Bored Elon Musk | The Evolution from Parody Account to Brand

Welcome back to another episode of NFT catcher podcast. We'd like to remind everybody that nothing on the show is meant as financial advice and to please do your own research. Thank you and enjoy the show. Now the subject is NFT. They're known as non-fungible tokens or NFTs. This is a technology that will help change the way people interact. So it is happening whether you understand it and like it or not. You have now joined Jenny from the blockchain and Michael Kean on the NFT catcher podcast. We've got up everyone and welcome back to another episode of the NFT catcher podcast with me, Jenny from the blockchain and my co-host Michael Kean. For today's interview, we have Bored Elon Musk joining us, the famous Elon Musk parody account that is turned into so much more than that. Bored Elon, welcome to the show. Thank you for saying that. I am so much more than just a parody account at the point and yeah, I said to that point, I needed to go and just buy Bored and I really wanted to own that word and make it a good thing. So I excited to talk more about that and appreciate you all having me on. Awesome. Yeah, Bored. I mean, well, why Bored Elon Musk? Because you created this account before Bored Aves came out, right? I mean, this is... Oh, hell yeah. I was like eight years before, totally. I, in fact, in two days, there is going to be a trademark that has filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for App Bored, which I will own. My name will not be on it, it'll be my LLC, but I really want to own that word. And yeah, it came to mind just because I had seen Elon posting all these crazy inventions and things that he'd have time to deal with, the biggest of which was the hyperboot high-speed train. Like, you literally put out a 40-page white paper with instructions on how to do it. And that, that's so promptly the character for me. It was just this idea of what does he think about when he's bored. And that led to basically creating this character and kind of the brand that I now associated myself with. Yeah, that's crazy. And I mean, because I see you join Twitter in August 2013, like that's pretty friggin OG for Twitter. And you said you've been kind of running with this account for eight years. And I mean, do you even really parody Elon Musk anymore? I feel like you don't really do too much of that. No, yeah, not really. Yeah, I started when I started the account. I never would have been my wildest dreams. Imagine that the real guy that I was doing a parody of, what one day owned the platform. That, that was a crazy, like, confirmation that we live in a simulation for me or somebody. But yeah, I mean, it started off as a very one-dimensional caricature of Elon. And I did that for a couple of years. And honestly, I just got burned out. It's really hard to keep that up unless you hire other people to start writing joke for you. And I just didn't want to do that. And I never responded to people. I never had voice calls like this. And I wanted to bring a little bit of the real me out. So over time, I kind of moved away from being a parody. And even from a visual standpoint, you know, I started off as like literally having his face, a photo of Elon's face as my avatar. Then it became an illustration. Then it became this abstract vector thing. And now it's, it's an L-peppin, which is this art product I really like. But Neon Green is really just me now. A board and Neon Green are kind of the two things that are intertwined. And I'll still spend it Elon. The occasion rate fleets back at me. We're cool. We're, we're, we're best buds. But I'm sort of my own person now and doing my outfit. Have you ever met him in person? No, I, I would like to. And, you know, I, I've kept my identity a secret for 10 years now. But I would, I would definitely dox it. We invited, you know, a space launch at SpaceX or something like that. That'd be cool. That'd be working. That would definitely be worth doxing for, I would say. I do remember the first time, I mean, I've probably like two years ago, first time I like heard about you. We were on a Twitter spaces together. I don't know. I honestly don't remember the Twitter spaces, what it was, but I just remember like you were up as a speaker and I was like, who is this board person? And I started following you then. And I've been following you ever since. And that was when you had the, I think it was Elon Musk's face like green. And yeah, I definitely associate you with the color green. That, that's, that's really, I feel like you've done a good job. You know, for people in America, like, you know, that sea mobile just obnoxious magenta color. That would be like, it's really painful on your eyes, but you can't mistake it. So that, that's my strategy. I love that. And Michael, did you want to chime in? Are you, are you an Eagles fan? Do you happen to be an Eagles fan? Like in that green color? Well, that's a very different green. It is a bit different. I know. I'm looking at it now. You have, if you see my pro family, I