YouTuber Collabs: Friendship or Views? - SimplyPodLogical #12

Ben: Hey, what's up? Holo, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Simply Podlogical, a Simply Nailogical podcast. I'm Ben, that's Cristine, Cristine: And today we are collaborating. Ben: We are collaborating. Every.. like life is a collaboration between us. Today ... Cristine: A partnership. Ben: Today we're talking about YouTube collabs: times Cristine has worked with other YouTube creators and what really goes on behind the scenes. Cristine: Uh-oh. Ben wants to spill some tea, I suppose. Ben: Uh, no. No, no. I mean, let's start with a brief history lesson. So you got really big on YouTube in July 2016. Cristine: When I went to polish mountain. Ben: Yeah, so Cristine's ... Cristine: Which was not a collab. Ben: No. So, yeah, I think a lot of people think you just kind of became a big YouTuber when that video came out in July. The truth is you had sort of like organically grown a bit of a following before that, mostly from posting nail art tutorials. But when we think back to 2016 YouTube, there's two things that really stick out in my mind in terms of how channels were growing at that time. Cristine: Yeah. Ben: One of them is Macbook giveaways. Do you remember those? Cristine: Umm-hmm. Yeah. Ben: There's a lot of channels that got millions of subscribers from just saying, "Hey, in this video we're having a MacBook giveaway: subscribe to my channel..." Cristine: "For a chance to enter...", yeah. Ben: "...to be entered into a chance to win." Ben: And you'd see channels gain hundreds of thousands of subscribers that way. Cristine: Yeah. Ben: The other thing we saw a lot of were thumbnail collabs. Do you remember thumbnail collabs, Cristine? Cristine: I did one. Ben: You did one. So what was a thumbnail collab? Cristine: So a thumbnail collab, which was my first collab, I guess, it was when maybe three or more YouTubers would get together, decide on a video concept-- it didn't have to be like exactly the same but just loosely related, sometimes not related at all--and they would basically at some point in their video just shout out the other videos in the collab, and just like show the other person's thumbnail and then just link to it there down below. Ben: Yeah, so there's really nothing collaborative about it at all. It was just something a lot of YouTubers realized strategically that even by just like shouting each other out would expose you to like these other people's audiences. Cristine: I actually think that YouTuber thumbnail clubs, they got that idea from Instagram, because there was a big like "S4S" (shoutout for shoutout) culture on Instagram at the time, that I remember like in the nail art community, in the beauty community, too, was like shoutout for shoutout. You shoutout my makeup page, I'll shoutout yours. And then you, you know, maybe gain a few of each other's subscribers. So it's the same kind of logic, but just on YouTube. And instead of like a meaningful collaboration, where you worked together to create something or like even in the same location, you would just be like, "oh, yeah, also go watch this person's video, it's linked down below and then this other person and then this other person" and they'd like list five people that had nothing to do with your video. Ben: Yeah. Cristine: But it was a shoutout. Ben: So in preparation for this podcast, we were trying to figure out like what is the earliest collab you had ever done and even before polish mountain ... Cristine: Before? Ben: before polish mountain you did a video where ... Cristine: Oh, don't. Just stop. I don't ... I didn't ... Ben: Do you even want to say? The first ... Cristine: I didn't do this research; Ben did, so. Ben: The first example I could find of you in someone else's video is GlitterForever17. People might not remember that name if you're listening to this now, but she was an enormous DIY YouTuber, Cristine: Breland. Ben: Breland, who over time became more and more controversial in that she would do hacks like period life hacks. And clearly her content was for children, but it got increasingly like weird and inappropriate ... Cristine: A bit of an adult territory. But that was later and let's not go over the history of GlitterForever, but before that ... Ben: No, I just think it's a funny name some people might know, because she's actually a really interesting example of someone who got a lot of YouTube success at a young age, thought that was going to last, and then when it disappeared like their life completely changed. Cristine: And she's been very honest about that. Ben: Yeah. Cristine: Let's say, to give her some credit, whereas others maybe haven't been so honest. So. Ben: So the ... anyway, the first example of Cristine in someone else's video ... Cristine: Is GlitterForever. Ben: Is she is playing ... she is the voice of a KFC employee at a drive-through. Cristine: Wait, that wasn't a thumbnail collab, though. That was a real collab, sort of. Ben: I mean, yeah. I mean that was the extent. A thumbnail collab could have been you providing like 15 seconds of audio for someone else to use in their video. But, yeah, I feel like we should just insert that into the podcast right now. Just so people can hear Cristine attempting to do a southern accent while telling a girl she's stupid for wanting to order. Because like the video is about like chicken-flavored nail polish. Cristine: Oh, my god! GlitterForever17: The KFC chicken-flavored edible nail polish. Could I get one of those meals, please? Cristine: We don't sell that s**t here. You bats**t crazy. GlitterForever17: Well is there anything similar? Cristine: Well, yeah, it's called actual fried chicken. Cristine: Umm, we're not linking these down below. Ben: Yeah, there'll be a playlist below. So, yeah, after that, polish mountain hit, all of a sudden people became aware of you. And we went to VidCon that first year, and you were like nominated for Breakout Creator at the Streamys. All of a sudden we were in these spaces actually meeting some creators in person. Cristine: Yeah. Ben: And I think there was a phase where it was just like, we met Joey Graceffa and he's like, "Hey, let's film a video," and we're like, "Wow, that's nice." Cristine: "Okay." Ben: "Sure, yeah." And it was just like flattering that anyone even wanted to do that. Cristine: Yeah! You're right. After polish mountain there was this like surge of people that I always thought were major YouTubers who just like reached out to me and asked me if I wanted to collab. It was all very like ... a bit of star shock, let's say. Celebrity shock I felt. And we were ... we went to L.A.for some of these award shows, pretty much for the first time I've ever been to L.A., like I've never been there or seen that culture, and we were meeting YouTubers and it was just like a huge culture shock for me to... Ben: Sure. Cristine: see them in their giant houses, like. They're like, "Yeah, let's work together," and it was like no big deal. And it was just so strange at that time, thinking back. Ben: Yeah, so at that time you would have done ... you had a collaboration with Joey Graceffa. You did one with Grav3yardgirl. Cristine: Did I do Orbeez nails with Joey? Ben: Something like that. Cristine: Yeah. Ben: You did the cake one with How To Cake It, who's actually in Canada closer to us. And then the following year, I know you did the one with ThreadBanger, the first time we worked with ThreadBanger. That happened early on as well. Cristine: Was that the car? Ben: We painted a car with nail polish. Cristine: Yeah. Cristine: And that's when our friendship began. Ben: Crazy. And then we just left a car in their backyard. So that was fun. And then in 2017 I think there was more of a shift, too. You started getting more into makeup a little bit on your channel. Cristine: I was trying to become a booty guru. Ben: Yeah, so you had ... Cristine: But I needed help. Ben: Yeah, you had a series .... Was it "Teach Me How To Beauty?" Cristine: Tour. Ben: "Teach Me How to Beauty Tour." Ben: So Cristine would go to these different beauty gurus' channels and you'd do a video for them, but then on your channel ... Cristine: They would teach me how to do a particular makeup skill. So like I had this all planned out. I wanted to go to all the beauty YouTubers I could. Ben: Yeah. Cristine: So I think I ended up working with Manny (Manny MUA), Nicol Concilio, Tati, Glam&Gore, and that's kind of as far as I got, pretty much, within the like two trips I made to L.A. during that year, because, again, I live pretty far Ben: Exactly. Cristine: so it took a while to figure these out, but I ... I wanted to keep going, but I remember like that was just a fun phase for me to like learn how to do makeup. Ben: And I think those videos were really well received, Cristine: Yeah. Ben: because a lot of these beauty gurus ... It's when like challenge videos and stuff were really popular. A lot of beauty gurus were doing like just pretty extreme looks or like "how much makeup can I use?" Or "most expensive makeup." And you come along and were just like, "Tati, can you just show me how to make my eyebrows look nice?" Cristine: Yeah. Ben: And I think a lot of people appreciated that, you know? Cristine: Yeah, or like Manny, it was like "Teach me how to do eyeliner." Ben: Yeah. Cristine: Or put on fake lashes. Ben: Yeah, those videos were fun actually, but ... And then I feel like at that point our approach to collabs or your approach to collaborating really shifted more towards just sort of working with people you already know and felt you had an existing friendship or a relationship outside of YouTube with. So it won't be a surprise to anyone to see that like the reason why we frequently collab with like ThreadBanger or Safiya is just because we legitimately consider those people friends. Cristine: And it doesn't mean that we're not friends with the other people that I've collabed with ... Ben: No. Cristine: or people that I haven't yet collabed with, right? It's just, you know, sometimes your personalities are just similar and you find like a different level of friendship and things. So we definitely feel that way about Rob and Corinne and Safiya and Tyler. Like every time we go to where they live, we want to hang out like off-camera, too. Like we're going to the Cheesecake Factory or we're going out for dinner with them. Ben: Cheesecake? Cristine: Whatever. I'm just thinking of Cheesecake Factory in L.A. Ben: That's where our friendship bloomed, at the Cheesecake Factory All right. Well, we asked people on Twitter, Facebook, reddit, Instagram, all those fun places, for questions about collabs. People want us to spill some tea. Cristine: People have a lot of questions and I thought instead of us just retelling you the history of how we think all these went, let's hear your questions, because you have some very specific questions. Ben: All right. First question from Michael Maballo: "What is the process like when collaborating with other YouTubers? Is it just like messaging each other like 'hey, do you wanna collab?'" Cristine: It is an awkward thing, I guess. Like, "hey, you want to collab?" I don't personally just ... you know, the first interaction isn't "hey, you want to collab?" I like to talk to someone and get to know them. Ben: Um-hmm. Cristine: So it really depends on the person. Sometimes it can be more of a business arrangement. We've seen that: we've had managers of YouTubers reach out to me ... Ben: Yeah. Cristine: instead of the YouTuber themselves and like ... to ask me if I want a collab and start setting it up. Ben: I understand treating it like a business, but I feel like, if we could give any advice to YouTubers out there, if you want to personally work with another YouTuber, you should probably personally reach out, right? Cristine: Yeah. Ben: Because I remember one came through to you once, a pretty high-profile beauty creator, and it was like their manager saying "This person personally would love to work with Cristine." Cristine: Yeah. Ben: And it was like