**Markiplier's Monologue: A Journey Through Creativity and YouTube**

I'm going to be pursuing power washing, yeah yeah, pretty much probably maybe I'll get back into World of Warcraft who knows, nah, I'd write a lot, I'd probably write a book and then I would make a movie, which I'm already doing, and then I would make a TV show, which I'm already doing. Um, I'm busy enough as it is that I could fill my time no problem, um yeah, it's just like for me, creativity extends so far beyond just making a YouTube video, but it is like what you said, there is something magic about what YouTube offers, the creativity that nowhere else does, and it is something to protect and I will fight to protect it, and I think everyone should and I think that anyone who doesn't fight to protect it, doesn't actually care about it. Yeah, they should.

**A Conversation with Markiplier**

Where's his last goddamn right, what are these? Are just gonna say well, all right, here we are, i keep thinking that it's gonna end and be like "we'll have a nice little button" but no, no it's never gonna happen. You're stuck here with me forever, no I'm not, you're stuck here with me, I'm talking about like, out, give me uh, give me the button to delete your channel come on, i'll you can trust me with it come on, come on oh yeah, the button, yeah, what is it? What if you deleted your channel, if uh remove my torment, yeah, what if I freed you, yeah, that at least, at least give me a final upload man, i gotta, i gotta get it, i gotta get a final theory no, no, no abrupt ending, no even, even even, oona's honest got, got to say goodbye at the end right against my best wishes. No, no just kidding, where's his last thing? An upper deck rim joint, what is an upper deck rimchill, they're the things way up top, like you can't reach them but I'm looking at all of them and I don't see a single one that has any stuff like if you hit, i'm there wait, i'm there on an upper deck rim joist. Do you see one that's not? Oh yes, I got one left where.

**Markiplier's Adventure Continues**

The rings around the trees mark oh, the tree rings yeah, tree rings, oh I wasn't looking at those okay, so you, I don't even see where you are anymore here. I I then we have steps, you you find the steps, i can find the joist, okay, steps is either that spiral staircase uh, the steps here someone must have missed something on the other yeah, i missed something on the other side, so done here, all right well any last words before this video abruptly ends? No I got one more joist mark where's the leg's joints. I don't see you anymore your character model disappeared oh there you are no you're he just gave up he's like "I'm done", where is this? Where's the choice i see it, i see it i see it all right well say goodbye because it's uh what do you got to promote? Well, your channel, your channel yeah sure yeah check out check out food theory and uh keep an eye out for a new channel happening sometime before the end of the year. It'll be something theory yeah we got we got a new one no one has ever to date no one has predicted what it's gonna be so I'm excited in my world, you can theorize and be a nerd about everything and overthink all your favorite things and we found a new category that we're overthinking and I cannot wait.

**Markiplier's Plans for the Future**

I'm so excited about it all right we'll go check that out and look forward to the future. Slenderman episode dedicated to mark dedicated to me, I promise thanks man thank you well thank you for taking the time, I know this was a longer one but I felt like it needed to be just one how much the history there is on no it's it's a pleasure to this day in all of my history of content creation sitting down in front of the live audience and and the people watching uh during the saint jude stream was one of the most real and memorable moments to me. It was it was great so you know, it was it was nice getting a chance to chat oh good I barely remember anything I was so tired I i never know what markiplier i'm going to get when i step into the room with you so yeah it keeps me on my toes and it keeps things spicy and exciting. Oh good well thank you so much for your time everyone go check out matpat you've definitely seen one of his videos, you've definitely seen him play video games but you might not have seen all of what he's done or all the charity work he's done.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enand clapsync this is markiplier power wash podcast power hour with pals that sounds great went through four or five different iterations of the title oh it's still going it's still to this day there was another name that should have been named that i've forgotten now it was so genius and now it's gone so it's completely out of the out of the realm of possibility washed away washed away welcome to the power wash pals power hour there was another name and i've forgotten him now and i can't remember what it should be but there was an even better name it fits with the game actually because it's the first couple levels it's all the repeating joke of they can't decide what to name their company is that what it is yeah so you're actually on any of this how do you ever know this it's my job it's my job to pay too much attention to this stuff yeah did you did you do a video on this game because i was always talking like this not only did i do a video about this game i dedicated it to you so i'm glad that uh i'm glad that my content fell on deaf ears i've been watching your food theory stuff i i haven't actually been watching too much game theory it's all right don't worry but you've been you've been watching enough to dunk on my sexualized pokemon i know right yeah yeah uh we can get into that but uh i wanted to start this off before we even get going um are you a good power washer i see your snubby little tiny baby washer there i you know i i haven't upgraded my devices all that much but i'm a diligent power washer it's not it's it's not the tools i don't have many tools but i use them well let's say that i will tell you it is actually 100 the tools in this game oh no really especially on this level um if you don't have a range extender you're going to have a real bet oh man well you know what it'll be a good time because i'm spending it with you all right okay i'm just going to count on me having to do anything if you if you open your tablet how much money you got uh okay let's see we've got how do i open the tablet again it's been a while i think escape oh yeah there it is yeah i've got 437 dollars i've been saving i've been i've been saving that to invest in like uh an ira or something yeah no you shouldn't do that yeah you're never gonna make any money with that but it's okay you got that i've got mine i haven't even upgraded to the best one because i think the one i have is is okay so what we'll we'll divide this you go up the stairs and take like the close short range stuff and i'll work on like the things that need like long range in that way okay i am a very diligent jumper i am i'm i did not skip leg day you said that yeah but the diligence you know it's it's good uh just use the ladders and whatnot there's many scaffolds here of varying size you can use any okay great sounds like a plan so uh usually i have i have not done this in the past um and i should do this as i should introduce my guests as who they are this is matthew patrick one of the most prolific and uh i i say this with all the love in the world because i am i am the same way love uh uh meme internet personalities in the world i am i'm a walking meme without even before memes were like relevant online yeah i know and i say that because i am also a uniquely memeable uh youtuber apparently um but i see just as many madpad memes game theorist memes uh i forget who did it but there was someone that was doing videos that was like they stole your voice and like put it into an ai generator i was talking about how people get no and just like stuff it's it's great man i almost hired that guy i'm like hey do you want to just do the videos for me at this point please just go for it they were so watchable it was really yeah i feel like this is better than the stuff i produce go for it man there's also uh there's also a creator on tick tock who does matpat impressions um you know talking about who the purple guy is and this and that and i'm like hey you got the voice down man just just sit in the booth read the script and you're golden yeah you got life to live you gotta go on with that um but i will say you have been on youtube for quite a while and you have uh in and this is kind of an oddity for people that have been doing it as long as you or i have is that you have kind of stayed in the public eye for a very long time i don't really care about the how and why and the like oh what's your strategy i'm just like have you stayed sane this whole time to be able to make content and like deal with drama and whatever and happening i don't even know what happened with the most recent thing in five nights at freddy's um it went over my head and but i i saw you made an apology video i didn't watch it unfortunately again only food theory i was gonna say hey hey i appreciate you watching food theory that uh that channel monetizes well so thank you for the higher cpms over there that's what it's all about about baby no yeah i mean but you bring up food theory for and i think that really answers your question in a lot of ways where for me you know the content is always evolving the the landscape is always shifting and and the great thing about having food theory now is is it's a completely new category of topics to talk about it's a completely different style of video and so part of my life is now that i have three different channels that cover completely different topics i'm able to you know if something isn't really particularly exciting or interesting over in the gaming space you have the film space hopefully something's interesting happening there there's like a cool small youtube series or something like that or if that starts to get boring you know food theory opens up a whole new wealth of of possibilities to to talk and theorize about and and you know new videos to do so really the the shucking and jiving with kind of the the content trends and things like that like that's a whole other story in surviving controversies and whatever like that's that's a whole separate thing but when it comes to just purely like staying sane on the platform while doing you know 10 years 11 years worth of content now it's like that's the way to stay sane is just and i think you would largely attest to that too right with you know your your arg projects your uh you know in space with markiplier the youtube originals things like that like it allows you to kind of express different parts of your creative personality and and continue to learn even though you've been doing it for as long as you have yeah i i would completely agree with that and i think people that have seen my content evolve over time would agree as well um but maybe in a slightly different way because for me it's less about staying sane and worrying about like things to talk about because me and ethan we joked about this with unisonness like you could put a banana on the table and we would make a 10 minute video out of it right with no prompt at all it's like so the the fun of creation i i always go back to that that old fnaf adage the joy of creation you know i i really do truly thrive on the making of things and and like the the the bouncing of ideas back and forth of people which is why i always loved what you did with um some of those videos talking about it i will i remember this very distinctly um it was one of the first times you made a video i think about darkiplier i don't really remember what the video was i just remember that it happened because i was i was up in seattle and i remember i saw on my phone we me and amy we were walking down um by the the the shore front store place down there and yeah my favorite favorite seattle storefront short place yeah it's great and i saw on my phone that you would post a video that was like completely dedicated to something i made and it was an incredibly heartwarming thing i i stopped and i i literally had to sit down and watch the video right away um mostly because i was like what what horrible things is he saying about me because that was usually the adage of when someone makes a video about you on the internet it's not a good thing that's usually very bad right when you're trending you're like oh no my my stomach sinks down into my chest yeah everyone is like every time i'm trending on twitter everyone's like what did he do and it's like oh okay he just he pooped yeah i was gonna say usually it's you your bowels have moved in some way yeah exactly uh but i remember i sat down and i watched and i looked at him and i was like this is one of the coolest things anyone's ever done for me and i know that like it probably wasn't entirely motivated to be sweet uh but i i do think a lot of it was just like an appreciation for uh someone else's creation on the platform and a recognition of that and being able to turn it into content is an even bigger bonus and i think that like that was a really nice thing and i just got to thank you for that oh of course i mean i thank you for you know not not to get too like self-congratulatory around this stuff but like no thank you for you know creating stuff that is fun and interesting and exciting and i and i think you know again to the question of staying sane so many years into this it's it's awesome to see that the the most viewed videos on film theory at this point are me covering youtube first series by small creator channels you know we're covering the back rooms a lot these days we're covering the mandela catalog these digital first productions that are being produced by independent youtubers doing in you know on their own with small teams and and like that is so exciting to me and i think that's been one of the coolest parts of of my evolution as a creator is you know being able to have a platform now and and being able to in some way pay it forward and put a spotlight on to people who are doing awesome cool stuff and who deserve credit and who are pushing the the limits of what it takes to you know tell a story in 2022. that's that's a really good way of putting it because it is kind of paying it forward right we as creators you know we're old men by now you and i yes how old are you i i'm sorry i know we're close in age but just like uh remind me oh my gosh i i i can't say it on on camera tonight no no what am i i'm 30 30 35 ish yeah yeah i'm up there i'm up there mark i just turned into the grand pro of youtube in the terms of youtube we're we're ancient dust we're practically falling apart i mean i mean we're no rhett and link but we're getting close how old are they i know they're older i always forget uh there what are they at this i mean they're over 40. i think they're 40 early 40s i think at this point yeah early 40s okay that's not too they're not dust in the wind yet but you know no certainly rumble yeah sure but no i think about that a lot in terms of like content creation i i have come very far in terms of my ability to make content and i i i'm still to this day trying to push my myself and my ability and my knowledge and of course i have all these projects that i'm currently working on now just last week i wrote like a hundred pages of script um on two separate projects that like i can't wait to get on because i love it that's amazing yeah but at the same time i'm trying to remember that the reason that i make things is not just for myself it is a lot for myself and it's selfish but the other part of it is to hopefully inspire someone else to make something and that you know they can see in themselves that they have the ability to create and this individualized like people going out and making the back rooms that guy who makes those videos the ones that are the most popular i think is like yeah kane he's 17 or something right yeah he's super young he's just a kid by all measures he's a kid yep he is a via vfx artist who is just really good you know as far as i can tell he enjoyed the scp back when back rooms was a thing and he's like hey i'm gonna i'm gonna make my version of the story and i'm gonna show the world what i can do and lo and behold now he's one of the biggest trends in horror on on youtube and one of the biggest trends in general on the platform it's it's awesome it's so exciting and i when when i get a notification of him uploading i cannot wait to watch that video yeah that's so cool i still have yet to see any of them i i plan on doing a backrooms uh style video uh in the very near future um just having that time because i'm gonna be going i'm going to korea to film a documentary next week oh really oh that's awesome yeah about my mom so it's uh it's going to be a nice personal story um and i just get so behind on things but i do remember like all this is for the next generation like at some point my channel will fall i've practically been trying to get it taken down um but you know i'll but i'll move on to something else and i'll make things like i have plans to make movies and you know tv shows and whatnot but i don't think like that i'm not doing that because i want to like break into the traditional media sphere it's just like i want to try something new and like i want to see if i can make it in a movie um and all this selfish like talk besides i know you got plans and i will i'll ask about your plans but just on the same topic um do you worry about new creators these days and the speed at which trends can rise and fall because that is the biggest drawback and the biggest thing that i worry about for people is that the the rises i talked about this on several different um topics and podcasts with other youtubers but the rise with like new creators these days is meteoric it goes higher than ever before faster than ever before but it also falls faster than ever before and the cycle you could you've seen i've seen the psychological ramifications of that on creators over our entire time period it's can be devastating do you worry for creators today uh hitting those peaks and valleys uh i think it's one of those things where it honestly i think it's on a case-by-case basis right i think it depends on what the creator is is popping into this world for you know and what their expectations are i think we're simultaneously dealing with uh you know younger and and like you said faster trends and younger creators and things like that but also these are people who have grown up with these platforms and have seen trends rise and fall and you know hopefully are familiar with it and so i think you know a lot of people and i would hope that they're going in with a with a healthy mentality of like hey it's awesome that this took off and you know this is this is my 15 minutes of fame and and let's see what i can do with it i think i think more so what i worry about is just the the fact that it affects storytelling you know the need to be this need to constantly tell stories faster and have more in it and super cut things and this and that like you lose a lot of the ability to to tell slower paced stories pensive stories um i think that's to me the the more concerning thing is we as as a viewership as an audience as as people who watch online videos things like that like the pace at which stuff gets produced and has to be kind of produced in order to like maintain people's attention i think that's what concerns me more mm-hmm that's a really good point because a lot of people that i talk to in traditional media spheres you know my manager my agency yada yada the people that do all the caring about things that i don't care about they talk about this a lot with how tick-tock is like shortening attention spans but i don't think that's it i don't think it's that attention spans are getting uh shorter it's the demands of the consumption that are driving these shorter time frames tick-tock works because you know vine worked and p there is a demand in a market for short content it's but it's not like youtube is suffering the longer form videos on youtube are getting longer um it's like i i've sit around and watch three hour videos about roller coasters from uh what's the the channel um uh defunct land you know i'll watch i love defunct land love defund land i'll browse through tick tocks and watch like six second things but it's the speed at which the internet is demanding new content that is kind of affecting the way stories are delivered and how much can be physically put into something by one person is starting to really be stretched out even i as a creator i am extremely good at what i do i can make pretty much anything out of anything i i am blown away at which the speed of some of these people are making things i know what they're doing to get there they're pulling all-nighters the demands of it and this is why i'm like the worry gets to me sometimes as much as the i think the newer generations of creators are more cognizant of mental health deficiencies in terms of like burnout and whatnot they're aware of it but being aware of something is one thing and experiencing like an ever increasing demand is another it's it's like nothing can prepare you for that so well and i think that's that's that's definitely a different concern right is is the like you said the speed at which things have to get produced and you know a channel like game theory could never have happened uh in 2022 youtube at this point you know the by the nature of like we have a significant team you know at this point i am fortunate to be surrounded by so many creative people who you know trusted me to lead the ship but you know who i am just stunned by some of the work that they're able to do to do in the timelines that we're able to do it and it's you know and they always want to push themselves further and they always want to do better and and all of that but you know to still get out uh a video a week on game theory or three main channel theory videos a week it's it is such a difficult load to burden and we wouldn't be able to do it without you know this huge collaborative process that that we have back in the day i was able to get away with you know matpat doing his one video a month solo but now to stay relevant and and maintain what the platform needs and demands you're just this constant churn constant churn yeah and then what you're trying to say is like a new creator could not possibly do that as it is right now because starting it and getting to that level of doing regular videos is it costs too much money and it costs too much time in terms of man hours or woman hours or however many hours you want to talk about it's too much yeah it's it's even if you get that one good video out you are then immediately rolling into the next thing and by the time you're doing it as a solo creator unless you are you know killing yourself or some sort of prodigy or whatever like you are you're already kind of the algorithm has moved on past you mm-hmm yeah you don't even get to track your own growth because i i would love to like have a conversation with people that make like the back room stuff and all these new and creators because i would love to know what their process is but given that eternal churn and like the constantly increasing demands you don't even get to step back and say oh wow i've really progressed as a creator of things my skills have built because as soon as the numbers start going down you're like i'm crap i'm i'm terrible oh god it's over and all the skills that i've built are worthless because i can't even appreciate them i'm not saying that's the right mindset and it's not even the mindset i approach things anymore anyway um but it's just like one of those things where it's like yeah i could totally see how people could get wrapped up inward sure well i want to go back to your love of defunct land because because i don't think i've ever heard you talk about this but are you much of a roller coaster enthusiast mark no no no no no i mean yeah i love a good roller coaster uh but i just like watching youtube videos casually that's why that's my go-to method of consumption i don't really watch tv shows i don't have time to sit down and get into a show um say for maybe alone i've watched uh me and amy we watch alone sometimes but for the most part we're just popping on youtube videos we're just watching any random stuff that comes across the recommendeds you know and uh so when it comes down to like watching things what little time i have is just youtube videos or tic tocs sometimes i've kind of like increased my amount of tick tocks lately oh man they're getting you to increase the amount of tick tocks they know what they're doing oh man oh that for you page algorithm that thing is really it's scary good i know they must be probing into my personal information like i think we all know that but god damn those recommendeds really come up spicy yeah no right it's it's it's really a smart smart algorithm speaking of uh have you ever taken like the myers-briggs personality test or anything like that that kind of like quantifies what your personality is because i know that these algorithms really like you said they really pinpoint who you are and what you like to watch and so i'm curious have you ever done something like that is that the four letter uh yeah that's the four letter one yeah well i'd have to alt tap oh let me i've done a video on it i don't remember what the answer was but i can look it up and tell you well how long was the video because i know mine has changed with time right like so it's one of those things that we ask a lot of the people who come out to team theaters to take just because it tells us a lot about who they are how they work and and how we can best work with that person uh so so we can you know really succeed together and and i've i found it to be really helpful um and so i was just curious because i'm you know i i'd be curious to see what your results were according to this weird internet site it says enfp but i don't think that i'm that enough did i is that what i took i have no idea there's an extrovert feeler that makes sense uh ian you're an intuiter so that means you're looking at data and extrapolating to move forward uh i could see that in your personality and then and then p ah i would be surprised on one hand i could see you as a p but on the other hand i'd be surprised if you were just by the nature of how busy your schedule is e-n-t-p-a is what i got when i took the test okay tpa which is debater i don't know yep okay yeah i don't put any stock into any of that but what are you uh i am an entj uh and i actually split a couple uh because i'm entj which is thinker extrovert the n is the intuitor so you're looking at data and kind of extrapolating outward and then uh j is you have to be a planner or you're kind of ver you prefer things organized rather than like let's just go by the seat of our pants kind of thing i love seating your pants man yeah i love it yeah you like the seat of my pants mark oh i love the seat of your pants it's just so incredible it's good right now it's a little bit sweaty i'm on a leather couch it's not great so i'd hate to tell you about that one um i've always enjoyed that just because you know i'm i'm a psychology nerd i studied psychology and neuroscience and stuff so i i find it useful but at the end of the day like i see why people don't because it's like oh you're just answering the questions that the test gives you and you're feeding it back what you want to hear and it's true but like hearing it in a different context or kind of rephrased back at you sometimes gives you clarity i think yeah self-understanding i'm big about i'm i'm all about like trying to be in tune with who you are and like get a get a deeper understanding of the self uh but at the same time i always i always shy away from those things because i do think it's easy answers instead of like actually looking in and discovering yourself it's just one of those things where the only time you really know yourself is in the the most dire of situations when you're at the extremes of your personality do you really even understand who you are and what you're willing to do and what you're even capable of as you're doing it and i think those uh those moments can't be quantified in an online quiz but at the same time like if it helps someone comes to understanding i got no problem with it sure no of course this is this was always one of my getting to know you questions i've never gotten a chance to to truly you know get to know you outside of projects marks i'm curious like if you were if you were represented as a muffin flavor so if your personality were represented by a muffin flavor not a muffin flavor that you necessarily like to eat because that's always like i like blueberry and it's like no if your personality were distilled into the essence of a muffin flavor what muffin would you be mark man uh it does it have to be a muffin flavor that exists uh no you know it can be whatever whatever muffin whatever combination of flavors you think is is the essence of mark right okay so if it was gonna be me it's not gonna be something that is always pleasant uh so it's gotta be it's gotta have some spice to it it's either like a spice or way too much cinnamon or something like that you know it's got some some spice to it um but you know there's got probably some like a spicy chocolate muffin i would probably put it like that you know cinnamon chocolate yeah no not even cinnamon let's get