like big Eagles fans. That's why I'm asking. But go ahead. If you want to give it to your whereabouts, you can talk about your support. I've publicly said that I live in California now, but I got you. I was rooting. My hometown, I was rooting for it, seeing that featured blue and orange. And that could be a pea team, but you can, yeah, you can narrow it down. I got it. I already got it. Yeah, it's all good. It's nice. So, okay. So you have 1.7 million followers on Twitter. Did you gain most of those followers early on when you started being kind of a parody account for Elon Musk or how are you able to grow such a large following on Twitter? They're all bots I paid for him. Yeah, that's what it takes. No, I honestly, the vast majority of the growth was in the first two years. So I was pointing out a lot of just silly invention ideas like things that were kind of whimsical and didn't make any sense in real life, but were solutions to problems that people had. And that was really niche. And I've always found that if you want to grow an audience early, going niche is helpful. You can, you can really just rapid fire grow. But eventually, if you kind of stick with that particular, you know, subject, you're going to, you're going to top out, you're going to hit ceiling. And that's when I brought, but I also slowed down my growth. So I went from zero to a million probably like three years. And a lot of that will help by Silicon Valley people just thinking it was funny. Like early on, I would just get registered constantly by BCs and people in the Bay area. And I didn't know way that the account was of me and Mike, you were cool if you followed it and ganked with it or got a shout out from it. So that's really what it was. And it was a little bit of consistency and, you know, Mike Humor matched with luck because when I first created it, I didn't necessarily know like the level of stardom and visibility the real Elon would have. That was really helpful. And so that was, you know, good, good timing for me. But I would say for the last like three to four years, I've really leveled off, you know, I've got a couple of hundred followers here and there. But it's leveled off because I've basically just kind of started tweeting about whatever I want to. I'm not, uh, I'm not beholden to the algorithm. I've not done a juice do stuff that actually grow. I don't care. Like I've reached a level now where comfortable with where it's at. Um, if I get another couple hundred thousand followers who are there, it's not really going to help me. So yeah, in a way, it's like, it's just a lot of freedom. And I've kind of, I've kind of forgotten about the number of followers I have. Like, you would think maybe I would think more, um, and reconsider sometimes why it's me saying, but I just let them, I just let them fly. And, uh, I'm usually good about, you know, not offending people are saying anything appropriate. Um, and the stuff it doesn't resonate, it doesn't, it doesn't get any likes. I usually just believe it. I'd, I'd, I'd just leak. Request me. Request me because, um, I kind of take cues from improv comedy where, you know, you start, you start, you start with an idea, you write some material, you test it out on an early audience, they get small, a small room of people. And you pay attention to what people laugh at, what they like, what they don't. And then three months later, your show, your strip is totally different. So that's what, that's the way I think about Twitter is like, if content is inviting, I just don't eat it. And then when somebody comes to my, you know, my profile for the first time, and we see my stuff, they only see the best stuff because I, I've gotten rid of the things that don't work really well. And that's been a pretty good second. Yeah, that's very interesting. You're kind of like curating. See that, that definitely feels like, I feel like people do that kind of thing for like Instagram and things like that. I mean, I guess it makes sense if you're taking your account, like, if you have a large following, obviously you take it seriously, like, that makes a lot of sense to delete the stuff that doesn't perform well or doesn't hit. And then it's just like, oh, the people about you pay, they only see the bangers. That makes a lot of sense to me. I'm curious about how your Twitter has kind of helped you with growing a lot of connections. And what, what are some of the coolest connections you feel like you've made in the space because of your Twitter account? Yeah, I mean, that, that's the biggest unlock you nailed it. It's not even the following her. I mean, people I can reach. It is the sort of unsayer credibility that comes with having a large following and being the character. So, you know, what I'm most proud of is that I'm followed at the end with Jack Dorsey and like, Vitalik, you know, Peter and he was creating a theory of me, you know, so many other people that I've respected for my whole life and it's funny because I have a real world Twitter account, you know, real me. And that person can't do