Why Does My Feed Hate Women? (w/ Alanah Pearce) | Sad Boyz

Welcome to Sad Boyz, a podcast about feelings and other things also. - I'm Jarvis. - I'm... (sighs) You got this, bud. Come on. Almost 100 episodes. Alanah, which one am I? - J – Jor... - You got it. Jor... - He's Jor. - [JORDAN] George. - George, yes. - He's George, and we're joined by a very special guest, - Alanah Pearce. - Hello. Thanks for having me. - Thanks for the help with the name. - Yeah, anytime. Alanah, you came here from, I would say, one of your many jobs. Several. For those who don't know Alanah, there's lots of places to know you from. - You are a writer at Sony Santa Monica. - Mmhmm. You are a streamer, - YouTuber, podcaster, - Mmhmm. - DJ? - [ALANAH] Yeah. Um, I'm trying to think of things. Uh, dog mom. - That's my most important job. - Right at the bottom. - Yeah. - Banjo! - Gamer, of course. - Yep. - Uh, by blood. - Yeah. - By obligation. - What else? Used to work at Rooster Teeth. - Oh, yeah. - Before that, I worked at IGN. - True. - "Gamer" is kinda like – - "Gamer" is my most important. - It's like being a veteran, right? - Yeah. Capital G, baby. - I didn't know who we were dealing with. Thank you for your God of War Ragnarök. You, I think, of the people we've had... Of our guests, I think you are the first person to come here from a meeting that was like at a company. - Most of these are scumbag streamers. - Yeah, it's a funny thing, where anytime – 'Cause so many of my friends are content creators and YouTubers. Anytime someone's like, "Hey, can you do this thing?" I'm like... - "Is it before 6:00 p.m.?" - Yeah. And like, "OK, then it's my lunch break for the day." And Ethan'll be like, "How's 2:00 p.m. on this day to make this video?" I'm like, "How long's it gonna take?" He's like, "Four hours." I'm like, "I have a job." - "I can't just go to Venice with you." - We appreciate you making the time. - Anytime. - And it also allows us to reminisce about our days working at a company. - We know what that's like. - I'm glad to be able to do that for you. [JORDAN] A company, it's like a Skinner box. You get those little moments of dopamine and success, and then ultimately you feel unfulfilled. - I love my job. - That's so good. I've had many jobs I don't love, but if I wanted to go full-time content creation - I could have done that 2 years ago. - Yeah. Of course. Making video games is really cool, turns out, - and I'm very fulfilled. It's wonderful. - That's great. Managing the time sucks, but... That was gonna be my main question for you, because, like, how? Yeah. Um... - I get that a lot. - Stop. It's very related to this podcast, actually. I realized a pretty long time ago that if I'm not being productive – So, I had depression once, and it was a response to a traumatic thing that happened, and it was pretty bad. And then the fix was I realized if I'm constantly feeling productive, I won't get depressed. And then I got stuck in a loop of, "I must be productive at all times," which is not healthy. "The shark dies if it stops swimming." Pretty much. I would not recommend anybody do it, and it's not a great fix for depression, but it does work for me. So I just then became, like, obsessively productive. So, I can't even watch TV. I feel bad if I'm like, "I'm not doing..." - I'm sure that's relatable to people. - I just hope it stops eventually. - Yeah. I think – - I mean, everything does. - Yeah. Thank god. - Along with everything else, actually, - it will stop. - Great. I, uh... in one of our episodes recently, talked about how I was on the way to – this was back in my tech days. I was flying to Seattle to interview at Microsoft, and I was so nervous about the interview that I was like, "Well, if the plane goes down, I don't have to do the interview." Technically not wrong. - Yeah, and I was like – - "I win." - And that was comforting to me. - "Joke's on you, Microsoft." I don't think – "Bill." There's turbulence; you're like, "I don't suppose we're gonna die? Ah, rats." Yeah. "Ah!" - So, yeah. - "Hey –" There's a child next to you. "Do you think...?" I'm the only one celebrating turbulence. I'm like, "Yes!" I'm, like, popping off. "Hey, kid, do you know about mortality?" And it's like I don't wanna make light of something like that, but anxiety's real. Um... Yeah, so I do not have anxiety. Like, a total absence of it to a weird degree, where I'm not anxious ever about anything, unless it's super extreme. But I have so many friends who have anxiety. And I actually feel like that's part of it, is, um, anxiety, I think, is really bad for productivity, right? Because then you get stuck in, like, a brain loop of, - "What should I do next?" - Absolutely. And I think there's a lot of, if we're talking about corporate employees and capitalism, a lot of people who don't have sympathy for that. If you don't have anxiety, you're like, "I don't care. You're not being productive to the workforce." - Including the back of your own brain. - Right. There's a whole thing where it's like, "How much can I share with my employer?" because you don't wanna... You don't wanna scare them off. Yeah, you don't wanna make them think that you can't do your job, 'cause it can then become a risk, depending on how understanding your boss is, which is just a complete crapshoot. And that took me a long time. Like, only this year, while doing boxing training for Creator Clash, - which we were both in, um... - Yeah. My step-dad was also very, very, very unwell. He's now doing better, but he does have terminal cancer. And so because he's in Australia, the timezone, I was up until 3:00 a.m. sometimes freaking out with my family on the phone. So for the first time in my life, I was like, "You know what? I'm gonna tell my employer. I'm gonna tell them this and tell them I'm stressed, and be like, 'Hey, some days I'm gonna be really bad in the morning, or maybe I'll sleep through an alarm occasionally.'" And it happened twice. But because I told them, there was no problem. Younger me would have been like, "They must never know. I must get fired and take it to the grave. For the company!" "I would much rather they think I'm bad and dumb." - Yeah. - That's character development. I felt very proud of myself. It went well, and everyone was supportive and understanding. As long as I got my work done on time, they were like, "It's OK. Life happens. We don't wanna take life away from you." It was great. Which, they're also, like... They're obliged to not be that way. It depends on the power dynamic and seniority and type of company, but, you know, what could their answer be, legally speaking? Even in the most cynical scenario. - That's a good point. - Let's say you hated the job and manager. For you to go, like, "Yeah, I'm actually having an extremely traumatic personal experience, and as a result I may be less effective," they go, "No." - Yeah. - Like, "Ah, you will not." - Yeah. - "Wrong." "Um, that doesn't change our Q3 goals." Yeah. "But what about the quarterly earnings?!" - Yeah, exactly. - "What do we do?!" "We need to keep these graphs up and to the right, baby." - "What is our job?" - So much of that stuff, like, so many corporations will treat you like the thing you're working on now is the most important thing, and two months later they're like, "We changed strategy." So you work your ass off on something, and then... Some other essential domino never – - The first one never fell. - Everything is always on fire. Right. It's one of those things where... It's useful to keep this in mind as an employee of a company, that the company will ask everything of you or ask as much as it can get away with it, and it, uh... - And still lay you off. - [JARVIS] And still lay you off! Like, at the end of the day, they're not like... Like, don't treat – You don't owe them anything. Even though they sometimes treat it like a... I've worked at companies where they're like, - they do the "we're a family here" thing, - Noooope. which is a big red flag. Or... What a weird family. They're like, "We're gonna have to work really hard." You know when your family refuses to help you financially? - [JORDAN] And just disappears. - That's what I'm saying. Dad. Yeah. It's so weird. Yeah, exactly. It's like, "We're family. We have laid off the entire team." - "We killed half the family." - You're like, "Wait, why?" "Well, your brother was doing poorly." - Yeah. - "He had a traumatic experience." An all-hands meeting, but it's a family reunion. Where you just lay off half the family. It's a family, but it doesn't have nepotism. You don't get any benefit from being related. That's also a thing, is like, this definitely happened when I worked at IGN. The company I work for now, I'm happy with. They treat me well. Um, but... People would work hard to try and get a promotion for a job that was about to be available, - and then they'd just hire some guy. - Ugh! The execs would hire some guy they worked with 20 years ago and no one would get promoted. - Like, it's such a tough balance. - That is – (sighs) So many people burn themselves out in their early 20s, and I totally did too, before you realize that. That it's like, yeah, still do your job. Do everything on time. Don't show up late. Don't give them your life. They will just fire you. [JARVIS & JORDAN] They'll take it. - 'Cause, yeah, exactly. - "For free?" There is a boundary that... You know, it... I struggle with this, 'cause I'm like, is it a privilege to treat it like there's a boundary? You know, some people need to... Probably. Yeah. If I got fired, I could do content creation, right? So, yes, there is a privilege there. Like, my last few months at Patreon, I kept saying this. I kept saying the phrase, "What are they gonna do? Fire me?" Like, 'cause – - I was like, "I'm planning to leave." - [ALANAH] Yeah. And I gave so much notice ahead of time. And so anytime I would get in my head about something or go, "I need to do better at this and that," and was getting really down on myself, I would go, "What are they gonna do? Fire me?" Then I get severance. You know what I mean? But, uh, so... There's a degree to which - that is a privilege to consider, - [ALANAH] It is. but it's worth being aware of, that, uh, we live and work in a system where your employer can never, as an entity, empathize with you. - Oh, and... - They're incentivized not to. - They're incentivized not to. - Many, many industries, many, many levels of earning will like, gladly turn you into biofuel. - and just, like, - Yeah. hire out, 'cause in their opinion, it is like unskilled labor. And experience means nothing. Intent, enthusiasm, that just doesn't matter, because it is like... You know, it's a trite, like, observation or whatever, like, "friggin' – the man is not on your side," but – actually, I'm curious about your experience. I... I was gone over COVID. I was back in the UK, - uh, helping out my – family stuff. - [ALANAH] Yeah. And not having a visa. And then I... Once I came back, even though I love it here and it's where my life is and I always want it to be, the one really shitty thing that I noticed is, like, there's just this undercurrent. The UK sucks, ideologically and politically. It's been a conservative – very strictly conservative country now for like the majority of my life, a little bit on and off. - Yeah. The NHS is being gutted. Nurses are being essentially abused. Everything is collapsing. But it still feels, on some level, like the goal or the function of the government is to sort of make your life be easy and live will. They're lying, a lot of them, the powerful people, but they have to, like... There'll be so much executive action on the part of the populace, like, when... Boris Johnson didn't even need to get legally indicted. His vibes were just so off that he got pushed out. - You can't be impolite. - That's wild. - That's the one thing you can't do. - That was weird, 'cause what, he went to a party? He had a party when you're... - That's the thing. - And then lied about it. Jesus Christ. He's like a psycho racist abuser for generations... (poshly) But he speaks like this, so everyone's like, - "I will keep him in power." - (posh blubbering) - "I don't have a party." - "But my face is..." "But then he used the cutlery inwards to out, - so we had him killed." - [ALANAH] "Blasphemous!" And his hair looks like it's a child's hair. - Well, notoriously he – - That's a very specific burn. - Yeah. - "You got kid hair! Get him!" Yeah, it's like a mop. Yeah, "Get him!" "Indict him!" "Raise him! He's a kid!" But if what you're saying is, like – Look, I have like a big sad about capitalism once a day. Like, once a day I have this crushing feeling of, "Ah, fuck." And also, it bothers me that I'm so influenced by it, which I think is part of the productivity, is I tie my value to my output. That's Capitalism 101, and I'm a sucker for it. I'm like, "My value is in what work I can do." I shouldn't take it as a compliment that people are like, "How do you get so much done?" I should be like, "I should reassess my life." But I'm like, "It's true. I do do that." It's capitalism. The US, especially when I go home, and I'm the same. We've got plenty of governmental issues. But I don't feel like