if she ... if they personally wanted to work with Cristine, (Cristine: Why didn't she just talk to me.) why didn't they personally reach out to you? Cristine: Maybe we're just weird. Hey, I don't have a manager. Like ... Ben: Sure. Cristine: Ben helps me out with the business, but I don't have a traditional manager ... Ben: Yeah, your agent or anything like that. Cristine: like a lot of people do in L.A. But even still, most of the YouTubers I have collabed with like all the beauty gurus that I did end up working with, I never talked to their managers. I talked direct-- ... Like with ... I talk to Manny. I meet him. We text him. And then I'm like, "okay, let's film here." I'm not talking to their managers. To me that is a little weird and impersonal. However, we have seen some of that and that is how some YouTubers handle their business: they like don't even interact with people and it's very much a business transaction. Ben: Yeah. So we haven't liked aproaching things that way. Like early on, some of those early collaborations, you were meeting those people for the first time ... Cristine: Yeah. Ben: at the collabs. And I think we realized that's not a smart way of going into those videos. Cristine: Well, I might have met them like once or twice. Like Bunny and Joey I think I met very briefly, maybe it was a YouTube event or something, you know. It was like, "Hey, nice to meet you. I love your stuff." "Okay, cool. Maybe we could do something together?" And then you don't see them until like two months later the next time you're in their location. And then it's like, "Hey, let's film." Ben: I think the audience can generally tell, though, when people don't really have an existing relationship and they're just all of a sudden there together on the camera. And it's also just a nice thing to like ... like even the Manny one, we didn't really know Manny when you went to film that video with him. Cristine: I'd met him once before. Ben: Had you? Cristine: At some event, yeah. Ben: Because I remember talking to him after and like I think we all agreed like it went well. And you two got along great and everything, but it was like, "Hey, next time let's just go out for dinner," or you know, "Let's just hang out, we don't have to film something" and it's nice just to like, you know, meet someone, have a drink with them or something, just to have like a little bit of an existing relationship before going into it. Cristine: So to answer the question: the process can be really different. We've preferred it to be more on the, "I like to sort of get to know someone and then maybe ask if they want to collab," but I've definitely been approached without any previous contacts and just being like, "Do you want to collab?" and then managers have approached me instead of the actual person. Ben: Yeah. But, Cristine, you know a stranger ... a friend is just a stranger you haven't met yet. What's the expression? Cristine: Well, that's a dumb expression! Ben: Next question: "Do you adhere to the 30% rule when doing collabs?" Cristine: What's that? Ben: So, okay, I'll give a little context here, because a lot of people think this is a real thing because of Morgan Adams, who is mostly known for being Shane Dawson's fiance's sister who makes youtube videos. She went on a beauty guru brand trip last year or maybe two years ago ... Cristine: Oh, where they treated her ike shit? Ben: And she basically came back from that experience thinking like "all these beauty gurus were really mean to me," and one specific thing she mentioned is that some of them adhere to or talk about this 30% rule, which basically is you shouldn't associate with someone or collab with someone who has more than 30% more or less subscribers than you. Have you ever heard of this, first of all? Cristine: I didn't know they were that good at math. Interesting. I'm just kidding. Rude. I have never heard of that being a rule. Ben: No. Cristine: That's kind of like a weird cutoff. Ben: It's probably just like one dummy. Cristine: One person who said that. Ben: Yeah. Cristine: I don't know. Ben: But here's the thing: there is something to ... You do see people of similar sizes or who are coming up on YouTube at the same time, there seems to ... it makes more sense to sort of collab with people like that. Cristine: And it's not because "This person is as good as me and I wouldn't work with people beneath me." It's also ... if you work ... if there is a major imbalance, it's also clear that one person might just be using the other person. There's more of that ... Ben: More likely ... Cristine: that potential, whereas when you're equal like you don't look at it as much this way: It's just a great equal opportunity for both. And it's not because you think you're better than people. I think there's different motives and sometimes people misinterpret it as, "Oh, YouTubers think they're above others and they'll never work with someone under a million subscribers." And I don't think that most of us think that way. It's just you also feel like, yeah, there are smaller channels who've approached me and I wonder like, "Do they actually like like me or they just want to use me to leverage my fanbase?" Ben: It's really hard to know, right? And I think it just makes sense, like if you're a channel just getting some momentum, you're just building a subscriber base, and there's another channel like that, that is at a similar stage and they might have a similar audience to you, that just strategically makes a lot of sense to collab in that way. I'm not saying it can't happen where it's outside of ... like one person has a ton of subscribers and another person doesn't, but I think it's just more likely to work if you're a little bit closer. But that's not to say like if some amazing tiny channel came along that you loved for some reason, I don't think you'd hesitate. You don't really do a bunch of collabs, first of all, so I guess that's an issue. Cristine: Yeah. Ben: But if you were someone who did collabs you wouldn't like not consider someone because they didn't have enough subscribers. Cristine: Just because of the ... No, it's ... For me it's really about what they do on their channel and do I think we would work together. Ben: Mm-hmm. All right. And from Kate on Twitter: "Have you ever reached out to do a collab and been rejected, or vice versa, have you ever rejected someone?" Uh-oh. We don't have to get specific here. Like the point of this podcast isn't to ... Cristine: I don't want to shit talk other people. Ben: Yeah, exactly. But, yeah, you get a lot of ... I see the inbox, too. A lot of emails come through of people wanting to ... Cristine: So ... well, there's two halves of this question. I'll answer the easier one first. I don't reach out to that many people. Like I just don't. I'm just here ... Ben: Out of a fear of rejection or? Cristine: No, just out of a fear of people, actually. So I don't think I've ever been rejected, because I haven't deliberately been like, "You want to collab?" if it wasn't already a comfortable friendship situation ... Ben: Sure Cristine: where they would have said yes because we're just friends, you know. Ben: Yeah. I have been asked many times to collab ... Ben: Yeah. where I either politely declined or suggested that I wouldn't be available or did not respond, because I get a million emails and I just was hoping that they would think that was the case that I just get a million emails, even though I saw it. Ben: Yeah, and it's not an indictment of them. Like it's not to say that they aren't good creators that you don't like. It's just you're not really someone who is ... Cristine: So I want to give an example. Ben: Okay. Cristine: It's not just because I don't like the other creator or I think I'm too good or something. Grace Helbig, when she had her show "This Might Get Weird," Ben: With Mamrie, right? Cristine: Yeah. Their team reached out to me when that show was running-- it was a YouTube show--and asked if I wanted to come on. I love them. I , you know, see them as pioneers kind of in the female comedy YouTube entertainment space, Ben: Sure. Cristine: but I politely declined, because I just felt so nervous and like I couldn't perform in a comfortable way in that setting. Ben: Yeah. Cristine: The way that they filmed that show, where it's very much like dry, on-the-spot comedy, probably not many takes: it just seems very natural. At least that was like my own over-analysis of it. And so I didn't do that. And it was timing also ... with in L.A., like we also have to plan when we're going to be there and they had given me a range, and it just like didn't make sense. But more so than that, it was like I was just too nervous. So I've definitely declined collaboration opportunities because I just felt like "I'm too scared." Ben: Yeah. And then I'd also add there are some cases where you see YouTubers, sometimes incredibly big, successful YouTubers, who have reached out and ... If someone is just collabing with everyone and is clearly just emailing everyone or DMing everyone and they want to just collab with everyone-- there's a few people come to mind, I'm not going to name who they are, but-- that doesn't sit great with us, because it's clearly not a case of like "Hey, I feel like we would work well on camera together" or if "I have a creative concept that works for the two of us," it's more just "I want to check off all these boxes and work with a bunch of different people." When we see YouTube channels who like every week they're working with a new creator, Cristine: A different collab, yeah. Ben: That seems kind of strange to us. Cristine: Well, like I see the business strategic side to that and why they do that, because it makes sense. They want to grow their channel and the best way to do that is to collaborate across different channels all around the same time so you get maximum exposure and then you just like grow exponentially. And that was this person's clear strategy or at least their manager--if I recall it was a manager at this time that was reaching out to everyone. And I remember seeing this person come out with collabs--so many at the time--and like at first I was like, "Oh, this is cool." And then you look around and you realize that someone has collabed with literally everyone under the sun and that's kind of just their strategy. It makes you rethink, "Oh, maybe they don't really like actually care if they're working with me." Ben: Because when they first met you and said like, "Oh, I'm such a fan of you. We should work together." And then you see that they've worked with like 300 other people, it's like, "Oh, is that just your line to make ..." Cristine: Do you think people are going to be upset with us that we're not saying who? Ben: No. We don't have to say. Cristine: Like I don't want people to go attack people .... (Ben: I'm not thinking of one person.) Ben: There are a few people I'm thinking of honestly here. Anyway, we should probably shouldn't get into this too much. Cristine: So, yes, I have said no many times to things, either because I just wasn't sure that this was a genuine connection ... Like it doesn't need to be: a lot of YouTube collabs are not genuine friendships; like they're just not. A lot of it is business transactional. But for me, I was just like I don't really ... I'm not into that. So ... Ben: But ... like I'd like to think the audience can tell, although I guess ... Cristine: No. Ben: You never know, right? Like ... Cristine: No. Ben: What was it, the Sister Squad? Remember, it was like Emma Chamberlain, the Dolan twins and James Charles were just like pretended to be best friends for a few months, just to like be hugely successful in those videos. Cristine: I mean, I didn't really watch them, so I don't know. I thought they were friends, weren't they? And then they weren't at a certain point and had to hide that they weren't friends. Ben: Maybe. But then like even relationships. Like we've seen examples of high-profile YouTuber couples, Who have pretended to (Cristine: Maintained their