that, right? This fictional. So, I was, I was pretty successful in real life. I am pretty successful in real life, but like this character is way more successful in in regards to who they could not work with in the circles they're running. And so, from a, you know, thinking about it, my career standpoint, a business standpoint, they just get done in depth, not in public. And so being able to reach essentially anyone through like two degrees of separation is, it's very, and what gets a little tricky sometimes is if I actually want to engage in a serious business deal, like the investment, partnership, whatever it is, you know, on this green character on the internet with more real name. And so, I rely heavily on the reputation that I've spent building that I've spent the last 10 years building. So, like, I asked no people who are docs to vouch for, to, to, to reassure my potential partners that I'm reputable, I'm trustworthy, and that they should, you know, work with me. And if it, if it ever comes down to it, like, I do a real good way out, and if I need to sign contracts and I ask people to sign an NGA, but yeah, I mean, that's, that's the biggest unlock when it comes to building a following online. It is not the status of having a lot of followers or being able to get lots of likes. It is getting access to opportunities and to people. 100%. That, that, that goes with like the saying, your net worth is your, wait, your network is your net worth. Definitely the people that you're able to connect with, that's huge, that's massive. And that's crazy that you, yeah, you have a lot of high-profile people following you. Do you like reach out to them or you're like, oh, like, no, they can just follow me. I'm not going to DM them though. I feel like I'd get really nervous. I'd be like, I don't know if I should DM them. Yeah. I don't, yeah. I, you say I do DM them if they follow me because I really open in life. Oh, let's go. Yeah. And it's an idea. Yeah. I don't know. I don't, I, I live, I mentioned I live in California. I live amongst a lot of people who are very well-known. And I guess I don't, I'm not really shocked by it anymore. I just, you know, everyone's just a normal person. And yeah, maybe they're known by going to people, but yeah, I don't know. I, I think in a way, a lot of people who, some people find like untouchable or, or feel nervous to approach, they kind of dig it when you just talk to them like a normal person. And the worst they'll do is just ignore you. And that's fine. But yeah, no, I don't know. I don't, I don't, I don't never want to talk about it. You're famous in real life. Got it. Exactly. Yeah. Like I would never walk that. I mean, my goal is to never reveal my, my identity because I don't want to be famous in real life. I don't want to have to like go out and worry if someone's going to ask me for a selfie or bugging me while I'm with my family. I also don't want to expose my friends and family to, to this world, you know, we wouldn't end when they didn't sign up for it. So yeah, as much you like to keep the two world separate, I'm going to try to do that. That's interesting. I mean, you did say you would dox for you. I'm lost. Yeah. I'll tell, I mean, I'll dox for him. I'm not going to necessarily. Oh, you would, I thought you were saying that you'd post the picture of you guys. Probably not. Yeah, I don't think so unless like if he wants to hire me as a head of memes for SpaceX, then I'll do that. Yeah, other than that, I'm gonna say director of vibe space. It's pretty good. Yeah. That's a good. You got to set the right tone as you're confident space. Let people know you're friendly. You know, make sure that it's fun on Mars. It's kind of lonely right now. So if anyone would go for that, it's him for sure. You just like, you know, that's where we'll take you all a sentence. So you know, you know, you talked about like how you created all those weird inventions. There were actually articles written about those inventions, like board, Elon's best inventions. I was doing my research and I came across a handful. I don't know if you, I'm sure you saw this year, years ago, they were written articles slash. They took my contents and put it on their own website and. Right. It flies a government. You on it. It didn't pay me, but that's fine. God, you know, no doubt, no doubt. I put, I'm saying, I put all the, I put all the articles I could find through chat GPT. That's my new, uh, that's my new, uh, when I research for a guest, it gets great. The other move is, uh, you know, someone sends you a DM and it's way too long and you don't want to read it. So you're like, yeah, you need to see, just short this. Tell me, yeah, everything. Yeah, articles like I was looking for, I was looking for info on the impact theory refund and there's like this huge medium article, but it had all kinds of things and I put that into the chat GPT and I was just like, just tell me what I need to know about getting a refund and it was like, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, then have to go through the