the cinnamon out of there but let's let's get some actual like there's capsaicin in this muffin it is actually spicy yeah like like like a chili muffin like a hot a hot chili muffin a hot chocolate muffin that's but yeah not chocolate like hot chocolate but like spicy chocolate muffin cool like a spicy mexican chocolate right yeah yeah just like that nice and what how does that reveal someone because you're right we've never actually sat down and talked as just two humans talking it's almost always been about a project or work right it's either it's either a project or it's on camera or it's you know i think the closest we came was after both heist and in space but that was also surrounded by a bunch of people you know and that's always a very different context as well yeah it always is um yeah so what type of muffin are you uh actually it was funny when you started to talk about cinnamon muffins because for years i've always said i'm a cinnamon muffin um yeah uh and everyone's like that's that's not a muffin i'm like yeah it is but uh you know a little bit a little bit spicy a little bit sweet um you know a little bit intense uh you know a lot of people will like you but there are going to be people who really don't like your flavor so you know love it or leave it i guess yeah it's it's kind of like a uh polarizing muffin choice but people seem to constantly go back to it for some reason yeah there it is i'm a muffin with a fist in it and it reaches out and it punches you in the teeth every time you go to bite it but then somehow you just keep going back almost like i think actually i'll take it back it's like cinnamon chocolate spice a fist and uh let's say uh cocaine there's something to get people addicted and they come back for more that's my muffin i'm the drunk spicy chocolate drug muffin this is the elusive cocaine muffin wow oh man well you know if if you wanted to get this this video demonetized it just happened now so there it is one step closer to getting kicked off the youtube platform demonetization is not getting kicked off i so many of my videos are demonetized i just the thing is like a lot of people are like oh i know there's a whole thing about like age restriction and stuff like that and and yes i it's a it's ethan just got uh his 10-year anniversary video age restricted no clue why the most absurd thing i've ever heard it's just like baffling but at the same time like usually when it comes down to those things i just i've never talked about it and i never even fight it because i just don't really care um like it's like one i'm in a fortunate enough position and i know this is fortunate for me to say just like if a few videos get age restricted or even half of mine i'm still gonna be fine i'll i i'm still gonna make things and i don't i try not to like change my content for the sake of youtube's guidance um because being monetized is one thing if my video gets removed that's a problem uh but usually i'm just like whatever it is what it is and i'll just deal with it um but at the same time you seem to be like very mindful of food theories better monetize uh you know like uh age restriction is something to be aware of cursing is is obviously something control um do you think about that a lot like in terms of the videos you make oh yeah i mean my i'm an uber nerd and i overthink everything right like that is just who i am but it really is born back to the early stage of the channel right where again going back to the idea of like how could game theory exist in 2022 if i was just starting off from scratch it would be incredibly difficult because it would take a hundred hours to produce a single video um between all the research that goes in all the scripting you know all the the animation whatever you wanted to call what i was doing in the early days um but it took a long time for me as someone who wasn't skilled in a lot of that stuff and so very early on in my career as a content creator i guess you could say before i even realized that that's what i was going to be it was how do i squeeze every last view or every you know how do i make this this video work as successfully as possible with the platforms that it's going on so that way my effort wasn't wasted and the next thing that i move on to it buys me enough time for the next video honestly um and so that's when i really got involved in the analytics and my background is with neuroscience and theater and so really those two specialties are a really nice balance of the creative half of what the platform is as well as the analytical half you know it's it's a creative platform that's built by engineers and where content is is measured by numbers and so for me i got really invested in the early days about like okay well what can i do to experiment and find new things to boost the retention time a little bit or you know get people to engage a little bit more and this and that it was it's fun but and it empowered me and it taught me a lot about how the platform works and this and that and i try to pass it on to other people at this point but yeah from the early days when you're only uploading a video a week and it's taking a lot of time and manpower and stuff that's that's kind of where i found it man i don't spend any brainpower thinking about stuff i really don't sometimes i do but really i i don't it always fascinates me um because i think you are in an interesting uh crossroads not a crossroads that sounds confrontational it's like an intersection of specific talents because it is that neuroscience and theater background i've always said that you have a great performative uh personality you are good on camera you're good at improvising and you're good at like the the actual performative aspect there are many youtubers and many other people that are trying to make careers on on the internet that are not i'm not calling anybody else specifically about this you all know who they are they literally were not built for performance and that's okay some people are not but at the same time there are a lot of people that try to brute force it with just that technical aspect but i think what makes your your content and your uh longevity really stand out is that you are able to do both and you really really do think well in terms of both what is entertaining and what is like at the right uh what's the big uh it's it's in uh you know all the tech spheres that's the one word the zeitgeist you know i hate that word so much just like i really hate the word it's like when everyone someone calls like uh someone else he's a savant oh he's just haunted there's a genius i hate these terms but really i do think that you you kind of like always tune in to what is topical and somehow make it entertaining which i think is a unique set of talents well chuck thank you i mean it's it's always i i always think that it's i want to learn right like the impetus of the channels for me was an opportunity for me to to teach myself something new and to have an excuse in while i was looking for jobs and no one really wanted to hire me to have an excuse to show them like hey i can do things i can do smart things but also just to keep my brain active and the cool thing about youtube and the frustrating thing about youtube is that it's always changing and it the content is always changing the audience is always changing youtube themselves and the policies that it adheres to and what it's advertising and stuff like it's always changing so on one hand it would be one thing to say like oh yeah i've been a youtuber for for 10 11 years and i'm i'm getting bored with it or whatever but on the other hand it's like no it's it's one of those jobs that is constantly forcing me to find different ways to evolve as a creator and different things to expose myself to and how do i grow up on this platform as as a creator as as a viewer as someone who's in this space and that's what not a lot of people realize is that you do need to grow up with it i i talk about this a lot you know in terms of drawing from this well of inspiration that you hide that you have inside of yourself um and eventually you'll you'll run dry no matter what you do you'll run dry eventually and it's just a thing where you got to go live more life and come back to it uh and and learning and growing up with your audience is part of it my audience has grown up with with me i've found more people on the way but i think people who watch these uh creators online for a long period of time if they don't change if they do not evolve as a person as much people are like you've changed i'm this old mad pat you know like that the if they don't see change then it's weird it falls into this uncanny valley where it's like they're not human they've stayed the same they've stagnated it's not what real life is people change all the time their taste change my videos have drastically changed in terms of my performative ability technical ability but also just like because i've changed i'm different um but at the same time i have a question for you yeah okay yes youtube dies tomorrow what do you do oh youtube dies tomorrow what do i do um you know what i would i would either just retire you know i'm in a fortunate enough position where i could retire and it would be okay um but i think more so and and i think what i would do then is i would just pick up projects to help you know uh i guess my go-to answer is usually like oh i would apply to youtube like if the channel died i would apply to youtube and try to kind of like serve as an internal voice of someone who's been on the platform for a long time who represents creator interests and who can like speak to a lot of different facets of what it means to be a content creator in the digital space but if youtube itself died um yeah i i mean like you said i've i've changed and i've grown i have a family now i have a kid and i'm so excited to teach him everything about the world and so you know i've for the last 10 years been teaching people both useful things about physics as well as not so useful things about haunted animatronic pizzeria restaurants and you know and so i i think after doing that sort of education for people over the years and and stuff i'd love to be able to focus a little bit more on the little guy that's that's in my life and i can i can teach him all those things you wouldn't cry would i cry you wouldn't be sad just a little bit oh i mean absolutely i would be sad but you know no wrong answer boo boo no i mean mark i i think i think you would be sad too right like for as much as as as much as this platform is is frustrating and how much of it is as a grind and and all of this stuff like it is a a huge part of of a huge chunk of my and your life and so to say like you wouldn't at least be a little sad to see a part of of what has made you you disappear and die and especially if youtube itself disappeared and all the videos and all the work from a decade of my life suddenly goes away and and i can't revisit you know i i that's what you were saying with unassanus right was that you appreciate the things while they well they're here but there is a sadness and a little bit of uh you know regret to see that sort of thing go away mm-hmm um so yeah i would i would be sad but you know then then you move on and you you find the next thing in your life yeah i can't deny that there wouldn't be a hint of sadness i like to say that would be like emotionally dead and ignorant of my own feelings that would be very sad to see and especially for all the other people that would be out there who lost that's things that you were talking about my personal feelings sort of my videos aside because i would i would not really miss them um but part of me would be outside of the sadness and obvious like melancholy behind it i would be incredibly excited and and let me tell you why let me tell you why is is not because of like ignoring the sadness that's there it's suddenly this vacuum i love change that's me a lot of people really hate change i adore change i'm an agent of change i love doing anything that changes things up uh even if some people could point to specific examples where i hold on to certain formats and whatever i love this idea that the entire ecosystem of the internet the pipeline of content that that that is the pillar and lifeblood of creativity and the livelihood of so many people suddenly gets upended and the reason that's exciting for me is because that that that moment is the catalyst of the greatest creativity that would come out of the internet in like recent years it would be suddenly a vacuum a demand for content and creators that were just like suddenly ousted where would they go how would it evolve when people would be forced to change oh man i would just i would be so excited to see what would come out of it because i feel like it would just be like the most profoundly interesting few years afterwards as like things just rehash and re-stitch together me personally among them i would be like in the mosh pit throw in elbows just like making it would be the wild west of content and you don't think that would be just a little bit of exciting i mean it would be cool i mean it would be exciting but where are you making that content like and i think this is the thing like not not not to overly challenge you or anything but like you know people can be creative all the time wherever the and and that mosh pit is happening right now as you speak mark the you know the the question is where are those people getting seen because creative people since the beginning of time have always wanted to to find a platform for their creativity to find a place where their voice can be heard and one of the things that i i love about youtube and i love about this platform is in a lot of ways it is a a meritocracy you know where you learn the platform and and yeah there's it's it's become less so over the years and that's like a fine nuanced point but like more so than you know traditional media television movies things like that where you had to be in l.a and you had to know the right people and you had to come from the right family or know the right you know x y and z like youtube democratized entertainment in a lot of ways and so hey if you are keen pixels and you have the back rooms and you're just a talented vfx artist awesome you know someone on red is going to pick that up it's it's going to get signal boosted you're going to grow a little bit you know a content creator is going to react to it we're going to do a theory about it whatever and bit by bit you're going to grow that audience and suddenly you've succeeded in the mosh bit you you found your way and you know i still think that youtube is in a lot of ways a place where that that mosh pit happens and it is a platform that formalizes it to some extent but still incentivizes that creativity um whereas i think if all of a sudden it goes away you know now what are you left with you know sure go for go for it no this is this is exactly my point because there is the mosh pit right now with the tick tocks and instagram there's so many different ways that people monetize in that aspect you're right it would create a big vacuum of established things but how many people like you and me who have said to this question yeah i'd be fine i could retire but how many people are still like incredibly hungry for it the thing the thing that these other platforms don't realize that is that youtube acts as a nice sponge for creativity and that the competition that exists on those platforms is dulled because of how established some routes are in youtube you don't just get new people coming in you get old people that suddenly have to be like oh god i have to do something else but they have the skills behind it to do it they're not even going to just make content they're going to make their own platforms with which to do it because how many youtubers have you talked to that's like man if i made a new youtube i would make it so much better and whether they're right or wrong you know right sure for all of youtube's flaws i do like the platform i i still think it is like what you said it is one of the the places the few places on the internet that has actively taken a role to try to encourage people to express their creativity and make a living out of it that is rare and that is not a guarantee in the world as many other platforms try to be there there's still like many good things about youtube policies aside it's still a good place to make stuff but imagine like the rush is not just it's not even just a mosh pit anymore it's it's like if uh when a business collapses in the like a big huge business collapses in the world or gets absorbed like it's just a frenzy entering into this fear it's like the competition is what drives and that's like what makes me excited it's just like seeing what these people with all of their skills suddenly you see a bunch of youtubers have to like suddenly start doing tick tocks i think that's so funny because like so many of them are going to fall in their face their skills don't work but some of them are going to be so unbelievably good other tick tock people are just going to be like what the hell is i have to do that now it's like it holds people to a higher standard both like in all aspects and that's what i find exciting about it i mean anytime like here's the thing anytime there is an opportunity for someone to to be creative like i love creativity and like i said it's it's one of those things that i love about where i exist at this point where i am surrounded by people who are also as passionate about the their creative work and the stuff that they're putting out into the world as i am and it is so refreshing and so awesome and you know being able to to watch these creators uh you know have have a place to to kind of express themselves it's so it's so cool yeah it is it absolutely is uh but that doomsday scenario won't happen like youtube's going to be around here for a while until it slow it'll be a slow death not a quick death it's not going to get pulled to plug anytime soon what do you think comes next though like what is what is the next iteration of content mark next iteration of content uh ai driven stuff sadly um maybe this is still way down the road i think that there's there's um still a long ways to go before it encroaches into the territory of like say making its own videos and whatnot but have you seen some of the recent advances in terms of ai image generation yes it's it's wild we've uh we've actually wanted to do a a series of videos across all the channels of ai writes a game theory film theory food theory we have we've cycled it through the ai how many times i we we ingested most of the episodes for all the different channels and we got some okay results back we weren't fully satisfied so i think we're gonna run it through a couple more times it's been a process that we've been doing for about the last three months or so um but yeah that's it's it's wild right same thing with the the the dolly stuff oh my god the image creation it's it's scary it's it's so scary because it if you haven't been paying super attention to it to the people listening out there like you may not realize just how quickly this has started to evolve mid journey is probably a popular one that many people know dolly being the most well-known version but mid-journey has been working under the hood and slowly making strides in just three months it went through two version updates um the third version was released and it increased the fidelity of their results tremendously like it was stunning the jumping quality and then they released version four with the advent of i think it's called static diffusion and like a different method of image generation you'd have to look into the papers to know the technical things i do not um but the quality level is it quickly became like oh that's fun it makes kind of pretty pictures but they're a little weird to what the hell am i looking at this is amazing and it terrifies you it really does kind of scare you not me again i'm like this is super cool i think it'll be a tool for people to use um but it can be just like wow there was a case on reddit that some people might have seen where someone entered their mid-journey creations they they printed it out upscaled it printed it on a big canvas and entered it into an art competition and they won first place whoa i did not see that that's wild yeah ai generated art won first place in a real life art contest and rightfully people were very pissed of course and i think they have they they're like that's rightfully so they should be pissed about that there should be rules about no ai generated or in those competitions but it made a point it made a point that this art was good enough that other people objectively looked at it and stacked it up to things that humans made and said unanimously that it was better and that is an interesting crux in the world of computer generated content yeah very much yeah that's a wild story what was that what was the image if you don't mind me asking it was a space art theory uh i could probably like like see anything space there i'm so sorry no when's when space you're gonna happen i'm contractually obligated to say that anytime someone mentions the word theory so all right of course uh but uh they can pull up the image but it is like they had three different prints that they made of various and admittedly looking at them they are really really incredible works of art but they were not made by a human hand which does impact the art it's no question that it is art because it is like the meaning behind it is there and the feelings that it evokes even if it's outrage that's art to me if it makes someone feel something that's art but just the idea that the computer generating could be made from a prompt and basically win out over pure human talent and pure human hard work i don't know what the other members of the contest maybe they were crap maybe it was just a bunch of other garbage attractions like it was like it was a washout bar and else was bad i'm not saying that it could beat everybody but the fact that it could beat anybody is really really surprising what do you do do you have do you have a favorite piece of artwork mark or do you have like a genre of art that you respond to because uh this summer i was fortunate enough to spend uh in london so i spent two months there went to all different art museums saw a lot and uh you know the tate modern in london is is so incredible and it's full of so many it's it it's full of all this unusual modern artwork and you know some of it i like some of it i'm like is that really art but all of it makes me think and question and i think that is what's so exciting about a lot of that and so i'm curious you know as someone who is very well versed in in a lot of creative pursuits and endeavors and is it's constantly learning and and looking to improve like what is there something that inspires you or something you're like i really respond to that emotionally here's the thing like i have an appreciation for art but i don't pursue it right okay so i'm not going out to museums to look for inspiration or anything i'll go to a museum and i'll be like you with the modern art you'll be like some of it'll be like incredibly evocative and i'll be like i understand this completely it really speaks to me and i love the way it goes out there and others i'm like this is a cup on a stand and this is clearly stupid and i'll say as much and i have no no qualms with uh mincing words about it but at the same time like i i never look really to pursue inspiration from places like that so i couldn't really tell you like one thing of art that i that i love and really respond to and go back to but sure what it is is like i will find something or like i'll come across something and it'll speak volumes to me and it'll be like this is wonderful this is incredible i'm so glad this happened upon my path and it now impacts me in that way but i can't do it it's the same with music like i'll appreciate music when it comes by and i'll be like that was incredible i'm so glad that i heard this but i will never ever go out of my way to find music actively and yeah it's the same with art i'm i'm just so busy in what i do um and with what i have like it's it's the same with like having inspirations for heroes i don't really have any inspirations or heroes i'll come across something and i'll be like that guy did something real good or that girl did something real good but that'll be the end of the story i'll never pursue it deeper and i don't look for that kind of stuff um yeah not saying it's better or worse it's just like that is just what it is yeah that's just who you are and how you operate absolutely do you do you go to museums on occasion i i do uh i i think it's i don't know i i like just i i love learning right like my father when i was growing up he i mean he's been hugely influential to me in a lot of ways both you know with with the channel and with kind of my mentality as a human being um you know he he loved reading conspiracy theories books about conspiracy theories things like that when i was growing up and he didn't necessarily ascribe to them but he was interested in them and he kept an open mind to like things that you know might be not offensive but like other people would just dismiss is kind of silly and he just loved to learn and it's one of those things where he taught me at an early age he's like the best thing that you can be is a student of life and and never stop learning and and again like that is how i've always operated and so you know if i have the chance to go to an art museum and have an opinion or figure out what my opinion is on a certain artist or a certain work of art or if there's an opportunity to you know go to a concert that might be outside of my wheelhouse and just try to kind of expose myself to that's i love that stuff um because then i'm able to have an informed opinion rather than making a prejudgment off of it or or whatever like if you can go to a party and have an interesting conversation about an experience that you've had a concert you've been to a show that you've seen whatever like life is all about accumulating interesting stories and opinions and and for me that's that's kind of how i operate and and going to museums gives me a lot of that that education mm-hmm i i think i identify with a lot of that and i'd say that like relatively we're fairly similar people but i think with one key difference whereas you're like never stop learning i'm never stop doing uh interesting it's a similar it's a similar philosophy and like the difference could probably be lost to most people but really like um not that you don't do a whole hell of a lot because you do don't get me wrong um but for me it's like instead of like learning about what my opinion about something is or how i feel about something i have to do it first to know how i actually feel about it um and i'm always i've always have that mentalities like i'd rather do something and then see how i feel about it after i'm done with it um because i did that with music and like performing music i i for a very long time there i pursued it extremely hard and i practiced every day for about a year and a half straight and i performed it on stage and i did that and then when i was done with it i said no i don't like it and then i stopped doing it but i had to know that before i could say anything about like the the reality of it and i'm not saying like my mentality is more valid than yours because obviously i can only do so much so i can't really but i'm the same way in terms of learning i always want to learn more things because i do want to be able to like back up my when something however i'm ignorant to a lot of things and usually i just go like i don't know what i'm talking about so i'm not going to say i don't have an opinion and that infuriates people a lot of times whenever someone asks me a spinning or something i'm like i don't have an opinion i don't know anything about that i say that a lot and it's just like that infuriates people people are like how can you not have an opinion on something i'm like i just don't care about it i haven't done anything about it therefore it's nothing it's blank to me uh hey good good good on you to recognize that i think you know that's that's one of the tricks of of where we are in the modern day right where people don't have that sort of knowledge or or that experience but then they they're still going to have an opinion about it because they just you know they think they know or they're convinced that they know when when in actuality they might not yeah my my biggest fear is always standing on the peak of mount stupid you know the dunning-kruger effect yeah absolutely yeah yeah no i just i i it's great views from up there great views but you know you just gotta realize the valley of despair is immediately below you so i usually am just like i'll never even start that journey if i if i know how long it takes i shy away from doing something but uh once i get into something like i am a roller coaster on that on that curve riding it the whole way through and i love that i just love being lost on it so as someone who's done a lot of things like what what has stood out to you as things that have been like yeah that was you know i walked away from that and that was for me as opposed to like you said music maybe maybe not so much uh i mean obviously the generic umbrella of content creation you know in all of its aspects is just like that is so beautiful to me like the idea of individualized creation is probably the most profoundly moving thing of my life it's it and