Hello, friends, and welcome to another video. Today, we're gonna be testing products from companies that asked to sponsor me. NOT SPONSORED. So as you guys may know, many YouTubers, including myself, will from time to time make videos that are sponsored by a company or product, and for our part, we've done five on this channel. Now from what I know, these YouTuber-Brand relationships can come through a variety of sources: a manager, an MCN, and, in our case, we source through our agent. But besides those avenues, there is also the "Wild West" of brand relationships: "The Business Email," where we'll receive random solicitations from companies who want to sponsor a video or Instagram post, provide affiliate links, or send us some free products to review etc., etc. And I'm pretty sure that a lot of YouTubers experience this. [Gabbie Hanna] Somebody just emailed me and asked me to promote their product in exchange for twenty thousand dollars in their cryptocurrency that they expect will take off by Spring 2019. [Laughs] Safiya: In fact, on more than one occasion, we've received reach-outs that were spammed to, like, thirty-plus YouTuber business emails, and we've also received messages sent to the wrong creator, as well as about a thousand emails addressed "Hello dear." Now, no shade at all to the hustle, as I know a lot of these companies are just businesses trying to get off the ground, and some of their products can be quite intriguing, such as "electric nail drills," "sexy lingerie," and "silicone shampoo brushes," amongst many, many, MANY others. That said, the main reason we haven't worked with any of these "cold-call" brands isn't because they don't email us correctly-- in fact, it's kind of funny when that happens-- It's mostly because I don't know enough about these companies or products to feel comfortable promoting them, even if I do find myself sometimes wanting to try them. So I thought it would be fun to go through my business email and to find four examples of some interesting products-- not-sponsored--order them and try them out, and I guess see if we should have hypothetically taken the sponsorship and/or endorsed them. All right. Let's dive right in. Now, Tyler and I'd pre-vetted these reach-outs. So we went through like a ton of these emails, dating all the way back to March of this year, and we chose a few strong candidates, I think. So let's jump right into the first product, which is a Japanese subscription box. So this company is called ZenPop, and it appears to be a Japan-based company that sells subscription boxes with Japanese snacks and also beauty products inside of them. So I'm pretty sure the reason that they reached out to me is because we did that three-part Japan series earlier this year. In fact, they say, "you do a lot of Japan-related videos," which isn't wrong, and luckily for them I'm also interested in snacks. So it's a good Venn diagram of just JAPAN CONTENT SNACKS and, um, BEAUTY PRODUCTS, too. So what they want is to sponsor me to do an unboxing-type of video on my YouTube channel, which is a pretty popular request. we just wouldn't want to do an unboxing that was sponsored by the company itself. So it looks like on their website they actually have a few different kinds of boxes, like a candy box, ramen and candy mixed together, ramen only, beauty, and stationery. I think, in general, I'm leaning more towards the snacks, because we did recently do a Japanese beauty products haul, and in terms of the stationery, I actually don't write a lot of things with a pen and paper nowadays-- I live my entire life inside of a computer. So why don't we go for the combo Japanese ramen and sweets mix pack, just to get a little variety. Ah, my first instinct was to do a one-time purchase just for this video, but it turns out that's sold out, so instead I have to subscribe for at least three months. I guess that's $70 on Japanese snacks and noodles. So for our second product, I chose this app called the "WiFi Map," and I will say that their subject line really just jumped out at me. It reads "WiFi Map - YouTube - Video with 100,000+ views guaranteed." Now, I don't know if that means that they just believe their product is super interesting and will garner 100,000+ views or if they're just willing to buy views for me. But either way, I think it definitely deserved an open. So from what I can tell, this product is basically like a crowd-sourced map of, like, different WiFis that you can connect to. It seems to be, like, people sort of contributing their own personal WiFi to the list or if they perhaps, like, know the password to a local coffee shop's WiFi, they might put it on the map as well. Now, they don't really explain why they reached out to me specifically, nor do they say exactly what they want, but it does seem like people are generally interested in this app, as am I, honestly, so I'm gonna download this app to my phone and then when we get all of