

So like, if you can, if you can ask yourself how are the forces in the world and our culture impressing upon you and then making you consider certain ways of expressing yourself or Commerce affying your?

Speaker 3: 18:32

art or whatever, you have to have that conversation with yourself. What? What is making me do this? I made one video on my channel that was essentially a copy of another Final Cut Pro youtubers video, where he looked at a YouTube video from a big creator where he was working in Final Cut Pro and was missing a lot of key things. Yeah and so he made a video that was essentially like this person's editing wrong. Here are some tips to help that person out. That video took off, so I went.

Speaker 1: 19:02

Well, I can do I gotta do that as well.

Speaker 3: 19:04

So Marquez Brownlee had a video where he showed his screen in Final Cut and there were some things he was doing that was quote-unquote wrong, you know it maybe not doing things as designed in Final Cut, and so I made a similar video and of course that video took off. But then I felt what?

Speaker 2: 19:20

are your thoughts on it now?

Speaker 3: 19:21

Yeah, about what I did, because I just like saw the playbook of what another content creator had done that I thought was a really good idea and I essentially copied that and did my version of it because I felt like I Wanted those kinds of views too, or I wanted to one out of ten video. So I think you know, for me I it vacillates back and forth, like I sometimes succumb to the pressures of vanity metrics or or wanting my in-laws to see me as successful, because, because I they sum up what I do like, okay, there's a 44 year old guy who makes videos in his basement like how are you actually supporting your family and you know from the finance side, doing the things that you're supposed to do To have retirement and savings in college for your kids and all this stuff?

Speaker 2: 20:17

So you always have those forces at play and I think there's always, no matter how, you know Sentimental, we want to. You know, look at it, there's always two options. And I think you nailed it when you said employ the self-awareness and ask yourself why are you doing it? And honestly ask yourself, why are you doing it? Because sometimes the answer to the why is I wanna be famous. I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to be famous. Do I agree with it? Maybe not, maybe Do I think that there's anything? It's just like any desire. It's like wanting to create whatever, wanting to have a child, wanting to have a family, it's just another thing. But if you wanna be famous and you're saying I want to be a great photographer, that's not the same thing. If you're saying I wanna be famous or I wanna be a great musician, that's not the same thing.

Speaker 3: 21:29

And so or I wanna be rich.

Speaker 2: 21:31

I wanna be rich that's a big one in, especially in.

Speaker 3: 21:35

America Rich and famous.

Speaker 2: 21:37

Rich and famous. Right it's the American. I think that's the American yeah, that's the real corrupted American dream is fame and celebrity and wealth.

Speaker 2: 21:50

But you have to look at that and you have to honestly ask yourself is this what I want? And then, if it is, look at the upside, look at the downside and really determine, because a lot of people say I wanna be rich and famous and then they chase it and they either get it and realize they don't want it because they never considered the downside, or they don't get it and they throw away all of this time that they could have been focusing on something else because they were seeking this thing that they didn't actually want in the first place, and then they never get it anyways. I don't know why. The Jim Carrey quote just popped in my head, right, whereas dad, what did his dad do? His dad, this isn't exactly, but it popped into my head where his dad failed, that he was an accountant and he got fired. He's like my dad compromised being an accountant and got fired from that. So you can fail at anything, you can succeed at anything, but make sure at least you're striving for something that you do want, right.

Speaker 3: 22:48

That way, you know, but you also just have to embrace the reality. I think and this is my own personal experience that you're going to shift between altruism and selfishness and you're gonna touch on all those in an ever flowing kind of storm of things that are pulling you in certain directions Consent evolution influences.

Speaker 3: 23:14

And we've talked about this with your channel. You know that you could succumb to YouTube Studio or you could succumb to making a video that is simply to get you over the threshold to become monetized on YouTube, versus I have something to say or this is something I'm really passionate about or interested in or whatever, and I don't know it's gonna get any views or get any watch hours or whatever, but I know I have to make this video.

Speaker 2: 23:46

And I feel like if you violate that trust once and this is just my opinion, but I feel like if you violate that trust once and this is not a trust between me and an audience, this is, in my case is a trust between me and myself and once I give myself permission to violate that, I'm gonna continue to violate it. I can't trust myself.

