Worst Thing That Can Happen to Someone Who Gets Famous

Shaggy Justin says what's it like to be part of something that is now part of the Lexicon of our society I'm referring to seeing people all over YouTube and everyday life adopting language like I'm going to bust that myth or some such I don't remember that language being used before MythBusters at least in the southern us what's it like to know you're actually part of today's cultural language and verbiage at that um it's so funny I do remember a friend of mine calling me up and saying ah you you came up last night in conversation and I said me personally or me as a culture as a cultural artifact because there are two different things um I said at the beginning of this that uh the reason we're taking questions about MythBusters is because we're got to launch another auction with Prop Store to benefit the grant mahara steam Foundation um and as part of that auction we signed some uh autographs we brought out a bunch of blueprints that the foundation had H and Carrie Byron came by the cave and texted me afterwards to say just that she had a great time that was lovely uh but also how inspired she is by the stories kids tell her about being inspired by the show um and Carrie has really spent so much of her time post MythBusters working on getting the message out to kids and working with little girls and working with young kids and your question what is it like to be part of something that's part of the cultural lexicon it is profoundly humbling because it's super clear how from my vantage point and the vantage point of all of my co- fellow hosts and crew we were just trying to solve the employment problems of that day we weren't thinking along those lines our joke is we were never thinking of the children but it's mostly humbling because because of how much that wasn't in our heads when we were making it I'm so grateful for that uh we just got to go and spend some time at two different cons at Dragon Con in Atlanta and Cincinnati Comics Expo in Cincinnati and I love the stories I'm sure some of you watching now came to my autograph table and told me stories about why you're an engineer or what got your kid into engineer ing or I love this young people telling me they watched it with the parent who's no longer with them uh Simon Peg told me that the Christmas MythBusters Marathon was a family tradition in his family uh the the two primary responses are humility and gratitude yeah I'm humbled by how little it was on my mind that we were doing something that was important you could debate its importance to be sure but I'm using important in a different meaning of just like the depth of what its effect can eventually be um and gratitude over like wow holy cow we got to do this weird thing the show is a hit before we got to know what it was we got to build it from the inside got to figure out its mechanics and operate those levers for more almost a decade and a half incredible I got to all of us hosts got to experience a king's Ransom of the most impossible circumstances it really is it I had occasion did I say this last week that I had occasion to go over uh uh our whole Canon of stories I don't think I said this on the live stream last time um recently I got asked to uh notate which mythbuster stories dealt with chemistry and so I went through our whole list episode and man just reading the whole list this is a little overwhelming it's like wow I can't believe what we got to do yeah that's it that we got to do that alchemical life or is it AI chemical life a second question as says did your life change after starting MythBusters what did it feel like going from a non-tv star to a TV star um yeah I was wondering about that when we first started shooting I was very curious about how that would be and I had this idea of how it would be that I think might be close to whatever your idea might be of it which is I thought it was going to be like Jersey Shore like I thought let me elaborate I thought that it would be like overnight right like all of a sudden we're on television people are waving at us and saying hi and all sorts of stuff is happening that did not happen um I specifically remember the first time I ever got recognized was in an electronics store up in San Rafel the electronics store up in San raell California and a guy walked in and went you're a guy on that show I saw last night on Discovery Channel and I was like yeah yeah and he goes this is just what I would have expected to find you I was like me too um but then the next person didn't recognize me for months so there's two aspects of the Advent of Mythbusters that I'm really grateful for one is that it happened later in life I was in my late 30s Jamie was in his late 90s when we started making a show I'm kidding he's only about 10 years older than me um and we I had seen some stuff I'd been through some stuff I've been divorced like life had dished out a fair amount of of stuff to me in my L by the time I was in my late 30s and right why am I saying that oh because because I thought about what if all of this had happened when I was 18 or 19 years old and I thought man thank God that didn't happen