relationship.) Ben: Yeah, they've pretended to still be in a relationship just to continue because strategically it didn't make sense for them to break up. Like ... Cristine: They're collabing as a boyfriend/girlfriend. Ben: That's messed up, right? Cristine: Yeah. Ben: Or we think so, anyway. All right. Next question: "What is it like to film a collab with someone that you may not have met before/are not the closet of friends? Do you have any collab ideas for the future?" Cristine: It is awkward, especially for someone like me that finds it hard to socialize with people that I don't know yet. Like I think if we're friends and we're already hanging out I can completely be myself and just be like, whatever, but when I meet someone for the first time, especially someone that I was like, "Oh, my god, this is a big YouTuber," and I don't feel like I am, you know, so I get kind of like weird, awkward ... I don't know what to say and it definitely trumps me up when I'm trying to say something on camera, whereas they're totally, you know, free and clear: "Oh, I'm just going to say the intro once. Let's move on. That was fine," and I'm just not good at that. So it's awkward for me, especially if I'm not already friends with the person, just because I don't feel that comfortable and I'm an anxious person. Ben: Yeah. And I ... actually you're anxious even with people like you are comfortable with sometimes ... so. Cristine: True. Ben: Yeah. And, yeah, collab ideas for the future, it's kind of hard to even dream about those right now considering everything going on. Cristine: Collabs are going downhill in quarantine. Ben: We did have ... I remember we had talked about something we wanted to do with Saf, but I just ... I can't imagine the next time we're going to be in the same room with someone else, right? So ... Cristine: Or we were going to ship a boat to ThreadBanger's house. Ben: Oh, yeah, we did want to ... Should we say that? We might still do .. we're going to paint a boat with nail polish. But we were trying to figure out a way of doing that without just like filling a lake full of nail polish. Cristine: Oh, we weren't going to do that. Ben: No, but I'm saying because we had to ... Cristine: You have to put a glossy taco on it and then it'll seal it in. Ben: You have to seal the nail polish. Cristine: Exactly. Ben: All right. Next question: "Which collab video made you both the most nervous to film?" I'm trying to think. Cristine: I remember walking into Joey Graceffa's house, Ben: Okay. Cristine: And for me this is just more of a testament of like the times, Ben: It was really early on. Cristine: because it was the first time that I was going to big YouTubers' houses in L.A.--never been there before--to film a collab and like be on their channel. And they were like, "Oh, my god, it's Simply Nailogical," and I'm like, "You know me?" Ben: Yeah. Cristine: So it was just a culture shock for me, I remember walking into like his beautiful house, which was not the same as where ... Ben: It smelled great. Cristine: we were. It smelled so much of candles, and I was just so nervous and like fixing my makeup in his beautiful bathroom. And I was just like so out of my element. Ben: Bit of a culture shock. Cristine: So for me, it wasn't him that made me nervous. It was just the experience of, for the first time, like realizing I'm in some like YouTuber's house that's beautiful, and this is their life. Because I had literally just climbed polish mountain and my life hadn't really changed that much at that point, so I think I was really nervous around 2017. Ben: Yeah. He was really nice and, yeah, I remember like I was sitting downstairs with Daniel while you guys were filming. Cristine: Yeah. His partner. Ben: Nice conversation with him. Yeah. Cristine: Yeah. He was trying to make us feel better and less nervous. Ben: Yeah, no, no. They were super happy people. Although like I think the funnest reaction we ever got to you ... I remember when you told him like you still worked a day job and he looked at you like you were an alien. It was hilarious. Cristine: Yeah, he was like, "What? A day job?" Ben: "What do you mean, a day job? What is that?" Cristine: Yeah. Yeah, actually, when I worked with all these YouTubers and collabs, I remember that's something they always ask me about. They're like, "Why do you still have a job, honey?" Like. Ben: Yeah. Cristine: Like, uh? Ben: Even though like in those early days, what? You had like one viral hit and all of a sudden you had a couple million subscribers? Cristine: Yeah. I was definitely not an established, big YouTuber like they were at the time. Yeah Weird thinking back. Ben: All right. Next question: "Have you ever regretted filming with another creator? And if so, why?" Ben: Uh-oh. Cristine: I ... There's no videos that I regret doing; it's not like I wish that they weren't on the Internet. I mean, I did what I did. I've made peace with it. Ben: There's maybe videos that didn't turn out as good as other ones, or maybe it didn't feel like ... I guess I want to be careful how we put this, because we could be like really good friends with a creator, but for some reason just creatively the two of you on camera together like didn't really work. Or maybe there was a lot of awkwardness. Cristine: Sometimes ... I don't watch a lot of my videos back, actually, after ... like I have to edit all my videos, obviously, but once I've published them, I never watch my own videos back, mostly because just seeing myself makes me cringe, especially older videos of myself. Especially ones where I collabed with someone and I can tell that I was just so nervous and acting weird and I remember feeling that like high energy like strung out, "I just want to say something funny to try and make this collab work." Ben: Yeah. And ... Like Yolanda, How To Cake It, (Ben: The How to Cake It.) Cristine: was an example. It wasn't her fault: Ben: No. Cristine: She's a completely chill like down-to-earth cake-baking lady. Like she's just cool. Ben: Oh, yeah. Cristine: But I was just so freaking weird for some reason on that day. Ben: Yeah. Cristine: Like I was just strung out. Ben: If we regret any of them, we regret it because Cristine messed it up. Cristine: But I ... Exactly. I don't regret the collab. I regret my cringy behavior. Ben: I'd say one stick-- ... that sticks out to me, and I saw a few comments specifically asking about this one, is when you collabed with Mykie from Glam&Gore. First of all, I like Mykie a lot. I wouldn't want her to see this and think we don't like her. I thought ... I like her content a lot. She's great. But there was clearly just an awkwardness between you two, which is strange, because like in between filming, we like had dinner together, we were hanging out talking ... like that all seemed fine. But it just seemed like for some reason your approaches to filming videos were so different that it just felt like it didn't work. Cristine: Yeah. Ben: Because I remember we show up there and you typically have like, "Here's my idea for a video. Here's a few things to do. Here's a few things that are funny about it." And like you have a bit of a structure in your mind. Cristine: There's kind of a script without necessarily line by line, Ben: Yeah. Cristine: but for collabs at least. Ben: Whereas what we found from working with other YouTubers is a lot of YouTubers take a much less structured approach. So I'd say sometime that's reflected in things not working so well when you collaborate, when like if you feel like to ... for a video to work you kind of need that mental preparation of thinking and knowing what it will be. When we went to film with her that day, for example, we did not know the concept of her video until like 9:00 p.m. when we started filming it. You know what I mean? Cristine: And it's also a very big lifestyle difference, because we ... like I get up at 7:00 a.m. I always have. I do not film videos at midnight. That's just not me; like I'm tired by midnight. Whereas a lot of YouTubers we work with are quite the opposite, especially in beauty. I don't know what it is. Like they sleep till 2:00 p.m and then work till like 3:00 a.m. Ben: Well, they can't be out in the sun; it's not good for their skin, you know? Cristine: Sure. Cristine: It's a different lifestyle thing and way of filming and we're just not used to that, so it kind of like did kind of screw with my ability to work and be in that mood. So it is harder when you're in someone else's space with someone else's cameras and with someone else's style. One thing I will say, like beauty YouTube, I think overall--at least the four or so people I've worked with-- they are ... have a much more relaxed approach to filming than I do, because maybe I'm just overly trying to find like a concept. What's the funny part? What am I reacting to? Now I test this weird thing and then I conclude doing this. Whereas in a product review or something, you kind of like ...There's no plan. You just like, "I'm going to play with this today." Open-ended. So it's a little different type of way to film and approach the concept that I guess I wasn't used to. I also edit my videos way differently. So actually this is funny. I remember when I was filming with Manny, I like felt the need when we sat down to explain to him that because I do jump cuts, I sometimes may take a pause, like in real life, in between saying a sentence. So that when you cut one sentence closer to another, it looks like you shifted a little and I like that just from like an editing perspective. So I in real time, it actually looked like this. Like "Holo, everyone. I'm here with Manny." [stops. turns] "He's a really good like eyebrow person." Do you ... you know? Ben: But in an unedited video you look crazy doing that. Cristine: And then ... I remember him being like, "Okay." Like "ooh." And I tell him like, "I might have to say this again; I'm going to like repeat it a couple times in a few different ways," and he's like, "Whatever you want." Like he was very accommodating. He was like, "Whatever you want, girl." I don't know Ben: Crazy. Cristine: But I remember thinking like, "Oh, my god, this is so different" than how at least the beauty YouTubers I worked with film. They don't do that. They just like talk normally. Ben: I swear you must have a little bit of OCD in you, because like we've talked about this before how we'll often have like three hours of footage to get down to one of your like 15-minute videos. Cristine: Three hours. Something like five, lately. Ben: Sometimes more. But I don't think people realize, a lot of that is me just ... so like I'll do a first cut of edits just so you have less files to work with, but it's often you just saying the same thing ... Cristine: Over and over. Ben: Like twenty times in a row. Cristine: Yeah, I've gotten worse. Ben: Well, yeah, I think you're nervous. You're an anxious person, right? I think you're comfortable admitting that. But, yeah, it sometimes manifests in Cristine just feeling like she needs to say the same sentence like twenty times in a row until she says it the way she likes it. Cristine: No one shall release my raw-cut footage. Ben: Yeah, you don't want to see those. Cristine: The world will never see. Like only the collaborators that I've worked with know the truth. Ben: Yeah. All right. Next question from dk.winters: "What were things said/done in a collab that you were in that you had to cut for because they were inside jokes or no one would get it or they were too controversial?" Ben: Would anything come to mind here? Cristine: I mean, there's always jokes that get cut. It's hard for me to think specifically of anyone. Ben: There's some creators more than others who will maybe even say like, "Let's not include that; that's a little too ... Ben: ... risky." Cristine: Yeah, it depends. Like also people you have good, trusting friendships with, like with ThreadBanger for sure, there's been like ... Ben: Some crazy shit. Cristine: way too controversial just like crazy shit jokes that we said, maybe was insulting