i think for a lot of people it is and they don't even realize it like i think humanity in general is a much more creative species than we know and it's been like squeezed out of us uh from an early age to not pursue uh our own ideas as if they are the most important thing in the world and and you know yes there are big problems out there but to an individual like an individual level what can you do besides what you want to do um so many people out there spend so much of their lives doing things that other people want to do and they never look inward on themselves and i think like the freedom that people experience in terms of uh youtube and tick tock and instagram and all these different ways of making quote-unquote content online is something that does kind of lift the veil of people in terms of their own individuality is like my ideas are good uh the audience is a benefit for it and the money that comes with it is a benefit but the the freedom and the realization that like oh my god i can do whatever i want and it's mine and i can control it that that is for me the thing i loved the most and walked away from and i haven't walked away from it i'm still clearly in the middle of it drowning in the ocean of it uh but yeah i would say that in smaller aspect though i would say uh the set life i think that's been really really fun for me making higher end productions making stories telling stories really cohesive stories and writing god i used to hate writing i used to i hate it i hated writing god i hated writing i couldn't stand writing so how did you feel about writing i hated it but no writing i've i've learned to love writing and i've learned to really embrace that process of just sitting in a choir room and tapping away on a keyboard that is very very nice that's it's it's really interesting here you say that because i felt the same way right like when i was in school you know growing up and everyone was always like oh you know the english you're so good at it this is that but i always gravitated to math because the numbers had clean answers and i liked how definitive it was and there was no right or wrong there was no subjectivity i'm like i like the precision of this uh but everyone's all but oh but you're a good writer this and that and and i just hated it i thought it was i i couldn't stand it it was so tedious and this and that but you know now in at this point in my life i'm tasked with writing at least three persuasive essays every single week and you know using the opportunity to create my own worlds that are kind of like fan fictions off of other people's worlds or doing research papers on thing like my job is as a writer every single week at this point and and i and i love it and i and i enjoy that and i think that's so creatively satisfying in a way that had you told you know 13 14 15 year old me like hey this is what you're going to be doing for your life like i never would have believed it would have been like oh you're gonna be miserable for so for so much of my life why would i ever do this to myself yeah do you think that it's better because it's a piece of the the pipeline to make content like it's writing isn't the end goal writing is a step on the road to getting there do you think that has an impact on you i i think that's definitely part of it um i think i've gravitated to stuff that i i naturally like enjoy writing like writing is a means to an end of me learning new stuff and getting exposed to new things so i think that's part of it too but also like i don't know like when you're in school right you're having to be servant to so many masters and there's so many competing interests and so many classes that you're jumping between and this and that whereas now as an adult i have like this is this is my focus this is what i'm expected to do and sure you're still juggling and you're still serving to so many masters but i know at the end of the day like this is a constant in my life and this is a point of stability and this is a place where like you said i get to be quiet and to myself and focus on whatever fictional world or whatever blank page is in front of me and it gives you that respite and a chance to really be one with yourself and your voice do you know what's helped me a lot in terms of getting to that point what's that this game this game is so satisfying there's something about it and i know that like real life power washing is not nearly as satisfying having done it it's very satisfying but not to this level and and it's funny that we're playing this level because if people watched my gameplay of this particular game they would notice that this level made me angrier than any of them it was just so frustrating i wanted to be done with it but in doing this and i would equate it to writing and i think a lot of people could understand it it's like it's an arduous task there's an enormous amount to do there's so much and even right now we're only 62 percent of the way done right right it's enormous yeah it's enormous this is one of the biggest maps in the game but now did you did you choose it so you could spend more time with me mark that's sweet yes i actu i actually did 100 because like i knew we've never actually had a chance to talk and i i knew we've never actually had a chance to really get to know each other and i wanted to make sure that there was as much time as possible uh to talk about because there's so much to freaking talk about not in just youtube but just like understanding your mind in terms of uh how you make things um but all that all the goodness aside of making things the next part that i want to get into is the negatives of making things and like things you regret the most like which i i i want to know what video that's on your channel currently still up do you hate the most what video do i hate so i've never there's only one video that isn't up on the channel i i can tell you that for a fact like there there are definitely videos that i don't like and i wish i could take down but by my by my commitment to hey i produced this i put it out into the world like it's gonna stay there like there are certain things where i'm like you know what it's it's there it's part of the game theory canon so the only one that was removed was was a short mini theory on a scientific game called foldit uh in which you unfold proteins uh and and gamers yeah it's it's actually fascinating it's kind of like a puzzle game but it uses real world proteins and gamers were able to solve something faster that something that science had been trying to do for years i think it took science like four years of trying to like solve this protein and gamers were able to do it in like a couple days um which is just incredible because their minds work differently right and they see it as a puzzle and it's fun and it's a game whereas the scientists are like this is work so that was always fascinating to me but the reason it's it's off was because you know it was a different era of youtube and you know i used my wife's stuff in it and at one point i'm like oh she's she's in a lab coat and then i show her in a in a swimsuit and it was it was a weird transition and it was photoshopped and awkward and she felt awkward like she was fine with it at the time but then looking back we're both like yeah probably not the best so that was one where i've taken it down so that's the only episode that doesn't exist online um the only time i've ever hidden or privated of a video um i'm so sorry to interrupt that just reminded me of this thing you remember have you ever looked deep into vsauce and michael from the old vsauce videos that was a real shock like if no one knows go to vsauce and scroll i hope i'm sure they're still there go to his old videos it was like ranking anime boobs or something it is and then i think his very first video is him in in like the first world of uh super mario and and him propelling himself over the green pipes using the power of farts i believe is is another one yeah the vsauce channel pivoted hard into the content that it does nowadays yeah and i think that's so funny because like i love that it's still there i really do i love that it's such a good move and i'm just so proud i've never spoken with him but i'm like i admire that that's that's a ballsy move and i like that anyway sorry sorry to interrupt no i didn't know absolutely and i i mean i think he had subscribes to probably the the same thing that i do which is like it's it's part of the creator journey right it's part of the history of this channel it's you know it's maybe not maybe not the best and you know shows kind of how far you've come as a creator and and i think that's that's important for people who are the next generation are looking at kind of the history of of where this whole thing has come from so i i like you said i love the fact that those videos still exist i think it's so funny um and i think it's always shocking when people first stumble across those and they're like wait a minute is this this this the guy who talks about like existential space and what happens if everyone jumped at the planet at the same time it's like yeah yep i mean hey who doesn't like uh ranking anime boobs i mean that's pretty much i think that's a common human trait he should remaster that episode you know like modern vsauce ranks anime boobs just as a throwback oh yeah oh man talking about remastering videos i've thought about that a lot in terms of just i have so many old videos that i've done way back when i'm a different person like both in terms of the biological sense of every seven years you change out every atom in your body i am a different person than when i record a lot of those um but also just like from a creator standpoint i am different and the recent dead space remaster is like making me think about this if yeah because i'm i'm going to play that when it comes out and i thought how is this different than me going today and just replaying the old dead space that i did before would that be any different and it got me thinking like i could do that because at this point i've almost entirely forgotten that game are there any like theories that you would ever revisit because you're like i'm a different person i learn so much more but that universe is still compelling like slenderman i played that game recently i'm like this still scared me what the hell and i started thinking what is the story behind this have you ever done a video on slenderman like all these different things that i'm like man i would love to revisit these things because it's not like they ever died it's just people forgot about oh they're right yes i've seen you right this whole time just hanging out on the roof don't mind me um no it's it's funny that you bring up slenderman i mean that was the decision that that that changed the course of the channel right where uh halloween what was it 20 2014 or something like that halloween 2014 i i put a a twitter post up and i'm like hey uh you know i'm trying to figure out what we're doing for the halloween theory on on game theory so here's your choice you got the slenderman thing it's a little past its prime but like we've never done it you guys have requested a lot or there's this this new game that i see a lot of people requesting called five nights at freddy's uh so which would you which would you like to see done the right choice yeah the audience the audience picked the right choice on that one um yeah and and i mean obviously the rest is history there or you know 20 100 books in and whatever but uh oh my god but uh yeah to this day i've never i've never done slenderman never never touched it yeah would be such a fun throwback because then you could get into all the marble hornets stuff which i have only watched like the first video of and there was three seasons i discovered recently and there's so much stuff like people think that the back rooms is expensive it pales in comparison to like what was established in slenderman and that was like 2012 that that started like yep but it's still just as rich it's just like there were fewer people to latch on to it and that's the craziest thing more people left onto it but more people have forgotten and then there was a crappy slenderman movie that came out i was gonna say let's let's not yeah let's not forget that movie that really shook things up yeah yeah man the timeliness of hollywood always coming in to save the day always topical right people people still requesting the five nights at freddy's movie and i'm like are you sure you guys want at this point i mean you know i'm not gonna be in it they haven't called me they have a call right what's up man that just tells me that just tells me that the movie isn't isn't being filmed yet that's come on yeah i know right it's ridiculous but yeah it is what would you think if like would you would you do would you would you do this would you but oh absolutely absolutely as a personal request like if you could because it is kind of just thing that people forgot and when i played the game it scared me i was laughing at it because i was like i opened it up like oh this whole game i actually got scared and i'm like how is this i've played this before and it like i've played so many horror games how is this still scaring me and i was like hmm maybe uh maybe there's still something to this yeah no i i would absolutely do it as long as you promise that you ignore it like you ignore all the other episodes i dedicate to you how many episodes do you dedicate to this but also i don't check social media so when i never see if anyone else ever attacks because i'm like i i made this thing i'm like i don't know no no i'm just joking about that but uh but yeah absolutely absolutely i every year i go back and i'm like should i do slenderman should i do slenderman and you know there's usually some other more timely release or something so whatever but yeah i've we've been really enjoying going back and looking at old game franchises and seeing kind of like untapped untapped theory potential out there kind of like to break like you said on one hand it's nostalgic for people on the other hand you're exposing it to a generation of viewers who missed it the first time and i think that's one of the the craziest things about you know being old man youtube here being stepdad a cool stepdad of youtube stepped out of youtube i simultaneously whipped and naenade uh yeah me meme dad of youtube over here um is is is the fact that you know like when people stop me and they say hey you matpat i recognize your voice whatever like i grew up watching you you know like i i don't watch your stuff anymore but i grew up watching it was everything that i watched in in middle school high school and and that's wild to me like that we were people's childhoods and and to think that you know to a lot of people they're just hopping on this this journey now and so they weren't exposed to slender man the first time it came around they didn't see all those kind of earth-shattering videos that really shape the platform for what it is because it is you know we're we're 13 14 years into into youtube at this point and you know those games are over a decade old yeah we've forgotten a lot of that stuff it's new to a lot of people yeah it can be and i think there's there's something good about that it's it's kind of like the the generation of what's in is like always cycles right but i think the cycles accelerate over time people like have to innovate and they feel forced to innovate so like these these windows in which like fashion and music and styles all come back it just like comes back quicker than ever before and ever before and always quicker and it's it's kind of crazy um so just but i would love i would love a slender thing because the only time i ever learned about lore ever is when i watch one of your videos because i don't ever pursue it i literally you know it's so weird i'm like the face of five nights at freddy's for a lot of people and yet i haven't read a single book i don't know what the hell is going on in those games i don't even beat the hardest modes anymore i can't i just don't have the time or care enough to actually dedicate to it and still people will be like ah yeah you're the you're the fnaf guy and i'm like no clearly uh clearly daco or any of the other people are the fnaf guys clearly what was it i i think i remember uh we had just gotten done filming uh heist um i seen in heist and and uh fnaf vr had just launched and yeah i i played a couple months ago and i'm like you know are you picking up that one and you're like oh i don't think so i'm like oh you probably should because it's it's pretty fun and you ended up picking it up i think when you're in the hotel room or whatever but yeah yeah i had a guy to get one and set it up in this like little library room and play yeah yeah that was very nice but uh okay go on i i don't wanna the comments are gonna get mad if i ignore your question so uh videos that i would go back so first off remastering uh we've we remastered the first ever episode of game theory um a couple years ago as part of our 10-year anniversary on the platform i'm like hey it's we've been here for 10 years obviously a lot has changed we've changed we've grown um and so we remastered the first ever episode of game theory and we did it in the three different editing and like visualization styles that we've had over the years um so that way not only is it a retrospective as far as the script goes i did some like director's commentary over top about how cringy and bad the script was uh at the time and i'm like i can't believe i said this this is so stupid um but then also the editors had a really good time with it because they edited in the three different styles of what we consider the three different eras of game theory where we had uh the slideshow format where it was just like ripping down a bunch of pictures and kind of having them lightly animate across the screen uh the the puppeteering element where we did um it was more like flash based animations and things like that and then we did uh the final version where it's a bit more infographic-y uh kind of like a hybrid of all the different styles so we have so we have remastered some um you know but yeah i like at some point i would love to kind of go back and remaster all those old episodes because to this day some of those old ones are my all-time favorites and it's just you know i'd like time and people have seen it whatever but i'd love to kind of give them a new coat of paint so that way because because you can't really rehash theories in a lot of cases but to to introduce again introduce them to a new generation or give them the love that more modern theories get and the level of polish that more modern theories get now that we've now that we're better at what we do that would be really cool i mean i don't see why not and i the the even better thing is like there's no one really to criticize because the people that watch those are probably an entirely different audience from the people that watch uh younow just like yeah everyone very few people realize just how much turnover there is there are people that have grown up gotten married had kids uh and then their kids are suddenly watching my videos there are new humans in this world that are fans of mine that didn't exist when i started that is really weird to think is that crazy yeah how does it feel to be a formative figure in people's lives uh you know in their in their like early lives um it depends on what videos they're watching what your impact on society has been yeah i have a wide breadth of types of content you know maybe my uh recent orc massage video not as uh formative i was gonna say the the uh honey pop play through maybe it may be not beneficial to society it's not beneficial maybe not but you know uh but speaking of beneficial to society i want to go back to something you mentioned almost casually and i i think actually the more i think about the more i'm interested in this is you working at youtube um because you said that like as if as if it was just like a possibility and i started thinking like why isn't it a possibility one of the things that i think is youtube's biggest detractors it's not so much like that youtube is inherently evil people need to realize this they're not evil it's not even one thing it's thousands of people working in a building towards the common goal of getting their platform money that is the almost like everyone's goal they have also cultural goals of like do no evil which is google's overarching goal which questionable well actually they've removed that from their motto unfortunately like yeah i hate to break it to you mark but uh they they quietly uh let that one go away of course they did it that's so beautiful it's pretty telling yeah but also like there's a few smaller goals besides making money but as a company it's making money however i think one of the things that youtube could benefit from the most is literally hiring creators they don't even have to be full-time but like consulting creators and actually using their opinions and experiences to base policy on and i think of all the people that i have met on youtube you would be at the top of my list in terms of people that i would want youtube to actually hire on and be able to influence policy because you have a creative side that embraces the actual uh creativity on youtube and understands and rolls with the punches and has been through a lot and you have the technical know-how to actually understand how decisions impact creators and how they gamify winning the system and beating the system uh in a way that even youtube doesn't realize because i doubt there's any one person there that understands the system as well as you or some of the people on this platform uh well i i'm honored thank you i appreciate that yeah what would it take for you to get a job at youtube because it's really like it's not so much as like you're bashing down their door to work there because right you would be subservient to them but what what would uh what would it take for you to work there and also what circumstances would you do to leave what you do now or at least partly remove yourself and then take up the cause for like championing rights of other you know youtubers and like making their lives better sure well i mean i i will say you know i and i don't know if these opportunities have been afforded to you at certain points but i've always kind of made myself available to youtube for product testing or giving like you know creator roundtables of like hey we're thinking about doing x y and z like what do you think um and you know through things like that i have like i saw that they were planning on doing a second subscription button back before that was a thing um you know which eventually evolved into the notification bell right and i'm like that's confusing and stupid they did not listen to me obviously they were really convinced about it you know and you know it's it's i guess it worked for him they've kept it this and that but um but so i i have done at least as much as i can to in in whatever avenues and venues that i can to to kind of like champion the good cause beat the drum whatever you know for free on my own time when they decide to ask me stuff so i'm working as much in that capacity as i can um as far as what it would take for me to do it like i i'd have to feel like my theorist journey was was complete at that point right like that that i had done everything that i i wanted to do and intended to do with theorists and and with the channel before i kind of moved on to the broader youtube ecosystem uh because because the thing is there is power in in the videos that we make you know and and every once in a while i'll hop on my my little blue couch and i'll i'll do a meta theory talking about the state of the union of youtube and i think those a lot of times are just as impactful to youtube as if i had actually worked there if not more so in a lot of cases because now the sudden you're getting the feedback from an audience you're getting like mainstream you know to whatever extent it is but like mainstream attention or conversation going so sometimes it's it's funny to think but us as creators doing videos on our own channels and via our own outlets on the platform sometimes can affect change even better than than working internally yeah i completely agree like recently with well i don't know how much change is being enacted right now but i know that they are probably talking about it a lot um with the new age restriction like problem that's been going on and corey x kenshin making his video calling youtube out for discriminatory practices and the the kind of like double standards and it is kind of one of those things where uh in a lot of aspects i do feel like sometimes i am held as uh like this poster child for youtube and i don't like that because i criticize youtube pretty much at every opportunity but at the same time i do go to bat for youtube a lot because again i do believe in the platform and i think like the greater good is that i'd rather there be a platform than not um and i don't trust tick tock has people's best interests at heart i don't if anyone actually thinks that tick tock has your best interest at heart as a creator i mean my goodness like oh no you sweet summer child no i i definitely think that youtube sees what tic toc is doing with with creator monetization with their uh their what is it the creator fund i think is what they call it you know where it's a it's a stagnant pool of of money that they just say like this is an appropriate amount to divvy up amongst our popular creators um you know and they see that oh we don't have to do an ad share we just kind of have a pool of money set aside and we get to decide how much of that money gets shared instead of a percentage revenue i am sure that that youtube is kicking themselves for they're like oh man i wish we could have done that one yeah so hopefully they don't take too many uh pages out of that particular book yeah and this is what i was talking about with uh uh there's a these twitch streamers this is old news by now but you know when they were just like trying to challenge their uh copyright detection system right by flagrantly playing whatever they wanted and playing copyright content being like you can't ban me i'm too big and i'm like they will amazon will literally shut twitch down if you cause them too much problems like the the the option that youtube took to create their copyright detection system was the better option yeah that is the best case scenario yeah literally the best case scenario and they didn't have to do it they could have just given up youtube had not made them money at any point but they believed in it they believed it and i'm like yes you have to like at some point just believe that the platform and what it stands for and the culture that it represents and the people that it's cultivating is worth it at some point and i do think more than any other company out there youtube has done that does that mean i forgive them for everything no does that mean they deserve to be forgiven for anything no it's a company come on but there's also people in there that do legitimately care and do legitimately fight for the creators a lot and it's it's like that cynicism the cynicism is the death of any uh group organization platform anything when you get cynical that you don't have the ability to change something it's not the arguments it's not the like fight like it that's not what does it that's what's good and healthy it's changed it motivates it but it's the cynicism like nothing can improve i might as well give up that's what those things right and and i think you know a good point to illustrate exactly that is by the nature of of you know my history in the space consulting people being analytically minded things like that i've gotten to talk to a lot of different creators from different platforms and hear their experiences and you you talk to the viners right and and some of the biggest viners at at the time you know who are who are crushing it in that world right before it the whole platform shut down and they're like yeah vine brought us all in to a room and asked like hey what should we do with this platform like what what is going wrong like how do we how do we improve at this and that and they brought all their top creators into the same space there was all this creative brainstorming happening and nothing got done you know like they had a huge list of things and and vine decided to ignore it every single recommendation that all their like heaviest users and most popular people were were offering and none of it got implemented and as a result you know vine then proceeded to disappear and and i think you know like i i make the joker about like the the the double subscription and this and that and i've seen those sorts of things but at least youtube is having those conversations and and i've seen them change things based on the conversations that they're having with with their creators sometimes and and so that that is something like you said there it's not going to be every time creators aren't going to win every time you know there are other factors that need to be considered but at the very least they they are willing to to keep an open ear and be open to changes and things like that yeah and i think that again to youtube's credit they have enacted some change from people's suggestions i have experienced it myself i can't remember specifically what it is it's not like groundbreaking things but i've shared youtube out on things and they have talked to me and things have occurred from those