capitalism is running the country. And you come here, and you're like, "They just want my fucking money. Oh my god, I need to make more money or I'm going to die." - Yeah. - It feels like that manager, the hypothetical manager we were talking about, who's just like, "Yeah, of course. Hey, buddy, we're like a family." But ultimately, not so much undermining you as not caring. That feels like global government, like the function of global people in power. The US feels like it's very vocally being like, "I'm going to... I'm going to kill you." - Pretty much. "And monetize it." - And you're like, "Well, but what if –" "What if I dodge?" - Yeah. - It costs $60k to, like, - have a kid here. - Have a baby, yeah. You pay for an ambulance. Yeah. During COVID, I came off a motorbike and I had to call an ambulance 'cause I couldn't move and I was fucked up. They came and they were like – I had to recover for, like, months with my knee. My hands were cut open. They were like, "You think you could bike home?" And I was like, "No." I, like, had a broken kneecap. - All your limbs have come off. - And they were like... "Listen. We're not gonna take you to the hospital unless you really want it." Broken kneecap. Came off a fucking motorbike. "Because, (A), it's COVID. The hospitals are too overrun. (B) They'll just charge you and tell you the same thing we're telling you right now, which is go home, raise your leg, put ice on it, and then wrap it." So they were like, "Don't use the healthcare system that you pay for with insurance every month. Just find someone to take you home." And so that's what I did. And I was like, "Wow, at least they were nice about it," - 'cause it can cost you like $5,000. - Literally every good medical professional in this country is just like... They're giving you, like, mates' rates. Like, "Dude, call me a little bit later." I had this surgery to get rid of migraines, which worked. It was amazing. Um, and I got a staph infection from one of the incisions. It was very small, and I now have this huge scar. And I kept being like, "Hey, there's clearly something wrong with this thing I have in my head." It was like this huge gaping hole that was weeping. - Yeah. - And they were like... - "Uh, seems fine. Change the bandages." - It's like something out of Elden Ring. It's a Caelid version of Alanah. They're like, "Just change the bandage." And I found out the reason was because... 'Cause I went to an urgent care, like, "They've told me three times that I'm fine. I feel like I'm maybe not fine." I was getting a fever. And the nurse was like, "If they admit that they gave you staph, which they probably did, they may have to shut down." So they're seeing me, knowing I have a serious infection, and are pretending that I don't, and hoping that I go to an urgent care. - That's crazy. - Isn't it crazy? "I feel like you left a scalpel in my head." - "'Cause it's sticking out." - "No, I don't think so." - "Go to an urgent care." - Also, Alanah, you are – You are the most bloodied person I know. - I feel like... - You have high CON. I've seen more of your blood than I have most of my – - Yeah. - And that's 'cause of, uh, the incisions that I've made personally. - No, but, um... - [ALANAH] You just keep beating me. Sorry about the staph infection. No, but, uh... I... Like, you also got into a car accident recently. - Yeah. Didn't bleed, though. - And it wasn't your fault. 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Now, back to Boyz! We have to go! Like, you also got into a car accident recently. - Yeah. Didn't bleed, though. - And it wasn't your fault. And I feel like it's never your fault? You did everything right and they indicted you? You know what? Yeah. I didn't do anything wrong in any of those instances. You did everything right, and they infected you. Yeah. The car accident... My only thing is – I got hit by a dude and I didn't see where he came from. I didn't even know where he came from. So when people are like, "What happened?" I'm like... "I got hit, and I don't know where the man came from." Um... My thing there is it wasn't my fault, but I should have looked every direction possible. I should have looked. Even though the dude ran a red, I should have looked. And I regret that I was like, I got comfortable or whatever. Apparently, the most common place you get in car accidents is near a place you're familiar with. I was next to work. - Trusting other drivers to... - Yeah. It doesn't matter if you're at a green and they're at a red. Just look every direction every time. - Yeah. - Especially in LA. Like... In LA, drivers do so much bullshit. I have developed a new type of road rage where I just go, "You're breaking the rules!" I go, "That's not allowed!" - "Methinks you're not allowed to do that." - I love how nerdy that is. - "Sir, you're breaking the rules!" - It's because I got my driver's license - two years ago, so – - Oh, no way. So all of the rules are still fresh in my noggin. And... The way that I feel the need to express out loud, I'm like, "You're endangering others!" - That's so sweet of you. - No, but I – So, the times I've honked, it's like, when someone doesn't signal, crosses over three lanes of traffic. I'm like, "You're lucky I'm driving defensively!" You know? Like... Because it really – It is infuriating to watch people have disregard for other people's safety. I mean, I have friends that have pulled a good number of, "You know, I live five minutes away. I've had four drinks." I have one friend who does that, - and we talk about it all the time. - How about you walk for 20 minutes? - Dude, that stresses me out. - I will get you the Uber. I have one beer and I'm like, "I can't drive." Yeah, there's a $6 service that will take you home. And your care, I don't know if you parked it in the bar. - Like, what's wrong with it? - I don't care if it gets towed. - It's your life that's on the line. - And other people's. - And someone else's, yeah. - And even the most selfish - have some self-preservation. You know? - Yeah. Not to mention that there's other people. - [ALANAH] It is infuriating. - Literally, I think if cars... If a crash or a, uh, any kind of – even hitting someone, did not damage your own car, - Mmhmm. - people – lights wouldn't matter. They'd fly through. It'd be like F-Zero. - They'd just, like, (vrooming). - My other new type of, uh, road rage was I was in a, um, a small parking garage, and someone in this, like, mega-XL Escalade, giant fucking car that's super tall and super wide and doesn't fit in a lane, - Mmhmm. - um, I was leaving the parking garage and they were turning into, uh – They were turning into it, but they needed more clearance from my lane - to turn their giant fucking car. - Car too big. Car too big. And they honked at me, and then the indignity that I got was, "Your car's too big to be on the road. Your car shouldn't exist. - It doesn’t exist in other countries." - "Sir, you're endangering people!" Yeah. "It endangers pedestrians. Because you're safer at the expense of others." - I love this version of road rage. - "Um, I don't think you're allowed..." I was mad that they honked at me without the – - Honking's very aggressive. - Yeah. Another rant I'll give after this is, uh – But yeah, like... And then the other thing is, on principle, I don't think cars should be that big. Um, but yeah, I want back-honking. - Yeah. - I want a honk from the back that goes, - "I hear you." - Yeah. Like, someone goes, "The light changed. Honk." - And it's like – - A polite one. Yeah. "No, I got it, but there's a pedestrian." - Yeah. - "I can't go right now, - and you can't see it." - The lighter version of a honk shouldn't be a short honk. Like, that's why they have an emergency and a non-emergency services line. They shouldn't just be like, "HEY!" - Yeah. - It's like we're teaching Dipper - to whisper and to bark. - Yeah. - He needs two modes. - One is the whisper. Yeah. He can't just go, "HEY!" Which you keep trying to tell him. - Yeah. (softly) "Hey." - I saw recently, uh, this happens all the time and I always freak out, 'cause there's so many lanes in LA. I always worry that two people are gonna merge into each other. Like, from the outside lanes, merge into the middle lane together. And it actually happened recently. Cars merged and hit each other and then stopped. And they weren't moving very fast, but immediately, the guy who was on the right side got out of his car with a fucking baseball bat. - What?! - Zero hesitation. Immediately, baseball bat, out of his car. And I was like, - "Oh my god, it's happening." - Is it, uh... racist of me to assume he was Italian? I literally saw like a Jersey just like, - "'Ey, what the fuck are you...?" - "You hit my car! C'mon!" No, he was not Italian. But it was very exciting. - He was Australian. - "You hit my fucking car, mate." - That happened... - "I own one of the 5 cars in Australia." They're all Mad Max vehicles. Yeah, a guy in a gimp suit - suspended on metal legs. - A dude on the back, swaying. That almost happened to me, where, uh, I mean, in my view, I had... I was in the right, and they... Once again, it's people who don't signal. Signaling should be muscle memory. - Do it every time. - Do it every time. Don't even think about it. So when people aren't signaling, I'm like, "This is normal for you." - I love this Jarvis. - "You just drive like this." I'm such a fan of, like, politely angry road rage Jarvis. - It's so good. - You know what it is? I'm such a fucking rule-follower, and I hate it. And I've always – Like, my whole life, I've been mad that other – Like, on principle, I wanna - follow the rules and be successful. - [ALANAH] Yeah. Uh, and even the rules like decorum, - like "be nice to people," right? - Mmhmm. So it's not just like the laws, 'cause I think that we live in a police state. - ACAB, etc. - But, uh, the... Yeah, so it's like when people are... Like, they're breaking – It's like, "Uncool!" Like, when it's a dick move, I'm like, "You shouldn't – karma should exist!" - Immediate karma should exist. - Yeah. The – I had my – My Uber Eats got stolen a few days ago within 15 minutes of being left outside. I... The moment a perfectly acceptable risk happens to me, an inconvenience – I got refunded. I got another order. The moment something like that happens to me, I turn into a conservative psychopath. I just go, "We should have everyone microchipped." - "They should all be jailed." - "We should – there should –" I want to live in Mega-City One. I'm going, "Everyone, death penalty only." - Cameras in the eyes. - 'Cause you didn't get your samosas. Right, your avocado toast was late. CCTV on every building in every direction. I respect it. Well, no, I don't, but... But I get it. Literally just looking up "how easy to get gun today?" Uh... "Can I murder somebody who stole my Uber Eats, legally?" "Murdering allowed in this instance?" - [JACOB] It's self-defense. - Yeah. Yeah, the defense was "you offended my sensibilities." "My Maccy D's!" Was being a rule-follower an issue for you in school? Um, I was awarded Student of the Year. - By the students? - Citizen of the Year, by my school. - Wow. - I have it in – there's a – - Hold on. - So you were not bullied for it. Uh, when people – OK, this why I learned to be funny, because people would bully me and then I would - use humor to – - Deflect. - to insult them back. - "I'm not crying." - That is funny. - Like, for example, I used to get made fun of for being smart, which, weird insult, - but I'll take the – compliment? - Mmhmm. And, uh... I don't know if I've told this on Sad Boyz before. One time, there was this dude... Let's name him Broderick. That's not his name, so... - That's a weird pull, but I like it. - Matthew. I wanted to pick something weird, 'cause he does have a unique name. - Uh, so I chose a different one. - What is it? - Uh... can't. I – - Oh, sorry. Right. So... I remember he used to make fun of me for being smart, as people did, I guess. - And, uh... - Which, what they mean is a nerd. Yeah, I'm a nerd. And... He also was someone who, I remember, ate chalk. - So in high school I ran into him... - Well, it adds up. And he was like, "Hey, Jarvis, you still smart?" and I was like, I almost said his real name. I was like, "Hey, Broderick, you still eat chalk?" You know, like that type of thing? Or there was a football player who went on to play with the Miami Dolphins who would make fun of me. But I was always a big kid, and I always felt like I could defend myself, so I never got in any physical... I wasn't, like, scrawny, so I think that helped. I couldn't be stuffed into a locker or a trash can. Uh, but I was – I was too much of a... - like, Nice Kid™, you know? - Did you have the same, like, "gotta achieve" in school, or is that a post-US thing only? Um, I cared about the subjects – So, I'm not a rule-follower at all. Like, I cared about the... - Hell yeah. - I have to be careful with the coffee. - Like, "Don't spill the coffee." - Give me the coffee. (fearful wailing) Uh, I – yeah, no, I got, like, straight A's, except for the subjects I didn't care about. If I didn't care, I didn't care. But I, like, didn't go to school. So, like, I was always very good at English. I