another YouTuber. And then I cut that out of my video. But like we had a good laugh there, right? Can you think of any specific examples? Ben: I guess what I'm thinking is, like I don't know if it's an inside joke, but like to me ... kind of like what you already alluded to. I don't really think of the end-product video when I think back to these collabs, I think of the ... Cristine: The experience. Ben: process of .. the experience of making them. Cristine. Yeah. Um-hmm. Ben: I remember there was a lot of backstory to the first video you did for your channel with Safiya: the $100,000 manicure. I can't remember ... Cristine: The luxury nails. Ben: The luxury nails. Ben: There is a lot of craziness that went on with that video. First of all, when we reached out to them-- Cristine: "Them" being the salon. Ben: "them" being, yes, this luxury nail salon that we won't name-- that ... it was really weird dealing with them. First of all they said like "Oh, it's strange you're calling. Like there's also a producer from BuzzFeed who wanted to make a video here." And we're like, oh, that's weird. Safiya had only recently left BuzzFeed. So I remember confirming with a guy like oh, it's ... "we're not doing like the same kind of video, right?" Like I didn't ask him what they were doing; I just said like, "Hey, we want to focus on this $100,000 bottle of nail polish; that's our focus." And he's like, "Okay, they're not doing that." So I'm like, okay, cool. Who cares that we're both making a video at this place. Cristine: Whatever; yeah. Ben: It caused some drama when our video came out and the BuzzFeed people didn't seem too happy. Anyway, let's not get into that. What was crazier was, I was trying to explain to this contact at this luxury nail salon. Cristine: He was like the manager of the salon. Yeah. Something like that Ben: I can't really remember what his position was, but I was trying to tell him this was not a scripted video. That you and Safiya were just going to show ... Cristine: Oh, yeah. So he wanted a script and we're like, "there's no script, but this is the concept: We're going to sit down. (Ben: We're just going to show up.) Cristine: We want the manicure using the ... it was like Nails Inc. It was a ... or, no, Model Zone made a gold nail polish that was supposedly full of real gold flakes and the bottle itself had like gold coating or ... Ben: Was encrusted with diamonds. Cristine: diamonds." Ben: Which made it $100,000. Cristine: Apparently made it $100,000. So I just wanted to go to the salon and get a manicure with Safiya done and that was it. Like that's the concept. Ben: Actually, do you remember? Originally the concept was going to be like $5 manicure versus $100,000 manicure, because you would have just like really cheaply and unglamorously painted her nails ... Cristine: Done our own nails. Ben: and then juxtapose that with going to the salon, right? Cristine: And they didn't like that, because they thought it would undermine the value of their service. Ben: Yes. So we said okay, fine. We'll just show up to the salon and just have a video of the two of you experiencing the service. But still, like a week before we went to film he sends me this email that was a detailed script of what he thought the two of you could say and it was like insane. It was a commercial. Cristine: And, yeah. So I never included this in the outtakes, but we did film us jokingly, like me and Safiya sitting on the couch back at her house. We showed her the script or you started reading the script and we started like role-playing as if we were actually doing his script of how ridiculous it would be. Ben: Man, that was crazy. Cristine: And I didn't include that in the outtakes, but I remember editing that footage. Ben: And there was, yeah, there was some weird follow-up after that video came out, too. I guess we should be clear like when you go into a business to film a video, we're not trying to like embarrass them or anything. Like if you watch that original video like we don't ... we're not critical of it. Like, yeah, it was like overpriced and the super expensive nail polish wasn't even that nice. (Cristine: But that's part of the ...) Ben: We didn't even really say that. Cristine: But like they should ... It is a gimmick: a $100,000 manicure for like $200 or however much a manicure actually costs isn't ... like they know that's a gimmick. Like what do they expect us to produce? Ben: Yeah, I'm just saying. Cristine: So weird. Ben: We're not trying to go out of our way to like make a business look bad, right? But it was just ... that was a ... just all the circumstances around that video were crazy from just like a pre-production standpoint. Cristine: And then after that we were so like, "This was such a weird experience," because the manager was kind of hanging over our shoulders and then he didn't want to let us pay. Ben: That's right, we insisted on paying and they didn't want to let us pay. Cristine: But I didn't want to accept the services for free, because I want to pay for the service. Because the video is my content: I'm a paying customer. Ben: Yeah, you didn't want there to be any conflict of interest. Cristine: I didn't want them to like hold it over my head be like "Oh, we gave you the service for free, therefore you owe us the rights to your content" or whatever the heck he was going to like go crazy about. So we insisted on paying the bill. Ben: Yeah, anyway. So the circumstances around that entire video were kind of crazy and I remember us being like super stressed out about it and all the awkwardness and we just ended the night at In -and-Out Burger. Cristine: Yeah. Ben: And we were all just so relieved. I think that video ... is that in the video? Cristine: It's in the ... it's maybe in the video or the outtakes, I can't remember, but we were just so glad to be out of there and just like eating a hamburger with Safiya and Tyler after that crazy day. Ben: Yeah. Cristine: And that's how our friendship began with Safiya and Tyler. Cristine: Those first two videos with Safiya and Tyler. So that was the one on yours and on hers, it was, you wore holographic (Cristine: Holo for a day.) Ben: clothing for a day. Cristine: Yeah. Ben: It's kind of like we really went through some shit together on those first two days. Cristine: That was crazy. And you and Tyler were like the videographers, but me and Safiya were wearing basically spandex, like skin-tight holographic stuff that was so sweaty and it was L.A. summer weather. Ben: Yeah, it was super hot. Cristine: And it was awful. Like it was so uncomfortable. Ben: And we drove all around to these different locations just to film it all in one day. It was crazy. And then by the end of the day, I remember you two were just like delirious. Like you were trying to film (Cristine: We were insane.) Ben: the outro for that video and you just like couldn't Cristine: Yeah. Ben: Fun times. Memories. Another question: "Do you find it more enjoyable to create content individually or in collaboration? I'm curious because you and your YouTube friends (Safiya/Tyler and ThreadBanger) seem to have fun in your videos and that you have previously said making videos alone can be tiring." Cristine: I did say that recently in my like eyebrows halo video, Ben: When you were taking a break. Cristine: where I, yeah, that I was tired of just sitting down in my basement kind of going through the same thing over and over again, talking to the camera and feeling like an idiot. And that's still true. There is something, at least for me, over time it became worse and worse to just sit there by myself. I much prefer when I can like drag Ben into some videos. Ben: Yeah, people think like I try to insert myself into videos. I really don't! Cristine: Like, no, it's me, dragging him in, just because it gets hard just to talk to yourself for hours sitting there. (Ben: Talk to yourself. Yeah, I get it.) Cristine: Like I'm bored of myself. I literally hate my own voice now, guys. Ben: So, wait, is it less anxious when you're filming with other people, though? Cristine: If I'm with other people that I'm friends with, it's something I look forward to. Like every year, at least once a year, we would see Safiya and Tyler or ThreadBanger and it would be like I'd be excited to go to their house and like film with them, because it's fun. Ben: Yeah. Cristine: But only because we really know them and like we're friends with them. So like I'm actually hanging out with my friends. Ben: Um-hmm. Cristine: So, yes, I really do like those opportunities. And because we live so far from pretty much anyone we've collabed with, it is a rarer thing. It's not something we can be like, "Hey, what are you doing this weekend? Can you be in my video?" Like, that doesn't happen. So I do like filming with my friend YouTubers. It's more fun than alone. That being said, I mean, I wouldn't collaborate every single video or every other video. Ben: That's the thing, you wouldn't want it to be all the time either, right? It would kind of lose its ... Cristine: It would lose its fun. Ben: its charm. Cristine: It's like you can't see your friends every day, you know. Ben: All right, next question: "Any plans to resume the Teach Me How to Beauty Tour?" Cristine: Oooh. Ben: "Would like a season two, please." Cristine: I really like that series--that series that just kind of ended. Sorry, guys. You know why, a big reason why I stopped doing that, apart from like we'd have to fly to L.A. and literally go to beauty gurus' homes, is I had a really bad eye allergic reaction ... Ben: Allergic reaction. Cristine: to fake Holo. But ... Ben: It wasn't just that. Cristine: It wasn't just that, but a few things Irritated my eye and all of a sudden I had these really bad rashes and I couldn't wear makeup for ... at all and it actually happened recently. So that's why I'm like wearing exactly zero makeup, not even concealer on my eyes right now. Ben: Yeah. Cristine: It just ... once a year, sometimes near the summer. I always used to think it was ... (Ben: Just flares up.) Cristine: ... correlated with traveling to L.A., which is something we'd probably do like in June or in the summer, but it happened last week and I literally have no idea. Ben: Even stuck in the house. Yeah. You have really sensitive skin and eyes and, yeah, right around the time that Teach Me How To Beauty Tour was really going well, you had really severe, to the point where like you were like trying to find you a dermato--- like it got pretty bad. Cristine: Like I wore sunglasses to the office at work. Ben: Yeah. Cristine: Like It was so bad. Like I was so embarrassed. Ben: People probably thought you had like a drug problem or something. Cristine: No. But it was really bad and that was a huge deterrent for me to, you know, want to go make more makeup videos. And that's kind of why I stopped, so that's sad. Ben: Which is too bad, because I think we had even talked about doing one with Nikkie, even if it had meant us flying over to Holland, right? Cristine: Yeah. She had said, "sure, that, you know, the next time you're in Holland," which ... isn't often. But we were thinking about maybe planning like a Europe trip or something and that would have definitely been on my list. Ben: Mm-hmm. Cristine: But between my face and then just, you know, things kind of changing for my channel, it just didn't make sense anymore. But I really do like that series. I thought that was really fun and I would continue it if it made sense to and like we had the opportunities to and not everyone was social distancing, you know. Ben: Yeah. All right. Next question: "Are you still friends with Tati after dramageddon? Have you ever wanted to meet Jeffree Star? And who is the nicest YouTuber you've met?" There's a lot here. Cristine: There is a lot. Ben: Tati is bae, right? You're still friends with Tati. Cristine: I saw so many questions of people just asking for tea, like "what happened with Tati?" "Why do you never talk to her?" Ben: Why do people think something happened with Tati? Cristine: I don't