the rest of our haul items, we'll try this out IRL-- just wander around and see if we can just get on people's home WiFis, I guess. So next up is our third product, which is the Sitpack. So the Sitpack seems to be like a telescoping portable seat but you can unfurl and it will turn into, like, a little stool that you can sit on, that you can use while waiting in lines, or for the subway, or whatever, and when you're done you can just re-furl it into a little soda-can-shaped looking thing. Now they alluded to wanting a YouTube review, though they don't exactly, like, hit the nail right on the head as to why they reached out to me specifically. In fact, the only thing that they say that seems to, like, relate to me specifically is that they're a Danish company and also that they make their Sitpacks "right here in the Happy Kingdom of Denmark," which would seem like a random factoid to most people, but I am in fact half Danish. So maybe they saw that and they were just like, hey, that's a great Dane. Let's send this her way. They also drop a little bit of actual Danish in the sign-off down here. Unfortunately, my vocabulary is very limited. I know how to say chicken and beer. But either way, the pandering is working and I want to try this thing out. The only thing that's concerning to me is that it has three out of five stars on forty-six reviews: some people say that if felt like "a great small seat that is easy to keep with you" and others say that it felt like "a hard pipe on [their] butt cheeks." That doesn't sound super-appealing, but I feel like we're this far in, let's just give it a go. So I'm going to add this to the cart and that is item number three. So for our fourth and final product, we decided to go for the Kasamba online psychic app. So basically with Kasamba you pay per minute to text psychics. So it's basically the same as, like, a telephone psychic, but just texting. Now they say that they specifically wanted to work with me because they saw the "I dressed according to my zodiac sign for a week" video and they mention marketing opportunities as well as an affiliate-link program. sense Now I think that that connection kind of makes sense, but I will say that that's pretty much the only video we've ever done in the spiritual realm, I guess you could say. That said, I am objectively interested to see what an online psychic has to text to me. So, checking out their website, the first thing that I see is like how expensive some of these psychics are and they all, interestingly enough, have five out of five stars, all on over 10,000 reviews each. In fact, it looks like almost everyone has five out of five stars. I wonder if people are scared if they, like, give them a bad review, if, like, bad things will happen to them. But regardless this site seems to have a lot of stuff to pick through, so I'm gonna try it out--and presumably just spend a lot of money texting psychics. Okay. So those are our four products. So I'm gonna wait for all of the things I ordered to get here. And once I have my haul we'll check back in. All right So it's been a few weeks. Well, actually it's been a little more than a few weeks, it's been about two months since I ordered everything, but now we finally have our haul. So let's dive right in and start with the first product that we ordered, which was also the main cause of the delay: the Zenpop box. So we were gonna film this haul a while ago, but this item got stuck in customs and then lost at customs and then subsequently lost at the post office, so is was never delivered to us. We in fact had to go and find it. But now we have it and I'm never letting go. So we got the August 2018 box, which was called the power-up box, which basically means that amongst the normal savory and sweet snacks, they included a bunch of candies that are flavored like Japanese sodas and energy drinks. So we figured we would just go through and taste each one, starting with the Monster Hunters' Food gummies. It kind of looks like a mash-up of like a Valkyrie, a Powerpuff Girl, and Jon Snow. The gummies themselves kind of look like orange Mentos. Hmm. These aren't too bad. It's sort of like an interesting crossover between, like, Red Bull and, like, children's Triaminic medicine. And besides those, we had two other energy-drink-flavored candies. Lifeguard is not a mere energy drink. It's a Bionic drink. One of which was kind of like a Nerds rope without the Nerds. It's just like a long, erect Laffy Taffy. It tastes like JuicyFruit, but in, like, a Laffy Taffy texture. And now it's gone, so it's the same as JuicyFruit. And the other one of which was like a Sour-Patch-Kid-looking gummy in the shape of a Japanese character that means"power." He's, like, this is a (censored) energy drink, bitch. Now the smell was definitely powerful. Oh, my god! It smells like a rubbing alcohol. surprise. It's just for a loco, but compared to the odor. The flavor was pretty tame It's