Speaker 3: 24:10

It becomes easier each time, as you go down, that start sliding down the slippery slope of fame, rich success, american success or what we perceive as success.

Speaker 2: 24:22

What is? We talked about journalism a little bit earlier, and that's the biggest problem that a lot of these legacy journalism or legacy media or whatever the biggest problem they're facing is. They violated that trust one time, and they violated it a second time, and two times is plenty. Once you do it. More than that, though, how can you ever ask to be taken seriously again, especially when now, there's all these independent alternatives popping up with YouTube, and so you have to really consider. I don't know.

Speaker 2: 24:57

I almost do recommend just taking the time. I know people say, just start, just go, and I think that's well. I do think that's good advice. I think, at the same time, good advice might be and I wanna hear your thoughts on this to get a second opinion but I think good advice might be spend some time. It's the Dilling quote. I'll know my song well before I start singing. Make sure that you're at least you don't have to pick a thing and then keep doing it and just go towards that thing, but at least make sure that the direction you're going is is somewhat, and maybe you have a complete direction shift. Maybe that happens, but I don't know. I feel like you should at least try to align yourself in the right path.

Speaker 3: 25:46

Yeah, you know, and.

Speaker 2: 25:51

This has got a little deeper. There's a perfect bridge to our next topic too. I'm just holding it so.

Speaker 3: 26:00

Yeah, I think you know it. Just, you know something I'm just always fascinated with when it comes to other people who are creative. People who are creative or artists, but then some of them who really embrace the commerce side in a Patagonia like that kind of North Star brand that feels like it is finding a balance between its mission and convictions, as well as trying to run a profitable business that provides valuable products and employees, people and helps, you know in ways whether it's working with charities or whatever but again, doing those things not you know, coming to those decisions because it feels like the natural next step, not it's the playbook that gets your company to the next level.

Speaker 3: 26:50

It's like a shining star and they're just doing their own thing. Yeah, like it comes from a more truthful place, that, even though they may understand if we do this charitable thing as, let's say, patagonia, we know that it's gonna get us some vanity metrics as a result. Like people are gonna have a stronger emotional connection to us, maybe more people follow us on social media, whatever it is. But ultimately, at the end of the day, we're doing this not because of that, those results. We're doing it because it feels like the right thing to do. And you know, just to kind of bring everything back to the whole vid summit thing, like I just I stepped away from that.

Speaker 3: 27:29

No judgment of the content creators and all that. I don't sit there and think about, you know, ryan Trayhan or Mr Beast, jimmy Donaldson and go. Personally, I don't think like you are. You know you might as well be Lex Luthor with what you're doing, because you know what you're doing is gonna cost us a lot more than it's gonna benefit us. But I just, you know, I just wonder for those individuals, what is it deep inside of them that makes them so obsessed with having, you know, the number one video views wise in a 24-hour period, or like trying to understand these different tactics that will yield more followers.

Speaker 3: 28:20

Like Jimmy Donaldson was talking in an interview with Colin and Samir about getting a show on Netflix and one of the things he said was not necessarily why he's doing it, but he sort of just casually threw out there. There are a lot of people on Netflix that don't watch YouTube, so if they see me on Netflix, maybe they'll come over to YouTube and start consuming my content there because they like my show on Netflix and I just sit there and I go. Is your is the foundation of your motivation to partner with streaming service to get more subscribers onto your channel from places you know where maybe the demographic isn't in touch with YouTube. Like are you gonna start touring retirement communities and buying them Apple TVs and Roku so that they can understand? And like teaching them what YouTube is and how to use it? And then they'll find your videos about a one dollar yacht versus a hundred million dollar yacht and find entertainment.

Speaker 3: 29:17

Like, well, I don't want to sit here and assume that Jimmy's soul motivation is world domination and being the greatest YouTuber of all time or the most subscribers and the most views or whatever. But if I was like telling his story or doing the Wolf of Wall Street on Jimmy Donaldson, like what? What is the obsession with that? What was Ray Kropp's Kropp's obsession with having this hamburger restaurant literally have a franchise location on every continent? Maybe, maybe he was realistic and not expecting there to be a McDonald's on Antarctica, but I'm sure the thought crossed his mind.