know! Like this is just ... it's craz--- ... like the internet is actually crazy. Ben: Just want women to fight. Did you used to interact more on socials and you don't or something? Cristine: No, they just remember that we were in each other's videos and then now we're not. So it's like we're not friends. And then what I keep seeing people say is like I didn't show off her palette, so therefore I don't support her all of a sudden; therefore we must have had a falling out. And I'm like, what are these conspiracies? Like, okay. I never got her palette, just to be clear, because she sent it, apparently, but I guess Customs stole it. So later on I did order it myself, but I only got it once it was like restocked after it first sold out, which was like a long time after. Okay, there. Ben: Okay. Cristine: I don't hate her; nothing happened. Sometimes people are a little crazy. Ben: Yeah, I mean, you still ... I mean, she's in Seattle now, right? Cristine: Yeah. Ben: Yeah. No, no, we like ... yeah, Tati's great. Cristine: Yes, she was very nice and so was James to us when we went to their house. Ben: Mm-hmm. Cristine: And it was a good time filming with her. Actually ... I thought of something funny. People always ask, I don't know what this is, like if her skin is real. Ben: Yeah. People have all these theories about her using filters. Cristine: People seem to think that Tati's skin is a facade and that she uses these filters and that only people who've met her in real life know the truth. So. Let me just have a sip. The truth is her skin is actually perfect. Ben: She has really nice skin. Ben: She is ... I mean, I haven't hidden this: she's a gorgeous person, right? Cristine: Her skin is actually perfect and I feel like a lesser human beside her, okay? And just for additional proof for people who think that she does some video editing to like take off her pores, we filmed on the same like Canon camera and just switched out the memory cards. I took my camera or, sorry, my memory card from her ... straight from her camera. She didn't edit it. She gave it to me, because then I go to make my video with it. The only difference between my video and her video is like we just have a different approach to color correction. So I think in the end mine was like a little bit red, because I like, whatever, didn't adjust the levels properly. Ben: Yeah, she might be doing a little bit in post, but ... Cristine: But color correction, everyone does that. I color correct this podcast. Everyone does color correction. Ben: Um-hmm. Cristine: There was no difference in our ... like skin filter! Like what are people talking about? Ben: Maybe she records every video holding like an Instagram filter. Cristine: To me that is proof that there's literally nothing going on, at least during that film setup at that time. Ben: I don't know. People want ... want to say something. Cristine: People are ... Yeah, guys. Stop it. Ben: [unintelligble] What about ... Have you ever met Jeffree Star? You want to go here. Cristine: I have ... oh, my God. Ben: We don't know Jeffree Star. That's the answer. Cristine: I've never met him. I have DMed him three and a half years ago. Ben: No, like five years. Like a long time ago. Cristine: Was it four years? Okay, you're right. Actually that was four years ago. There was a couple of DMs. Other than that and four years ago I have never spoken to him since. I have never met him in real life. Never called him on the phone. We're not friends. He sent me a purse once and Ben: Which was nice, (Cristine: Which was crazy.) Ben: but kind of weird, honestly. Cristine: That's just his way of expressing himself, I guess. Ben: I guess if I had a hundred million dollars maybe I would just send ... Cristine: You'd just send someone a Chanel purse? Ben: Yeah. But people saw me thank him for that and all of a sudden, still to this day, I see people saying, "Well, she ... she's Jeffree Star's friend, so she supports him," because he sent me a purse four years ago and like I literally haven't spoken to him. Ben: Yeah. Cristine: What do you guys think friendships are? Ben: Maybe this is a chance to address this, because occasionally when we find like a forum or a thread on you on reddit or some other website, it's overwhelmingly positive, but invariably someone will come along and be like "She defended Jeffree Star's racism." Someone will say that. I feel like we just sort of need to address this at this point: like that never happend. Cristine: I never ... Yeah. Ben: At one point someone ... there was some article about how he had some lipstick names that were a little bit edgy and like sexual. Cristine: Um-hmm. Ben: And someone had tweeted or written an article about how inappropriate that was, and I think at the time you had said like, people are too sensitive about stuff like that. Cristine: Yeah, and I used some wrong language I shouldn't have, that thinking back I didn't know. I think I said like ... Ben: You called someone a snowflake. Cristine: I said you might like trigger some people with those lipstick names, because they were offensive. It was like pussy-whipped. I forget. The name of the lipstick was meant to be offensive. Had nothing to do with racism; like a completely separate conversation. And I just replied to his tweet at literally four and a half years ago and said, "Oh, you might trigger some people with those names, some special snowflakes." And I am an idiot. I honestly did not know that that term was associated with an alt-right movement at that time. (Ben: There's a lot of political baggage with that.) And I am completely ignorant and admitting that I did not know that. So I regret saying that language, because I didn't know that. So I apologize for that. Ben: I don't even know if it's fair to put .. like people were saying triggered and snowflake and then you don't have to be like an all-right online figure to use those words. Cristine: But when people saw that word they then stretched it to "she must be supporting his racism," even though I was referring directly to his naming of lipsticks. Ben: Yeah. Cristine: Which is just really unfair and ever since then I do get the occasional tweet, people will tell me like, "Cristine, apparently you're racist, because you supported Jeffree at this time and supported his racist behavior by saying people are special snowflakes." Ben: That's really unfair. Cristine: That's not what I ever said. Ben: Honestly, it's super messed-up to know that like if you google your name ... Cristine: That comes up. Ben: within the first few pages of results something like that will come up and that's really unfair, I think. So, yeah, we don't know ... Cristine: That's probably the one tweet in my life I regret. Ben: Don't encourage people to .... Cristine: Oh, I deleted the tweet, but it's still screenshot-ed and out there. Ben: Oh, did you? Cristine: Yeah, but I deleted it like three years ago when I realized that I was wrong in using that language. I wasn't wrong in responding to him; like you can respond to people. Ben: Or even wrong to think that people were being overly sensitive to lipstick shade names. Like who cares about that. Cristine: Yeah, I mean, that still ... who cares? That was my attitude, like who cares? Ben: At the time, I don't think we were even aware that he was that controversial a figure. Cristine: No, this was before, which is also important to the storyline. This was before the major news articles had started calling him out about racism and before he made that apology video. (Ben: His whole behavior, right?) So this was actually before I was aware at all of any of those larger accusations. So. Ben: Anyway, this isn't the Jeffree Star show. We don't know Jeffree Star. Cristine: No, but everyone always wants to know, but, no, like we're not friends. Okay? Like I don't ... I don't hate him, but I'm also like we're not friends. Ben: We don't know him. Cristine: I don't know him. Leave me alone. Ben: We know him as well as you do. Ben: Here's a question. There were a lot of questions about money, actually. "Do you split earnings or is it just what's earned on your channel is yours and what's on theirs is theirs? Is that why people usually make one video per channel when they collab?" So, yeah, I hadn't even thought that this would be a question people are interested in. Cristine: I saw this question a lot people asking how the money works. Ben: Yeah. Cristine: So in our experience, there's never a monetary exchange, even if ... like I also saw the question, "What if one of your videos gets de-monetized or if one video does much better than the other: Do you split the difference?" No. Ben: Never heard of that. Cristine: That is just ... to me that'd be such a weird way of like, yeah, friendship exchange all of a sudden. All the sudden you have to pay people back for their fame and exposure. Ben: Well, I suppose if you're looking at it more as more purely a business transaction maybe it's possible that some people approach it this way and we're just not familiar with that, but I've never heard of this. Cristine: I've never heard of this. No one has ever asked me that and I've never asked anyone that. Ben: It is a little awkward if like one video does way better than the one on the other channel, Cristine: But then ... Ben: does that happen? Cristine: Sure. So maybe the creator whose channel it wasn't on didn't get like more Adsense, but they were also ... they got more exposure in that other video that went viral and they were featured in it. So ... Ben: Sure, yeah. And maybe like at the most, like if one person is traveling to the other person maybe the person who doesn't have to travel will like put that person up in a hotel or something. Like that to me is maybe something that could happen, but no. Yeah, people generally aren't split-- or we're not even sharing. Like ... Cristine: No. Ben: I've never had a conversation after a collab went out with the other person (Cristine: Exactly how much money ...) Ben: being like, "how much money did your video make?" Cristine: We don't think of it like in dollar bills, guys. Like I don't look at my collabs and I think, "Oh, well, I've made $8000 off ThreadBanger," like. That's not how we think. Imagine. Imagine that's how you quantified your friendships. Ben: Well, it's a business, too. Cristine: It's messed up. Cristine: This isn't like Team 10 where we take 10% of people, you know. Ben: Yeah, we get 10% of every one of our collaborations with Threadbanger. Cristine: No, we get nothing. We just get long-lasting friendship. Ben: Actually, some people might find this a little bit interesting. We very rarely look at individual video monetary performance, right? Cristine: Yeah. Ben: Like how often do you really go into a video to see how much did that specific video made. Cristine: Only when we're giving away money from a video for a particular reason; if it's charity-based, then I will know (Ben: If you're raising money.) Cristine: like did this cancel something out or whatever. Ben: Yeah. But otherwise, generally like when you look at your monthly Adsense, very little of the money you make in a month is actually due to the videos that were uploaded that month like ... Cristine: Yeah. Residuals. Ben: The majority of your views are residual views from videos in your back catalogue, right? Cristine: Um-hmm. Ben: There you go. Another question: "Do some YouTubers ask to be paid for their time filming the video? As in I will appear in your video for $10,000" Cristine: I have never heard that. Ben: Well, here we're just going to insert an ad into the video: if anyone wants Cristine to appear in their YouTube video, it'll be--what would be a good--$20,000, maybe? Cristine: 20,000? Ben: You're worth more than ten, right? Cristine: Oh, my god. Ben: I've never ... Cristine: Never heard of that. Ben: heard of this happening. Cristine: Never. Ben: But I would not be shocked at all if this was ... Cristine: Maybe. Ben: in some circles Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised. Cristine: Maybe. Ben: All right, another