because when I was 18 or 19 years old I really wanted to be famous I wanted to be famous I thought I was going to be clever and really smart guy and I I really I had the sense of entitlement that that that this would you know that I would be able to do something and and get famous for it like yeah I don't know I mean I grown up with a you know my dad had had had a very public career at times I wanted to emulate him but also he was regarded by his Piers is very very smart and of course I had that sense of entitlement to me and now when I think oh my God if I had gotten a television show when I was 18 or 19 what an what an okay so this begs the question what are the bad things that can happen in my opinion the worst thing that can happen to someone who gets get famous is that they believe that they deserve it because it can show up and it can disappear it's ephemeral uh it's it's defined by its ephemerality and if you think you deserve it man it is just like the idea that you and your point of view intersect with culture enough that you get notoriety for your point of view is just it's a lottery it's a lottery the world is packed with the greatest Geniuses you'll never hear about simply because the stuff they're being Geniuses about is not culturally relevant or interesting or the word hasn't gotten out um you're also like okay so you asked how life changed first of all the recognition from the public was very slow took two or three years for it to start to be at all ubiquitous uh that slowness was a really nice ramp it felt stable and it was something you could get used to each level as opposed to being like the kids from Jersey Shore where one night there a bunch of goombas from the Jersey Shore and the next day they're world famous being paid millions of dollars of course they all went crazy if you give a 19-year-old millions of dollars in international Fame you're going to end up with Caligula like 90% of the time I really really believe that um specifically because the moment you have a hit show your network just wants to do everything for you they don't want to ever tell you no so you rarely ever hear that you'll you'll ask her something and your producer will tell you no but no one ever tells you no to your face and when no one's telling you no to your face for a long period of time you start to wonder if no exists anymore and maybe there are no rules you the little the the the the level of Fame that we got to gave me a window into the mechanisms by which it can turn people into insane monsters um you know yeah you hear this all the time about people like there's no one around them that can tell them no man when there's no one around you that can tell you no you're in trouble you're in deep trouble and you're also going to traumatize people around you like that's that's a guarantee um so those are the those are the those look I I will tell you the most difficult moment of being famous for me happened when I MythBusters was at its peak around 2010 20 2009 and I was traveling cross country with one of my sons and I lost him in an airport so he was 11 he didn't have a phone 11 didn't get phones and I was trying to find him at the same moment when Super Famous me everyone in the airport in my vicinity knew who I was and was trying to make eye contact with me that's the most difficult moment of my entire Fame arc on the show uh that's when I felt the most claustrophobic because I'm trying to find a child and I don't want to have an interaction and I don't want to be rude but holy cow can people and I just started going Lost Child Lost Child and then we I found him seconds later but that moment not easy to deal with uh I can't again my level of famous was very very moderate I have no idea what it's like to be um the way movie stars have to navigate the world have to navigate every person that they meet and oh my God being a woman and having that happen with the way people put their expectations I can't even conceive so I feel like in every way that we got to experience we got to I'd say peel behind the curtain of Fame uh it was pretty gentle to Jamie and I and Carrie and Tori and Grant thank you so much for watching if you'd like to support us even further you can by becoming a tested member uh details are of course below But it includes all sorts of perks and we're building them all the time you get Advanced word and behind the- scenes photo of some of our projects questions you get to ask direct questions during my live streams and we have some membersonly videos including the Adam realtime series of unbroken unedited shots of me working here in the shop they are weirdly meditative thank you guys so much I'll see you on the next one

Channel: Adam Savage’s Tested

Views: 416,079

Keywords: tested, adam savage, adam savage tested, adam savage mythbusters, what its like to be famous, what it feels like to be famous, adam savage mythbusters questions, ask adam savage mythbusters, adam savage tested mythbusters, mythbusters, mythbusters behind the scenes, discovery channel, discovery channel mythbusters

Id: gIrG8514ocs

Length: 11min 17sec (677 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 12 2024