Speaker 2: 29:54

Well, and you know, mcdonald's works with charities, but they're not a charity.

Speaker 3: 29:59

Well, they got the Ronald McDonald charity which I didn't know was separate from. Mcdonald's and it may have had to have been spun off. Who knows what you know, but then I sit there and go. Was it spun off because of some of it? You know.

Speaker 2: 30:12

McDonald's does a lot of good and it's like where do you balance that? But you know McDonald's does a lot of bad too, and if you net that out, what does that look like? And the same with with the videos. And again, I don't. We talked before. My concern is I don't want to turn this into like just oh, complaining about this or that, but I think you know you want to why are you continuing to do what you're doing?

Speaker 2: 30:41

And then my personal opinion, and I've heard this, I've had people tell me this and it's a lesson that I've had to learn and I don't even know if I've quite learned it yet, but generally, whenever you're, you know that voice inside of your head, that's you know, that's yourself, that's your ego talking. And I don't want to get into some, you know big ego, but I do think that a lot of really great work comes from a place where you've stepped out of that, that self, that ego, and you've kind of worked, or you've worked to understand something or see something through somebody else's eyes or or just see something as like a singularity. You've kind of escaped that very fixed perspective. We talk about that as photography. You know, the camera is its own perspective Right, and I just when I get to these, I just got to be the biggest, greatest and I hate this stupid like goat. Greatest of all time thing that has become so popular plus five, five years.

Speaker 2: 31:48

I hate it. It gets such a terrible because, first of all, that's a linear thing there's only one person that can be at the top and there's. We've just turned into such a such. I mean you said it was such a binary culture.

Speaker 1: 32:00

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 32:01

Everything has to just be the greatest of all time, the best ever, and it's got to be the biggest, the largest, the most Academy Awards, the most Super Bowl and all that, and I think I don't think any of that.

Speaker 2: 32:14

I mean, you know there's people out there that want to fill, and there's always going to be people that fill those, but I don't think that's a very rewarding like well, you know you can get reward out of it, but I just, I don't know, I think some of the most meaning like do you think, I don't know? Like look at these historical. You think Martin Luther King's walking around like I'm gonna be the greatest activist of all time?

Speaker 3: 32:36

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 32:36

Or do you think, like I mean, like you know, but, but Jesus Christ is like I'm gonna be the greatest.

Speaker 1: 32:45

Messiah of all time.

Speaker 2: 32:46

Like you know, you have these, these great figures throughout history. You know that have really contributed and I don't think that's even a question for them. But then, yeah, you have, like Michael Jordan, who's gonna be the greatest one, but then you know, I don't know.

Speaker 3: 33:04

Well, and then that's the thing you know, gamification, you know, like the easiest thing to look at is, you know, football, basketball, all these records.

Speaker 1: 33:10

World.

Speaker 3: 33:10

Championships rings. You know like how much. How much of that was part of Michael Jordan's. You know our expression the masterpieces he created on the court and you know his competitive nature. I mean, if you've watched the documentary on Netflix, which is great he was just as competitive playing a quarter game with the securities guys as he was on the court, and you know, you know was it was.

Speaker 3: 33:39

It was just winning a game enough, or was it? You know like, I just think it. What's interesting, is it just? It opens up a conversation about greater human psychology and things that motivate us and, like you said, ego. Like you know someone with a dominant, prominent ego. What is motivating them and how does how does that sort of, how does that counter someone who, if it even exists, someone who is doing something more out of it? You know, a true artistic expression that it's not about the self it's not about.

Speaker 3: 34:26

You know that they can just go out with a paintbrush or a hunk of clay. Or you know, like if somebody develops a following and they start something like Martin Luther King like has convictions and a mission and he's pursuing justice and peace and equality, but then fame starts to enter in and other things like what do those forces do to taint or corrupt or affect those convictions?

Speaker 2: 35:01

I love some of the stories where you have people who you would probably identify as artistic types that become somehow they catch those like guys. They become massively influential or famous.

Speaker 3: 35:17

You hear that expression like it's bigger than me now.

Speaker 2: 35:20

This thing is bigger than me. I mean, I think of I don't know who in recent, like Kendrick Lamar. Everybody knows Kendrick Lamar. Yeah, like my mom knows who Kendrick Lamar is. You know, my grandma probably knows who Kendrick Lamar is. You know maybe that they don't know the music, but they know of him.