more just like a sort of nondescript grape gummy. Now though, these were all energy drink themed or flavored It wasn't clear if any of them actually had any energy properties It says if you believe that it gives you a power. It really gives you the effect But since I ate all three in a row, I guess we'll never know which if any had any actual caffeine So besides those powered up candies, we had a coke flavoured chewy and some fruit soda flavored gum It's kind of like bubble tape, but it looks like a band-aid? As well as some vinegar chips with a sour faced elephant mascot He's like "It's so sour. I'm dead rip". Some barbecue cracker sticks that were kind of like the savory version of Pocky It tastes a little bit like a bread stick that you've used to mop up beef stew. And some sea animal shaped chocolate cookies. They're almost like oversized like Teddy Grahams Also what sea animal is this? It does look like a clam We then finished off our feast with one of our cups of ramen doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo All right. I think it looks ready. Let's fork up and try it. That's amazing. Yeah, that's really good I mean, it's definitely ramen in a cup, but it's really good. Damn I wish I had gotten the all ramen box the hem had so that concludes our Zen pop box I think definitely got some snacks that were kind of out there, but overall I enjoyed all of them and even if some of them like weren't my favorite flavor they were at least Fun to eat and maybe had some energy in them I guess we'll never know but in terms of whether or not I would recommend this or even plug this I think it's impossible to Ignore the whole shipping situation, which I understand like isn't a hundred percent the company's fault But at the same time if I'm like recommending things to you I would not want to wish Shipping issues upon you besides that there was the issue of them not having like the one time box Option available on their website which sort of doesn't make sense because if they are able to send you three boxes Why are they not able to send you one? It's not like they're out of stock So as a consumer, I enjoyed what I received, but because of some of the logistics I would not endorse it Okay, so our next product to try out is the Wi-Fi map app So I think the best way to try out this app is to go out into the world and see if we can't get onto Some Wi-Fi. It's kind of like a scavenger hunt but for stealing the Internet's Alright, you've got a hundred and fifty Wi-Fi hotspots near me. So to test the map out I wanted to try and get on to a more exclusive Wi-Fi. That wouldn't normally be available to me So not just like a coffee shop premier care dental group has Wi-Fi. I wonder if this is legal It feels like a sort of whitespace legislation wise so after walking 0.2 miles we found our target fairness premier care dental We're here for your Wi-Fi and though it seemed like a promising lead at first our free dental Wi-Fi dreams quickly crumbled So I'm trying to find like their Wi-Fi on my suggested Wi-Fi list, but I don't see it anywhere I'm gonna try and type it in manually says it could not find the network premier dental 5g. Enjoy Do we have to go in? No, we're not going in So with premier Kara bust we moved on to more residential pastures to see if we couldn't get on to a home Wi-Fi connection It's a little more nefarious. I would say though once we started pursuing them it seemed like all of the home Wi-Fi listings were actually just Businesses listed as homes. And as we drive into like a more residential area, there are no listings on the app So it seems like there aren't a lot of just like good samaritans out there being like use my houses Wi-Fi So a little deflated I returned to the businesses hoping to find at least one working internet connection Alright, it says that the Pier one Imports Wi-Fi was updated six days ago But it also says it's called free best by Wi-Fi and even though we actually entered the store this time This one didn't work either. Am I doing this wrong? So finally as a last ditch attempt We tried the Macy's across the street which seemed promising because that one is called Macy's free Wi-Fi right or amongst the boxers Let's try and be brief Thousands of people turned off the video. All right. So on my suggested Wi-Fi list, there is a Macy's free Wi-Fi, let's plug in and We're on this is exciting. Oh, wow. We're on may see Wi-Fi and after opening and loading Instagram We confirmed that we did indeed have the Internet's. Okay now that we have it So even though I was excited the app did finally provide a working connection Macy's free Wi-Fi wasn't exactly the exclusive access. I had hoped for when downloading the app especially since there wasn't even a password so although I think that a free Wi-Fi map is Definitely like a useful idea A lot of the listings don't seem to work and that might vary from place to place But at least most of our listings didn't