conversations i'm sure you to have many examples um that you don't need to list right now but it's just like it is it is an evolving thing and the more people care about the platform the more people fight for the platform and want it to be better and make it active and obvious that they want to be a better the better it is as much as they push shorts and as much as i don't really like shorts you know and i get it whatever it's fine i'm not gonna regularly make shorts but it's like that it's it's these things that they have to i i know it they have to there's some executive room and they're like we need to compete with tick shock and this way do it better because that's what google does they copy things and that's fine um but you know there are ways to improve it and it is still a fantastic place to i i think i i don't know if you agree with this but i think youtube is one of the best places on the internet maybe the best place to have as a creative outlet for people that want to make video content specifically yeah i mean it's it's hard to deny because because again like just the sheer policy of hey we will share ad revenue like we are in this together you know our success is your success and your success is our success like i think that level of partnership is something that you will never see another platform really truly do in earnest and and like i said the fact that tick-tock has shown that hey creators are willing to to shell out a bunch of content and do this for like whatever pool of money we deem i think it shows that mentality that youtube has of we share 5545 of the ad split is is a thing of the past i don't think you will ever see another platform do anything like that again i would agree yeah i agree which is kind of sad right exactly yeah sad yeah anyway i wanna i wanna we've talked about youtube so much and there's only 15 left of uh this house so it'll be done in a flash as things go by um to close this off i just want to say uh thank you so much for being here number one um but number two what do you love to do in your spare time that has nothing to do with videos literally no games no nothing like literally what is your go-to outside of this loop right spare time mark you see these big footprints did you do anything about the did you talk about the big footprints oh oh we have talked about the big footprints okay is there a video about that sorry i just i just saw them and i remembered i was like i think in this particular video i called out for you to do something i kind of watched it yeah i was i was actually gonna say mark so you know you you've been largely right about the lore of this game yeah you you were largely right you were right that there there is indeed a volcano that is erupting off in the distance and it this is all tied to actually atlantis there's all sorts of crazy stuff yeah we have to do an update video because we did it before they were really taking the lore seriously and and then between you calling out oh there's there's the volcano and how's everything getting so dirty and this must be all ash and whatever um and us doing a video kind of following that up and and looking into the logistics of all that uh the developers reached out to us and they're like oh well we're taking it seriously now so keep an eye out um and and largely you know what you and and we predicted has come to pass so i think that was one of those things where i do this for your theories a lot or my fan series is like when they get a really good idea i go oh so you've found it out have you oh you deduced my puzzles great and i'm sick of writing down all these great golden ideas i i do appreciate when i do episodes that you do happen to see and uh and you text me and you're like hey matt uh good way to figure that one out or like oh i didn't realize that had lore yeah but anyway back to the other question because i could talk about youtube all day but what do you do outside youtubing yeah uh so outside of of all of this this crazy stuff um i i like i consume everything and i mean that's partly doing work so i i love going to see movies i love watching tv you know watching new relevant tv shows better call sol just finished so like i like just again consuming a lot of different media to to learn from it to grow from it maybe brainstorm ideas uh but outside of that i also just i love being in nature um i love being active i love swimming i love rock climbing um i don't get to do it that much uh but now that uh my son ali he's he's four at this point uh and he's old enough to go to places like trampoline parks and so yeah which is awesome and i'm yeah and i'm working on getting good at doing flips and somersaults and and backflips and and front flips and stuff and so i'm teaching myself trampolining and he's old enough to be strapped into a harness and start climbing like those rock walls at places like that and so he and i are you know doing rock climbing and stuff so that's i love that sort of thing how old is your son uh he's four four wow yeah that's crazy to think about it it it is it's if it's crazy for you to think about it it's even wilder for me to think about because i mean you see everyone says like oh they grow up so fast whatever and you you kind of look up and you're like oh this is this is a an actual human being with its own thoughts and opinions and likes and dislikes and and when did that happen and how did he get to be you know this way and have these tastes and interests it's it's wild to see yeah oh man that's gotta be crazy but that i mean that's great to hear like in my spare time and this is like a kind of my detriment and i am perpetually stuck in thinking about content creation i i actually don't escape the loop uh i i always think about what i'm making next it's to the detriment of my like friendships and stuff i don't hang out with people unless they're working case in point the first time we're having a chance to sit down for making a video yeah um whereas at any point i could have like text you said like hey let's hang out and i i will do that after this and i think we should definitely like hang out at some point you should come over to my house and just like see the sunset from my back porch that would be really nice that would be great are you this is a question i've always wanted to ask you is can you get out and and do things um because because here's the thing right i recognize that at this point whenever i go out i'm i'm probably recognized about you know at least at least once if not three to four times depending on on where i'm going and i'm i'm a guy who is a floating image that kind of talks and gets animated around it's a picture of me from like seven years ago whereas you i mean your face is everywhere your your channel is is massive i i can you go like if it was like hey let's go to a trampoline park like are we renting out that trampoline park for the night so that way you get you get a night arrest are you able to kind of trampoline with with with the populace i mean it's so i just deal with it i'm never gonna rent out a place for myself but uh yes i i do get recognized a lot it's not i'm not saying that like it's a problem but the most recent example is just like yesterday i was going through the drive-through and uh one of the employees ran outside to say like it's it's lovely and it's an honor but it does like detract from that sense of normality that's just like i don't know why this is occurring um and that is like another part of content creation that if anything i think it's probably it just makes me i never understand why people chase fame i i never understand never never had i'm honored by it um but it's like i am the type of person i like to go to a restaurant by myself or at least i used to i can't i can't do that anymore uh the advent of masks has helped a lot you know that that kind of helps right some people snipe me from like across the hall even in my mask like i'll i'll have sunglasses and a mask on and people are like oh markiplier usually as soon as i open my mouth people they hear one word and they're like oh markiplier there yep it's always the voice that's that's the thing i always hear like i thought i recognized you but then i heard your voice ordering or whatever yeah that's always it yeah it is one of those things so unfortunately no but again i just it's just like a part of life now and i i would never bemoan it it's an honor and at the same time it's like it's just something i i deal with it's part of the process but then again i hardly ever go outside so it's like i don't have to deal with that that much no you're not you're not much an outdoorsy person i mean you appreciate your sunset on your own balcony so i appreciate that i do i i like nature i do but it's just like because i am trapped in the cycle of content creation i just love making i am addicted to it i would say that it's a full-blown addicted addiction at this point and it'll probably eat me up until my dying day but thankfully uh amy my girlfriend is here to make sure that i stay sane and grounded and i take trips and i i take breaks regularly and i think about things that are outside of uh the next project that i'm working on yeah um i do think that that that chase is addictive i think there are many youtubers you could probably think of that are addicted to the process of making of course uh and i'm not one to call out because i i do the same thing but at the same time it's like there it is can be a problem when you detract everything and and i've tried to get better about it by balancing the human element of it by not exploiting uh the people around me to try to like live my life where i have to make content all the time i sometimes i just want to go out for a walk and i think that's the biggest change in my life is just just being able to recognize that i can go out for a walk is very very nice yeah yeah and and uh you know you mentioned this but uh that's the other thing i would throw on on kind of like the old hobbies list for me is is travel uh my wife steph we have a goal to visit uh a hundred countries uh in our lifetime wow yeah and so we're currently sitting at 27 28. um yeah so we're doing pretty good obviously the last couple years have been tough for that um both god i'm so sorry my first thought was like and literally my brain was like oh a travel channel would be so fun no you're totally right though like i've i've thought about that at some point you know i i think that there's room for a cool travel channel that we could do uh the problem with travels i mean here if you want to get really nerdy with the problem with travel is travel is very location specific and so p when people are looking for travel related content they're looking for a specific country or a specific place and so you have to be really smart about how you're balancing your programming to make sure that you're not falling out of people's algorithms so i i've i too mark think about content a lot uh and that definitely overthinks so i you you and i are in the same boat and and so i i definitely understand where you're coming from oh man but you know i i do wonder about that philosophy because i never think about that all i think of like and all i've ever done is like if the content's good enough people will come that's how i've always operated and so far it has worked for me when you look at my channel does it make you mad sometimes you know i put no thought into what i do i don't really and then suddenly i'll make that pokemon video and like everyone will do it and i'm like i don't know what happened i don't know why my videos do well i couldn't tell you the first thing other than that i try to make them good sometimes but i don't always even try to do that sometimes my videos are garbage and i know it and everyone knows it but no one seems to do anything about it no one calls me out on my shitty videos no i i like here's the thing does it make me mad no uh am i jealous sometimes absolutely absolutely you know if you're if you're talking about like you know biggest regret or whatever on one hand i'll i would say like oh i should have started a let's play channel instead of instead of like a let's do a heavy research channel but then i think about i'm like would i would i you know enjoy the content that i that i do as much as i do maybe maybe not i like i'm so happy with the stuff that we we put out and it's so creatively satisfying for me so on on one hand it's like oh i wish i could do that but on the other hand it's like well no but i really am happy with with where we are so but yeah to say that i'm you know not jealous of sometimes when when you do a video you're doing like the 30-second like dunk on me because i i was i did a crappy pokemon and that one gets more views than my original video where i talk about how i made that pokemon whatever that's fine yeah yeah it's fine it's fine we're all good but for me it's like that's that was the only response i could make possibly it's just a 30-second quick dismissal and it was great i loved it as much as i want to make an extended video because my real thought is like of course i want to make a video talking about like matt you seriously just put giant boobs on it and it'll be great that's all you have it's that simple man i can't say that in my response video of course yeah i couldn't say that at all no i gotta gotta be in the in the character of things the zeitgeist of them oh the zeitgeist theory is again yeah but no i it is one of those things where like i guess technically i do think about like the more technical aspects but mine is always like the interaction i always think of like you know improv exercise i'm sure you've taken improv before as well yes yeah it's like what is good for the bit what's good for the the joke what's good for that and that's where i lean in a lot on things yeah as opposed to what's good for the algorithm i don't really care what other people want i care what i would want to happen in that moment it's like yeah i would want me to be so dismissive of this even if inside i'm like just put hits even though i want to say that i was like you know this is better for the moment so i guess i do think strategically but it's just like a not as analytical number focused strategies as a performer as a performer who understands you know what what the audience is how the audience is going to react absolutely 100 i mean that's that's why i loved about doing theater back when i was doing theater and i was i was directing shows right is i would always approach my shows from the the perspective of the audience and i like what is the audiencing and what do they expect to see in this moment and do i want to give them that or do i want to give them something else and and that was kind of one of the the weird quirks that i had as a director and and i totally see that and i think you know looking at content in that way is is very smart so oh thank you very much and and i gotta say for those who don't know uh matthew patrick here is an incredible actor and really incredible performance like the stuff you did with mac on on set like was just like it was it was wonderful the breakdown was just like so fun it was it was just a shame like we couldn't put it all in it was just like wonderful and then like what you did with the i call him the prospector he's not the prospector the hermit yeah the hermit originally it was just some old mining prospector that was the original incarnation of that character um uh but just like it's it's really stuff have you ever thought about doing acting in like a bigger like movie or tv show or something like that i you know i on one hand it's it's funny that you bring that up because steph and i have this conversation a lot where like again i love to go see theater shows i like to go you know to all these different things and and watch and consume everything and i lived and breathed theater you know for the longest time in my life i i fully anticipated making a career out of theater as my professional living from here until the end of days and i go back to see theater and on one hand i'm like oh it'd be fun to do to go back and and do that and live that fantasy life and stuff but i go back and and it feels so superficial and so dated as an art form because because of the the world we exist in now and and this cool interactivity of content and the authenticity of of the characters that we are and the personalities that we are in line and stuff and so i see it and there's always an artifice in theater but the artifice feels so much more pronounced in this era of digital content i'm like i don't i don't know if i i would like to do this i think it would be fun for me but would i ultimately be and it would be fun to kind of revisit a past part of my life and it's always fun to have a chance to to memorize lines do blocking like i love the pro like you mentioned how you love the production process of a movie i and of a video i love the production process of theater and i think it's it's magical and wonderful and i love when the lights come up and and the energy of an audience and this and that there's nothing like it but i also recognize that creatively it it doesn't resonate for me the way that it used to and it feels very different as an art form at this point yeah there's what's fun and then there's what's fulfilling and i think it's not touching it would be fun like just like i said i did a tour and it was fun but doing it again would not be fulfilling like it was fulfilling to be able to go through that experience once but if i did it again it would ring hollow and like that feeling of hollowness is actually i think a good instinct um because not many people can even recognize this idea like what once was will not be you know it it it will not be the same if you relive something in in these memories that was a big part of unisonness like reliving it is not the same as experiencing it when it was there the content is what it is and it's good it's not the same as the overall experience well and honestly that that was one of the things that got me out of theater when i was kind of making that transition because again like i fully anticipated being a theater professional acting and directing doing some lighting design this and that and then you know i worked off off broadway for a bit i toured around for a while as both an actor and director i did a ton of shows but what ultimately got me out of theater was two things first off uh it was the the constant like living out of a suitcase and like there was no stability in it and that was tough for me to handle but also you know i i lived in worked in new york at that time and i saw what constituted a successful life in theater and it was doing spider-man turn off the dark eight times every week and you know you have to hit all the beats at exactly the right time otherwise the orchestra is going to get paid over time and you're going to cost the show its budget and you know and and you lose exactly to your point you lose the spontaneity and and the in the moment-ness that theater that makes theater and live theater and live performance so exciting and so you know impactful because everything has to be so regimented and robotic in order to kind of like meet your quota at the end of the week it's it's a business and and seeing the reality of that was was a real you know defining moment for me in my life where i'm like oh that's that's a bummer that's sad i'm i miss that so yeah letting go of what once was and uh it's it's just like it'll never be the same just like how when uh i was never the same after i'm trying to think of a funny example i was trying to make a joke to like really make light of this profound thing i couldn't think of anything like he's reaching he's reaching he's gonna find it he's gonna find it i couldn't find it couldn't find it no you you get to keep your meaning i get to i get to not make fun of it for one more moment i the only reason i'm saying that is because we're at two percent away from being done and this is the most arduous two percent where we have to hunt down all the stupid last pieces that are clean not cleaned yet but uh we're closing we're closing up here and the reason i bring up the acting thing is mostly just because if say someone that maybe you knew was making a show like a tv show or something like filming a pilot or something sure yeah of course in the very near future sure you know uh like let's say early next year yeah would you be available to uh be a part of it oh apps i'm absolutely yes 100 instant instant especially if it was a director that i had known and worked with and whose work i had respected absolutely okay all right okay cool good good good just checking just putting the feelers out because you never know when opportunity no it might arise and and and that's exactly it right like i think too to what you're saying before and you know like we exist in a world where you with less so but for me for sure like the content that i'm kind of expected to produce on on the channel is is you know you can mix it up to only a certain amount but at a certain point you got to kind of deliver to the audience what what they're hoping for what they expect or you know subvert it but you can't do it that often and so for me to have the opportunity to you know lose my mind or express that like unhinged character or you know what have you i i relish those opportunities to to really ham it up and and step outside of myself it's great yeah man and this is like kind of like my folly is because i always i i operate on you energy i don't know if i've ever told you this but i do um elixir and i guess censored uh make it family friendly no it's fine i i operate on you energy and it's not so much that i wanna like be a part of hollywood in that traditional sphere i just wanna prove to him that i can do it better i literally just want to say hey your ways are cool and you make cool sometimes i can do that too and just like that's how i've always been with with anything i make half of what i make is just because i'm like trying to prove a point to someone it's like a bet like it's a bet and i'm like yeah no i'm gonna fall through it i'll do it it was like uh my friends were telling me that like if i was part of creator clash 2 which have you ever thought about boxing all the youtubers are doing it yeah right it's a popular thing to do these days um i i have thought about it uh actually i was asked to be a part of it and i thought it was a joke like i didn't know how to respond initially when when he reached out to me he's like hey like do you want have you ever thought about boxing you want a box and i'm like seriously like i i had no idea whether i was supposed to take it seriously or not but um i've thought about it here's the thing that i would do with it i would want it to be i i would wanna again me being the the guy that i am i'm like oh let's let's make it theatrical i wanna subvert expectations i want to get in the ring throw a few punches and then the lights go out and when the lights come back up the ring is full of dancers and we all do like a dance together and then there's a scripted dance sequence and it's it's not at all what you would have expected and it's it's it's crazy um or maybe there's some lore component attached to it where you know the lights go out punches are thrown lights go out and suddenly people are missing or the audience is gone or something like that and it's something crazy like that and there's this this wild like oh i wonder what happened so it's not just oh we're getting in a ring and you know throwing fists at each other but you're treating it you know like like a theatrical show you want to do wwe yeah yeah i would i think i created a rumble yeah that's exactly it yeah i'll contact idubbbz i'll be like what about the rumble i mean honestly i think it would do great i think logan paul is doing uh wwe at the moment i think i think wwf world wrestling federation but wwe is also a thing aren't they they're both world wrestling something there's like the world wildlife foundation so it must be wwe i think no no there's www it's world wrestling federation i know that i know for a fact that wwf is a thing okay all right then uh yeah he's doing that and he's doing pretty well and i think i think it went well but at the same time there's the upper underside like it's it's hidden oh the upper underside you know the tippy-toppy like this thing up here yeah i got it i got it okay all right so what's left are window frames and then um little bits and bobs that are around here sure sorry anyway you were saying so are you gonna are you gonna are you gonna punch people oh no no this was a uh i was asked to be with it as well i was trying to make another point but yeah i will be part of the next one but i won't be boxing and the reason uh someone said this about my personality because i run on you energy is like i would be great at boxing simply for the fact that i would die standing before i fell down and i'm like i think that's a really nice compliment that someone gave me i'm so boneheaded that i would rather die than give up and i'm like ah that's so sweet of you and at the same time probably um but just because like yeah i i also i hate being bad at something so if i did decide to box i would it would consume my life and i wouldn't be able to do anything else and i don't i just don't have time for that also i don't want to be punched in the face why does everyone want to get punched in the face i've been punched have you been punched in the face i have never been punched in the face mark i've been punched in the face it sucks it's fun absolutely you know what it feels like what's it feel like it feels like being punched in the face that's what it feels like imagine what being punched in the face is like that's what it feels like it sucks why does everyone want to get punched in the face so badly i don't understand i have i've been surprised by the fact that people have so enthusiastically and and like without w without like hesitation it seems like people being like yeah let's just do this let's just go and and i think part of it is like curiosity right exactly to your point like what does being punched in the face look like can you hold up under pressure like that again a good excuse to you know to to also get healthy get in shape things like that i do get that yeah people do crave that change and i i do appreciate that i'm all about like yes that change is important you should pursue it and and yes absolutely and and i think um i'll be part of it in a way that is not necessarily doing uh uh the actual boxing of it but i do i do appreciate boxing boxing is one of the few sports that i have watched throughout my life and and do appreciate i love a boxing movie i love the rocky movies i love um creed i love all them they're very fun very great movies um and it's a good sport and good discipline i just worry about people being hurt that's right oh absolutely yeah like people especially worry about myself being hurt yeah yeah you want to protect that brain you've got you've got you've got a lot of thinking to do a lot of theorizing that brainy head inside my hand and inside my skull skull points yeah so okay oh go ahead no no no you go well i was gonna say so not to go back to the content creation stuff but i am curious so you asked me earlier what happens if youtube disappears what what and you said you you would thrive in the mosh pit and stuff but what would you do what did i do yeah um pretty much the same thing i'm doing right now which is i'm going to be pursuing power washing yeah yeah pretty much probably maybe i'll get back into world of warcraft who knows nah i'd write a lot i'd probably write a book and then i would make a movie which i'm already doing and then i would make a tv show which i'm already doing um i'm busy enough as it is that i could fill my time no problem um yeah it's just like for me creativity extends so far beyond just making a youtube video but it is like what you said there is something magic about what youtube offers the the creativity that nowhere else does and it is something to protect and i will fight to protect it and i think everyone should and i think that anyone who doesn't fight to protect it doesn't actually care about it yeah they should and that's that's a beautiful thing where's his last goddamn right what are these are just gonna say well all right here we are i keep thinking that it's gonna end and be like we'll have a nice little button but no no it's never gonna happen you are stuck here with me forever no i'm not you're stuck here with me i'm talking about like out give me uh give me the button to delete your channel come on i'll you can trust me with it come on come on oh yeah the button yeah what is it what if you deleted your channel if uh remove my torment yeah what if i freed you yeah that at least at least give me a final upload man i gotta i gotta get it i gotta get a final theory no no no abrupt ending no even even even oona's honest got got to say goodbye at the end right against my best wishes no no just kidding where's his last thing an upper deck rim joint what is an upper deck rimchill they're the things way up top like you can't reach them but i'm looking at all of them and it i don't see a single one that is has any stuff like if you hit i'm there wait i'm there on an upper deck rim joist do you see one that's not oh yes i got one left where where those are the rings around the trees mark oh the tree rings yeah tree rings oh i wasn't looking at those okay so you i don't even see where you are anymore here i i then we have steps you you find the steps i can find the joist okay steps is either that spiral