Speaker 1: 35:43

They know.

Speaker 2: 35:43

He's a character I'm sure the same with you know and these you know, kendrick Lamar is this massive name and I think all he really cares about is making music and he doesn't make public appearances very often. He doesn't do interviews ever. He puts out an album every three years and he never puts it out until it's like right, you know he's picked every detail over it, whatever he doesn't get on social media. I think even during the last thing he's like yeah, I got rid of my phone, like I don't have a cell phone, I have a landline.

Speaker 2: 36:16

And I wonder how much Like Bill Murray, like you hear about Bill Murray, when he was at the height right Just comment exploding through space, and he's just like, yeah, you have to call my agent, who then?

Speaker 3: 36:28

is the sole person to have my landline, and how much of that is not wanting, like we talked about earlier, those pressures to affect the motivation or what oh man, you've just lifted up a rug that so, like Banksy, right, he's.

Speaker 3: 36:47

you know, she, who knows, is an anonymous artist that creates these things spontaneously and there's huge gaps between when one of his or her paintings show up and is part of that. I don't want fame and these things that get attached to my personal identity to impact how I create my artistic expression, and that to me, is you know, again, I don't know what like the right way to do it. But you could argue that there's like the Banksy playbook, if you wanna be an artist that appears to do this altruistically and for the purity of the art, and blah blah, but your stuff becomes famous.

Speaker 3: 37:30

And if people could like cut the wall out of the side of the building and sell it.

Speaker 2: 37:34

They would when it's like I think your shtick is pretending you don't have a shtick, yeah.

Speaker 3: 37:39

He's, you know, banksy's even making art on things that people can't possess. Like sure, the person who owns the building now has a Banksy, but in a sense. But you know, like even when you put something on canvas like, is that, like you know, sure it's your medium, but is that like putting it on YouTube Like it was? It's meant to sell it? Yeah.

Speaker 2: 38:00

I think that's so interesting. And you talked about the. You know the persona getting bigger than the artist.

Speaker 3: 38:06

Yeah, this is this thing's bigger than me now, and now that pressure is making me.

Speaker 2: 38:11

This literally I'm wearing the 100, and this was completely. This was not planned out but, it's perfect.

Speaker 2: 38:16

I've been, you know, I've always been a pretty big Hunter Thompson fan and I've been revisiting a lot of his stuff. And I mean, hunter Thompson is just caricaturized in that, like Raul do crazy, doing all the drugs, and towards the end of his life I think he even felt a need to embody that. Yeah, like that was. This is the thing I am. I have to embody this, this character that was created, but like, like he wasn't. He didn't write Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas while he was drugged out of his mind, he just did like you read it and you're like this is absolutely brilliant. You know this, this wasn't written by a guy who's just tweaking out of their mind. Like, and you, you can read his. He was extremely thoughtful person and he, you know Gonzo journalism, he talks about covering the Carter campaign for Rolling Stone and he's like I was getting I was signing more autographs than Jimmy Carter because he was that and he just, he talks about all the time.

Speaker 2: 39:20

Just at a certain point, the persona that the work had created around me became more than like, it started to interfere with me covering the event and it's this idea right of you know you fear photographer, and you you're like oh, I love photography, but I want to be a famous photographer. You become a famous photographer. Well, famous people can't just go, exist in the street and be inconspicuous and disappear, and isn't that kind of the point of photography. So you have these two things that you want and they compete against each other. And Thompson, you know he just wanted to write and he wanted, but then I'm sure he was fascinated by the intricacies of being famous or being like this, created this intense Raul Duke personality and had to embody that. You know, his drug routine is passed around and like there's no way a human could do that that many drugs, they would die. But that was the persona that he created and, yeah, it started to interfere where he's like how is my presence at these events changing the event?

Speaker 3: 40:30

The event yeah.