always knew I wanted to be a writer. And so I would do the bare minimum and still get an A, and then be like, "I don't need to go to school." So, towards the end of my grade 12, as we call it in Australia, I just didn't show up. That pissed people off. Like, other students were upset about that, They were like, "Is she getting A's, and she doesn't even fucking show up?" What's the college culture? Is it the same – I mean, UK, it's whatever. US, obliged if you wanna be "successful." "You have to go to college if you want a real life." - So, uh, it's... - [JORDAN] Which is dumb. Probably in the middle? Like, um, they have seminars about how we should go to university, and I did go to university. But, like, yeah, it's not the way in the US, which it is in the US because it's so profitable. They need to get you in debt immediately. It's free in Australia. They don't have to push that hard, 'cause they're not trying to get 20-year-olds in debt. - This country. Oh my god. - It's, like, crazy. - I love being here, weirdly! - It's so good! Yeah, I was a really... It shouldn't have worked out for me. I think it's an insane decision to put yourself in. Well, I had scholarships and stuff, so I was fortunate. But, um... - It's crazy – - What did you study? [JARVIS] Computer science. Hey, dude, who am I? - "Type, type, type." - It's Jarvis. - Yeah. - "One, two, three!" - "You broke a rule!" - Shut the fuck up. I think the good thing, I think the rule-follower thing, instead of turning me into a cop, uh, which I think it could have if I, like – Oh, I have a friend who's a cop. Like, she's not an actual cop, but she's a cop. If I respected authority too much it would turn me into a cop, but, like, what it's turned me into is like a... Like, I'm like, "Oh, the government's not following the rules." - Like, "You should be good to people," - Yeah. or "These companies are bad." - Yeah. - And so it's like, uh, - "You're not being very nice." - Yeah. - You know? That's what it's turned into. - Yeah. Which is kinda like saying it to a bank robber. Like, "You're not allowed to point a gun at –" bang, bang. - Yeah. - No, even that's a tough moral dilemma. Like, do I care that you're robbing Chase Bank? - Oh, no. - I care about the people (inaudible)... They don't care about me getting shot. Like, I think I care more about the nuance. Like, I totally understand... While I personally wouldn't make certain decisions, like, I totally can understand where people are coming from when it comes to, like, your back's against the wall. Or the people who steal a loaf of bread to feed their families, - I don't give a fuck. Shut up, Walgreens. - Yeah, exactly. Theft is barely a crime. - Yeah. - It, like, literally shouldn't – - It should be enforced – - Unless it's your porch and it's avocado toast, in which case, KILL THEM. OK, so first of all, it was loaded fries. - So, what you – - Ohhh. If it was avocado toast... Yeah, of course I'd kill them. I would do the exact same thing. No, I mean, there is a... - I think something like - Theft for survival, - corporate theft should be – - agreed, barely a crime. It should be less pushed-back against than, like, seatbelts, which should be more enforced. And signaling. And not killing with a car. Yeah, things are out of whack. The punishment doesn't fit the crime. Like, you know, marijuana and stuff like that. - People are still in prison. - [JARVIS & JORDAN] It's insane. Again, it all comes back to capitalism. The prison-industrial complex makes so much money. This country makes me feel insane. - The US is so good at culture war shit. - (Alanah quietly wailing) Yeah, even the history of, like, why certain drugs are criminalized the way they are is, like, super profit-motive-driven. I think it's 'cause of the threat of hemp as a material. Yeah. I mean, I think they even delayed legalizing weed for as long as they did just because they didn't know how to tax it. They're like, "But people already have it. How are we gonna make money from it?" "Get rid of it." Yeah, it's like people that, when you see a horrible terms of service update – Well, like Unity, for example, a horrible terms of service update, and it just... fucks over your core customer base and not for a moment did you think, like, - "Oh, wait, sorry. There's users of this." - [ALANAH] Yeah. And that is why it could work the way it is or the way they're suggesting. OK, can we talk about the Unity thing? - Mmhmm. - I feel like we have someone who works in the games industry here. So, for those who aren't familiar, Unity is a game engine. It's a very popular game engine. It's been around for a very long time. And it's got tons of resources. And for people who are getting into games, going to game jams, you know, things like that, uh, it's like one of the things you start with. You know, a lot of people, uh, have. I went to school with a lot of people who went into games from the technical side. And I saw, uh, tons of Unity usage back when I was in college. Anybody listening or watching has a game they love that was built in Unity, if not many. Absolutely. Pokémon GO's in Unity. - Which is a big part of the drama. - [JORDAN] Hollow Knight. Exactly, yeah. It's actually how it first got on my radar. "What's happening to Pokémon GO?" Uh, no, literally. Um... "Is this man bothering you?" And so – "You're not following the rules." Um, uh, so Unity wasn't following the rules by... So, they have a license... Uh, as of most of time, they had a license where, uh – "As of most of time" is a great way to be like, - "As of... most of time." - Most of time. Uh... Their license, the way that they made money - was, uh, with revenue share, right? - [ALANAH] Yep. Um, so, when indie games or AAA games or what have you - would use their license – - I actually think they didn't, even. That's what they should have done. Unreal has that. - That's what they should have done. - Yeah. Unreal had a, um... had a 5% revenue share, and then Unity I think did a flat fee. [ALANAH] Maybe revenue share for the top ones? They also share a portion of the assets sold on the Unity store, I think. - Yes. - [JORDAN] Which is a lot. - [ALANAH] Yeah. - And so, uh... What matters is that it was somewhat sensible and thousands, if not tens or hundreds of thousands of games were invested in, spent years of development on – Yeah. But also not sustainable. Like, their business model, - across the board, needed to change. - [JARVIS] Mmhmm. Um, not ultimately sustainable. They also had this weird thing that's the opposite of Unreal, where you could pay... That's Unreal Engine, not, like, a phrase, "the opposite of unreal," which is kind of a metal thing to say. "The opposite of unreal." Uh... Unity had this really strange thing where, if you were getting the free version, the game will load up and have the Unity logo at the start. But if you paid, you could remove the Unity logo from the start. - Like white-labeling or whatever. - Yeah, but it's weird because it made people think that Unity made really bad games. Because the only ones that have the Unity logo show up - are the ones that didn't pay for it. - "Made with Unity." - And they're all pieces of shit. - That's hilarious. That's a weird choice. Unreal does the opposite. It's funny, 'cause I know so many games that I love that were built in Unity, and when that pops up, it makes me think it's like an Ouya game. - Oh, yeah. - Or like, "This is an asset flip." It's a really weird choice. Like, their system needed to change. - But what they did was not ideal. - Right. Their system needed to change, but that's not a concern of any of the users or the customers, you know what I mean? Like, when I go to eat at McDonald's, I don't think about the, like, net profit/loss of McDonald's - and whether their business model... - "These nuggets should be more expensive." "The dollar menu, hmm, I don't think that'll stand the test of time. Um, so – so, uh, what they proposed... They announced recently that January 1st, 2024, which is like three months of heads-up, they were going to change the entire, uh, revenue model of the Unity game engine and make it on a per-download basis. Per install, yeah. Per install. Oh, yeah. So it was per install and not per user account. As they originally wrote it. So it would be like if you downloaded the game on – if you downloaded Pokémon GO on your phone and on your iPad, that would be two times that Niantic got charged for it. Yeah, 20 cents per install, which, like, one of the worst things about that, that it seems insane they didn't factor in, and I think they walked it back a bit now, - is you know how people do review-bombing? - Yes. Like they just go on Metacritic? You could install-bomb and bankrupt a company in a day. Yes, exactly. Like, these are such - basic considerations. - Yeah. Going back to what you were saying, where everyone was like, "What in the world were you thinking?" Like, "How did you possibly...?" And then you find out, #capitalism, the, uh... A lot of the main stakeholders in Unity and a lot of the main leadership in Unity – Unity wasn't doing well. Unsustainable business model. Stock was on the downturn. Before they make this crazy change, - they sell off a bunch of stock. - A bunch of them had sold a bunch. What's the name of the, uh, former EA guy - that is now...? - He is Unity. I don't know his name. But yeah, he basically left EA because his monetization strategies were too aggressive and he's now at Unity. - Too aggressive for EA. - Yeah. - That's hilarious. - Which is something. I think the whole... It seems so insane, and it's like, there are a bunch of engineers at Unity who definitely didn't agree with this policy, who heard about it a year ago and were like, "Absolutely not. This is absurd. We can't do this to people. There are so many bad use cases." But it seems like whoever was in charge kinda did it on the sly, and I actually suspect it's Pokémon GO. Like, literally Pokémon GO. The only time when I was a journalist that I ever had to sign something about insider trading was when I went to Niantic and I saw Pokémon GO early. We had to sign something saying we would not buy stocks in Nintendo, 'cause they fucking knew how much money it was gonna make. We had to sign, like, "I'm not gonna buy Nintendo stocks." And I was like, "Shit, now I really wanna buy Nintendo stocks." Was there any insider industry murmuring prior? - 'Cause it took every dev by surprise. - Nope. No one had any idea. Like, I do a podcast every week with a guy who, all his games are in Unity and, like, and they're being published by Disney at the moment, and it's like, - "Technically Disney's problem." - Oh, Mikey Bith. - Sad Boyz listener. - Yeah, he watches the show. - Oh, shoutout! - He was like, "I heard about you on the show the other day." - I was like, "Really?" - "Why?" - So... So, basically – - Don't listen to that one. - We said some shit. - This bombshell news comes out, everyone goes, "This is a bad idea. How could you possibly think...?" It's even announcing the idea, because now most of it's been walked back. - [ALANAH] Yeah. - Like... Oh, they MoviePassed themselves. I think they just looked at Pokémon GO and were like, - "Niantic. They're making so much money." - "We need more of that money." - "How do we get their goddamn money?" - Pokémon GO is still... We've said this before. I don't know if these numbers are accurate, but I did hear them cited before, that back in 2016 there were like 250 million users of Pokémon GO at its peak, and then it fell off by a huge percentage. But falling off by a huge percentage when you're that big - means tens of millions of active users. - Yeah. "OK. We can handle that." Yeah. And so it's still hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, if not billions, but I think it's in the high hundreds of millions. Um... I'm buying somewhere around that in just coins. Yeah. That's about my amount of microtransactions. - I wanna remote raid. - Gotta get those lures, bro. Dude, I'm all about the eggs. - [ALANAH] Yeah. - Egg mode. Because they just had – OK, we're going back to Unity. - But they just had an event – - Sure we are. They just had an event where it was for 10 days, 4x catch XP, 4x Stardust, which is a... Normally, for like a Community Day, which is, outside of GO Fest, the premiere type of Pokémon GO event that happens regularly. It's 3x catch XP, 3x Stardust, and it happens for three hours on a Saturday. This was more than that - for 10 days. - That's crazy. I played so goddamn much. And I grinded – So, I have people in my Discord who are now like, "I played this game for 6 years. How did you get higher level than me?" And it's like, because I saw my opening and I took it." - Optimized those 10 days. - Yeah, exactly. Speaking of that, like... Not only are you now working in game dev, but historically up through now you're also doing so much content creation and career-oriented stuff around gameplay. - Mmhmm. - And critique, and podcasts. Are you able to spend any time gaming leisurely? - Exclusively for fun? - Yeah. I mean, I... I still make sure I do, because I still way prefer playing games off stream versus on stream. So, like, often I'll be like, "I should probably stream this." And