staircase uh the steps here someone must have missed something on the other yeah i missed something on the other side so done here all right well any last words before this video abruptly ends no i got one more joist mark where's the leg's joints i don't see you anymore your character model disappeared oh there you are no you're he just gave up he's like i'm done where is this where's the choice i see it i see it i see it i see it all right well say goodbye because it's uh what do you got to promote well your channel your channel yeah sure yeah check out check out food theory and uh keep an eye out for a new channel happening sometime before the end of the year it'll be something theory yeah we got we got a new one no one has ever to date no one has predicted what it's gonna be so i'm excited in my world you can theorize and be a nerd about everything and overthink all your favorite things and we found a new category that we're overthinking and i cannot wait i'm so excited about it all right we'll go check that out and look forward to the future slenderman episode dedicated to mark dedicated to me and i'll go catch up on some of those things that i need to watch i'll say i'll send you a greatest hits compilation mark i promise thanks man thank you well thank you for taking the time i know this was a longer one but i felt like it needed to be just one how much the history there is on no it's it's a pleasure to this day in all of my history of content creation sitting down in front of the live audience and and the people watching uh during the saint jude stream was one of the most real and memorable moments to me it was it was great so you know it was it was it was nice getting a chance to chat oh good i barely remember anything i was so tired i i never know what markiplier i'm going to get when i step into the room with you so yeah it keeps me on my toes and it keeps things spicy and exciting oh good well thank you so much for your time everyone go check out matpat you've definitely seen one of his videos and you should definitely see more if not you've seen my memes yeah definitely the memes always spicy always beautiful all right well take care and uh my next guest will be whoever i choose shut upand clapsync this is markiplier power wash podcast power hour with pals that sounds great went through four or five different iterations of the title oh it's still going it's still to this day there was another name that should have been named that i've forgotten now it was so genius and now it's gone so it's completely out of the out of the realm of possibility washed away washed away welcome to the power wash pals power hour there was another name and i've forgotten him now and i can't remember what it should be but there was an even better name it fits with the game actually because it's the first couple levels it's all the repeating joke of they can't decide what to name their company is that what it is yeah so you're actually on any of this how do you ever know this it's my job it's my job to pay too much attention to this stuff yeah did you did you do a video on this game because i was always talking like this not only did i do a video about this game i dedicated it to you so i'm glad that uh i'm glad that my content fell on deaf ears i've been watching your food theory stuff i i haven't actually been watching too much game theory it's all right don't worry but you've been you've been watching enough to dunk on my sexualized pokemon i know right yeah yeah uh we can get into that but uh i wanted to start this off before we even get going um are you a good power washer i see your snubby little tiny baby washer there i you know i i haven't upgraded my devices all that much but i'm a diligent power washer it's not it's it's not the tools i don't have many tools but i use them well let's say that i will tell you it is actually 100 the tools in this game oh no really especially on this level um if you don't have a range extender you're going to have a real bet oh man well you know what it'll be a good time because i'm spending it with you all right okay i'm just going to count on me having to do anything if you if you open your tablet how much money you got uh okay let's see we've got how do i open the tablet again it's been a while i think escape oh yeah there it is yeah i've got 437 dollars i've been saving i've been i've been saving that to invest in like uh an ira or something yeah no you shouldn't do that yeah you're never gonna make any money with that but it's okay you got that i've got mine i haven't even upgraded to the best one because i think the one i have is is okay so what we'll we'll divide this you go up the stairs and take like the close short range stuff and i'll work on like the things that need like long range in that way okay i am a very diligent jumper i am i'm i did not skip leg day you said that yeah but the diligence you know it's it's good uh just use the ladders and whatnot there's many scaffolds here of varying size you can use any okay great sounds like a plan so uh usually i have i have not done this in the past um and i should do this as i should introduce my guests as who they are this is matthew patrick one of the most prolific and uh i i say this with all the love in the world because i am i am the same way love uh uh meme internet personalities in the world i am i'm a walking meme without even before memes were like relevant online yeah i know and i say that because i am also a uniquely memeable uh youtuber apparently um but i see just as many madpad memes game theorist memes uh i forget who did it but there was someone that was doing videos that was like they stole your voice and like put it into an ai generator i was talking about how people get no and just like stuff it's it's great man i almost hired that guy i'm like hey do you want to just do the videos for me at this point please just go for it they were so watchable it was really yeah i feel like this is better than the stuff i produce go for it man there's also uh there's also a creator on tick tock who does matpat impressions um you know talking about who the purple guy is and this and that and i'm like hey you got the voice down man just just sit in the booth read the script and you're golden yeah you got life to live you gotta go on with that um but i will say you have been on youtube for quite a while and you have uh in and this is kind of an oddity for people that have been doing it as long as you or i have is that you have kind of stayed in the public eye for a very long time i don't really care about the how and why and the like oh what's your strategy i'm just like have you stayed sane this whole time to be able to make content and like deal with drama and whatever and happening i don't even know what happened with the most recent thing in five nights at freddy's um it went over my head and but i i saw you made an apology video i didn't watch it unfortunately again only food theory i was gonna say hey hey i appreciate you watching food theory that uh that channel monetizes well so thank you for the higher cpms over there that's what it's all about about baby no yeah i mean but you bring up food theory for and i think that really answers your question in a lot of ways where for me you know the content is always evolving the the landscape is always shifting and and the great thing about having food theory now is is it's a completely new category of topics to talk about it's a completely different style of video and so part of my life is now that i have three different channels that cover completely different topics i'm able to you know if something isn't really particularly exciting or interesting over in the gaming space you have the film space hopefully something's interesting happening there there's like a cool small youtube series or something like that or if that starts to get boring you know food theory opens up a whole new wealth of of possibilities to to talk and theorize about and and you know new videos to do so really the the shucking and jiving with kind of the the content trends and things like that like that's a whole other story in surviving controversies and whatever like that's that's a whole separate thing but when it comes to just purely like staying sane on the platform while doing you know 10 years 11 years worth of content now it's like that's the way to stay sane is just and i think you would largely attest to that too right with you know your your arg projects your uh you know in space with markiplier the youtube originals things like that like it allows you to kind of express different parts of your creative personality and and continue to learn even though you've been doing it for as long as you have yeah i i would completely agree with that and i think people that have seen my content evolve over time would agree as well um but maybe in a slightly different way because for me it's less about staying sane and worrying about like things to talk about because me and ethan we joked about this with unisonness like you could put a banana on the table and we would make a 10 minute video out of it right with no prompt at all it's like so the the fun of creation i i always go back to that that old fnaf adage the joy of creation you know i i really do truly thrive on the making of things and and like the the the bouncing of ideas back and forth of people which is why i always loved what you did with um some of those videos talking about it i will i remember this very distinctly um it was one of the first times you made a video i think about darkiplier i don't really remember what the video was i just remember that it happened because i was i was up in seattle and i remember i saw on my phone we me and amy we were walking down um by the the the shore front store place down there and yeah my favorite favorite seattle storefront short place yeah it's great and i saw on my phone that you would post a video that was like completely dedicated to something i made and it was an incredibly heartwarming thing i i stopped and i i literally had to sit down and watch the video right away um mostly because i was like what what horrible things is he saying about me because that was usually the adage of when someone makes a video about you on the internet it's not a good thing that's usually very bad right when you're trending you're like oh no my my stomach sinks down into my chest yeah everyone is like every time i'm trending on twitter everyone's like what did he do and it's like oh okay he just he pooped yeah i was gonna say usually it's you your bowels have moved in some way yeah exactly uh but i remember i sat down and i watched and i looked at him and i was like this is one of the coolest things anyone's ever done for me and i know that like it probably wasn't entirely motivated to be sweet uh but i i do think a lot of it was just like an appreciation for uh someone else's creation on the platform and a recognition of that and being able to turn it into content is an even bigger bonus and i think that like that was a really nice thing and i just got to thank you for that oh of course i mean i thank you for you know not not to get too like self-congratulatory around this stuff but like no thank you for you know creating stuff that is fun and interesting and exciting and i and i think you know again to the question of staying sane so many years into this it's it's awesome to see that the the most viewed videos on film theory at this point are me covering youtube first series by small creator channels you know we're covering the back rooms a lot these days we're covering the mandela catalog these digital first productions that are being produced by independent youtubers doing in you know on their own with small teams and and like that is so exciting to me and i think that's been one of the coolest parts of of my evolution as a creator is you know being able to have a platform now and and being able to in some way pay it forward and put a spotlight on to people who are doing awesome cool stuff and who deserve credit and who are pushing the the limits of what it takes to you know tell a story in 2022. that's that's a really good way of putting it because it is kind of paying it forward right we as creators you know we're old men by now you and i yes how old are you i i'm sorry i know we're close in age but just like uh remind me oh my gosh i i i can't say it on on camera tonight no no what am i i'm 30 30 35 ish yeah yeah i'm up there i'm up there mark i just turned into the grand pro of youtube in the terms of youtube we're we're ancient dust we're practically falling apart i mean i mean we're no rhett and link but we're getting close how old are they i know they're older i always forget uh there what are they at this i mean they're over 40. i think they're 40 early 40s i think at this point yeah early 40s okay that's not too they're not dust in the wind yet but you know no certainly rumble yeah sure but no i think about that a lot in terms of like content creation i i have come very far in terms of my ability to make content and i i i'm still to this day trying to push my myself and my ability and my knowledge and of course i have all these projects that i'm currently working on now just last week i wrote like a hundred pages of script um on two separate projects that like i can't wait to get on because i love it that's amazing yeah but at the same time i'm trying to remember that the reason that i make things is not just for myself it is a lot for myself and it's selfish but the other part of it is to hopefully inspire someone else to make something and that you know they can see in themselves that they have the ability to create and this individualized like people going out and making the back rooms that guy who makes those videos the ones that are the most popular i think is like yeah kane he's 17 or something right yeah he's super young he's just a kid by all measures he's a kid yep he is a via vfx artist who is just really good you know as far as i can tell he enjoyed the scp back when back rooms was a thing and he's like hey i'm gonna i'm gonna make my version of the story and i'm gonna show the world what i can do and lo and behold now he's one of the biggest trends in horror on on youtube and one of the biggest trends in general on the platform it's it's awesome it's so exciting and i when when i get a notification of him uploading i cannot wait to watch that video yeah that's so cool i still have yet to see any of them i i plan on doing a backrooms uh style video uh in the very near future um just having that time because i'm gonna be going i'm going to korea to film a documentary next week oh really oh that's awesome yeah about my mom so it's uh it's going to be a nice personal story um and i just get so behind on things but i do remember like all this is for the next generation like at some point my channel will fall i've practically been trying to get it taken down um but you know i'll but i'll move on to something else and i'll make things like i have plans to make movies and you know tv shows and whatnot but i don't think like that i'm not doing that because i want to like break into the traditional media sphere it's just like i want to try something new and like i want to see if i can make it in a movie um and all this selfish like talk besides i know you got plans and i will i'll ask about your plans but just on the same topic um do you worry about new creators these days and the speed at which trends can rise and fall because that is the biggest drawback and the biggest thing that i worry about for people is that the the rises i talked about this on several different um topics and podcasts with other youtubers but the rise with like new creators these days is meteoric it goes higher than ever before faster than ever before but it also falls faster than ever before and the cycle you could you've seen i've seen the psychological ramifications of that on creators over our entire time period it's can be devastating do you worry for creators today uh hitting those peaks and valleys uh i think it's one of those things where it honestly i think it's on a case-by-case basis right i think it depends on what the creator is is popping into this world for you know and what their expectations are i think we're simultaneously dealing with uh you know younger and and like you said faster trends and younger creators and things like that but also these are people who have grown up with these platforms and have seen trends rise and fall and you know hopefully are familiar with it and so i think you know a lot of people and i would hope that they're going in with a with a healthy mentality of like hey it's awesome that this took off and you know this is this is my 15 minutes of fame and and let's see what i can do with it i think i think more so what i worry about is just the the fact that it affects storytelling you know the need to be this need to constantly tell stories faster and have more in it and super cut things and this and that like you lose a lot of the ability to to tell slower paced stories pensive stories um i think that's to me the the more concerning thing is we as as a viewership as an audience as as people who watch online videos things like that like the pace at which stuff gets produced and has to be kind of produced in order to like maintain people's attention i think that's what concerns me more mm-hmm that's a really good point because a lot of people that i talk to in traditional media spheres you know my manager my agency yada yada the people that do all the caring about things that i don't care about they talk about this a lot with how tick-tock is like shortening attention spans but i don't think that's it i don't think it's that attention spans are getting uh shorter it's the demands of the consumption that are driving these shorter time frames tick-tock works because you know vine worked and p there is a demand in a market for short content it's but it's not like youtube is suffering the longer form videos on youtube are getting longer um it's like i i've sit around and watch three hour videos about roller coasters from uh what's the the channel um uh defunct land you know i'll watch i love defunct land love defund land i'll browse through tick tocks and watch like six second things but it's the speed at which the internet is demanding new content that is kind of affecting the way stories are delivered and how much can be physically put into something by one person is starting to really be stretched out even i as a creator i am extremely good at what i do i can make pretty much anything out of anything i i am blown away at which the speed of some of these people are making things i know what they're doing to get there they're pulling all-nighters the demands of it and this is why i'm like the worry gets to me sometimes as much as the i think the newer generations of creators are more cognizant of mental health deficiencies in terms of like burnout and whatnot they're aware of it but being aware of something is one thing and experiencing like an ever increasing demand is another it's it's like nothing can prepare you for that so well and i think that's that's that's definitely a different concern right is is the like you said the speed at which things have to get produced and you know a channel like game theory could never have happened uh in 2022 youtube at this point you know the by the nature of like we have a significant team you know at this point i am fortunate to be surrounded by so many creative people who you know trusted me to lead the ship but you know who i am just stunned by some of the work that they're able to do to do in the timelines that we're able to do it and it's you know and they always want to push themselves further and they always want to do better and and all of that but you know to still get out uh a video a week on game theory or three main channel theory videos a week it's it is such a difficult load to burden and we wouldn't be able to do it without you know this huge collaborative process that that we have back in the day i was able to get away with you know matpat doing his one video a month solo but now to stay relevant and and maintain what the platform needs and demands you're just this constant churn constant churn yeah and then what you're trying to say is like a new creator could not possibly do that as it is right now because starting it and getting to that level of doing regular videos is it costs too much money and it costs too much time in terms of man hours or woman hours or however many hours you want to talk about it's too much yeah it's it's even if you get that one good video out you are then immediately rolling into the next thing and by the time you're doing it as a solo creator unless you are you know killing yourself or some sort of prodigy or whatever like you are you're already kind of the algorithm has moved on past you mm-hmm yeah you don't even get to track your own growth because i i would love to like have a conversation with people that make like the back room stuff and all these new and creators because i would love to know what their process is but given that eternal churn and like the constantly increasing demands you don't even get to step back and say oh wow i've really progressed as a creator of things my skills have built because as soon as the numbers start going down you're like i'm crap i'm i'm terrible oh god it's over and all the skills that i've built are worthless because i can't even appreciate them i'm not saying that's the right mindset and it's not even the mindset i approach things anymore anyway um but it's just like one of those things where it's like yeah i could totally see how people could get wrapped up inward sure well i want to go back to your love of defunct land because because i don't think i've ever heard you talk about this but are you much of a roller coaster enthusiast mark no no no no no i mean yeah i love a good roller coaster uh but i just like watching youtube videos casually that's why that's my go-to method of consumption i don't really watch tv shows i don't have time to sit down and get into a show um say for maybe alone i've watched uh me and amy we watch alone sometimes but for the most part we're just popping on youtube videos we're just watching any random stuff that comes across the recommendeds you know and uh so when it comes down to like watching things what little time i have is just youtube videos or tic tocs sometimes i've kind of like increased my amount of tick tocks lately oh man they're getting you to increase the amount of tick tocks they know what they're doing oh man oh that for you page algorithm that thing is really it's scary good i know they must be probing into my personal information like i think we all know that but god damn those recommendeds really come up spicy yeah no right it's it's it's really a smart smart algorithm speaking of uh have you ever taken like the myers-briggs personality test or anything like that that kind of like quantifies what your personality is because i know that these algorithms really like you said they really pinpoint who you are and what you like to watch and so i'm curious have you ever done something like that is that the four letter uh yeah that's the four letter one yeah well i'd have to alt tap oh let me i've done a video on it i don't remember what the answer was but i can look it up and tell you well how long was the video because i know mine has changed with time right like so it's one of those things that we ask a lot of the people who come out to team theaters to take just because it tells us a lot about who they are how they work and and how we can best work with that person uh so so we can you know really succeed together and and i've i found it to be really helpful um and so i was just curious because i'm you know i i'd be curious to see what your results were according to this weird internet site it says enfp but i don't think that i'm that enough did i is that what i took i have no idea there's an extrovert feeler that makes sense uh ian you're an intuiter so that means you're looking at data and extrapolating to move forward uh i could see that in your personality and then and then p ah i would be surprised on one hand i could see you as a p but on the other hand i'd be surprised if you were just by the nature of how busy your schedule is e-n-t-p-a is what i got when i took the test okay tpa which is debater i don't know yep okay yeah i don't put any stock into any of that but what are you uh i am an entj uh and i actually split a couple uh because i'm entj which is thinker extrovert the n is the intuitor so you're looking at data and kind of extrapolating outward and then uh j is you have to be a planner or you're kind of ver you prefer things organized rather than like let's just go by the seat of our pants kind of thing i love seating your pants man yeah i love it yeah you like the seat of my pants mark oh i love the seat of your pants it's just so incredible it's good right now it's a little bit sweaty i'm on a leather couch it's not great so i'd hate to tell you about that one um i've always enjoyed that just because you know i'm i'm a psychology nerd i studied psychology and neuroscience and stuff so i i find it useful but at the end of the day like i see why people don't because it's like oh you're just answering the questions that the test gives you and you're feeding it back what you want to hear and it's true but like hearing it in a different context or kind of rephrased back at you sometimes gives you clarity i think yeah self-understanding i'm big about i'm i'm all about like trying to be in tune with who you are and like get a get a deeper understanding of the self uh but at the same time i always i always shy away from those things because i do think it's easy answers instead of like actually looking in and discovering yourself it's just one of those things where the only time you really know yourself is in the the most dire of situations when you're at the extremes of your personality do you really even understand who you are and what you're willing to do and what you're even capable of as you're doing it and i think those uh those moments can't be quantified in an online quiz but at the same time like if it helps someone comes to understanding i got no problem with it sure no of course this is this was always one of my getting to know you questions i've never gotten a chance to to truly you know get to know you outside of projects marks i'm curious like if you were if you were represented as a muffin flavor so if your personality were represented by a muffin flavor not a muffin flavor that you necessarily like to eat because that's always like i like blueberry and it's like no if your personality were distilled into the essence of a muffin flavor what muffin would you be mark man uh it does it have to be a muffin flavor that exists uh no you know it can be whatever whatever muffin whatever combination of flavors you think is is the essence of mark right okay so if it was gonna be me it's not gonna be something that is always pleasant uh so it's gotta be it's gotta have some spice to it it's either like a spice or way too much cinnamon or something like that you know it's got some some spice to it um but you know there's got probably some like a spicy chocolate muffin i would probably put it like that you know cinnamon chocolate yeah no not even cinnamon let's get the cinnamon out of there but let's let's get some actual like there's capsaicin in this muffin it is actually spicy yeah like like like a chili muffin like a hot a hot chili muffin a hot chocolate muffin that's but yeah not chocolate like hot chocolate but like spicy chocolate muffin cool like a spicy mexican chocolate right yeah yeah just like that nice and what how does that reveal someone because you're right we've never actually sat down and talked as just two humans talking it's almost always been about a project or work right it's either it's either a project or it's on camera or it's you know i think the closest we came was after both heist and in space but that was also surrounded by a bunch of people you know and that's always a very different context as well yeah it always is um yeah so what type of muffin are you uh actually it was funny when you started to talk about cinnamon muffins because for years i've always said i'm a cinnamon muffin um yeah uh and everyone's like that's that's not a muffin i'm like yeah it is but uh you know a little bit a little bit spicy a little bit sweet um you know a little bit intense uh you know a lot of people will like you but there are going to be people who really don't like your flavor so you know love it or leave it i guess yeah it's it's kind of like a uh polarizing muffin choice but people seem to constantly go back to it for some reason yeah there it is i'm a muffin with a fist in it and it reaches out and it punches you in the teeth every time you go to bite it but then somehow you just keep going back almost like i think actually i'll take it back it's like cinnamon chocolate spice a fist and uh let's say uh cocaine there's something to get people addicted and they come back for more that's my muffin i'm the drunk spicy chocolate drug muffin this is the elusive cocaine muffin wow oh man well you know if if you wanted to get this this video demonetized it just happened now so there it is one step closer to getting kicked off the youtube platform demonetization is not getting kicked off i so many of my videos are demonetized i just the thing is like a lot of people are like oh i know there's a whole thing about like age restriction and stuff like