Speaker 2: 40:31

And you know you get that with music, like how is my presence changing my observation? Or how is my? You have somebody like Jay-Z, who their entire their career started by bringing this experience of living in the streets and growing up as, like I'm a hustler and like I'm you know, he was a drug dealer. And then he brings that in and he shares that perspective and it's like then he's rich and now he's been rich at the highest level of success longer than he was in that life. So what does that change the work? And you know you have the same thing with. I mean, I think the photography example is interesting. At a certain point oh my gosh, this person's walking around taking photos right now. It's like so do you really want to be a celebrity or do you want to be a photographer? Because if you achieve both of those things at a high level, they start to yeah.

Speaker 3: 41:31

And again, what does that celebrity or fame or fortune, how does it corrupt your, you know, if it's even possible, your pure and truthful and honest reason for doing the work? So, here's something that brings a full circle to your channel. One thing popped into my head this isn't for your channel.

Speaker 2: 41:53

Hey, they were talking about my channel.

Speaker 3: 41:54

Yeah, sorry, yeah, that's what I was just going to do, but you know you brought 100 Thompson, like this thing got bigger than me. Ketchum the Rye with JD Salinger. I don't know why he isolated himself, but I would think the explosion of that book and everybody thinking maybe he has the answers to all the questions they have, you know. And then him, you know, isolating himself, still writing but not sharing his work.

Speaker 2: 42:16

You're a prophet, right. The same thing with Dylan is. You're a prophet now, so tell us how to feel, tell us what we need to.

Speaker 3: 42:22

So, speaking of prophets and again coming back to your channel, what movie and part of why it's probably as successful as it is gives us a character who rejects all that, who doesn't succumb, who is pure in everything that he does?

Speaker 2: 42:39

Yeah, yeah, yeah who. I mean you're gonna have to.

Speaker 1: 42:44

I'm not.

Speaker 2: 42:45

I'm not plugging that video on here.

Speaker 3: 42:48

Okay, so, and it's just dawned on me as we talked about this, but Forest Gump. Yeah, the scene where he's running, you know, across the desert they do the montage. You know we back forth, back and forth this beard grows long. All of us. He's has all these people following him. They don't know why.

Speaker 2: 43:05

I got a better one, for, I mean, I think the key philosophy that I outlined in that video was stoicism. So, you know, go watch Forest Gump don't watch my video on it if you wanna learn about stoicism like I mean, read, you know, marcus Aurelius or you know. Just learn about, you know, observing, letting events happen to you. I heard something where it's like think of life as an ocean and you're just on a raft and sometimes the waves are big, sometimes they're calm. I think that's the best way to approach things.

Speaker 3: 43:37

For the most part, I think we're drawn it's not one opinion, though. We're drawn to the story of Forest because we feel like everything he does is motivated by purity. You know, just pure. You know he just stops running. Why'd you stop? Just felt like stopping. Yeah, yeah, and he's not even like none of that stuff permeates. He doesn't, you know, he doesn't look back and see everybody running behind him and go, okay, well, how can I monetize this?

Speaker 2: 44:06

How can?

Speaker 3: 44:07

I, how can I do all these things?

Speaker 2: 44:09

I think that example is that the reason I made that video I you know it was. That was the thing I was trying to highlight is you know you have these two things and one of them gets all of this applause and whatever, while it is kind of clearly superficially searching for these things. You know it's doing the metrics, even if they're original metrics. It's like you know it's trying to and it's you know we ignore this really useful. But also, you know it's not like Forrest Gump invented that philosophy.

Speaker 3: 44:48

No, no, but I think you know who knows, you know, you know it could be in a conscious way, a subconscious way. But you know, was that book written? Was that movie made? Because it it, you know? Have we watched it all these years? Do you get sucked in? You know?

Speaker 3: 45:07

back when it was on cable, because you don't know why, necessarily, but there's something about the purity of his intentions that is the opposite, in a sense, of what we deal with, which is, I think, sometimes we can have pure intentions for a flash and then other times we have I don't know corrupt is the right word but personal gain, self-enrichment, letting the pressure of that's honest culturally, to have a bigger house or to have a better lawn or to have nicer cars and compromise our convictions in order to obtain that.

Speaker 3: 45:45

And you see stories about that all the time, from church leaders to politicians to all this stuff. I mean, look at everything that's going on with Clarence Thomas, you know, and the Supreme Court justice, and all the little parties and gifts he's been given by billionaires. You know he's supposed to be someone that is untouched by the outside world, in a sense, when bringing his judgments to bear on these cases. But when you see I'm in a position of power, how can I leverage that to have personal gain or to go against my convictions and my oath and do something that, even though it may not be criminal, it may not even be full-blown unethical and warranting impeachment, but it's not what you should be doing.