I'm like, "Nah." You said that you hate your fans. You don't respect the audience. That's exactly what I said. I pulled a Doja Cat, yeah. - "Fuck 'em." - Actually, unfollow. "You liked Ragnarök? I was kidding." Speaking of that Doja Cat thing, though, it reminded me of how Twitter isn't real. If you were on Twitter, you'd have been like, "Doja Cat just destroyed her career. No way she's coming back from this." And then she puts out a new single, number one on Billboard. I have to have that conversation with Rahul all the time, where he's like "People said this on Twitter." I'm like, "How many people?" - Yeah. - "Was it just one guy?" "They're saying something on Twitter." But even for Doja Cat, it was like people who run her fanpages, They were like, "We are your community." And Doja Cat was like, - "Fuck you." And then was... - It doesn't mean shit. It's wild, uh – Most people don't know who Doja Cat is, - and they listen to her. - That's the thing with video games. I try to stress to people so often, like, when The Last of Us Part II leaks came out, everyone was like, "This game's not gonna sell. This is the worst thing to ever happen." I was like, "I promise you, vast majority of people who own PlayStations don't even know what Naughty Dog is. They don't fucking know what video game leaks are." Everyone's like, "They do. That's ridiculous." If I walked up to a majority of PlayStation owners on the street and was like, "Do you know what Santa Monica Studio is?" they'd be like, "Somewhere near Venice Beach?" - "Is that the pier?" - They would have no idea. Gaming is so much bigger than, like, the tiny little sliver of console wars. And the same thing applies to literally any internet drama. - Oh my god, yeah. - Like, it's so small and you can think it's so big by giving someone so much weight for everything they say. - It doesn't mean shit. - That's the shit, like, every single time someone gets – 'Cause it's almost like quality, not quantity. - Yeah. - Like, "Oh, man, this person did slip up, and all these people did - call their work and did swat them." - Mmhmm. And you're like, "Wow, that's really severe." But it doesn't... - You know, six people killed Osama. - Yeah. - I'm assuming it's six. SEAL Team Six. - It's weird how that happens. It's like, um, someone will, like, make a bad joke while they're on an airplane, and then they get off the airplane and the next thing you hear is like, "Guy who made airplane joke burned at the stake." And it's like, "What?" Is that really what we needed to do? Did we all need to...? This random civilian, we had to dox them and, like, end their whole bloodline? - Immediately. - Yeah. I wonder if that'll happen to Dr. Shit or whatever. You saw that, right? - The guy that diarrhead through the plane? - Oh, yeah. Devastating. It made me think of school. Like, it made me think of the embarrassing shit I would do as a kid that I'm still holding onto. - Every time you shat on a plane... - Holding onto your embarrassing shit? Yeah, that was one of the most embarrassing. That might be the most embarrassing shit, actually, to date. - It is bad. - But, like, you just have a memory, you're having a shower memory, like, "Oh, I can't believe I did that." Except you did it, like, on the way - back from a conference. - It's not his fault. - [JORDAN] I know. - He should have maybe stayed still. - Yeah. - But like, we can't be mad at that guy. No. But it's just so – Like, they're probably feeling way worse about it than... - we could even imagine. - Of course, yeah. I'm like, "You know what, buddy? You shat yourself on a plane, and they had to land it, and it made national news." - We've just never had it happen – - It could be worse. And having to tell the other people, like, he's going to a wedding in Barcelona and they're like, "Why is Jonathan late?" - "Oh, the plane..." - "Don't worry about it." "The plane was diverted, just like my bowels." - [ALANAH] So rough. - "One of the wings fell off." Yeah. The Unity thing, though, is big news. Like, that is a huge deal. Basically, every dev who's currently on Unity is at risk of their company literally shutting down. It deincentivizes success. The more downloads you have, the worse off you are. I think it's a cap of – Uh, at 200,000 they start charging 20 cents an install. It's also, as far as I'm aware, illegal. There currently is no real way for game devs to track installs. That's why they know sales. They usually don't know installs. So, if Unity somehow has this technology for the first time ever, where they know what people are installing and when – They said they have some proprietary way of telling. If you do, (A) it's not gonna pass UK law. There's no way. They're so pro-consumer there's just absolutely no way. Yeah. I mean, Apple had to put - USB-C ports on iPhones. - Exactly. And we're like, "Yes!" If they can, uh, get Apple to do stuff, - Unity's got no way. - There's no chance. - Yeah, you're welcome. - Yeah, it's honestly awesome. That was one of mine. Oh, you did that? Thank you so much. "Come on, David Cameron." He was like, "I have not been Prime Minister for so many years." But the other part of that is if they actually have that tech, I can't imagine them not just using it and selling it. Because that's information everyone would want. Just, yeah, pivot. That would be a viable product. Yeah. People would be like, "We can get that information now?" - Would already – - "You have that? OK." - It's a nightmare. - It's truly like a baby's idea. Just like, "We'll do it per download." "The thing where we have no data?" It doesn't stand up to one follow-up question. Yeah, I'm never OK, even with Elon Musk, with assuming billionaires are just that stupid. - No. - It doesn't sit right with me. They can't be, right? - Not that stupid. - Yeah. Well, I think I'm like – OK, well, what is the – Where does the real motivation come from? And it's like, greed? Well, I was partly like, what if they put out the worst possible terms so they can walk the terms back and be like, "Ah, they listened," but they're still bad terms? - Yeah. - Yeah, that should be, "Hey, you're grounded for a year," back to "You're grounded for six months." And instead of was like, "You're grounded in the ground 6 feet under. I've killed you." It's a tough one, because Unity is the one that most people learn in school. Like, so many devs know Unity, and it makes you employable, and learning a new engine is actually very hard. You should ideally know more than one, but it's really not that simple. So, like... Plus if you're making a game. You can't just change your engine. That's extremely difficult, or more difficult than people think. It's like... You can't just... They can be like, "We're changing this," and a whole bunch of people's entire résumés are screwed. Uh, it's like, um... What's the term? Extortion. - "What's that term?" - Yeah, they don't – They don't have an option. I don't think they really accounted for just how, in a good way, spiteful the industry can be. - Yeah. - It was like, "I'm... I'm not even coming back if you walk this back." They shouldn't, 'cause now you can't trust them. I watched like a Pokémon GO YouTuber do like a – - Oh, really? You? - Yep. Yep, I did it. Just once. Uh, and it was like a doomer take about the Unity news. And my immediate thought upon hearing it, I was like, "If this goes through, it will end Unity. There's no shot." Like, and so then they started walking things back. As of that video coming out, It was already – like, I was watching Stephen Totilo's Twitter, - Yeah. - and it was just like, "Update: Unity has clarified terms. Update: Unity now says this." But even all their clarifications are dogshit. Like, so far... I mean, it might be different now. The last statement I think was Monday night. When this goes up, it might have changed. But they were just like, "We're listening. We heard that you're upset. - You seem confused." - "You seem confused about our terms." - "You guys are a bit confused, huh?" - "Honey, you're being hysterical." - Yeah. "Oh, baby, come on." - Yeah. I think that they will probably have to walk the whole thing back, - Yeah. - but, they're, like... They're in a position now where nobody can trust them. But at the same time, what do they care about trust that much when everyone, like I said, their résumés are valued by Unity experience? - It's a really shitty situation. - Right. But I think that this could be... You know, it's kinda crazy to fumble so hard, 'cause this could be the inflection point, where you have all of these people who are bought into Unity and kinda have to continue using it, but people who are students, people – - Like, technology does shift fast. - Unreal looking very good right now. Exactly, yeah. - That's the thing. - Dude, right as the new Unreal - is picking up momentum? - [ALANAH] Everyone's losing their minds. Someone's like the CEO secretly – - Uh, this is all, like – - "I'm paid off by Unreal." - I wanna go back to your, like, - Like Jafar. "I don't wanna think billionaires are this dumb." Because I know exactly what you mean, and I totally agree to an extent, - but there is a slippery slope, - Yeah. because the other end of that spectrum is like Elon Musk shuts his dick in a door and someone goes, - "Masterful gambit, good sir." - Right, I love that tweet. It's tough. The Elon Musk one is also extra tough, 'cause it's like... How do you keep making so many terrible decisions for this app? - How? - Well, that setup in particular, - doesn't that just feel like...? - It feels like he's trying to sink it. - I can't explain it any other way. - It just smells like a bad manager. Like, that's the most relatable one to date, is Elon Musk being like, "I came up with an idea. I clearly pushed the team and the rollout to happen too soon. We didn't A/B test it, - and it was done for my pride." - Yeah. I have – we have all, I'm sure, been through that. But, like, getting rid of quote-tweets, there's just too many of them in a row that everyone's like, "Maybe you're not a genius." Did I ever tell you – I might have told you, that he used to send me memes? - Oh my god. That's crazy. - Yeah. But they were funny as fuck, right? They were, like, really good memes. - He stole them from a 14-year-old. - There were a lot of owl memes. - What? When was this? - And then – yeah, like owls. And then when Elden Ring came out, I got a few Elden Ring memes. - God, that's recent. Jesus. - Did you see, there's an article – Was he CEO when Elden Ring came out? No, it was like when it started. It was pre-Twitter, because the last message that I ever sent him, or the last time I messaged him back I said "gg," because I didn't know how bad it would get. And then never spoke to him again. There's, uh, there was an article... I think maybe it was a Grimes interview where she, like, explains that when Elden Ring came out he didn't wanna work and wanted to play Elden Ring all the time or something. - [ALANAH] Yep. - Did you see when he posted – - His build? - His build, - and everyone ripped him a new one. - His trash build. - His literal ten-year-old's build. - He was over-encumbered. - He was over-encumbered! - Dude, he was playing a challenge run. He was running around heavy! He was doing the "slow roll" challenge run. That's what people were saying; he was playing on a Guitar Hero controller. Yeah, they didn't know. - "They don't know how good I am." - The, uh... Something about that that I was gonna say. - Um... - You like him. - No. - [ALANAH] You're a huge fan. Oh, I was just gonna say that his stuff is not as surprising to me, because you would always hear rumors. Like, one of my roommates worked at Tesla back in like 2015 and stuff, and you would just hear things about him. And I think I started to become... uh, very sus of leaders who are leading multiple companies at the same time, like Jack Dorsey had Twitter and Square, and then he basically was like absent-fathering Twitter - because Square was making all the money - [ALANAH] Mm. and Twitter was like... was and has been stagnant - for the past decade. - Yeah. That's why the purchase doesn't make sense. I don't think he wanted to buy it. Well, he kinda backed himself into a corner with that, where... He, at some point... He offered such a high price that there was a fiduciary responsibility - from the board to accept the thing, - Right. and then he tried to get out of it but there was a billion-dollar kill fee in the... the term – - Like, there's a lot of – - Was it Virginia or Washington? State law, legally, he was obliged to purchase it? - I think so. - There was some situation where he kind of screwed himself over, where he legally had to. And then he was like, "This was on purpose." - And everybody was like, "Nnn..." - Was it, bud? And then he brought in Linda Yaccarino as the CEO, and... - It's wild. The whole thing's wild. - Yeah. I don't know if everybody's gonna relate to this, but it does feel like... like your drug dealer just won't leave. - [ALANAH & JARVIS] Yeah. - He sits down, like, "So what are we watching?" You're like, "Oh... - Breaking Bad, I guess." - Yeah. - "We are all doing that together." - Yeah, it's a lot. And it's like, again, I find it hard to accept