that and and yes i it's a it's ethan just got uh his 10-year anniversary video age restricted no clue why the most absurd thing i've ever heard it's just like baffling but at the same time like usually when it comes down to those things i just i've never talked about it and i never even fight it because i just don't really care um like it's like one i'm in a fortunate enough position and i know this is fortunate for me to say just like if a few videos get age restricted or even half of mine i'm still gonna be fine i'll i i'm still gonna make things and i don't i try not to like change my content for the sake of youtube's guidance um because being monetized is one thing if my video gets removed that's a problem uh but usually i'm just like whatever it is what it is and i'll just deal with it um but at the same time you seem to be like very mindful of food theories better monetize uh you know like uh age restriction is something to be aware of cursing is is obviously something control um do you think about that a lot like in terms of the videos you make oh yeah i mean my i'm an uber nerd and i overthink everything right like that is just who i am but it really is born back to the early stage of the channel right where again going back to the idea of like how could game theory exist in 2022 if i was just starting off from scratch it would be incredibly difficult because it would take a hundred hours to produce a single video um between all the research that goes in all the scripting you know all the the animation whatever you wanted to call what i was doing in the early days um but it took a long time for me as someone who wasn't skilled in a lot of that stuff and so very early on in my career as a content creator i guess you could say before i even realized that that's what i was going to be it was how do i squeeze every last view or every you know how do i make this this video work as successfully as possible with the platforms that it's going on so that way my effort wasn't wasted and the next thing that i move on to it buys me enough time for the next video honestly um and so that's when i really got involved in the analytics and my background is with neuroscience and theater and so really those two specialties are a really nice balance of the creative half of what the platform is as well as the analytical half you know it's it's a creative platform that's built by engineers and where content is is measured by numbers and so for me i got really invested in the early days about like okay well what can i do to experiment and find new things to boost the retention time a little bit or you know get people to engage a little bit more and this and that it was it's fun but and it empowered me and it taught me a lot about how the platform works and this and that and i try to pass it on to other people at this point but yeah from the early days when you're only uploading a video a week and it's taking a lot of time and manpower and stuff that's that's kind of where i found it man i don't spend any brainpower thinking about stuff i really don't sometimes i do but really i i don't it always fascinates me um because i think you are in an interesting uh crossroads not a crossroads that sounds confrontational it's like an intersection of specific talents because it is that neuroscience and theater background i've always said that you have a great performative uh personality you are good on camera you're good at improvising and you're good at like the the actual performative aspect there are many youtubers and many other people that are trying to make careers on on the internet that are not i'm not calling anybody else specifically about this you all know who they are they literally were not built for performance and that's okay some people are not but at the same time there are a lot of people that try to brute force it with just that technical aspect but i think what makes your your content and your uh longevity really stand out is that you are able to do both and you really really do think well in terms of both what is entertaining and what is like at the right uh what's the big uh it's it's in uh you know all the tech spheres that's the one word the zeitgeist you know i hate that word so much just like i really hate the word it's like when everyone someone calls like uh someone else he's a savant oh he's just haunted there's a genius i hate these terms but really i do think that you you kind of like always tune in to what is topical and somehow make it entertaining which i think is a unique set of talents well chuck thank you i mean it's it's always i i always think that it's i want to learn right like the impetus of the channels for me was an opportunity for me to to teach myself something new and to have an excuse in while i was looking for jobs and no one really wanted to hire me to have an excuse to show them like hey i can do things i can do smart things but also just to keep my brain active and the cool thing about youtube and the frustrating thing about youtube is that it's always changing and it the content is always changing the audience is always changing youtube themselves and the policies that it adheres to and what it's advertising and stuff like it's always changing so on one hand it would be one thing to say like oh yeah i've been a youtuber for for 10 11 years and i'm i'm getting bored with it or whatever but on the other hand it's like no it's it's one of those jobs that is constantly forcing me to find different ways to evolve as a creator and different things to expose myself to and how do i grow up on this platform as as a creator as as a viewer as someone who's in this space and that's what not a lot of people realize is that you do need to grow up with it i i talk about this a lot you know in terms of drawing from this well of inspiration that you hide that you have inside of yourself um and eventually you'll you'll run dry no matter what you do you'll run dry eventually and it's just a thing where you got to go live more life and come back to it uh and and learning and growing up with your audience is part of it my audience has grown up with with me i've found more people on the way but i think people who watch these uh creators online for a long period of time if they don't change if they do not evolve as a person as much people are like you've changed i'm this old mad pat you know like that the if they don't see change then it's weird it falls into this uncanny valley where it's like they're not human they've stayed the same they've stagnated it's not what real life is people change all the time their taste change my videos have drastically changed in terms of my performative ability technical ability but also just like because i've changed i'm different um but at the same time i have a question for you yeah okay yes youtube dies tomorrow what do you do oh youtube dies tomorrow what do i do um you know what i would i would either just retire you know i'm in a fortunate enough position where i could retire and it would be okay um but i think more so and and i think what i would do then is i would just pick up projects to help you know uh i guess my go-to answer is usually like oh i would apply to youtube like if the channel died i would apply to youtube and try to kind of like serve as an internal voice of someone who's been on the platform for a long time who represents creator interests and who can like speak to a lot of different facets of what it means to be a content creator in the digital space but if youtube itself died um yeah i i mean like you said i've i've changed and i've grown i have a family now i have a kid and i'm so excited to teach him everything about the world and so you know i've for the last 10 years been teaching people both useful things about physics as well as not so useful things about haunted animatronic pizzeria restaurants and you know and so i i think after doing that sort of education for people over the years and and stuff i'd love to be able to focus a little bit more on the little guy that's that's in my life and i can i can teach him all those things you wouldn't cry would i cry you wouldn't be sad just a little bit oh i mean absolutely i would be sad but you know no wrong answer boo boo no i mean mark i i think i think you would be sad too right like for as much as as as much as this platform is is frustrating and how much of it is as a grind and and all of this stuff like it is a a huge part of of a huge chunk of my and your life and so to say like you wouldn't at least be a little sad to see a part of of what has made you you disappear and die and especially if youtube itself disappeared and all the videos and all the work from a decade of my life suddenly goes away and and i can't revisit you know i i that's what you were saying with unassanus right was that you appreciate the things while they well they're here but there is a sadness and a little bit of uh you know regret to see that sort of thing go away mm-hmm um so yeah i would i would be sad but you know then then you move on and you you find the next thing in your life yeah i can't deny that there wouldn't be a hint of sadness i like to say that would be like emotionally dead and ignorant of my own feelings that would be very sad to see and especially for all the other people that would be out there who lost that's things that you were talking about my personal feelings sort of my videos aside because i would i would not really miss them um but part of me would be outside of the sadness and obvious like melancholy behind it i would be incredibly excited and and let me tell you why let me tell you why is is not because of like ignoring the sadness that's there it's suddenly this vacuum i love change that's me a lot of people really hate change i adore change i'm an agent of change i love doing anything that changes things up uh even if some people could point to specific examples where i hold on to certain formats and whatever i love this idea that the entire ecosystem of the internet the pipeline of content that that that is the pillar and lifeblood of creativity and the livelihood of so many people suddenly gets upended and the reason that's exciting for me is because that that that moment is the catalyst of the greatest creativity that would come out of the internet in like recent years it would be suddenly a vacuum a demand for content and creators that were just like suddenly ousted where would they go how would it evolve when people would be forced to change oh man i would just i would be so excited to see what would come out of it because i feel like it would just be like the most profoundly interesting few years afterwards as like things just rehash and re-stitch together me personally among them i would be like in the mosh pit throw in elbows just like making it would be the wild west of content and you don't think that would be just a little bit of exciting i mean it would be cool i mean it would be exciting but where are you making that content like and i think this is the thing like not not not to overly challenge you or anything but like you know people can be creative all the time wherever the and and that mosh pit is happening right now as you speak mark the you know the the question is where are those people getting seen because creative people since the beginning of time have always wanted to to find a platform for their creativity to find a place where their voice can be heard and one of the things that i i love about youtube and i love about this platform is in a lot of ways it is a a meritocracy you know where you learn the platform and and yeah there's it's it's become less so over the years and that's like a fine nuanced point but like more so than you know traditional media television movies things like that where you had to be in l.a and you had to know the right people and you had to come from the right family or know the right you know x y and z like youtube democratized entertainment in a lot of ways and so hey if you are keen pixels and you have the back rooms and you're just a talented vfx artist awesome you know someone on red is going to pick that up it's it's going to get signal boosted you're going to grow a little bit you know a content creator is going to react to it we're going to do a theory about it whatever and bit by bit you're going to grow that audience and suddenly you've succeeded in the mosh bit you you found your way and you know i still think that youtube is in a lot of ways a place where that that mosh pit happens and it is a platform that formalizes it to some extent but still incentivizes that creativity um whereas i think if all of a sudden it goes away you know now what are you left with you know sure go for go for it no this is this is exactly my point because there is the mosh pit right now with the tick tocks and instagram there's so many different ways that people monetize in that aspect you're right it would create a big vacuum of established things but how many people like you and me who have said to this question yeah i'd be fine i could retire but how many people are still like incredibly hungry for it the thing the thing that these other platforms don't realize that is that youtube acts as a nice sponge for creativity and that the competition that exists on those platforms is dulled because of how established some routes are in youtube you don't just get new people coming in you get old people that suddenly have to be like oh god i have to do something else but they have the skills behind it to do it they're not even going to just make content they're going to make their own platforms with which to do it because how many youtubers have you talked to that's like man if i made a new youtube i would make it so much better and whether they're right or wrong you know right sure for all of youtube's flaws i do like the platform i i still think it is like what you said it is one of the the places the few places on the internet that has actively taken a role to try to encourage people to express their creativity and make a living out of it that is rare and that is not a guarantee in the world as many other platforms try to be there there's still like many good things about youtube policies aside it's still a good place to make stuff but imagine like the rush is not just it's not even just a mosh pit anymore it's it's like if uh when a business collapses in the like a big huge business collapses in the world or gets absorbed like it's just a frenzy entering into this fear it's like the competition is what drives and that's like what makes me excited it's just like seeing what these people with all of their skills suddenly you see a bunch of youtubers have to like suddenly start doing tick tocks i think that's so funny because like so many of them are going to fall in their face their skills don't work but some of them are going to be so unbelievably good other tick tock people are just going to be like what the hell is i have to do that now it's like it holds people to a higher standard both like in all aspects and that's what i find exciting about it i mean anytime like here's the thing anytime there is an opportunity for someone to to be creative like i love creativity and like i said it's it's one of those things that i love about where i exist at this point where i am surrounded by people who are also as passionate about the their creative work and the stuff that they're putting out into the world as i am and it is so refreshing and so awesome and you know being able to to watch these creators uh you know have have a place to to kind of express themselves it's so it's so cool yeah it is it absolutely is uh but that doomsday scenario won't happen like youtube's going to be around here for a while until it slow it'll be a slow death not a quick death it's not going to get pulled to plug anytime soon what do you think comes next though like what is what is the next iteration of content mark next iteration of content uh ai driven stuff sadly um maybe this is still way down the road i think that there's there's um still a long ways to go before it encroaches into the territory of like say making its own videos and whatnot but have you seen some of the recent advances in terms of ai image generation yes it's it's wild we've uh we've actually wanted to do a a series of videos across all the channels of ai writes a game theory film theory food theory we have we've cycled it through the ai how many times i we we ingested most of the episodes for all the different channels and we got some okay results back we weren't fully satisfied so i think we're gonna run it through a couple more times it's been a process that we've been doing for about the last three months or so um but yeah that's it's it's wild right same thing with the the the dolly stuff oh my god the image creation it's it's scary it's it's so scary because it if you haven't been paying super attention to it to the people listening out there like you may not realize just how quickly this has started to evolve mid journey is probably a popular one that many people know dolly being the most well-known version but mid-journey has been working under the hood and slowly making strides in just three months it went through two version updates um the third version was released and it increased the fidelity of their results tremendously like it was stunning the jumping quality and then they released version four with the advent of i think it's called static diffusion and like a different method of image generation you'd have to look into the papers to know the technical things i do not um but the quality level is it quickly became like oh that's fun it makes kind of pretty pictures but they're a little weird to what the hell am i looking at this is amazing and it terrifies you it really does kind of scare you not me again i'm like this is super cool i think it'll be a tool for people to use um but it can be just like wow there was a case on reddit that some people might have seen where someone entered their mid-journey creations they they printed it out upscaled it printed it on a big canvas and entered it into an art competition and they won first place whoa i did not see that that's wild yeah ai generated art won first place in a real life art contest and rightfully people were very pissed of course and i think they have they they're like that's rightfully so they should be pissed about that there should be rules about no ai generated or in those competitions but it made a point it made a point that this art was good enough that other people objectively looked at it and stacked it up to things that humans made and said unanimously that it was better and that is an interesting crux in the world of computer generated content yeah very much yeah that's a wild story what was that what was the image if you don't mind me asking it was a space art theory uh i could probably like like see anything space there i'm so sorry no when's when space you're gonna happen i'm contractually obligated to say that anytime someone mentions the word theory so all right of course uh but uh they can pull up the image but it is like they had three different prints that they made of various and admittedly looking at them they are really really incredible works of art but they were not made by a human hand which does impact the art it's no question that it is art because it is like the meaning behind it is there and the feelings that it evokes even if it's outrage that's art to me if it makes someone feel something that's art but just the idea that the computer generating could be made from a prompt and basically win out over pure human talent and pure human hard work i don't know what the other members of the contest maybe they were crap maybe it was just a bunch of other garbage attractions like it was like it was a washout bar and else was bad i'm not saying that it could beat everybody but the fact that it could beat anybody is really really surprising what do you do do you have do you have a favorite piece of artwork mark or do you have like a genre of art that you respond to because uh this summer i was fortunate enough to spend uh in london so i spent two months there went to all different art museums saw a lot and uh you know the tate modern in london is is so incredible and it's full of so many it's it it's full of all this unusual modern artwork and you know some of it i like some of it i'm like is that really art but all of it makes me think and question and i think that is what's so exciting about a lot of that and so i'm curious you know as someone who is very well versed in in a lot of creative pursuits and endeavors and is it's constantly learning and and looking to improve like what is there something that inspires you or something you're like i really respond to that emotionally here's the thing like i have an appreciation for art but i don't pursue it right okay so i'm not going out to museums to look for inspiration or anything i'll go to a museum and i'll be like you with the modern art you'll be like some of it'll be like incredibly evocative and i'll be like i understand this completely it really speaks to me and i love the way it goes out there and others i'm like this is a cup on a stand and this is clearly stupid and i'll say as much and i have no no qualms with uh mincing words about it but at the same time like i i never look really to pursue inspiration from places like that so i couldn't really tell you like one thing of art that i that i love and really respond to and go back to but sure what it is is like i will find something or like i'll come across something and it'll speak volumes to me and it'll be like this is wonderful this is incredible i'm so glad this happened upon my path and it now impacts me in that way but i can't do it it's the same with music like i'll appreciate music when it comes by and i'll be like that was incredible i'm so glad that i heard this but i will never ever go out of my way to find music actively and yeah it's the same with art i'm i'm just so busy in what i do um and with what i have like it's it's the same with like having inspirations for heroes i don't really have any inspirations or heroes i'll come across something and i'll be like that guy did something real good or that girl did something real good but that'll be the end of the story i'll never pursue it deeper and i don't look for that kind of stuff um yeah not saying it's better or worse it's just like that is just what it is yeah that's just who you are and how you operate absolutely do you do you go to museums on occasion i i do uh i i think it's i don't know i i like just i i love learning right like my father when i was growing up he i mean he's been hugely influential to me in a lot of ways both you know with with the channel and with kind of my mentality as a human being um you know he he loved reading conspiracy theories books about conspiracy theories things like that when i was growing up and he didn't necessarily ascribe to them but he was interested in them and he kept an open mind to like things that you know might be not offensive but like other people would just dismiss is kind of silly and he just loved to learn and it's one of those things where he taught me at an early age he's like the best thing that you can be is a student of life and and never stop learning and and again like that is how i've always operated and so you know if i have the chance to go to an art museum and have an opinion or figure out what my opinion is on a certain artist or a certain work of art or if there's an opportunity to you know go to a concert that might be outside of my wheelhouse and just try to kind of expose myself to that's i love that stuff um because then i'm able to have an informed opinion rather than making a prejudgment off of it or or whatever like if you can go to a party and have an interesting conversation about an experience that you've had a concert you've been to a show that you've seen whatever like life is all about accumulating interesting stories and opinions and and for me that's that's kind of how i operate and and going to museums gives me a lot of that that education mm-hmm i i think i identify with a lot of that and i'd say that like relatively we're fairly similar people but i think with one key difference whereas you're like never stop learning i'm never stop doing uh interesting it's a similar it's a similar philosophy and like the difference could probably be lost to most people but really like um not that you don't do a whole hell of a lot because you do don't get me wrong um but for me it's like instead of like learning about what my opinion about something is or how i feel about something i have to do it first to know how i actually feel about it um and i'm always i've always have that mentalities like i'd rather do something and then see how i feel about it after i'm done with it um because i did that with music and like performing music i i for a very long time there i pursued it extremely hard and i practiced every day for about a year and a half straight and i performed it on stage and i did that and then when i was done with it i said no i don't like it and then i stopped doing it but i had to know that before i could say anything about like the the reality of it and i'm not saying like my mentality is more valid than yours because obviously i can only do so much so i can't really but i'm the same way in terms of learning i always want to learn more things because i do want to be able to like back up my when something however i'm ignorant to a lot of things and usually i just go like i don't know what i'm talking about so i'm not going to say i don't have an opinion and that infuriates people a lot of times whenever someone asks me a spinning or something i'm like i don't have an opinion i don't know anything about that i say that a lot and it's just like that infuriates people people are like how can you not have an opinion on something i'm like i just don't care about it i haven't done anything about it therefore it's nothing it's blank to me uh hey good good good on you to recognize that i think you know that's that's one of the tricks of of where we are in the modern day right where people don't have that sort of knowledge or or that experience but then they they're still going to have an opinion about it because they just you know they think they know or they're convinced that they know when when in actuality they might not yeah my my biggest fear is always standing on the peak of mount stupid you know the dunning-kruger effect yeah absolutely yeah yeah no i just i i it's great views from up there great views but you know you just gotta realize the valley of despair is immediately below you so i usually am just like i'll never even start that journey if i if i know how long it takes i shy away from doing something but uh once i get into something like i am a roller coaster on that on that curve riding it the whole way through and i love that i just love being lost on it so as someone who's done a lot of things like what what has stood out to you as things that have been like yeah that was you know i walked away from that and that was for me as opposed to like you said music maybe maybe not so much uh i mean obviously the generic umbrella of content creation you know in all of its aspects is just like that is so beautiful to me like the idea of individualized creation is probably the most profoundly moving thing of my life it's it and i think for a lot of people it is and they don't even realize it like i think humanity in general is a much more creative species than we know and it's been like squeezed out of us uh from an early age to not pursue uh our own ideas as if they are the most important thing in the world and and you know yes there are big problems out there but to an individual like an individual level what can you do besides what you want to do um so many people out there spend so much of their lives doing things that other people want to do and they never look inward on themselves and i think like the freedom that people experience in terms of uh youtube and tick tock and instagram and all these different ways of making quote-unquote content online is something that does kind of lift the veil of people in terms of their own individuality is like my ideas are good uh the audience is a benefit for it and the money that comes with it is a benefit but the the freedom and the realization that like oh my god i can do whatever i want and it's mine and i can control it that that is for me the thing i loved the most and walked away from and i haven't walked away from it i'm still clearly in the middle of it drowning in the ocean of it uh but yeah i would say that in smaller aspect though i would say uh the set life i think that's been really really fun for me making higher end productions making stories telling stories really cohesive stories and writing god i used to hate writing i used to i hate it i hated writing god i hated writing i couldn't stand writing so how did you feel about writing i hated it but no writing i've i've learned to love writing and i've learned to really embrace that process of just sitting in a choir room and tapping away on a keyboard that is very very nice that's it's it's really interesting here you say that because i felt the same way right like when i was in school you know growing up and everyone was always like oh you know the english you're so good at it this is that but i always gravitated to math because the numbers had clean answers and i liked how definitive it was and there was no right or wrong there was no subjectivity i'm like i like the precision of this uh but everyone's all but oh but