Speaker 2: 46:32

There's, and you know it's like that. It's unfortunate that happen. It's not just a political thing, that happens at every level. You know once you reach a certain point, there's other people that are going to try to utilize you for their personal gain, and I think you know if.

Speaker 3: 46:51

And when you know you have something that's a valid other people power access, whatever, well, I mean even you and I sit down talking about like, oh, we can leverage.

Speaker 2: 46:59

you know this?

Speaker 1: 47:00

Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 47:01

It's we'll have conversations with. There is no ill intention. But you know, at the same time, I always think of like the, you know, the unhappy socialist right. It's like socialism. You have this socialist and they're like, yeah, socialism is the answer and it's great, and all you have to do is dedicate your entire life to this, you know, to just carrying out your movement, and you just, no family, no anything. And it's like some people, and some people have the ability to do that. You know, some people feel that strongly about a cause, but I mean, I think you know, if I had to, you know, speak my opinion on it, I think you, you need to sit down, spend the time employing the self-awareness of what you want, and I think it's just you got to lay out some core values. You know what, and maybe that's honesty, maybe that's you know.

Speaker 2: 48:08

You just have to lay out some things that you're never willing to compromise on, and I think that can be one, two or three things, and then every situation that you're in, you have to put situation up against those values and is this thing that's coming at me? Yeah.

Speaker 3: 48:24

Does it move me, does it keep me with these core values, or is it moving and don't push the goal post?

Speaker 2: 48:28

And I think that's that's what I. What I was telling you earlier is just like you know, I've got this agreement between me and myself. Yeah, it's like if I break it once, it's over I'm gonna break it every time.

Speaker 2: 48:39

So you know you're on a diet and you drive by Taco Bell and you're like sounds pretty good. I'm just gonna do this one time and I do that, and then you do it and you know, once you break the seal, the seal's broken. So you know, I don't know, but it does. It is easier, though, like you can just decide this is how I'm gonna, how I'm gonna do things, and suddenly you don't have micro decisions to make, you just have a macro kind of ideology that that fits into. I don't know.

Speaker 3: 49:11

Don't take my advice to it, but you were never gonna be perfect at it. You put those core values. This is and that's the thing we need. We can't sit there and go well, if I can't do it perfectly, then I'm not gonna bother. But we can't also go yeah, if I don't do it perfectly, I'm going to beat the shit out of myself. Absolutely yeah, and because I'm you're denying your own humanity.

Speaker 2: 49:34

Right. And where's that balance between that accountability and the?

Speaker 2: 49:39

you know what I'm like there's there has to be a balance between that accountability of you fucked up, yeah, you fucked like you messed up and you're not gonna. And I think, like you know, with you and I, it's like I think you know there are some things that weren't, and Taco Bell's a small, you know small thing. Sure, I think you can afford to fuck up on that, but I do think there are some things and I think you know if you are decisive enough on the direction of your work.

Speaker 2: 50:14

I think that should probably be one of them where it's like like you and I aren't gonna, you know, we might mess up and go to Taco Bell, but we're not gonna cheat on our spouse or something to such a large extent. And you know those are two different things. While it's the same concept like, oh, I might go to Taco Bell and break the diet, you know that's small potatoes compared to this other thing, and I think so you do have areas where you're willing to set hard, hard lines, and I think you know asking yourself the important questions and determining what those lines are for your work can be an important step. I don't know if it's necessarily a necessary step, but I think it can be an important step to just define and give you a sense of direction with the work.

Speaker 3: 51:10

And for me, I think the beauty of an artist is whether they are sort of knowingly doing this or more instinctively or subconsciously doing. This is when you do break from that conviction or you do have an affair or you do cheat you know cheat and have Taco Bell. You know to me the artists again, whether they do it knowingly or more subconsciously, they go why?

Speaker 2: 51:37

Yeah, I need to explore this why.