that somebody could just be that dumb. Like, I know the "never attribute something to malice - Sure. - which could be attributed to stupidity," and I think that that is correct in most cases. This one... I don't know how you become the richest man on earth and also – Even less malice 'cause you're a sociopath. One thing that's important to know about Elon is he's super PR... Like, he's been trying to build this, like, "billionaire, playboy, philanthropist" image for many decades, and he doesn't actually have many, uh, actual achievements - or inventions to his name. - He just bought stuff. But he's bought a lot of good stuff. - Except Twitter. - It was good when he bought it. Yeah, he, like, retrofitted himself into a founder of Tesla, and... But then a lot of it's - government sub – - Even PayPal? Uh, yeah, he was bought into PayPal because they bought X, which was a company that he had. It's literally like if, uh... You know, he's always pushing, yeah, - for Tony Stark aesthetics? - Mmhmm. And it's like if Tony Stark wasn't hot, charismatic, or made stuff. - Or Robert Downey, Jr. - Or Iron Man. - Or Robert Downey Jr, yeah. - He's literally not Iron Man. He's just him at the start, when he's bombing people. So, it's interesting. I... You know, jury's still out on that guy. I think maybe he's got... Uh, he can bring it back with a few more memes. - Yeah, just steal some more memes. - Like, if he steals some memes, he sends them to you, you send them to us, - Yeah. - then we broadcast them. - Yeah. - Do you think if he sends you some Bad Luck Brian top text/bottom text Impact memes, it'll turn it all around? - That's top-tier. I'm just waiting. - What about Philosoraptor? I think he might have sent a Philosoraptor. - That rocks. - Yeah. - Well, he loves philosophy. - Apparently. I think there might be one of those in there. Have you guys seen that clip of Grimes saying that Ukraine and Russia should duke it out in Fortnite? See, I like her. Jamie, pull that up? Help us out, Jacob. - Oh, man. - She – I mean... That and the two of them each getting, like, uh, matching Sword Art Online profile pictures are the two most endearing things either of them have ever done, because it truly – like, that is... That's the only funny thing he's ever done. - Yeah, that's up there. - I don't know. The sink? - The sink was pretty good. - Yeah, the sink was classic Elon. "Let that sink in." I remember seeing that and being like, "What, why? Did something happen?" I wasn't, like, up to date. And he has to – how long was he...? - Did he leave it in the lobby? - And he fucking giggled. Oh, he giggled. He was masturbating thinking about how funny everyone was gonna find the sink. He was like, "I'm gonna get so many updoots." "Thank you for the Reddit gold, stranger." Oh, I'm remembering why we mentioned you on the podcast, by the way. You might not even remember this. It was, uh... I don't know if I'll say what the thing was, but we were meeting up with, uh, Eddy and Chrissy and a bunch of people for drinks a couple months ago, and, uh, I was just leaving as you arrived. Sus. And I just... On the way, I was like, "Hey, what's up?" Then I just went, "Um, methinks it's time to leave." - Oh, yeah, you did. - And you looked physically repulsed. - Yeah, I wasn't happy about that. - I remember laughing to myself about that. - [ALANAH] Classic Elon moment. - That was like, you walked up and you were like, "I was just in an accident." - [ALANAH] Yeah. - We were like, "What?" And you went... - It was that same day, yeah. - "Look," and it was your destroyed car. - Yeah. - Oh, yeah. And I was like, "You seem to walk away from explosions." Like, you're just... - Yeah. - Well, you didn't wanna, you know, - have to pay for an ambulance. - That one, I mean, I also, like, was so overworked at that point that I'm also like, again, I should have looked. It's on me. I had it coming. Something was gonna happen eventually. That kinda feels like a little bit of the ambition flavoring, you know? - That's kinda what I said. - Like, "My merit! I failed." - Yeah. - Again, the dude still ran a red light, - as far as we know. - He's in the wrong in the eyes of the law. But you can't have something like that happen and not be like, "If I had done this differently..." Yeah. But it could have even been, like, you know, you could have looked at the wrong time – like, there's things that could have gone wrong - that are just – it's like a fluke, - Yeah. rather than a character flaw. - Yeah. Hard not to think about it, though. - True. Was that, like, uh, I guess... Yeah, that is kinda the feeling that manifests when you're disappointed in something or when you had an ambition that you couldn't meet even if it was never possible in the first place, like the goal was unreasonable. True. I actually don't have a lot of that. I don't really struggle with feeling like I'm not, uh, like a failure. That doesn't happen very often. I'm like, "As long as I'm always doing something..." The biggest problem I have is like, I don't know which thing to commit to. - True. - I'm like, "Which of these things...?" Obviously my job comes first, but after that I'm like... Like, I wanna learn to play guitar. I'm like, "I should learn. But I have to Twitch. But I have to make a YouTube video. But I need to play these games." And I just am like, "Ahhh, none of them?" You know, you... I do think you find ways to relax, though. - To give you some credit. - I give myself a lot of, uh, travel, and that's when I don't do shit. - 'Cause I feel like you'll take - Oh, that is a great way of... - a big relaxing trip somewhere. - 100%. Yeah, and I think that, you know, for the audience, there's some balance here. It's not just all work. - You're a "work hard, play hard" type. - It's all work when I'm home. I try to, at least. I work usually like 9:00 a.m. to like... This week it's probably been like 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m. or so. Um, and I always work weekends. But then, like, I'll go away for a full week and be like – I mean, I still have to do my day job, but I completely stop YouTube and Twitch and I don't care, which is a thing that I think is important to bring up. I do think there's value in diversifying, especially if you're content creator. - Yeah. - Don't put all your eggs in one thing. Especially all the shit that's happened to Twitter, a lot of people feel like they've lost value there. You should always be making sure you have different avenues for everything. Don't overwhelm yourself, obviously. I'm sure you have people watch this and wanna start doing YouTube or whatever. It's like, also dabble in other things. It's like, whatever you're aspiring to do, even if you're already doing it, but especially if you're about to start, is not the thing you'll end up doing. It's just not how it works. If it were, then you would take one class in everything. - That's true. - And just be like, "Ah, hablo. I've got Spanish." - "All done." - Yeah, it's true. I, uh, recently was at a Conan O'Brien podcast thing, um, and someone asked him a question like, "Who are your favorite and least favorite people to interview?" And his favorites were like comedians, like Norm Macdonald and Will Ferrell, people who bring a fun bit rather than just being an interview. He said his least favorite is always this really particular type of person, which is just a young person who got very successful very young and has zero fucking life experience. Like, nothing to talk about other than the acting and how hard it is. Like, "Yeah, it was tough when I was 16 and my agent told me I had to dye my hair." And you're just like, "Holy fuck, you have nothing to share?" I think that's such a big thing, even for writers. If you have only ever been a writer, you don't have shit to talk about. - "I sat in my room." - You have to live a life worth commenting on. Like, what am I, Alan Wake? I mean, he had some interesting - life experience later. - That's true. Shit that happened to his life, he's like, "I should write about that." But the time that I worked at McDonald's and had to clean up kid vomit has, like, given me a perspective that I otherwise wouldn't have. You have to have – I think it's the same for YouTube. You have to have done other things to have anything to say. Otherwise, you're just so out of touch. It plateaus, right? The life experience at the very start of something - is the most, and then it very... - Yeah. I am... I started my YouTube channel when I was 26, and I think that was kind of, like, important for me. Because if I had... I've noticed this trend of a lot of people who start really young on YouTube and find initial success and are like, "This is my thing..." tend to always gravitate towards the same types of videos, you know? Where it's like you have your Morgz. I'm trying to think of somebody who's young. Uh, Australian. But... Sorry, no offense, but maybe keep them in line. - Ugh. - Yeah. No, but, uh, you know, your Morgz, your Brent Riveras. - Uh-huh, yeah. - Where it's just kind of like this whole – Like, there's a reason all those kids started copying MrBeast. - Mm. - Just, like, taking his – The Stokes Twins, or whatever. I don't know who any of these people are. I literally, because it's like they all have a certain type, and a lot of it is "let's, uh, - just do the currently popular trend, - [ALANAH] Yeah. because that's... - that's the only place we can go." - Yeah. I mean, I've been doing the same thing on my gaming channel for ten years. Literally, the exact same type of video, which is not super popular, and I know that. It doesn't equate to a ton of growth. Same shit, ten fucking years. And I'm still like, "I'm having a great time." But that's important, - the fact that you're having fun. - It's a different Alanah over time. True, and I have different perspectives now that I work in dev than I had when I started out. It's super different. It's evolved over time. But it's like... I think the only reason I've managed to sustain for ten years is that I've been like, I don't... care about the growth. I really like talking about video games. I think that's also a thing I say to people who are starting. - And it's not your whole life. - You're a way more successful YouTuber than I am, but it's like... People will tell if you're not interested in what you're doing. You have to like what you're doing. Or you're gonna hate it and they're gonna be like, - "You fucking hate this." You have to - Yeah. be into the content you make. But there is a challenge, um, for... You know, when something that's like a hobby becomes a job, - that it's like – - A jobby. A jobby, yeah. You have to, like, - re-add the balance back to your life. - [ALANAH] Yeah. I think that's definitely something I struggled with. Um, because as soon as I went full time, the pandemic happened, - like the next year. - That's kind of convenient, unfortunately. Yeah, and, uh, it took me extra long, 'cause I was like... I was coming off of, like, burnout from doing two jobs. I, personally, like, couldn't really do it for that long. Like, I did it for a year and I was like, "OK, I've had enough." But then even when I had all the time in the world, I had none of the motivation. It was like, I am also a person who needs my schedule to be packed, and that's when I'm the most productive. So I had to find new things to fill my time with, and also find a way to balance without beating myself up about my productivity, because I think I have that same, like, thing, where I'm like "productive means good." And I've been trying to un-train that. It's hard, due to, again, capitalism. Yeah, and it's just no longer... You know, even to take a... Like, even to take a, um, efficiency... Like, if you look at it from an efficiency standpoint, it's no longer efficient - to beat myself up about my productivity. - Yeah. I need to just rest, or I need to just put my focus elsewhere. Yeah, I will stop eventually. Like, I will. I have to. I just spoke to a financial planner, uh, this week, 'cause I was like, "Listen. At a certain point, I'm gonna have to stop working this hard. It's been too long and it's too many fucking hours. I need a plan for when that happens and I obviously start making less money." So he was like, "Yeah, you probably can't grind forever." I was like, "No, please." Like, I don't even have an editor, 'cause I don't trust anyone. So I'm having to do everything myself, like, "Oh, god." That's a very funny way of phrasing that. - Well, I tried, man. - "I don't trust anyone." I do have a podcast editor 'cause I can't balance audio, and I love Jack. He's great. But for my own videos, (A) everything I make, because it's games media-focused, uh, has to be up immediately after I film it, which is tough. I can't schedule stuff a week out. It has to be up as soon as possible. But I also tried, and every time I get something back I'm like, "I just have to re-edit it." So what's the fucking point? Let me tell you. It is tough, and I have been through that personally, and I never thought that I would be able to give away pieces of it. But I think, well, one, I was like, "Editing is the most time-consuming thing." - Yeah. I really enjoy it, though. - You