one: "Have any YouTubers ever acted like your friend just to collaborate?" People just want us to get in trouble here, eh? There have been people who've reached out and have a very friendly tone and pretend like "I'm such a big fan of you" and it ... I guess it's hard to know if they're being honest or not sometimes. Cristine: I've had kind of the opposite happen, strangely. Which was, I was sitting beside someone at an award show. We said hi, and then they ... they didn't really talk to me at all for like the whole hour or two, which was fine. Like I don't care: they were busy doing their thing, I was busy doing my thing. And then later on that night they come up to me while I'm sitting with Jenna and Julien and we're just like hanging out, Ben: Yeah. Cristine: but this ... big YouTuber comes up to me, goes, "Oh, hey, Cristine, like you want to collab sometime? Yeah, like let's swap numbers. Totally." Ben: Like very like public. Like "let's make sure everyone hears this" sort of way. Cristine: And I was put on the spot thinking like, I just sat beside you for two hours. You didn't say much to me. You didn't seem interested in talking to me or at all. And now you're just saying, "Let's collab! I love you, girl." Right in front of like major people that we were just hanging out with. Ben: It felt really ... I remember what you're talking about. It was ... it seemed like a bit of a power play or like maybe her way of like.... Anyway, yeah, I don't want to get into it too much, but ... Cristine: There's been some situations, let's just say. And it was weird, because like we weren't friends. She had the opportunity if she wanted to talk to me, I just assumed she didn't want to and I wasn't making an effort either because I didn't really care. But then all the ... out of the blue, she said that to me which was very ... like I was taken aback and, no, I did not follow up about making a collab. Ben: We've had a few weird experiences at award shows. Here, I got a really quick story, but I just ... Cristine: Uh-oh. Ben: It's so hilarious. Desi Perkins. Do you remember who that is? Beauty YouTuber? Yeah. Cristine: Booty Guru. Ben: Yeah. She ... we were sitting beside her the first year we ever went to the Streamy Awards, You were nominated for Breakout Creator. She was nominated for Beauty YouTuber ... YouTube or whatever. And it's right before the beauty category and a producer walks up to our table, but like she can't get to Desi. So she taps me on the shoulder and said, "Hey, could you tell that girl to be camera-ready?" I'm like, oh! Like I think she's about to win the award. So I like get Desi's attention and say like, "Hey, like someone just said like you need to be ... look good and like ready for camera." And like Desi's like, (Gasps). She starts putting her makeup on ... Cristine: She's going to win. She's going to win. Ben: and getting herself all pampered. They announce the nominees and they're about to announce the winner and they say someone else. And I remember Desi just sort of looked at me, as like ... Cristine: Yeah. Ben: did I just prank her or something. No! Some producer ... I don't know why the producer told her to look like ... Cristine: And then like that's how the beauty community started hating us. Ben: If ... if Desi Perkins. Cristine: Is watching ... Ben: Desi Perkins: Is that her name? Cristine: Yeah. Ben: If you're watching this, it wasn't me. I didn't make that up. Cristine: And Ben is so sorry. Ben: Some weirdo producer came up and told me to tell you to get ready. Cristine: Yeah, I remember that, too. And I was like, oh, my god, Ben. What did you just do? Like it's not your fault. But ... Ben: Oh, it was terrible. Cristine: So she never wanted to collab after that. No, I'm just kidding. I didn't ask her. Ben: The most liked question: "When are you collaborating with Jenna and Julien?" Cristine: I feel ... Okay. There's one thing about when people see friendships of YouTubers that they idolize, that they love, who they think would like mesh really well, I completely understand from an audience perspective why they want to see people work together. Like it's sweet. It's like the coming together of people that they love and, yes, we get along with Jenna and Julien and, yes, we have similar styles. That being said, just because it seems like there'd be a great collaboration, doesn't mean like you should or have to collab. Ben: It almost seems at heart like the expectations would be way too high. Cristine: It puts unrealistic expectations on me to be funny. Well, I can't in her presence because she is just more funny. Ben: Because she's Jenna Marbles? Cristine: Because she is Jenna Marbles. No. Ben: I think we should add here too like ... Jenna and Julien are like two of the sweetest people we've ever met and she is the type of person that would probably have a hard time saying no to collabs. Cristine: Right. Ben: But we know she's not someone who really does a lot of collaborations on her channel. Cristine: Yeah, it's not her style ... Ben: It's not her thing. Cristine: to just do a bunch of collabs with people. Ben: So I think we recognize that we wouldn't even want to put her in the position to feel like she has to say "yes" to something. And you know what? It's nice to just ... we've had a few chances to hang out with them, and we've just had a lovely time just hanging out. And there's no pressure of filming or anything like that. And I think we're fine leaving it at that. Cristine: Yeah. Although I think what people are referring to is, after Safiya and Tyler's wedding, which was a secret, but we had gone there in November and then after Safiya and Tyler's wedding we went to Jenna and Julien's house. Because I posted a snapchat of me with Kermit and Peach or something. Ben: Yeah. Cristine: So when people saw that, they're all like, "oh, my god, you guys and Jenna and Julien are collabing!" Ben: But, no, it could just be that we're hanging out. Cristine: Right. But I ... I'm just ... Ben: Not everything has to be about work. Cristine: That's my point. No, we didn't film a collab. We were just hanging out after we went to a mutual friend's wedding. Which just seems so strange in YouTube-land that people do that. Ben: What a crazy table at that wedding, by the way. Cristine: Yeah. Ben: That was very brave of Safiya to put us all together. All right. Another question: "Who is someone you haven't worked with but would like to, if given the opportunity?" Cristine: So basically the question is, "Who do we think would say yes to me" if I ... Ben: No. Ben: If they had to say yes. Cristine: If they had to say yes. Like I know for sure that I've already talked to like Suzie from Nail Career Education over the last year we've tried to come up with some time to figure it out. Like I thought, okay, well, maybe if I go out to B.C. [British Columbia] where she is--that's on the other side of Canada-- we could figure something out. We talked about maybe me going to one of her classes. UIt just didn't work out, because again scheduling, travel, timing, a lot of that goes into play, because pretty much no one is near me. But that's something that I think would make sense. She's up for it. I am, too, maybe one day. Ben: Yeah. Cristine: Who else? Ben: And then Joana as well, right? Cristine: Joana Ceddia. Cena, John Cena Ben: John Cena? Yeah. Cristine: Yeah, but I can never find her email, because she doesn't have it public. Ben: Well, yeah, I think you had talked to her a little. She deleted her twitter, right? Cristine: Yeah, that was my only way of talking to her, it was Twitter DM. She deleted her twitter. Ben: If anyone knows how to get ahold of Joana's email ... Cristine: Tell her to email me. (Ben: ... let us know.) Well, her email got hacked recently, I'm not sure if you saw that. Cristine: Oh, yeah. Okay. Don't do that. Ben: All right, another question: "How often do you talk to your YouTube friends/people you collab with?" Cristine: So, it's like how often do you talk to your friends? Like there's different friends that you have: some maybe you talk to frequently once a week, once a month maybe, and then some you have you only talk to like twice a year. You know, it doesn't mean that you don't like them. it's just there's different types of friendships, I think. Ben: Yeah. I've always found that like ... I have some friends from way back in high school that I barely speak to but I consider ... (Cristine: But you're still friends.) Ben: ... good friends, right? Cristine: Yeah. Ben: So, yeah, I guess it ... I find like a lot of YouTube people aren't the best communicators or the best at responding to texts. But I can still consider those people friends. Cristine: I know what you mean, it is weird, because people in my like day-to-day life or my co-workers, we all get back to each other pretty much instantly, but YouTubers... Ben: YouTube people are weird. (Cristine: ... they take their time.) Ben: And a lot of YouTubers don't have a lot of friends. Espec-- And maybe not many friends outside of the industry even. We've noticed that. Cristine: I always felt like when I was texting a YouTuber, whatever, because we were organizing a collab or whatever, I always answer them like right away and then they just wouldn't answer me. Like eight hours or you know the next day. And then I started feeling this weird feeling where like, "am I answering too quickly?" Ben: They don't like me. Cristine: No, like I'm answering too quickly. And then I get their message and I'll be like "I'm going to wait ten minutes." Like it was weird, but just ... only with YouTubers in my recent history for some reason that's how I felt. Ben: Okay. Another question:"Do you wish you could film more collabs? And do you find it difficult since your YouTube friends live far away?" Cristine: Yeah. I mean, I think so. Ben: I feel like we could have a whole episode about why we haven't moved to L.A. But, yeah, one of the downsides is that it does make it a lot harder to just ... not just work with these people we're friends with, but just to hang out with them, you know? Cristine: Yeah, that's ... yeah, good point. So when we do go to L.A. or North Carolina to see ThreadBanger, we ... we're only there for a few days or only have a couple days ... (Ben: Or maybe a week at the most.) Cristine: ... available to be filming, because maybe we have to go to some show or something else, right? So we have to kind of rush film. Like we know that maybe on the Monday we're filming for their channel, the Tuesday we'll film for mine, Wednesday we'll do up any like pick-up shots that we need, and then maybe we'll go out for dinner. And then we got to go the next day. So it is a very tight schedule which doesn't leave much time to just hang out with people other than filming, because you want to make sure you got everything for filming. Ben: And we've been too ambitious in the past, right? Remember when we went to Creator Summit in New York one year? Cristine: Mm-hmm. Ben: And Simply Nailogical, Safiya's channel and ThreadBanger we all ... Cristine: Tri-collab-ed Ben: ... within like two days filmed three videos. Cristine: It was crazy. Ben: It was insane. Cristine: I was ... insane, yeah. Ben: I was subway nails, Safiya did that edible eyeshadow, and then for ThreadBanger was... Cristine: Testing foods around New York or Brooklyn, yeah. (Ben: ... just eating a bunch of food in Brooklyn.