you're a good writer this and that and and i just hated it i thought it was i i couldn't stand it it was so tedious and this and that but you know now in at this point in my life i'm tasked with writing at least three persuasive essays every single week and you know using the opportunity to create my own worlds that are kind of like fan fictions off of other people's worlds or doing research papers on thing like my job is as a writer every single week at this point and and i and i love it and i and i enjoy that and i think that's so creatively satisfying in a way that had you told you know 13 14 15 year old me like hey this is what you're going to be doing for your life like i never would have believed it would have been like oh you're gonna be miserable for so for so much of my life why would i ever do this to myself yeah do you think that it's better because it's a piece of the the pipeline to make content like it's writing isn't the end goal writing is a step on the road to getting there do you think that has an impact on you i i think that's definitely part of it um i think i've gravitated to stuff that i i naturally like enjoy writing like writing is a means to an end of me learning new stuff and getting exposed to new things so i think that's part of it too but also like i don't know like when you're in school right you're having to be servant to so many masters and there's so many competing interests and so many classes that you're jumping between and this and that whereas now as an adult i have like this is this is my focus this is what i'm expected to do and sure you're still juggling and you're still serving to so many masters but i know at the end of the day like this is a constant in my life and this is a point of stability and this is a place where like you said i get to be quiet and to myself and focus on whatever fictional world or whatever blank page is in front of me and it gives you that respite and a chance to really be one with yourself and your voice do you know what's helped me a lot in terms of getting to that point what's that this game this game is so satisfying there's something about it and i know that like real life power washing is not nearly as satisfying having done it it's very satisfying but not to this level and and it's funny that we're playing this level because if people watched my gameplay of this particular game they would notice that this level made me angrier than any of them it was just so frustrating i wanted to be done with it but in doing this and i would equate it to writing and i think a lot of people could understand it it's like it's an arduous task there's an enormous amount to do there's so much and even right now we're only 62 percent of the way done right right it's enormous yeah it's enormous this is one of the biggest maps in the game but now did you did you choose it so you could spend more time with me mark that's sweet yes i actu i actually did 100 because like i knew we've never actually had a chance to talk and i i knew we've never actually had a chance to really get to know each other and i wanted to make sure that there was as much time as possible uh to talk about because there's so much to freaking talk about not in just youtube but just like understanding your mind in terms of uh how you make things um but all that all the goodness aside of making things the next part that i want to get into is the negatives of making things and like things you regret the most like which i i i want to know what video that's on your channel currently still up do you hate the most what video do i hate so i've never there's only one video that isn't up on the channel i i can tell you that for a fact like there there are definitely videos that i don't like and i wish i could take down but by my by my commitment to hey i produced this i put it out into the world like it's gonna stay there like there are certain things where i'm like you know what it's it's there it's part of the game theory canon so the only one that was removed was was a short mini theory on a scientific game called foldit uh in which you unfold proteins uh and and gamers yeah it's it's actually fascinating it's kind of like a puzzle game but it uses real world proteins and gamers were able to solve something faster that something that science had been trying to do for years i think it took science like four years of trying to like solve this protein and gamers were able to do it in like a couple days um which is just incredible because their minds work differently right and they see it as a puzzle and it's fun and it's a game whereas the scientists are like this is work so that was always fascinating to me but the reason it's it's off was because you know it was a different era of youtube and you know i used my wife's stuff in it and at one point i'm like oh she's she's in a lab coat and then i show her in a in a swimsuit and it was it was a weird transition and it was photoshopped and awkward and she felt awkward like she was fine with it at the time but then looking back we're both like yeah probably not the best so that was one where i've taken it down so that's the only episode that doesn't exist online um the only time i've ever hidden or privated of a video um i'm so sorry to interrupt that just reminded me of this thing you remember have you ever looked deep into vsauce and michael from the old vsauce videos that was a real shock like if no one knows go to vsauce and scroll i hope i'm sure they're still there go to his old videos it was like ranking anime boobs or something it is and then i think his very first video is him in in like the first world of uh super mario and and him propelling himself over the green pipes using the power of farts i believe is is another one yeah the vsauce channel pivoted hard into the content that it does nowadays yeah and i think that's so funny because like i love that it's still there i really do i love that it's such a good move and i'm just so proud i've never spoken with him but i'm like i admire that that's that's a ballsy move and i like that anyway sorry sorry to interrupt no i didn't know absolutely and i i mean i think he had subscribes to probably the the same thing that i do which is like it's it's part of the creator journey right it's part of the history of this channel it's you know it's maybe not maybe not the best and you know shows kind of how far you've come as a creator and and i think that's that's important for people who are the next generation are looking at kind of the history of of where this whole thing has come from so i i like you said i love the fact that those videos still exist i think it's so funny um and i think it's always shocking when people first stumble across those and they're like wait a minute is this this this the guy who talks about like existential space and what happens if everyone jumped at the planet at the same time it's like yeah yep i mean hey who doesn't like uh ranking anime boobs i mean that's pretty much i think that's a common human trait he should remaster that episode you know like modern vsauce ranks anime boobs just as a throwback oh yeah oh man talking about remastering videos i've thought about that a lot in terms of just i have so many old videos that i've done way back when i'm a different person like both in terms of the biological sense of every seven years you change out every atom in your body i am a different person than when i record a lot of those um but also just like from a creator standpoint i am different and the recent dead space remaster is like making me think about this if yeah because i'm i'm going to play that when it comes out and i thought how is this different than me going today and just replaying the old dead space that i did before would that be any different and it got me thinking like i could do that because at this point i've almost entirely forgotten that game are there any like theories that you would ever revisit because you're like i'm a different person i learn so much more but that universe is still compelling like slenderman i played that game recently i'm like this still scared me what the hell and i started thinking what is the story behind this have you ever done a video on slenderman like all these different things that i'm like man i would love to revisit these things because it's not like they ever died it's just people forgot about oh they're right yes i've seen you right this whole time just hanging out on the roof don't mind me um no it's it's funny that you bring up slenderman i mean that was the decision that that that changed the course of the channel right where uh halloween what was it 20 2014 or something like that halloween 2014 i i put a a twitter post up and i'm like hey uh you know i'm trying to figure out what we're doing for the halloween theory on on game theory so here's your choice you got the slenderman thing it's a little past its prime but like we've never done it you guys have requested a lot or there's this this new game that i see a lot of people requesting called five nights at freddy's uh so which would you which would you like to see done the right choice yeah the audience the audience picked the right choice on that one um yeah and and i mean obviously the rest is history there or you know 20 100 books in and whatever but uh oh my god but uh yeah to this day i've never i've never done slenderman never never touched it yeah would be such a fun throwback because then you could get into all the marble hornets stuff which i have only watched like the first video of and there was three seasons i discovered recently and there's so much stuff like people think that the back rooms is expensive it pales in comparison to like what was established in slenderman and that was like 2012 that that started like yep but it's still just as rich it's just like there were fewer people to latch on to it and that's the craziest thing more people left onto it but more people have forgotten and then there was a crappy slenderman movie that came out i was gonna say let's let's not yeah let's not forget that movie that really shook things up yeah yeah man the timeliness of hollywood always coming in to save the day always topical right people people still requesting the five nights at freddy's movie and i'm like are you sure you guys want at this point i mean you know i'm not gonna be in it they haven't called me they have a call right what's up man that just tells me that just tells me that the movie isn't isn't being filmed yet that's come on yeah i know right it's ridiculous but yeah it is what would you think if like would you would you do would you would you do this would you but oh absolutely absolutely as a personal request like if you could because it is kind of just thing that people forgot and when i played the game it scared me i was laughing at it because i was like i opened it up like oh this whole game i actually got scared and i'm like how is this i've played this before and it like i've played so many horror games how is this still scaring me and i was like hmm maybe uh maybe there's still something to this yeah no i i would absolutely do it as long as you promise that you ignore it like you ignore all the other episodes i dedicate to you how many episodes do you dedicate to this but also i don't check social media so when i never see if anyone else ever attacks because i'm like i i made this thing i'm like i don't know no no i'm just joking about that but uh but yeah absolutely absolutely i every year i go back and i'm like should i do slenderman should i do slenderman and you know there's usually some other more timely release or something so whatever but yeah i've we've been really enjoying going back and looking at old game franchises and seeing kind of like untapped untapped theory potential out there kind of like to break like you said on one hand it's nostalgic for people on the other hand you're exposing it to a generation of viewers who missed it the first time and i think that's one of the the craziest things about you know being old man youtube here being stepdad a cool stepdad of youtube stepped out of youtube i simultaneously whipped and naenade uh yeah me meme dad of youtube over here um is is is the fact that you know like when people stop me and they say hey you matpat i recognize your voice whatever like i grew up watching you you know like i i don't watch your stuff anymore but i grew up watching it was everything that i watched in in middle school high school and and that's wild to me like that we were people's childhoods and and to think that you know to a lot of people they're just hopping on this this journey now and so they weren't exposed to slender man the first time it came around they didn't see all those kind of earth-shattering videos that really shape the platform for what it is because it is you know we're we're 13 14 years into into youtube at this point and you know those games are over a decade old yeah we've forgotten a lot of that stuff it's new to a lot of people yeah it can be and i think there's there's something good about that it's it's kind of like the the generation of what's in is like always cycles right but i think the cycles accelerate over time people like have to innovate and they feel forced to innovate so like these these windows in which like fashion and music and styles all come back it just like comes back quicker than ever before and ever before and always quicker and it's it's kind of crazy um so just but i would love i would love a slender thing because the only time i ever learned about lore ever is when i watch one of your videos because i don't ever pursue it i literally you know it's so weird i'm like the face of five nights at freddy's for a lot of people and yet i haven't read a single book i don't know what the hell is going on in those games i don't even beat the hardest modes anymore i can't i just don't have the time or care enough to actually dedicate to it and still people will be like ah yeah you're the you're the fnaf guy and i'm like no clearly uh clearly daco or any of the other people are the fnaf guys clearly what was it i i think i remember uh we had just gotten done filming uh heist um i seen in heist and and uh fnaf vr had just launched and yeah i i played a couple months ago and i'm like you know are you picking up that one and you're like oh i don't think so i'm like oh you probably should because it's it's pretty fun and you ended up picking it up i think when you're in the hotel room or whatever but yeah yeah i had a guy to get one and set it up in this like little library room and play yeah yeah that was very nice but uh okay go on i i don't wanna the comments are gonna get mad if i ignore your question so uh videos that i would go back so first off remastering uh we've we remastered the first ever episode of game theory um a couple years ago as part of our 10-year anniversary on the platform i'm like hey it's we've been here for 10 years obviously a lot has changed we've changed we've grown um and so we remastered the first ever episode of game theory and we did it in the three different editing and like visualization styles that we've had over the years um so that way not only is it a retrospective as far as the script goes i did some like director's commentary over top about how cringy and bad the script was uh at the time and i'm like i can't believe i said this this is so stupid um but then also the editors had a really good time with it because they edited in the three different styles of what we consider the three different eras of game theory where we had uh the slideshow format where it was just like ripping down a bunch of pictures and kind of having them lightly animate across the screen uh the the puppeteering element where we did um it was more like flash based animations and things like that and then we did uh the final version where it's a bit more infographic-y uh kind of like a hybrid of all the different styles so we have so we have remastered some um you know but yeah i like at some point i would love to kind of go back and remaster all those old episodes because to this day some of those old ones are my all-time favorites and it's just you know i'd like time and people have seen it whatever but i'd love to kind of give them a new coat of paint so that way because because you can't really rehash theories in a lot of cases but to to introduce again introduce them to a new generation or give them the love that more modern theories get and the level of polish that more modern theories get now that we've now that we're better at what we do that would be really cool i mean i don't see why not and i the the even better thing is like there's no one really to criticize because the people that watch those are probably an entirely different audience from the people that watch uh younow just like yeah everyone very few people realize just how much turnover there is there are people that have grown up gotten married had kids uh and then their kids are suddenly watching my videos there are new humans in this world that are fans of mine that didn't exist when i started that is really weird to think is that crazy yeah how does it feel to be a formative figure in people's lives uh you know in their in their like early lives um it depends on what videos they're watching what your impact on society has been yeah i have a wide breadth of types of content you know maybe my uh recent orc massage video not as uh formative i was gonna say the the uh honey pop play through maybe it may be not beneficial to society it's not beneficial maybe not but you know uh but speaking of beneficial to society i want to go back to something you mentioned almost casually and i i think actually the more i think about the more i'm interested in this is you working at youtube um because you said that like as if as if it was just like a possibility and i started thinking like why isn't it a possibility one of the things that i think is youtube's biggest detractors it's not so much like that youtube is inherently evil people need to realize this they're not evil it's not even one thing it's thousands of people working in a building towards the common goal of getting their platform money that is the almost like everyone's goal they have also cultural goals of like do no evil which is google's overarching goal which questionable well actually they've removed that from their motto unfortunately like yeah i hate to break it to you mark but uh they they quietly uh let that one go away of course they did it that's so beautiful it's pretty telling yeah but also like there's a few smaller goals besides making money but as a company it's making money however i think one of the things that youtube could benefit from the most is literally hiring creators they don't even have to be full-time but like consulting creators and actually using their opinions and experiences to base policy on and i think of all the people that i have met on youtube you would be at the top of my list in terms of people that i would want youtube to actually hire on and be able to influence policy because you have a creative side that embraces the actual uh creativity on youtube and understands and rolls with the punches and has been through a lot and you have the technical know-how to actually understand how decisions impact creators and how they gamify winning the system and beating the system uh in a way that even youtube doesn't realize because i doubt there's any one person there that understands the system as well as you or some of the people on this platform uh well i i'm honored thank you i appreciate that yeah what would it take for you to get a job at youtube because it's really like it's not so much as like you're bashing down their door to work there because right you would be subservient to them but what what would uh what would it take for you to work there and also what circumstances would you do to leave what you do now or at least partly remove yourself and then take up the cause for like championing rights of other you know youtubers and like making their lives better sure well i mean i i will say you know i and i don't know if these opportunities have been afforded to you at certain points but i've always kind of made myself available to youtube for product testing or giving like you know creator roundtables of like hey we're thinking about doing x y and z like what do you think um and you know through things like that i have like i saw that they were planning on doing a second subscription button back before that was a thing um you know which eventually evolved into the notification bell right and i'm like that's confusing and stupid they did not listen to me obviously they were really convinced about it you know and you know it's it's i guess it worked for him they've kept it this and that but um but so i i have done at least as much as i can to in in whatever avenues and venues that i can to to kind of like champion the good cause beat the drum whatever you know for free on my own time when they decide to ask me stuff so i'm working as much in that capacity as i can um as far as what it would take for me to do it like i i'd have to feel like my theorist journey was was complete at that point right like that that i had done everything that i i wanted to do and intended to do with theorists and and with the channel before i kind of moved on to the broader youtube ecosystem uh because because the thing is there is power in in the videos that we make you know and and every once in a while i'll hop on my my little blue couch and i'll i'll do a meta theory talking about the state of the union of youtube and i think those a lot of times are just as impactful to youtube as if i had actually worked there if not more so in a lot of cases because now the sudden you're getting the feedback from an audience you're getting like mainstream you know to whatever extent it is but like mainstream attention or conversation going so sometimes it's it's funny to think but us as creators doing videos on our own channels and via our own outlets on the platform sometimes can affect change even better than than working internally yeah i completely agree like recently with well i don't know how much change is being enacted right now but i know that they are probably talking about it a lot um with the new age restriction like problem that's been going on and corey x kenshin making his video calling youtube out for discriminatory practices and the the kind of like double standards and it is kind of one of those things where uh in a lot of aspects i do feel like sometimes i am held as uh like this poster child for youtube and i don't like that because i criticize youtube pretty much at every opportunity but at the same time i do go to bat for youtube a lot because again i do believe in the platform and i think like the greater good is that i'd rather there be a platform than not um and i don't trust tick tock has people's best interests at heart i don't if anyone actually thinks that tick tock has your best interest at heart as a creator i mean my goodness like oh no you sweet summer child no i i definitely think that youtube sees what tic toc is doing with with creator monetization with their uh their what is it the creator fund i think is what they call it you know where it's a it's a stagnant pool of of money that they just say like this is an appropriate amount to divvy up amongst our popular creators um you know and they see that oh we don't have to do an ad share we just kind of have a pool of money set aside and we get to decide how much of that money gets shared instead of a percentage revenue i am sure that that youtube is kicking themselves for they're like oh man i wish we could have done that one yeah so hopefully they don't take too many uh pages out of that particular book yeah and this is what i was talking about with uh uh there's a these twitch streamers this is old news by now but you know when they were just like trying to challenge their uh copyright detection system right by flagrantly playing whatever they wanted and playing copyright content being like you can't ban me i'm too big and i'm like they will amazon will literally shut twitch down if you cause them too much problems like the the the option that youtube took to create their copyright detection system was the better option yeah that is the best case scenario yeah literally the best case scenario and they didn't have to do it they could have just given up youtube had not made them money at any point but they believed in it they believed it and i'm like yes you have to like at some point just believe that the platform and what it stands for and the culture that it represents and the people that it's cultivating is worth it at some point and i do think more than any other company out there youtube has done that does that mean i forgive them for everything no does that mean they deserve to be forgiven for anything no it's a company come on but there's also people in there that do legitimately care and do legitimately fight for the creators a lot and it's it's like that cynicism the cynicism is the death of any uh group organization platform anything when you get cynical that you don't have the ability to change something it's not the arguments it's not the like fight like it that's not what does it that's what's good and healthy it's changed it motivates it but it's the cynicism like nothing can improve i might as well give up that's what those things right and and i think you know a good point to illustrate exactly that is by the nature of of you know my history in the space consulting people being analytically minded things like that i've gotten to talk to a lot of different creators from different platforms and hear their experiences and you you talk to the viners right and and some of the biggest viners at at the time you know who are who are crushing it in that world right before it the whole platform shut down and they're like yeah vine brought us all in to a room and asked like hey what should we do with this platform like what what is going wrong like how do we how do we improve at this and that and they brought all their top creators into the same space there was all this creative brainstorming happening and nothing got done you know like they had a huge list of things and and vine decided to ignore it every single recommendation that all their like heaviest users and most popular people were were offering and none of it got implemented and as a result you know vine then proceeded to disappear and and i think you know like i i make the joker about like the the the double subscription and this and that and i've seen those sorts of things but at least youtube is having those conversations and and i've seen them change things based on the conversations that they're having with with their creators sometimes and and so that that is something like you said there it's not going to be every time creators aren't going to win every time you know there are other factors that need to be considered but at the very least they they are willing to to keep an open ear and be open to changes and things like that yeah and i think that again to youtube's credit they have enacted some change from people's suggestions i have experienced it myself i can't remember specifically what it is it's not like groundbreaking things but i've shared youtube out on things and they have talked to me and things have occurred from those conversations i'm sure you to have many examples um that you don't need to list right now but it's just like it is it is an evolving thing and the more people care about the platform the more people fight for the platform and want it to be better and make it active and obvious that they want to be a better the better it is as much as they push shorts and as much as i don't really like shorts you know and i get it whatever it's fine i'm not gonna regularly make shorts but it's like that it's it's these things that they have to i i know it they have to there's some executive room and they're like we need to compete with tick shock and this way do it better because that's what google does they copy things and that's fine um but you know there are ways to improve it and it is still a fantastic place to i i think i i don't know if you agree with this but i think youtube is one of the best places on the internet maybe the best place to have as a creative outlet for people that want to make video content specifically yeah i mean it's it's hard to deny because because again like just the sheer policy of hey we will share ad revenue like we are in this together you know our success is your success and your success is our success like i think that level of partnership is something that you will never see another platform really truly do in earnest and and like i said the fact that tick-tock has shown that hey creators are willing to to shell out a bunch of content and do this for like whatever pool of money we deem i think it shows that mentality that youtube has of we share 5545 of the ad split is is a thing of the past i don't think you will ever see another platform do anything like that again i would agree yeah i agree which is kind of sad right exactly yeah sad yeah anyway i wanna i wanna we've talked about youtube so much and there's only 15 left of uh this house so it'll be done in a flash as things go by um to close this off i just want to say uh thank you so much for being here number one um but number two what do you love to do in your spare time that has nothing to do with videos literally no games no nothing like literally what is your go-to outside of this loop right spare time mark you see these big