do? I... I stopped enjoying it, because I used to love, like, the creative problem-solving element. There are certain types of videos - where there's no new problems to solve. - Yeah, sure. And, uh... And for those, it doesn't, like, scratch my brain. But whenever I'm doing something new, - then I'm way more hands-on. - Yeah. But the other thing is I think one thing that I started with was having an assistant editor, um, basically paying someone to cut up the dialogue of a given video so that I could still make - the creative editing decisions. - So the cut's shorter. Yeah, or just reduce the amount of work that I had to do. And that helps get the foot in the door. Literally take a lot of the most tedious parts of the workflow that, let's be honest, we might just kind of skip, and the workflow might just be worse 'cause things aren't efficiently tagged or, - "Fuck, I'm not tracking things correctly. - Yeah. My bucket's all fucked." I... It's... I mean, Sad Boyz, we edited very early on. But the current iteration of Sad Boyz and my channel in particular, I've never edited anything on my channel - Really? - because I... I knew if I was – 'Cause we already had someone that would be... well, now two people that are perfect for it. I never wanted to touch it because then I'm only gonna see what it isn't. - True. That's a good idea. - From moment one, it's like, "Oh, this is..." The – actually, we're... We can't go into too much detail; we're working with, like, a brand graphic design person right now, and we give them mood boards and feedback, but we keep it a little kinda esoteric, - like give it a little distance. - It's a good way to protect yourself. - Yeah. - Yeah. And the, you know... I'm sure you know this. Did you guys know you can't search "sad boys" on Instagram? I know. It pisses me off. And it's – I've talked to Instagram's people, and they... Their answer is that it's a tool that they have to, like, protect people. - Right. - And I'm like, "It has a Z at the end." - Yeah. - Like, I understand the purpose, but, like, I just don't – Could you change the username? - It's just such a good handle. - Yeah. - And it's the same everywhere. - Protect them from what? When it comes up – I think it was like two weeks ago that I looked – It says, like, "This search is not enabled for mental health reasons." It's like so people can't probably glorify - sad boys. - Oh. Can't find out what "sad" is? - Yeah. It's such a bizarre – - "I feel fine. Oh, no." - "No, I found this!" - It's such a bizarre place to... It's such a bizarre place to help, in my view, and it's such a bizarre way, because if you have a real account... Yeah, it says, "Can we help? Words you're searching are often associated with sensitive content." - "Boyz." - "If you're going through a difficult time, we've gathered some resources from experts we hope can help." That's so annoying. Especially for a brand. But related to that, you're both boys. - [JORDAN Thank you. - I've noticed this thing on Instagram recently, where – I can't use TikTok. It melts my brain. But I see Reels on Instagram. They're OK with me because it's not Reel after Reel. - It's like a Reel and then an image... - Yeah, I agree. - Um... - Not as claustrophobic. I don't know if this is my perspective because I'm a woman, but I feel like comment sections right now fucking hate women. It's like everything I see is like a woman dancing on a boat, and then the comments are "whore," "attention seeker," "women, tea." And I had assumed it would be getting better over time, that we would maybe start liking women more. - I feel like it's getting worse. - There are more professional misogynists - than ever before. The grift is - Yeah. taking people that just hated women - into loathing. - And making them millionaires, and it's all this stuff where people will interview a woman and be like, "How much does a guy have to earn - to date you?" - And selectively pick. - They only pick those ones. - Yeah. This is not what most women are doing. Why do these videos keep getting views? "Wow, $80,000 a year? That's not enough for you? Women are so unreasonable." - It's insane. They have this, like, um, this wedding ring one. I commented on one once. Someone was like, "You know, it's gotta be like $10k." And I commented. I don't even remember why, but I was like, "I would not care the value of a wedding ring as long as it felt personalized. You can give me a $10 ring. As long as I felt like you thought about me when you bought it, I don't give a fuck." And I got DMed, men were so upset. They were like, - "Sure you fucking do." So angry about it. - "That's not true. Now, I don't know any women, but that one I saw..." It just got real out of hand real fast. Do they not think there are people that feel – ? That's the weird thing, is that the comment is always, "This... This is why we need racially-segregated schools." - Yeah. - I'm like, sorry; did you not think there were unlikable Black people? Did you just think it was...? - Everyone. 10% of anyone. - You see one, and you're like... - Yeah. - It's just – it's so out of control in a way that I was like, "Holy shit, I really..." Like, I knew sexism was a thing, - but now you just fucking hate women. - It's like such a - moment on the internet. - It's chic now. It's chic. I mean, there's a huge market for it because of - your Andrew Tates of the world. - Right, that's why the videos where they're like, "How much money does he have to earn?" just keep getting views. These people are enjoying consuming content where they hate women. - I think Tate has made a really... - Huge impact. His dent is weird, because it's the same demographic as the 2010s grifters - of Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, - Right. Dave Rubin, any of these guys. They coded professional, - and they coded themself as intellectuals. - True. And then now, I think, like, the Andrew Tate audience has realized, especially the younger ones, that, you know, while a Jordan Peterson guy has to say, like, "Well, in fact, if you were to look at the data," and the Andrew Tate guys can go, - "I'm gonna kill you with karate." - "I'm RIPPED." - "I'm gonna punch you into space." - Literally, there was – I remember back in 2018, I think, was probably the last time I made tech videos. Um, I used to – I just saw a RuneScape video you made the other day. Uh, very early on in my YouTube career, I would talk about tech stuff. I was working as a software engineer. - Yeah, I knew that. - I was talking about that stuff. And, um... I remember getting this comment from someone that was like, "I'm," uh, "a Black woman." Or they were like, "I'm a Black girl; I'm 16 or 17," or something like that. "Do you think that I would be able to do this career?" And I... When I first saw the comment, - there was already a thread of replies. - Ugh. And one of the top replies was, "Um, unfortunately, - the IQs for, uh, Black people - (Jordan groaning) are in the lower percentiles, and for women it's also low. So just based on the combination of that, I don't think it's a good idea." And it was like the "well, actually" - Reddit intellectual, - Oh my god. where it's like, all of what you're describing is bunk and fake. - Fucking hell. - Have you heard of pair bonding? No. (sighs) So, there's this theory that the more partners a woman has, her ability to bond with the next one will weaken over time. - Yeah. - So the more sex a woman has, the less she – and they're like, "It's science. Pair bonding is science." Like, no it's fucking not. Sex is a zero-sum game. - You have 200 sexes to have. - Yeah, and then you can't fall in love. And I just keep thinking, with so many of these things, and I think this is fully Andrew Tate, is... All the, like, "a woman's over 30, she's used up, you don't want her anymore. She's not malleable." All you're constantly admitting to is wanting to be able to manipulate someone. - True. - If a woman's over 30, she has the experience to know she's being treated like shit. In theory, she's had more partners. She understands her own boundaries. And so you're like, "She's a slut, when people are trying to debate the age of consent, but they aren't saying, "I wanna date somebody under X age." What they're saying is, like, "Hey, I'm just playing around. - I'm just throwing numbers around." - "It's just science." "Me, personally, I don't – I would never. But... - Peak fertility." - Yeah. OK, but why do you care? Why is this the fight you're having? Why are you not, like... If you want a sample size, pick and choose, I'm sure you could find some, like, people – women over 30 you don't like - Yeah. - that there's embarrassing footage of or cringey stuff. It just happens to be pretty much always people the same age - as whoever is criticizing them. - Yup. It's "the girls at my school" or "the girls at my college, my job, my..." It's just "the girls who didn't want to fuck me," I think. Which, believing that stuff means everyone. Yeah, true. - Ain't nobody wanna fuck you. - It's, uh – I mean, Andrew Tate and his brother, like, they had guides - on how to, like, - [JORDAN] Oh, yeah. remove a woman from their, uh, - Network. Yeah. - Network. Basically, like... - Manipulate them. - Manipulate them by kind of making... uh, them the only person they could get any sort of support from. - Yeah. - And it's so gross, but... That is always – You always feel that in the subtext of those, like, manosphere-type guys. I got a really interesting... I wasn't sure if I really wanted to talk about this, but somebody wrote this, uh, long post on my subreddit. Uh, and one of the things that they said – It was critical of me, um, and if you wanna go read it you can. But they deleted their account 'cause no one agreed with them. And I kinda felt bad, 'cause I didn't see it for weeks. But one of the things they said was, um... They were like, "I turned a blind eye when Jarvis and Jordan turned that blackface show into a series." - Or "Jarvis's content..." - I'm sorry; what? Oh, it's a show called Black.White. - Uh, it's – - You did what? Bookmark that. - And the other – - You would love it. Oh, god. The other thing was like, they, um, "and he makes content out of people who hate women. why would he do that with so many female fans?" And I'm like, I don't... - Like, I'm making fun of them. - I got that with Andrew Tate, too. I made an Andrew Tate video, and people were like, "Why would you spread his word?" I know that I probably have a crossover with the audience he has, to be honest. I probably have some young men. And if I'm being like, "Don't be like this guy," that's better than just letting him get in their feeds. That's the thing. I'm not trying to say that I'm... have this holier-than-thou purpose or anything, but, uh, I do think in the entertainment landscape it is valuable to give kinda tools for poking humorous holes in these arguments that these people are making. - Yeah. - If you can turn it into entertainment and you can figure out something to laugh at, then it can... It can start to take the teeth away and, um, make it seem... Like, young men feel persecuted. It's... I do think we are failing young men in a number of ways, to be honest. And the thing is, it's very... (sighs) There's a sect of people who will disagree with that. And a sect of people that will say, "These men have everything. The patriarchy, blah-blah." Which I also understand that side of the argument. But the – The entitlement is not justified. We are failing young men. - Yes. - Well, we're failing everyone - [JORDAN] in nuanced ways. - Like, materially, there are boys that feel - uncared for by society. - Can't express their emotions. Their dads are still telling them they're girls. Most of them are not – When they say, like, "I can't get laid, and that's not fair," they're not really talking about sex. - 'Cause they don't have sex. - Yeah. What they're talking about is success and, like, - And acceptance and validity. - Feeling attractive. It's completely unacceptable and unreasonable, but these are not, like... It – not criticism – incels are virgins. Like, that's the point. (stammering) They're not criticizing, like, "Ah, this thing that I love to do." - "I can't do anymore." - They've just never done it. It's so hard to talk – You like the idea of being someone that has sex. It's so hard to talk about, because I think a lot of people, uh, especially on the left, will laugh at this concept that, you know, like... 