work So all that said I don't think I would want to endorse this product but two companies out there Listing yourselves could be an interesting marketing technique because I'm now aware of premier care dental I can't vouch for their dental services, but no they don't have Wi-Fi. All right So next up is these at pack from the happy Kingdom of Denmark cha-da? There's a chair in there somewhere. Alright, let's get into it So it kind of has like the size and shape of like ol Bluetooth speaker and the weight - it's pretty weighty I mean, it seems pretty straightforward especially because we watched that video. So let's just try it out Let me stand up so I can sit down. Alright, so Supposedly it opens like this Okay, and then though it's already happening So as I mentioned before it basically telescopes out and then you can lock it into place by turning the bottom bit Okay, that feels good. Now the people who left this thing a negative review on Amazon said that it was like quite uncomfortable So I guess we'll see how it feels on the old butt cheeks My first observation was that it's less of a seat that you mount and more of a butt crutch Oh, I think I found the balance point. It's kind of an interesting sensation It's more like I'm leaning against a wall than anything else as for the seat itself It's not incredibly comfortable like the seat definitely isn't padded But it's not terrible and I definitely wouldn't call it a hard pipe But I think the only way to know for sure how it would feel in the wild is to go out into that Wild and try it out. So we're gonna go somewhere with a lot of lines to wait in. Disneyland. It looks like you have a pick axe You look a little bit like a Norse women. It's Thor's hammer Take me to Valhalla so after my show of strength Tyler took me to Disneyland to sit and wait. All right Space mountain has a sixty-five minute line, let's do this. And once in line, it was time to set up camp After actually sitting on the sit pack for a few minutes it didn't really get less comfortable it's just like a human tripod or bike stand but there is a balance point you have to stay at I Tried to dance, It was too much now to be fair. I wasn't sitting Continuously for 65 minutes since there were breaks every time the line moved. So I'm not feeling like the hard pipe sensation Im just feeling the kind of like oh the line's moving Let me drag a little thing behind me sensation although I wonder if it may also have been more comfortable for me because I already have some natural cushion or Insulation on my behind I'm basically just sitting on my own butt So maybe the sensation varies from booty to booty but for my part I thoroughly enjoyed having this thing in line with me So in terms of whether or not I would endorse this product, I might I would consider it I think that the product isn't necessarily perfect yet like it seems like there are some tushes that don't enjoy the sensation Of this seat on their behind, but I did have a lot of fun using it I like that it sort of resembles a hammer to smash things with and I also liked having a prop with me when waiting in Line and at the end of the day you can lean on it. So I'd say it's okay in my book All right So our final product is kasamba, the psychic app now I feel like it varies person to person as to how much you believe In these sort of supernatural things. I'm personally on the fence I don't completely buy into it But I'm also kind of prone to being superstitious and paranoid So I don't usually seek out psychics just in case they tell me something I don't want to hear now that said let's open the app So there seem to be a few different categories I can choose from. Love psychics, psychic readings, tarot readings fortune-telling, personal astrology, dream analysis, career advisor, and psychic mediums So I think of all these categories I'm the most interested in personal astrology. So let's go with that one Also, I don't mess with ghosts. So there's that Okay, so we have a few different advisors we can choose from now I was immediately drawn to one psychic in particular Oh psychic Safina! But she's in a reading right now But I like her because her name is almost Sofia. So hoping to catch Safina after she was done I subscribed to her channel profile thingy I smashed her subscribe button. Well see, this is your notification. Yes I hear that only happened some of the time however after about 30 minutes of waiting she was still in a session Which means that someone has spent at least a hundred and eighty dollars on that reading I wish I could say I was mad but I'm just happy for her. So besides Safina there are a few other psychics online So we ended up doing sessions with two different separate psychics just to kind of test the waters Oh, oh, it's happening. Okay. She's chatting to me. With psychic number one at first, I didn't know exactly what to say I feel like I'm speed-dating Yeah, I've never done this before which isn't