footprints did you do anything about the did you talk about the big footprints oh oh we have talked about the big footprints okay is there a video about that sorry i just i just saw them and i remembered i was like i think in this particular video i called out for you to do something i kind of watched it yeah i was i was actually gonna say mark so you know you you've been largely right about the lore of this game yeah you you were largely right you were right that there there is indeed a volcano that is erupting off in the distance and it this is all tied to actually atlantis there's all sorts of crazy stuff yeah we have to do an update video because we did it before they were really taking the lore seriously and and then between you calling out oh there's there's the volcano and how's everything getting so dirty and this must be all ash and whatever um and us doing a video kind of following that up and and looking into the logistics of all that uh the developers reached out to us and they're like oh well we're taking it seriously now so keep an eye out um and and largely you know what you and and we predicted has come to pass so i think that was one of those things where i do this for your theories a lot or my fan series is like when they get a really good idea i go oh so you've found it out have you oh you deduced my puzzles great and i'm sick of writing down all these great golden ideas i i do appreciate when i do episodes that you do happen to see and uh and you text me and you're like hey matt uh good way to figure that one out or like oh i didn't realize that had lore yeah but anyway back to the other question because i could talk about youtube all day but what do you do outside youtubing yeah uh so outside of of all of this this crazy stuff um i i like i consume everything and i mean that's partly doing work so i i love going to see movies i love watching tv you know watching new relevant tv shows better call sol just finished so like i like just again consuming a lot of different media to to learn from it to grow from it maybe brainstorm ideas uh but outside of that i also just i love being in nature um i love being active i love swimming i love rock climbing um i don't get to do it that much uh but now that uh my son ali he's he's four at this point uh and he's old enough to go to places like trampoline parks and so yeah which is awesome and i'm yeah and i'm working on getting good at doing flips and somersaults and and backflips and and front flips and stuff and so i'm teaching myself trampolining and he's old enough to be strapped into a harness and start climbing like those rock walls at places like that and so he and i are you know doing rock climbing and stuff so that's i love that sort of thing how old is your son uh he's four four wow yeah that's crazy to think about it it it is it's if it's crazy for you to think about it it's even wilder for me to think about because i mean you see everyone says like oh they grow up so fast whatever and you you kind of look up and you're like oh this is this is a an actual human being with its own thoughts and opinions and likes and dislikes and and when did that happen and how did he get to be you know this way and have these tastes and interests it's it's wild to see yeah oh man that's gotta be crazy but that i mean that's great to hear like in my spare time and this is like a kind of my detriment and i am perpetually stuck in thinking about content creation i i actually don't escape the loop uh i i always think about what i'm making next it's to the detriment of my like friendships and stuff i don't hang out with people unless they're working case in point the first time we're having a chance to sit down for making a video yeah um whereas at any point i could have like text you said like hey let's hang out and i i will do that after this and i think we should definitely like hang out at some point you should come over to my house and just like see the sunset from my back porch that would be really nice that would be great are you this is a question i've always wanted to ask you is can you get out and and do things um because because here's the thing right i recognize that at this point whenever i go out i'm i'm probably recognized about you know at least at least once if not three to four times depending on on where i'm going and i'm i'm a guy who is a floating image that kind of talks and gets animated around it's a picture of me from like seven years ago whereas you i mean your face is everywhere your your channel is is massive i i can you go like if it was like hey let's go to a trampoline park like are we renting out that trampoline park for the night so that way you get you get a night arrest are you able to kind of trampoline with with with the populace i mean it's so i just deal with it i'm never gonna rent out a place for myself but uh yes i i do get recognized a lot it's not i'm not saying that like it's a problem but the most recent example is just like yesterday i was going through the drive-through and uh one of the employees ran outside to say like it's it's lovely and it's an honor but it does like detract from that sense of normality that's just like i don't know why this is occurring um and that is like another part of content creation that if anything i think it's probably it just makes me i never understand why people chase fame i i never understand never never had i'm honored by it um but it's like i am the type of person i like to go to a restaurant by myself or at least i used to i can't i can't do that anymore uh the advent of masks has helped a lot you know that that kind of helps right some people snipe me from like across the hall even in my mask like i'll i'll have sunglasses and a mask on and people are like oh markiplier usually as soon as i open my mouth people they hear one word and they're like oh markiplier there yep it's always the voice that's that's the thing i always hear like i thought i recognized you but then i heard your voice ordering or whatever yeah that's always it yeah it is one of those things so unfortunately no but again i just it's just like a part of life now and i i would never bemoan it it's an honor and at the same time it's like it's just something i i deal with it's part of the process but then again i hardly ever go outside so it's like i don't have to deal with that that much no you're not you're not much an outdoorsy person i mean you appreciate your sunset on your own balcony so i appreciate that i do i i like nature i do but it's just like because i am trapped in the cycle of content creation i just love making i am addicted to it i would say that it's a full-blown addicted addiction at this point and it'll probably eat me up until my dying day but thankfully uh amy my girlfriend is here to make sure that i stay sane and grounded and i take trips and i i take breaks regularly and i think about things that are outside of uh the next project that i'm working on yeah um i do think that that that chase is addictive i think there are many youtubers you could probably think of that are addicted to the process of making of course uh and i'm not one to call out because i i do the same thing but at the same time it's like there it is can be a problem when you detract everything and and i've tried to get better about it by balancing the human element of it by not exploiting uh the people around me to try to like live my life where i have to make content all the time i sometimes i just want to go out for a walk and i think that's the biggest change in my life is just just being able to recognize that i can go out for a walk is very very nice yeah yeah and and uh you know you mentioned this but uh that's the other thing i would throw on on kind of like the old hobbies list for me is is travel uh my wife steph we have a goal to visit uh a hundred countries uh in our lifetime wow yeah and so we're currently sitting at 27 28. um yeah so we're doing pretty good obviously the last couple years have been tough for that um both god i'm so sorry my first thought was like and literally my brain was like oh a travel channel would be so fun no you're totally right though like i've i've thought about that at some point you know i i think that there's room for a cool travel channel that we could do uh the problem with travels i mean here if you want to get really nerdy with the problem with travel is travel is very location specific and so p when people are looking for travel related content they're looking for a specific country or a specific place and so you have to be really smart about how you're balancing your programming to make sure that you're not falling out of people's algorithms so i i've i too mark think about content a lot uh and that definitely overthinks so i you you and i are in the same boat and and so i i definitely understand where you're coming from oh man but you know i i do wonder about that philosophy because i never think about that all i think of like and all i've ever done is like if the content's good enough people will come that's how i've always operated and so far it has worked for me when you look at my channel does it make you mad sometimes you know i put no thought into what i do i don't really and then suddenly i'll make that pokemon video and like everyone will do it and i'm like i don't know what happened i don't know why my videos do well i couldn't tell you the first thing other than that i try to make them good sometimes but i don't always even try to do that sometimes my videos are garbage and i know it and everyone knows it but no one seems to do anything about it no one calls me out on my shitty videos no i i like here's the thing does it make me mad no uh am i jealous sometimes absolutely absolutely you know if you're if you're talking about like you know biggest regret or whatever on one hand i'll i would say like oh i should have started a let's play channel instead of instead of like a let's do a heavy research channel but then i think about i'm like would i would i you know enjoy the content that i that i do as much as i do maybe maybe not i like i'm so happy with the stuff that we we put out and it's so creatively satisfying for me so on on one hand it's like oh i wish i could do that but on the other hand it's like well no but i really am happy with with where we are so but yeah to say that i'm you know not jealous of sometimes when when you do a video you're doing like the 30-second like dunk on me because i i was i did a crappy pokemon and that one gets more views than my original video where i talk about how i made that pokemon whatever that's fine yeah yeah it's fine it's fine we're all good but for me it's like that's that was the only response i could make possibly it's just a 30-second quick dismissal and it was great i loved it as much as i want to make an extended video because my real thought is like of course i want to make a video talking about like matt you seriously just put giant boobs on it and it'll be great that's all you have it's that simple man i can't say that in my response video of course yeah i couldn't say that at all no i gotta gotta be in the in the character of things the zeitgeist of them oh the zeitgeist theory is again yeah but no i it is one of those things where like i guess technically i do think about like the more technical aspects but mine is always like the interaction i always think of like you know improv exercise i'm sure you've taken improv before as well yes yeah it's like what is good for the bit what's good for the the joke what's good for that and that's where i lean in a lot on things yeah as opposed to what's good for the algorithm i don't really care what other people want i care what i would want to happen in that moment it's like yeah i would want me to be so dismissive of this even if inside i'm like just put hits even though i want to say that i was like you know this is better for the moment so i guess i do think strategically but it's just like a not as analytical number focused strategies as a performer as a performer who understands you know what what the audience is how the audience is going to react absolutely 100 i mean that's that's why i loved about doing theater back when i was doing theater and i was i was directing shows right is i would always approach my shows from the the perspective of the audience and i like what is the audiencing and what do they expect to see in this moment and do i want to give them that or do i want to give them something else and and that was kind of one of the the weird quirks that i had as a director and and i totally see that and i think you know looking at content in that way is is very smart so oh thank you very much and and i gotta say for those who don't know uh matthew patrick here is an incredible actor and really incredible performance like the stuff you did with mac on on set like was just like it was it was wonderful the breakdown was just like so fun it was it was just a shame like we couldn't put it all in it was just like wonderful and then like what you did with the i call him the prospector he's not the prospector the hermit yeah the hermit originally it was just some old mining prospector that was the original incarnation of that character um uh but just like it's it's really stuff have you ever thought about doing acting in like a bigger like movie or tv show or something like that i you know i on one hand it's it's funny that you bring that up because steph and i have this conversation a lot where like again i love to go see theater shows i like to go you know to all these different things and and watch and consume everything and i lived and breathed theater you know for the longest time in my life i i fully anticipated making a career out of theater as my professional living from here until the end of days and i go back to see theater and on one hand i'm like oh it'd be fun to do to go back and and do that and live that fantasy life and stuff but i go back and and it feels so superficial and so dated as an art form because because of the the world we exist in now and and this cool interactivity of content and the authenticity of of the characters that we are and the personalities that we are in line and stuff and so i see it and there's always an artifice in theater but the artifice feels so much more pronounced in this era of digital content i'm like i don't i don't know if i i would like to do this i think it would be fun for me but would i ultimately be and it would be fun to kind of revisit a past part of my life and it's always fun to have a chance to to memorize lines do blocking like i love the pro like you mentioned how you love the production process of a movie i and of a video i love the production process of theater and i think it's it's magical and wonderful and i love when the lights come up and and the energy of an audience and this and that there's nothing like it but i also recognize that creatively it it doesn't resonate for me the way that it used to and it feels very different as an art form at this point yeah there's what's fun and then there's what's fulfilling and i think it's not touching it would be fun like just like i said i did a tour and it was fun but doing it again would not be fulfilling like it was fulfilling to be able to go through that experience once but if i did it again it would ring hollow and like that feeling of hollowness is actually i think a good instinct um because not many people can even recognize this idea like what once was will not be you know it it it will not be the same if you relive something in in these memories that was a big part of unisonness like reliving it is not the same as experiencing it when it was there the content is what it is and it's good it's not the same as the overall experience well and honestly that that was one of the things that got me out of theater when i was kind of making that transition because again like i fully anticipated being a theater professional acting and directing doing some lighting design this and that and then you know i worked off off broadway for a bit i toured around for a while as both an actor and director i did a ton of shows but what ultimately got me out of theater was two things first off uh it was the the constant like living out of a suitcase and like there was no stability in it and that was tough for me to handle but also you know i i lived in worked in new york at that time and i saw what constituted a successful life in theater and it was doing spider-man turn off the dark eight times every week and you know you have to hit all the beats at exactly the right time otherwise the orchestra is going to get paid over time and you're going to cost the show its budget and you know and and you lose exactly to your point you lose the spontaneity and and the in the moment-ness that theater that makes theater and live theater and live performance so exciting and so you know impactful because everything has to be so regimented and robotic in order to kind of like meet your quota at the end of the week it's it's a business and and seeing the reality of that was was a real you know defining moment for me in my life where i'm like oh that's that's a bummer that's sad i'm i miss that so yeah letting go of what once was and uh it's it's just like it'll never be the same just like how when uh i was never the same after i'm trying to think of a funny example i was trying to make a joke to like really make light of this profound thing i couldn't think of anything like he's reaching he's reaching he's gonna find it he's gonna find it i couldn't find it couldn't find it no you you get to keep your meaning i get to i get to not make fun of it for one more moment i the only reason i'm saying that is because we're at two percent away from being done and this is the most arduous two percent where we have to hunt down all the stupid last pieces that are clean not cleaned yet but uh we're closing we're closing up here and the reason i bring up the acting thing is mostly just because if say someone that maybe you knew was making a show like a tv show or something like filming a pilot or something sure yeah of course in the very near future sure you know uh like let's say early next year yeah would you be available to uh be a part of it oh apps i'm absolutely yes 100 instant instant especially if it was a director that i had known and worked with and whose work i had respected absolutely okay all right okay cool good good good just checking just putting the feelers out because you never know when opportunity no it might arise and and and that's exactly it right like i think too to what you're saying before and you know like we exist in a world where you with less so but for me for sure like the content that i'm kind of expected to produce on on the channel is is you know you can mix it up to only a certain amount but at a certain point you got to kind of deliver to the audience what what they're hoping for what they expect or you know subvert it but you can't do it that often and so for me to have the opportunity to you know lose my mind or express that like unhinged character or you know what have you i i relish those opportunities to to really ham it up and and step outside of myself it's great yeah man and this is like kind of like my folly is because i always i i operate on you energy i don't know if i've ever told you this but i do um elixir and i guess censored uh make it family friendly no it's fine i i operate on you energy and it's not so much that i wanna like be a part of hollywood in that traditional sphere i just wanna prove to him that i can do it better i literally just want to say hey your ways are cool and you make cool sometimes i can do that too and just like that's how i've always been with with anything i make half of what i make is just because i'm like trying to prove a point to someone it's like a bet like it's a bet and i'm like yeah no i'm gonna fall through it i'll do it it was like uh my friends were telling me that like if i was part of creator clash 2 which have you ever thought about boxing all the youtubers are doing it yeah right it's a popular thing to do these days um i i have thought about it uh actually i was asked to be a part of it and i thought it was a joke like i didn't know how to respond initially when when he reached out to me he's like hey like do you want have you ever thought about boxing you want a box and i'm like seriously like i i had no idea whether i was supposed to take it seriously or not but um i've thought about it here's the thing that i would do with it i would want it to be i i would wanna again me being the the guy that i am i'm like oh let's let's make it theatrical i wanna subvert expectations i want to get in the ring throw a few punches and then the lights go out and when the lights come back up the ring is full of dancers and we all do like a dance together and then there's a scripted dance sequence and it's it's not at all what you would have expected and it's it's it's crazy um or maybe there's some lore component attached to it where you know the lights go out punches are thrown lights go out and suddenly people are missing or the audience is gone or something like that and it's something crazy like that and there's this this wild like oh i wonder what happened so it's not just oh we're getting in a ring and you know throwing fists at each other but you're treating it you know like like a theatrical show you want to do wwe yeah yeah i would i think i created a rumble yeah that's exactly it yeah i'll contact idubbbz i'll be like what about the rumble i mean honestly i think it would do great i think logan paul is doing uh wwe at the moment i think i think wwf world wrestling federation but wwe is also a thing aren't they they're both world wrestling something there's like the world wildlife foundation so it must be wwe i think no no there's www it's world wrestling federation i know that i know for a fact that wwf is a thing okay all right then uh yeah he's doing that and he's doing pretty well and i think i think it went well but at the same time there's the upper underside like it's it's hidden oh the upper underside you know the tippy-toppy like this thing up here yeah i got it i got it okay all right so what's left are window frames and then um little bits and bobs that are around here sure sorry anyway you were saying so are you gonna are you gonna are you gonna punch people oh no no this was a uh i was asked to be with it as well i was trying to make another point but yeah i will be part of the next one but i won't be boxing and the reason uh someone said this about my personality because i run on you energy is like i would be great at boxing simply for the fact that i would die standing before i fell down and i'm like i think that's a really nice compliment that someone gave me i'm so boneheaded that i would rather die than give up and i'm like ah that's so sweet of you and at the same time probably um but just because like yeah i i also i hate being bad at something so if i did decide to box i would it would consume my life and i wouldn't be able to do anything else and i don't i just don't have time for that also i don't want to be punched in the face why does everyone want to get punched in the face i've been punched have you been punched in the face i have never been punched in the face mark i've been punched in the face it sucks it's fun absolutely you know what it feels like what's it feel like it feels like being punched in the face that's what it feels like imagine what being punched in the face is like that's what it feels like it sucks why does everyone want to get punched in the face so badly i don't understand i have i've been surprised by the fact that people have so enthusiastically and and like without w without like hesitation it seems like people being like yeah let's just do this let's just go and and i think part of it is like curiosity right exactly to your point like what does being punched in the face look like can you hold up under pressure like that again a good excuse to you know to to also get healthy get in shape things like that i do get that yeah people do crave that change and i i do appreciate that i'm all about like yes that change is important you should pursue it and and yes absolutely and and i think um i'll be part of it in a way that is not necessarily doing uh uh the actual boxing of it but i do i do appreciate boxing boxing is one of the few sports that i have watched throughout my life and and do appreciate i love a boxing movie i love the rocky movies i love um creed i love all them they're very fun very great movies um and it's a good sport and good discipline i just worry about people being hurt that's right oh absolutely yeah like people especially worry about myself being hurt yeah yeah you want to protect that brain you've got you've got you've got a lot of thinking to do a lot of theorizing that brainy head inside my hand and inside my skull skull points yeah so okay oh go ahead no no no you go well i was gonna say so not to go back to the content creation stuff but i am curious so you asked me earlier what happens if youtube disappears what what and you said you you would thrive in the mosh pit and stuff but what would you do what did i do yeah um pretty much the same thing i'm doing right now which is i'm going to be pursuing power washing yeah yeah pretty much probably maybe i'll get back into world of warcraft who knows nah i'd write a lot i'd probably write a book and then i would make a movie which i'm already doing and then i would make a tv show which i'm already doing um i'm busy enough as it is that i could fill my time no problem um yeah it's just like for me creativity extends so far beyond just making a youtube video but it is like what you said there is something magic about what youtube offers the the creativity that nowhere else does and it is something to protect and i will fight to protect it and i think everyone should and i think that anyone who doesn't fight to protect it doesn't actually care about it yeah they should and that's that's a beautiful thing where's his last goddamn right what are these are just gonna say well all right here we are i keep thinking that it's gonna end and be like we'll have a nice little button but no no it's never gonna happen you are stuck here with me forever no i'm not you're stuck here with me i'm talking about like out give me uh give me the button to delete your channel come on i'll you can trust me with it come on come on oh yeah the button yeah what is it what if you deleted your channel if uh remove my torment yeah what if i freed you yeah that at least at least give me a final upload man i gotta i gotta get it i gotta get a final theory no no no abrupt ending no even even even oona's honest got got to say goodbye at the end right against my best wishes no no just kidding where's his last thing an upper deck rim joint what is an upper deck rimchill they're the things way up top like you can't reach them but i'm looking at all of them and it i don't see a single one that is has any stuff like if you hit i'm there wait i'm there on an upper deck rim joist do you see one that's not oh yes i got one left where where those are the rings around the trees mark oh the tree rings yeah tree rings oh i wasn't looking at those okay so you i don't even see where you are anymore here i i then we have steps you you find the steps i can find the joist okay steps is either that spiral staircase uh the steps here someone must have missed something on the other yeah i missed something on the other side so done here all right well any last words before this video abruptly ends no i got one more joist mark where's the leg's joints i don't see you anymore your character model disappeared oh there you are no you're he just gave up he's like i'm done where is this where's the choice i see it i see it i see it i see it all right well say goodbye because it's uh what do you got to promote well your channel your channel yeah sure yeah check out check out food theory and uh keep an eye out for a new channel happening sometime before the end of the year it'll be something theory yeah we got we got a new one no one has ever to date no one has predicted what it's gonna be so i'm excited in my world you can theorize and be a nerd about everything and overthink all your favorite things and we found a new category that we're overthinking and i cannot wait i'm so excited about it all right we'll go check that out and look forward to the future slenderman episode dedicated to mark dedicated to me and i'll go catch up on some of those things that i need to watch i'll say i'll send you a greatest hits compilation mark i promise thanks man thank you well thank you for taking the time i know this was a longer one but i felt like it needed to be just one how much the history there is on no it's it's a pleasure to this day in all of my history of content creation sitting down in front of the live audience and and the people watching uh during the saint jude stream was one of the most real and memorable moments to me it was it was great so you know it was it was it was nice getting a chance to chat oh good i barely remember anything i was so tired i i never know what markiplier i'm going to get when i step into the room with you so yeah it keeps me on my toes and it keeps things spicy and exciting oh good well thank you so much for your time everyone go check out matpat you've definitely seen one of his videos and you should definitely see more if not you've seen my memes yeah definitely the memes always spicy always beautiful all right well take care and uh my next guest will be whoever i choose shut up\n"