'Cause it's something that the right will cry, like, "We're failing our young boys," like that Jordan Peterson meme. "These young men." Yeah, but the, like, the material reality is that, you know, there are, uh, boys who are lost and they're looking for answers, and they find people - who speak with a lot of authority - Yeah. that seem to back up - their beliefs with evidence. - Yeah. They make some shit up. - Yeah, or – - But they say it with conviction. - Yeah, they say it with conviction. - "I said it very loud, so I think I'm right." - And, um, - "And I did karate." - That's all we need. - I think that trying to create spaces that don't immediately, um, shoo away those people, and... it is... hard, but I think it's like a noble, uh, effort. Like, I was – OK. Personal experience, I was one of those guys when I was in high school that was like, "I'm just a nice guy." Like, "Girls don't like me 'cause I'm too nice," - or something. "I need to be a bad boy." - Mmhmm. But, uh, I didn't take it out on anyone. It was more just I would be depressed about myself, like, within my room. And there was kind of like this fork in the road, you know? And... I've heard many guys say that, to be honest. Many men I know who are like, "I could have gone hard down that route, and it wouldn't have been difficult. But I just didn't hate women, so I didn't go that way." - "I just coin-flipped." - "Turns out I liked my mum." I was – yeah. I was raised by only women in my life. It's like I was raised by my mom and by her sister, and I was raised by my aunt. And, like, the... They were all good people. I was like, "I don't think hating women is the answer." But when I shared this in a video about the subreddit truerateme, which is a subreddit where incels post photos of women they've seen on the internet or know in real life and pretend that they're them - in order to – - Insult them. Insult them, yeah. Uh, "6 out of 10? Overrate." - Um, "You're banned." - [ALANAH] It's so funny. "Also, why won't you date me? I'd like to." And, uh... So I talked about this. I shared a little bit of this. Disproportionately, I got so many DMs. People were like, "I'm in high school. I'm a guy. I feel like this. I have this issue with my self-image. How do you fix it?" - Yeah. - [JARVIS] And... I don't – Like, there's not a panacea. There's not like a silver bullet. But it really... It's like... I'm making entertainment, at the end of the day. But at the same time, I am... If sharing my experience and sharing my worldview through that entertainment is offering some sort of olive branch to people – For them to not go to Andrew Tate. Right, but not at the expense of supporting, you know, uh, the LGBTQ+, like, members of our community or the women in our community. Then it's like everybody can kinda coexist and be – can coexist together. That's like the thread that you're trying to thread, 'cause you don't wanna make one side angry that you're not going hard enough about these guys, but you don't wanna make another side feel - uncared for and kind of further... - Sure. You know, um, it's like, in a thumbnail, if you just go "Sneako sucks!" then there's gonna be some Sneako fans that are like, "Oh, this guy is just one of those haters." - Sure. - And Sneako does suck. And so maybe that's not the angle that I go in at. But, uh... But I'm sure there's more nuance. There's more, like, issues on the fringes that, you know, we can discuss or talk about and - kind of open that dialogue. - I was part of one of the AOC streams in 2021, 2020, I don't remember, that I think Hasan was helping to put together. And, um, the one I did, I'm pretty sure xQc was on as well. And so it was, I don't know, a bunch of streamers, AOC, Hasan, xQc. And people were angry at me for doing a stream with xQc, who I still don't really know very much about, to be honest. Um... And I asked AOC's reps, like, "People are upset. I don't really know this guy or what he's done that people are mad about." And they said... I think the idea was, probably in discussion with Hasan, or I'm not sure who to assign it to, but they didn't wanna just alienate his audience as well. They were like, "If we're doing this and the point is to raise money," 'cause they were charity streams, "why would we not try to also get the audience that's maybe on a slightly more right fringe into that as well?" - And young boys. - He is the... opposite side of the funnel that is saying, "Hey, I'm xQc, - and I'm hanging out with these people." - Right. - It's very weird to – - You could just exclude him, which I think the people who were mad at me wanted. And he could have said no. But he is like, "No, I'm going to hang out - with the leftists." - They're like, "We want those people to see that." I was like, "OK, yeah, I get that. I don't know what decision I would have made if I were the organizer there. Especially because the people who were upset were almost entirely people of color, and I was like, "Oh, clearly something has happened that I'm too privileged to be aware of." It would literally be like if somebody walked up to us while we're sitting here and went, "Hey, guys, fake gamer, right?" - Yeah. - And we're like, "We're hanging out. What do you think we think?" I'm just fighting for ethics in games journalism. - [JORDAN] Yeah, dude. It's very nuanced. - [ALANAH] Good times. See, that's what the Tate guys have freed everyone of, is like, "Oh, no, you don't need a reason." - Yeah. - "Oh, you don't have to reframe - this thing that doesn't make sense." - You don't have to pretend - to care about anything. - You just have to, like, uh, do planks and yell at a barista for calling it a venti, or something. That's it. Film them. Yeah, it's a better world. You're right. - It's actually cool. - Thank god. Yeah. It's a weird time online. And this is one of those situations where we're like, you know, a lot of stuff online isn't real. A lot of the, like, things that people get upset about - and yada-yada is not real. - Totally. But I think that this is a very real thing, and it shouldn't be ignored, because, um... I remember... I don't know if it would be OK for me to share this. I'll just say "a friend." Uh, I was talking to a friend who has kids, and they were like, "I learned about Andrew Tate, Sneako, from my kids at the dinner table." - Damn. That's scary. - And I'm like, "Oh, that's scary." Yeah. And it's like, this is happening, and some people will go, "What's the big idea? Andrew Tate just wants men to be confident." - That's not the whole story. - That's the dangerous part, is he sometimes says things that are like, kinda true. And that's what – there was something where he was like... "If I go out and it rains that day, I'm not allowed to be mad at the universe because I got wet. I didn't have the foresight to bring an umbrella." And I was like, you know what? If you start with that, I can see why people are like, - "Interesting frame of mind." - Or Jordan Peterson's "clean your room." You should work out and be healthy. That's things that we're in support of. "Maybe you should improve your quality of life –" Then he's like, "Also, fuck bitches, get money." Literally. It's like the whole, "Look at this horse. We've made this beautiful horse." "And the horse is, uh, working out and eating healthy and going to sleep on time. - Come in. Um... - [ALANAH] Then the horse beats women. Yeah. "Oh, no, inside the horse! Oh, fuck, oh fuck!" Yeah, it's tough because the gateway makes a lot of sense, and then just so quickly escalates. And I don't know what the solution is. Like, I really don't know. Again, I had always assumed that, like, women-hating shit would get [better], because I think in my career it has gotten better. Like, I used to be accused of not even really liking video games at all, playing video games for attention. That happens occasionally, but a lot less often than it used to. Well, people go into games journalism for the money. - Right, and the attention and accolades. - "Looking for attention" is so funny. Attention from gamers? You wanna get hit on at PAX, and then... There are so many easier ways to get attention than to make a review of Starfield. Like, it doesn't make any sense. - And, uh... - I remember seeing constant shit, like, "Yeah, Jessica Nigri's pretending to like games." And I'm like, "Sorry; she's spending thousands of dollars - And hours. - and hours to make cosplays to then go to events, traveling to those events..." For attention. It's nuts. You could do so many things for attention. - For whose? - For you? What you're getting right now. Even people who don't particularly love attention, every human needs attention. That is a human need. It's such a weird thing to criticize. It's so often just directed at women in a way – I don't see men get accused - of being attention-seekers very often. - Like a dude posts a shirtless gym photo; no one goes, "He's just looking for validation." "Oh, he's just wearing that tight shirt for looks." - Yeah, "For women." - Yeah. But that has gotten better, but I still, more than anything, probably, on YouTube get, "I don't wanna hear a woman talk about video games." I get that almost every single day. It's so frequent that I'm like, "OK, it's improved, but it's still a thing," whereas now I'm seeing stuff in Reels that I assume is directed at younger audiences, where I'm like, "Oh, it maybe is getting worse." I literally don't know what the solution is. 'Cause if women talk about it, you get accused of being a professional victim or being an attention-seeker, so you can't talk about the shit that's going on. But then if you're silent, it propagates itself. I literally don't know what we're supposed to do other than be like... Like, at least I feel like women have each other's backs more and more. That is getting better. Like... And at least, like, the... There's at least, like, "we are making fun of these people." There is a counter-movement that exists. - Yeah. - Because they are comical. It's not – it is very insidious, but there's this super, like, transparent version of it now, like, instead of dog-whistling, it's just yelling. Big dumb babies. The lot of 'em. I also don't know the answers here. One thing that I think about, especially because there are so many young boys, uh, on the receiving end of this, um... - They're the ones consuming this content. - Right. Yeah, they clicked on your thumbnail to say "I don't wanna watch this." - Yeah. - "Not interesting to me." - "I'll watch it, but like..." - Yeah. "Shut up, woman!" - "You walked into my house." - Yeah. Also, 40 minutes in, "Actually, no, you're wrong about this." I think, um, one thing that I try to remind myself is that a lot of these people are, uh, young, and so they're strong opinions weakly held. - They have malleable minds. - True. I thought some stupid shit - when I was a teenager. - Right. And I've now been in the game for like... You know, I think I've been making YouTube videos for almost six years, or I think six years as of... Holy shit. Um, anyway. Uh, and over that time, I've now had people who... I'll get DMs where they'll DM me, and the last time they DMed me was 3 years ago. And three years was - an eternity in their own development. - I've had apologies from people like, "Oh my god, I just saw the last message I sent. I'm so sorry. I'm 18 now." I was like, "Oh, you were a 15-year-old boy." They're like, "Oh, I don't know what I was saying three years ago." And they'll also go, um, "I... you know, really didn't agree with you about this, that, and the other thing, but I've reflected." And I'm not doing anything. In most of those cases, - I didn't even respond. - Yeah. And I think that that is cool. And it also gives me some hope. Some hope. I'm not, like, carte blanche, uh, "I have all the hope; - everyone will change their minds." - But you might be right. Maybe I'm being, like, too cynical, like, "Everyone's fucking doomed." But maybe it's not. - A healthy amount of cynicism. - I think you've very valid. Plus you're always going to have a... a scope into stuff like that. Yeah, you are seeing the women-hating firsthand. - Yeah, that's certainly true. - And it's – like... When you get a bad comment, the flavor of it... Like, I can't receive a women-hating comment. - You know? - [ALANAH] Yeah. Or if I do, it's... Like, when we collaborate with women, or if I have women on my channel, the comment I get is shipping us, - which is another thing. - Mm. - That's annoying. But, uh... - Yeah. But... Yeah, or being uncharitable to a woman and not understanding where that's coming from. Like, oh, why do you think the woman guest talks too much or is annoying? Yeah. I had that once, where I got accused of cutting people off too much, which I certainly do. But I did an insane thing and tallied it, - 'cause I kept getting – - You tallied it, not the comment? Yeah, I tallied it. I got the comments on IGN, and so I tallied five separate episodes of the show. I cut people off the least. It was a recurring comment. "Agreed; she does it too much." "Agreed." "Alanah, I just wish you'd let someone finish a sentence." I fucking tallied it. I did it the least of all four – I mean, they're talking about, like, the exchange rate, right? Like, "The exchange rate on woman-coin is very low." Yeah. "The woman spoke too much." That's the tough thing about it, is we do it all the time on Play, Watch, Listen and I don't care, because it's a conversation. Cutting someone off to, like, condescend is different. I get it's annoying to hear. That's the problem. It means you're having a comfortable conversation. We cut each other off all the time. It's a human thing to do. People do it. And you have to account for the narrative of the conversation as well. Like... This... If I have a follow-up thought and I want to genuinely get an opinion on it, you don't want to lose the place in that conversation. You also don't want somebody to feel – I don't know. It's very nuanced, and I do know that there's a lot of