Speaker 3: 51:39

Absolutely. And, you know, obviously we can deploy self-awareness for ourselves. I know the reason I essentially copied my friend's final cut video was I felt I was. I felt I was in a bad place because I had a bunch of videos that weren't doing well. I felt like I deserved videos that got those kind of views, like you can really see that there's some dark things or some un. Some unbecoming things about your personality. That that's that came out in that situation.

Speaker 3: 52:12

That's a great point is, and that's why I love photography, because I feel like I can go out in the world and I can photograph those moments where someone you can try to explore that the good, like the good thing, is happening.

Speaker 2: 52:27

Okay, you tied this back into a nice little bow for the end.

Speaker 3: 52:30

And somebody you know and maybe, maybe there's. You know whether it's a moment of conflict or heatedness, or there's the or you know, a moment after a politician gives a speech and there's something happening and you catch like you're capturing some of like, like a physical representation of a why.

Speaker 2: 52:49

I well, I read this thing the other day that I think ties up. It's like the best words that have never been written. Yes, yeah or the best description that was never written is what photography is yeah. And I'm like, yeah, that's pretty good.

Speaker 2: 53:04

And I think I absolutely agree with you. I'm willing to forgive most anything that a human does if they're willing to honestly explore why they did it. Yeah, even to extents that I'm sure people would probably disagree with me on. You know that's. I think that's fascinating. I don't think we. You know, humanity is all we have, especially as technology and the ability to do things with syntax and with large language models and things like that. You know we're we have less and less. That is unique, but our humanity is still something that's untouched, and I'm not trying to cut off a response to that, but I think this is a good part to do the wrap up. That's right.

Speaker 3: 53:59

I think so too, that was good, that was good.

Speaker 2: 54:02

We I'm sorry that was so we didn't have. We had like a couple of things that we were going to talk about and we kind of just went off the rails. Some episodes are going to do that, some are going to have more structure.

Speaker 3: 54:13

Well, that's the fun. The interesting thing about this is in the planning ahead of time we talk about. This needs to be 55 minutes. We sort of put these constraints because there's outside pressure right, we don't want it to be too much longer. Maybe there's more editing involved, these other things. But then on the flip side, you know the sort of truth of our conversation, like how do you, how do you deny where? A conversation goes because of, you could argue, these artificial limitations, putting on something.

Speaker 2: 54:45

Well, and you know, I think a lot of people have this idea that a conversation has to achieve, there has to be, you know, conversation as a means to an end and I, while I don't disagree with that, I don't necessarily think that end is always going to occur within a 55 minute segment.

Speaker 2: 55:00

Yeah, and sometimes it's worth going out of that boundary and other times, you know, it's worth putting words to ideas that maybe we don't discover what the maybe there wasn't a point to this. But, you know, maybe we don't discover the takeaway in this episode or the next episode, but maybe maybe somebody listening heard something that connected another thought that they'd had a few months ago, and I think that's the point of, that's the beauty of long form conversation. I think that's what kind of attracts us. So what did?

Speaker 2: 55:33

we have two points, so we're really cheating here, because we're you know, we had like six the first time and it's like 1.2 out of six. We just figured that we never hit any of them, so we've adapted. Oh wait, I don't even think we hit, is this? Oh shit?

Speaker 3: 55:51

I don't think we really hit any of them.

Speaker 2: 55:53

So we color and black and white and we definitely didn't touch that and like, how do we remark on things? Oh my gosh, I forgot to put the commerce thing down. Yeah, okay, I'm, this is a post. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we did say we're gonna start with commerce art. We did yeah, and we stuck on it the whole time. Yep, but still I mean we're like yeah, like one out of three. And I don't even think yeah like did we cover commerce and art, or is that like a point seven or a point?

Speaker 3: 56:20

six, yeah, I mean yeah, it's like a point. Like I think if we titled this episode like, like you know, the intersection between art and commerce, and then people listen to it they would be like oh, you guys didn't relate. It Touches on that, but you didn't really like tack which you know it gets to our other titling.

Speaker 2: 56:42

So I'm gonna get like, yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 3: 56:45

You give it, you give us the rating like a point seven out of three. Is that how we're doing it?

Speaker 2: 56:49

Yeah, point seven out of three. Yeah, well, job.

Speaker 1: 56:53

But yeah, you too, buddy, and it's been a golden afternoon, and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer and summer.