} Ben: Yeah, which was a lot of filming. Cristine: Yeah, that was a lot of filming and getting like six people, right? Like all of us incorporated into it somehow in a very short time span in between when we had to go to like YouTube activities for Creators Summit. Ben: Yeah, it's not like you have a bunch of free time. Cristine: Yeah, and we don't have our usual equipment, because we're in like Brooklyn or some-- ... like a random place that isn't any of our houses, right? So we just have whatever was in our backpack. So the logistics of it are very complicated and it doesn't leave much time to just hang out and relax. So anytime we do go to collab with people, it's usually not that relaxing of a time. It's like a high-pressured, "Okay, we got to get up. We got to do these things." Which kind of sucks. So that's just the one disadvantage of, you know, having to travel so far to collab with people. Ben: Threadbanger came to Ottawa once Cristine: Once, yeah. Ben: That was a nice change. Cristine: Very nice of them, thank you. So, yeah, good point: one time someone came to us. Ben: Yeah. Cristine: The other times we go to them. Ben: And let's say, we were ... before the coronavirus situation happened, we were just starting to think like would we ever want to have guests on this podcast? Cristine: Yeah. Ben: And we were starting to wonder like, you know, I guess we could fly people to Ottawa Ottawa just to have them on the show, but .... Cristine: And we're like, yeah, but then do they want to come to Ottawa? Not really. Ben: Yeah, or is it easy Ben: for us us just to do it remotely somewhere else? We would I think ideally like to have some people on here though, eventually. Cristine: Yeah, we have a few ideas for guests, but obviously that's not happening anytime soon. So there will be no Simply Podlogical collabs, for the time being. Ben: Hey, I've got a question for you that I guess we didn't include but What what is your favorite collab that you've done? If someone needs something to watch after this, what is something they could go click on that you're in? Cristine: I'm trying to think. Like, painting the coffin with glitter. Really, that was just so much fun. Ben: So, DIY Glitter Coffin with Threadbanger? Cristine: Yeah, that was with Threadbanger, because that was the second time we shipped something ridiculous to their backyard. And I just like have fond memories of working in their backyard. And that was at the point where we got the first major Interactions with them out of the way. Like we'd already known them for two years maybe by that point, so we ... there was no more like initial awkwardness of like, "are we friends?" Like that weird thing. I just really liked filming that glitter coffin. We were just totally like messing around blowing glitter at each other. Like it was just fun. Like, yes, most of it was filmed and put in the video or outtakes, but it was actually hilarious and I remember laughing really hard. Yeah, what about you? Ben: What's my favorite collab? There's this video, it's Superwoman with James Charles: they sing this song called "Freaky Friday." That's my favorite collab on YouTube I think. Cristine: I thought .. Ben: Oh, sorry. Do you mean ... Cristine: ... with me! With us! BEN!! Ben: No, they're ... actually, you know what? I think it might be that same trip, but it's the pumpkin-carving video we did for their channel, because that is the closest, I think, we've ever come-- Like if the camera had just not been there, I don't think I'm acting any differently, you know what I mean? It's hard: like just having a camera on is going to change your behavior somewhat, even as ... even if you're totally comfortable with people. But for some reason in that one, I felt like it really didn't change our sense of humor or just my comfort level at all and that one literally just felt like four friends fucking around in a basement carving pumpkings. Cristine: Yeah, I remember that. Ben: You remember that? Cristine: So that's the real Ben? Isn't that where you did the Logan Paul pumpkin? Ben: Let's not mention that. Cristine: Mm-hmm. That was fun though. Halloween there. Yeah. Ben: Yeah. We've ... I've had a lot of fun behind the scenes. Often it's fun to just be like ... you and Safiya are doing a lot of work and I'm just hanging out with Tyler. And like, yeah, we're working or like helping film it, too, but it's been nice to do some of that like behind-the-scenes sort of bonding as well, I'd say. Cristine: Yeah, usually it's always a very positive experience like working with people. I've never really had breakdowns ... actually, wait, that's not true. Ben: Oh, yeah. Cristine: One time, but not because of the people that we were working with but ... Ben: Actually, yeah, the question about was there a collab you ever regret? , Actually, I think I have an answer of that, but not because it was a bad collab, but just because we weren't in a headspace or you weren't in a place where you probably should have been filming videos at all. Cristine: So we've talked about this before, because I mentioned it in I think it was an outtakes video, as well as just reflecting on the situation, but when I was in L.A. filming with Safiya her wedding nails video. Ben: For your channel. Cristine: Sorry, not during her wedding. This was like well before her wedding in the summer and I was like doing wedding nails for my friend who's recently engaged. Ben: So it's the week before VidCon. We've committed to having a HoloTaco booth at VidCon and HoloTaco is being announced. Cristine: Right. Yes. Ben: Like the weekend before that. Cristine: Yes. Ben: So the lead up to HoloTaco was amazing and exciting and, ultimately, the reception was overwhelmingly emotional, but there was a ton of stress leading up to it. We weren't sure if we were going to have enough. We were talking about potentially moving the launch date, but we had already committed to having a booth at VidCon. There was a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes that made that an incredibly stressful time. But even before that, it's a month before ... It's less than a month before the launch of Holo Taco and we also find out our really good friend Rob had a heart attack. Cristine: Um-hmm. Ben: So we're in the middle of trying to figure out how we're going to successfully launch a nail polish line and all of a sudden this like hugely devastating personal stuff happens. So like a week before the Holo Taco launch we're in Asheville in a hospital like watching our friend and like we don't know if he's going to make it. Cristine: Yeah. Ben: So we went from that to the HoloTaco launch. We're in L.A. All of a sudden ever ... like it was such an overwhelmingly positive response, it was almost like ... Cristine: It wasn't fair. Ben: It was like too much. (Zyler: Mrrrooww.) Ben: Yes, Zyler. Cristine: That's how I felt. Ben: Honestly, it was just the emotions were just like too crazy for that few-week period, right? Cristine: It kind of ... it definitely fucked me up. Yeah. Ben: Yeah, so like there's an outtake that you included in some video of like, you're trying to film with Safiya and you just like start crying and it wasn't because like you were nervous about filming with Safiya or anything like that. I think it was just like, it had just caught up to us how crazy the last month had been, right? Cristine: Yeah. And obviously Rob and Corinne are really close friends of ours, so finding out about that and ... There's a video on their channel that explains, they went into detail about what happened to them. Ben: Yeah. Cristine: He basically died for 20 minutes and then ... (Ben: Had to be resuscitated.} Cristine: ... was resuscitated. And they weren't sure what was going to happen to like his brain capabilities. And yeah, so it was really hard obviously especially for Corinne who was living through that nightmare every single day. So we flew down a couple weeks after it happened and stayed with her, while he was in the hospital for however long we could stay. I think it was like four or five days. Ben: Yeah, I mean, I don't want to dwell on this too much, I know it's a bummer, but I feel like maybe it will give people a bit of insight into ... I feel like the whole second half of 2019-- Cristine: For me. Ben: for you, for both of us to some degree-- emotionally we were a little bit checked out and I think you can kind of see it in your videos that everything that went on in the summer kind of put things in perspective and it became harder to take YouTube videos seriously, when I think we were kind of grappling with like what's really important in life, because all of a sudden we were confronted with this really serious situation that happened to someone close to us, and I don't think we're ... we're not people who have had a lot of people close to us go through things like that. Cristine: No. Ben: So it was a pretty significant thing. Cristine: And I don't normally break down while I'm filming. Like I'm usually pretty good at like, "Okay, let's just film this and get this done." Even if I'm like not in a great mood. You're not always in a great mood, right? But I broke down filming and Safiya was like "what is going on, because this is so unlike you?" I don't break down in front of my friends while I'm trying to work. Ben: Um-hmm. Cristine: And what was harder at that time was no one knew: like the public didn't know what was going on with ThreadBanger, because they'd chosen not to tell people obviously and they had every right to do so, but there was a while, a period, where people didn't know so we obviously weren't going to say anything and I found it really hard to just get on camera during that time just at all just like to be happy about my launch. And I, thinking back, I think people thought I wasn't excited about Holo Taco: like I wasn't getting on camera as much, I just seemed weird and my videos about it. Like I was like a robot-ish. I didn't have much genuine reaction to it. Ben: No, I ... I don't know if that's fair. Cristine: I saw some comments like that and it makes me feel like upset for people and it was just a sad time and I couldn't really explain or talk about it and it wasn't my place to and I was just kind of a mess. Ben: Yeah, so that's why 2019 was ... Cristine: was a mess for Simply Nailogical. Ben: I mean, 2020 is not looking much better at this point . Cristine: I know, it's all downhill from here. Oh, my god. Ben: Yeah. Stay safe. Stay healthy. Cristine: But I think the upside of all that is, is we've developed some really good friendships out of working with people. Like Rob and Corinne are, I think, some of our best friends. Ben: Yeah. Cristine: You know, we may not talk to them every single day, but when we do talk to them like we talk to them for a while. We want to catch up. We can't wait to book our next vacation with them, when it's safe to do so. So like, collabs can do really great things and it's not always about a business transaction or about getting ahead or gaining more subscribers. I don't look at it like that anymore. I think in the beginning that's how it was kind of suggested to me or I was trained to look at collabs that way and you notice in my content, I kind of stopped doing it so much, because we just have a different approach to things now. Yeah. But we like our YouTube friends. Ben: Apologies to Jake Paul. We were going to have him on today ... Cristine: Oh, my god. Ben: ... to talk about, you know, grief and dealing with serious situations, but we ran out of time. (Cristine: We were not.) Cristine: We were not going to have Jake Paul on. He would have charged us $10,000. Ben: He wanted to take 10% of the earnings of the video, so we decided it wasn't worth it. Cristine: Well, I hope you guys found some of this interesting, some behind the scenes. Ben: This took a much more serious turn than I thought it would. Cristine: I know, I apologize, but I think some of it's interesting. People just like have no idea just how, you know, straightforward some of this is. Like it's just, "nope, we're just going to film; it's whatever." Ben: And let us know if any of those YouTubers you'd like to see on the podcast. Who would you like to see us talk to on the pod? If we could ever figure that out. Cristine: Yeah, who would you like to see us interview? Ben: And if you have a way of getting in touch with Joana Ceddia, maybe spam some comments on our next video saying we're trying to get ahold of her. Cristine: I'm going to set a filter that doesn't send Joana Ceddia to spam. Ben: Okay. Cristine: So I'll see it. Ben: All right, everybody. Thank you so much for watching. I'll see you next Taco Tuesday. We'll see y'all later. Cristine: See ya'll later! Bye! Ben: Bye.