people that just are annoying in general in life, and probably get the feedback of, - "Can you fucking stop doing that?" - [ALANAH] "Shut the fuck up." And they're hearing that as, "Oh, never say a word while there's noise from anyone else. That's how it works. I see." Yeah. A lot of the people who really have the problem aren't the ones who are open to change and learn. - Yeah. - And it's falling on, you know, non-listening ears. It is nice to, like – I don't know. Sometimes... I do want to appreciate how much of difficult things I see are just poorly delivered or semi-invalid or whatever, uh, - attempts at constructive criticism. - Mmhmm. Whereas those, like, Reels we're talking about is truly – They're trying to get to the person, for some reason. Like it's a prank channel or like, "We looked at a woman until she ran away!" And they're like, "Coward woman!" "She's so – You are so slow at running." And you're like... She's on, like, the Las Vegas Strip. Yeah, you literally can't go anywhere. She's, like, trying to enjoy her night, and this man is pestering her with man-on-the-street questions. It's like, "Why won't women just stand up for their own beliefs?" I'm like, "This woman is clubbing." Like, she is trying to enjoy her night, and a man with a camera's like, "No, miss!" - "How much money is enough?!" - Yeah. - Literally. - She's just taking her AirPods out. "What are you saying to me?" "How many people have you fucked?!" Yeah. "Tell me the number! If it doesn't matter, you would tell me!" Not that it's, like, your obligation or anything, but do you feel like, especially moving into development, into game development, there is this... I don't know, a position of authority, you get to push back on comments? Not that you should have one, like, "Well, actually, I am allowed to be involved with games, because I'm making them." But if somebody were to be like, "Jordan's so short," and then they meet me, and I'm like, "But I'm not." That's it. Like, "Alanah doesn't like or know anything about games." - Like, "But she does." - I actually... I think that, um, most of my audience is actually super respectful and has respect for what I say. I cultivated a very good YouTube community, in my opinion. It's when the strangers come in. But usually people will defend me. Usually someone'll be like, "The fuck are you talking about?" Or like... If I ever work with a brand and they post something of me, there will always be comments like, "Alanah pretends to know about video games." But there'll always be a comment like, "Are you high out of your mind?" The amount of stuff you would have to have tried not to watch to think I don't play video games is very high. - It's just ten years of content. - To what end? But why? - "Why am I lying?" - [ALANAH] I don't know. - What would the reason be? - Specifically to annoy me. But there is, um, some really weird stuff with game development specifically that is just an ongoing YouTube thing where people who have zero experience whatsoever, never worked in games, have strong opinions and say them with absolute authority. And you're like... It's like... I always use this example. It's like listening to somebody who ate some chicken McNuggets talk about why the chef is bad. - Yeah. - Or farming. Yeah. Like, you think because you played a bunch of video games you know how they're made? You have no idea what you're talking about. And I didn't even know how bad it was until I went from talking about video games professionally to making them. And I was like, "I was that person." I said a bunch of bullshit that I assumed was true. I was like, "I've spoken to enough –" and I was wrong about fucking every – Why did anyone listen to me? And it's like half of the successful gaming YouTube channels are people who have zero experience. So there's this weird culture in gaming specifically where people actually don't want to hear the dev perspective. They'll call me a shill or be like, "You're an apologist." I'm like, "I'm really just trying to tell you the truth of the situation." At a certain point I have to be like, "You don't want to hear it. Nothing I can do about you not wanting to hear it. OK." Like, "This is for the people who are open to hearing the information. For everyone else, OK." To be fair, your company also is like... and I guess the extended Sony Cinematic Universe of, uh, dev teams, at least as a consumer, feels a lot less decentralized than a lot of other ones, where I know names of people - involved in the development. - Sure. Like Cory's video of him, like, - reading reviews after the launch of – - Yeah. That is, uh, the association you'd make, or like Neil Druckmann in the case of Naughty Dog - or something like that. - Yup. - Humanizing them helps. - I mean, to some extent, whether with movies, TV, games, anything, it is silly to give all author value - to only a director or writer. - Oh, totally, yeah. But it's at least, like, a step forward, whereas, I don't know, like... I am, medically, dangerously into Baldur's Gate 3 right now, and I don't really know Larian Studios. I don't really know a lot of names in there. - And I consider myself an enthusiast. - Mmhmm. But just 'cause I haven't done my due diligence, I don't know, and I can see someone being like, - I don't know, uh, "Frame rate drop here." - I wish they would do it more. Like, yeah, it's fucking one and a half people. Yeah. I wish... I wish there was allowed to be more transparency with devs. It'd be nice if people were allowed to talk about their work more. It's really secret. Nintendo especially are so locked-down on what they do and how that it's like... If we could help gamers understand, 'cause my biggest beef with the whole games industry community ecosystem is there's this thing where it's gamers versus game devs versus games media, and the perception is they all hate each other. Really, it should be those three against publishers. - Yeah. - It should be the 3 of these unified. We love video games. We all play video games. The suggestion that games media don't play games is stupid. The suggestion game devs don't play games is stupid. "Gamer" applies to all 3 of those. The publishers want the money. All 3 of these against those would be way better than this in-fighting, where the rich people making money are like, "Ha-ha!" - Yo, literally. - It sucks. - Man, capitalism. - Exactly! What's the Shadow of Mordor, Shadow of War team called again? The WB one that got shut down 'cause of... They... Shadow of War launched – Was it not just made by WB Montréal? - Yes, it was. - Was it? Is that right? - I think it was. - I believe so. Yeah, it was when they still had all of the authority over the Lord of the Rings license. - Yeah. - But they... Nemesis System being copyrighted or whatever, patented, - Yes. - and the insane monetization stuff they put in, so much of the pushback was like, "This studio. Did they forget how to make the game? Between the last game and this one, did they forget?" - It's like, "Of course they –" - It was made by Monolith. - Oh, RIP. - Yeah. But they... No, dude. Do you think they have the choice over...? Do you think they get the money? Yeah. And part of that is people like, "Well, if you don't like microtransactions as a dev, just leave." The problem is, again, capitalism. Then everybody just has to leave the whole industry. Like, video games just stop being made. Leaving, and even voting with your wallet, is not actually a solution to any of these problems. Say you don't like microtransactions. Rant about it all the time, like, "I'm gonna vote with my wallet." You fucking do, and you buy them. Like, majority of gamers will buy microtransactions, so it doesn't work. You can flaunt that on Twitter all you like, but for every single person who's buying everything in FIFA Ultimate Team over and over again, which they keep doing, every other company in the industry has to be like, "Why aren't you making that much? We're publicly traded. You've gotta make that on the stock market ASAP." [ALANAH] So it's like, you always vote with your fucking wallet, and it's not going well. - Yeah, they keep losing. - Yeah. You keep voting for the wrong shit. The issue with voting with your wallet most of the time is, at least in the online sphere, the capital-D Discourse shit, is not buying things, as opposed to engaging with and supporting stuff that you like. It's also the Call of Duty cycle, where they're like, "This looks shit. I'm not buying it. Same every year." The same people posted that on a forum, and they're actively playing the next one. - Oh my god. - They're like, "Oh, this is... I'm not playing Vanguard. There's a chick on there. Also, it's a year later. I'm not buying the new Call of Duty. I'm still playing Vanguard." - What are you talking about? - Yeah, it's a lot. "Hey, Alanah, I'm back. I'm on every single video. Just wanted to remind you that I'm not watching this." - Yeah. - "I would never watch your content." - [JORDAN] "I'm skipping before the end." - So, YouTube, uh, now shows you how long someone's been a subscriber, - but I would love if they showed – - Oh, do they? In the Studio. When someone leaves a comment, you can hover over if they're a subscriber - and it tells you how long. - Sorry to... A quick aside, 'cause I've been wanting to know, I had this guy who was harassing me across like 100 videos, and I didn't know until people told me about it, because they managed to somehow find his comment history on YouTube. - Oh. - [ALANAH] How do you do that? - I don't know. Oh, wait. - They were like, "We can see that all your comments on every video are about her." There's... OK. I don't know, - but there is a feature on mobile where, - Yeah. when you tap into somebody, it will show you some of the recent comments they've left. I would love to be able to do that in Studio. Then I'd be like, "Oh, - I don't give a fuck what you say." - That would help so much. 'Cause you can do it on Twitch. You can look at someone's – And I think that would be so useful. I wonder... I recently had a YouTube person DM me and ask me, um, my opinions about some stuff, and I'm gonna send them a message. - Do that one. - Yeah. Sorry; you were saying there's a thing on YouTube Studio... - Oh... - How long they've been subscribed? Yes. I was just saying I want to know how long someone has watched the current video, because it would be – before they leave the comment, and then in total, because it would be so funny to see somebody like, "Um, I'm not watching this," and they've watched every video you ever made. I do love a comment that is, like, clearly didn't watch the video, and I go, "Did you watch?" And they're like, "No, but I'm about to." I'm like... "I was waiting for my meal to be ready, and I'm going to sit down with my family." - Yeah. It would help – - "I'm gonna like it. I mean..." It would help so much, too, 'cause people a lot of times are just shouting out in the void, - Yeah. - and they don't expect to be heard. - No, true. - And, um – or – yeah. And so it would really help, I think, for creators to understand where people are coming from. Um, but, you know... - So it goes. - Get the perspective. Wowzas, that's a long podcast. - Um – - Stop right now! Uh, thanks so much to Alanah for joining us. - Very insightful discussion. - Thank you, Alanah. Um, we are gonna continue this insightful discussion and maybe talk about a little bit about Pokémon GO over on Patreon.com/SadBoyz with Sad Boyz: Nightz, the premium podcast for our Patreon pals. - Wow, that's a lot of Ps. - Yeah. - Do we normally do that? That was cool. - It was Dipper's fault. - Dipper peed before we recorded. - A lot. - He peed so much. - It was incredible. - More than 40 seconds. - It was so long. It was the most masculine thing I've ever seen. Yeah. - He pulled rank real hard. - Yeah. "Oh, is that so?" "Ow, ow, ow!" [ALANAH] You should get that checked out. Alanah, is there anything you want to plug or talk about? - Um, let the audience know about? - I work at Sony Santa Monica Studio. We make cool video games. And then, um, outside of that, I have various YouTube channels and social medias. @Charalanahzard. It's my name in the middle of Charizard. Nobody ever knows how to spell it. It's fine. It literally clicked with me like six months ago. - I get that a lot. - No, I love it. I love it so much. Is that one of those, uh... - it was a gamer tag ten years ago? - I was 13. - Yeah, all right. - Hey, I support it. Soul capture supports you in this moment. Uh, we end every episode of Sad Boyz with a particular phrase: - [JARVIS & JORDAN] We love you. - And we're sorry. Boom! I just wanted to talk about you doing an American accent in your reel or whatever that you did. Which one do you want? I have several. - Oh! - (valley-girl accent) Oh my god. - Like, I can do a lot of them, actually. - That's so – - A racist man. - Well, I don't know about that. (Australian accent) I don't know why my Australian sounds like – That's fucking terrible, but I love that you're attempting. (outro music)

Channel: Sad Boyz

Views: 243,847

Keywords: SadBoyz, Sad Boyz, SadBoys, Sad Boys

Id: cbqneholw1E

Length: 100min 24sec (6024 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 22 2023