a great approach when you're being charged by the minute But once I got my bearings I asked for a general Astrological forecast of the next year or so when would be a good or bad time to do things what's coming up, etc, etc And after taking down my name and birth date she began making predictions She says I do see that next year will be a better year for you Finances will be good and there are a lot of events coming where I'll be happy. Fun! Overall I would say psychic number one was generally general but also really nice. Oh, that's so sweet She says I'm an amazing person. She doesn't even know me, but when I pride for more information on what exactly in my Astrological chart was prompting her predictions. She didn't really say anything. Okay. She says yes, next year will be much better, sweetie Yeah I'm looking for some like more like star reading although she did give me some Specific lucky numbers for the next year 7, 3, 11. Maybe I will acquire three 7-11 franchises Now our second reading with psychic number 2 was a little more focused. I pretty much asked for the same general Astrological forecast and she had some more specific time frames for me. Between March to June will be good for the career growth My dear watch out for some something coming next March to June. I better start thinking about that now She also said that November and December of this year would be good. But I guess that covers most of the next 9 months I also asked her for some explanations on what in the stars. She was seeing exactly my dear This is the transition period in your life Oh, I thought she was gonna say the transition period of like Saturn or something So she didn't really answer the question either. She did also though provide a lucky number Okay says that 13 is going to be a good number for me, which is not seven three or eleven But there's a three and a one involved as well as make one kind of uncanny recommendation So she says so just go with the flow and try wearing back on Saturdays. Do you mean wearing black? she says wearing black. Wow. Maybe shes the FBI guy. It was a little bit of a professor Trelawney moment But I'm not sure what she meant by wearing black specifically on Saturdays Regardless our second psychic seemed a little more specific in her recommendations So I would say she was a bit better, even though they both sort of dodged my questions about the actual Astronomy of the astrology now in terms of whether or not I would endorse kasamba The answer probably has to be no just because I feel like whether or not you even believe in psychics is very subjective So I wouldn't want to be like this definitely works and when you're paying by the minute the bill can rack up pretty fast However, if you do like talking to psychics and you're into this kind of thing I could see how you would like this because it's kind of like Tinder but for psychics and also both of our psychics were very very nice. So it was kind of soothing to chat with them I feel like that's probably the sweet spot for a psychic say nice things and types. Whoa All right. So that was my not sponsored haul in terms of these products specifically I'm pretty glad that I got to try them out because as I mentioned a lot of these companies that blast our email do seem pretty Interesting or peculiar and they mostly ended up being kind of fun that said I'm not just gonna start partnering with a lot of these companies because they are pretty unvetted and if I'm gonna be promoting something I just want to be selective about which brands I like let through to you guys if anything came out of this experience Maybe I'll just start buying more of these products on my own to try out now. Once again, I don't want to malign Sponsorships in general as I know there's been some controversy around them recently I personally don't like making sponsored reviews or full-on dedicated videos and that's why our sponsored plugs have been contained to like 60-second segments at the beginning of our but I also don't think there's anything Outright wrong about doing a sponsored review as long as that person discloses it to their audience There's been rumors of like loopholes and non-disclosed sponsored reviews Which I don't know a lot about but if someone is doing that I would ask them to stop because I think it undermines youtubers in general and also violate some level of trust between creators and audiences now with that said if I suddenly become the Oprah of sit packs in the next month you all know why just kidding, but do you want to sit back? Thank you guys so much for watching If you liked that video make sure to try mash that like button and if you want to see more videos like this Make sure to shamash that subscribe button and a big shout out to Raven danger Navy for watching here are my social media handles Thanks for watching 'raven danger navy' and I will see you guys a next time.
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