Channel: SimplyPodLogical

Views: 829,837

Rating: 4.9624848 out of 5

Keywords: simplypodlogical, simply nailogical, simplynailogical, simplynailogical podcast, simply podcast, nailogical podcast, cristine and ben, cristine & ben, simplynailogical boyfriend, pod logical, youtuber podcast, collabs, bts, behind the scenes, youtuber tea, the truth about youtubers, working with youtubers

Id: stjZLR4H9NY

Length: 73min 12sec (4392 seconds)

Published: Tue May 05 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/blinkgirlvm]

I'm more interested in knowing who it was that didn't talk to Cristine while they were sitting together but asked to do a collab when she saw them hanging out with Jenna and Julien lol

[u/fortheloveofpugs89]

im under the impression that Christine has not watched Tatis content in the last few years. Tatis editing has changed in recent years. Im watching the video that Tati and Christine did in July of 2017 on Christines channel and Tatis skin looks like skin. albeit her skin looked amazing, it still looked like skin

[u/DeadWishUpon]

Nobody doubts Tati has beautiful and perfect skin. That is not why people complains about the filters.

The problem is when she uses products we want to see how they perform, and with filters everything looks great. And yes, there are filters. Nature does not blur your hairline.

[u/award07]

Does Jeffree send everyone a purse??!

[u/Brittle_Panda]

Said Tati's skin is perfect, she showed the comparison video and said Tati colour corrects differently than Cristine does but says everyone colour corrects. Cristine says Tati does not use filters in her opinion. Title of post is misleading. Just after she addresses the controversy around her friendship with J* (there is none, he sent her one bag 4 years ago and she DM'd him once) and also tries to clears the snowflake controversy (didn't know the term 'snowflake' was associated with alt-right)

[u/fortheloveofpugs89]

That desi Perkins story was hilarious though

[u/[deleted]]

Idk..a lot of YT use filters but you literally can not see the product that she is using. When Tati says "hey this foundation sucks" it literally looks flawless because of the filters are so blurred. That scott barnes video was so ridiculously filtered even I noticed it and I never pay attention to filters. I dont know much about christine (never seen a video of hers) but her husband or boyfriend is gives me odd vibes

[u/Sha939]

I just commented on this video about the palette situation I saw recently and how the filter came off.

I’m also not shocked she’s still friends with Tati when Ben bashes James’ all the time on their channel. The fact that Ben was proud of being blocked by him shows me what he’s like as a person.

[u/MuchSun8]

I stupidly didnt realise Tati was using filters and would beat myself up over her having such "great skin" at her age and me (27) having such rough skin and large pores to the point where I picked my face out of frustration. I kinda stopped watching her after that because I would feel so bad about myself.