whole thing. It's great. It's the best. It is until it's, uh, you know, enslaved humanity, but but then so that we're all so damn. No, that's crazy because I remember watching a video of Elon Musk and he was literally saying, like, yeah, robots are like going to overtake us and like, and he was just like all like, he's also building, he's also building AI at the same time. Yeah. I mean, like he's like, he's building it and one of the things is inevitable, right? And so he's like, well, I'm not as well as freaking. Yeah, because he's trying to be the competitor to chat GPT, I believe. Yeah, I mean, I get it. It's kind of like, this is why every country was racing to build the atomic bomb first because you're basically in a situation where, well, our enemies are doing it. So we've got to do it too. And I think some of his fears are founded in, you know, in reality, which is like whenever you have a technology that's very new and very powerful, it can be used against you. His perspective on like AI basically harming humans. I don't really buy into my, my whole theory is if if machines ever become sentient, they're actually like not going to care about us at all, they'll just build a rocket and go to the moon and live off solid power. And we'll just be completely irrelevant. Um, why waste time getting rid of us. The only reason they'll attack us is if we try to destroy them, which is probably going to happen. So yeah, here and love it. Do you think that Elon is, um, a human? Or do you think that because, well, because you could be an alien or maybe like a reptilian or if you could be like, well, like there's all these other options. I mean, I don't know if you're, if you're kind of like into that or not, but do you think he's human? Yeah, I think so. I, there are certain people in history, uh, it's eventually was a good example of that where they, she came up with things that were insane to come up with when he was alive. And Elon is not necessarily even that intensive. Um, I think he is extremely smart and operational and a good marketer and has a very good memory. But I think that he is human. Yeah. Yeah. He's just a really like powerful human. Uh, if I were ever to say someone's an alien, he'd be more out of, than, than he was. How about, uh, Vitalik? He looks like like, right? Um, he acts like what, like, I saw this video recently where this girl was like, interviewing him and she asked him, just like a question that you would ask a normal person. She's like, what's your best pickup line, right? Which it's like, okay. And then he literally like, he was like, it, it looked like his brain was like, what? From hearing, like, yeah. And he didn't know what to say. And he just said, what? Yeah. And he started like a brilliant robot. And he just said, what? And then he just didn't know what to do. And then the girls are just cracking up. Yeah. I mean, I, I actually think it's all like in view on a very similar and like, social norms are not quite something they, uh, prescribed to. And they just operate in, in a world with a little bit different and like, the super, getting the weeds on really complex things. And uh, yeah, it stands out for sure. Like, they are alien in the sense that they're alien to the other person. Right. Vitalik is also truly like professional and, um, you know, he, like, he's kind of like the mad sign taste of the basement, but nobody ever talks to you. And when you get to talk to him, like, when you come down to the basement and you talk to Vitalik, you're like, whoa, dude. Um, okay, you're very smart. And I don't understand what happened. It is what you're saying. But I appreciate you and, um, but I'm not going to introduce you my, um, you know, to my, to my sister, because it's probably been a lot of talk. Yeah. They, they don't have like, they have the IQ, but not the EQ, right? Yeah. That's a good, that's a really good way to phrase. Yeah. Interesting. Now that we're down this rabbit hole, did you guys see the, uh, bodies of quote, unquote, aliens that were presented to the Mexican Congress? Yeah. I don't buy that. I, I buy it. There's aliens, but those seem just like, those seems like, I don't know, like what they were showing the movies. Like, it just, it seems like AT. It looked just like ET. Yeah. I'm like, what? We're doing all these tests on them. They're saying that could all be fake too. I think they're made. Hey, made out of what? Yeah. Okay. Somebody made a video like, like that TV, like that TV show, they just like, got you. Yeah. Someone made someone like, literally made a cake that looked like the alien and he filled it and, uh, that, that gave you a lot. Um, so I'll give you, I'll give you my theory of it. Um, uh, it is unlikely that those are real, but if, if, if aliens did come to, or thousands of years ago in theory, uh, which maybe it's possible, um, here's how they probably would have done it. So traveling to another planet or another galaxy is not really efficient. Um, it's really difficult. It's a long time. Well, a lot. If you're capable enough as a civilization to, to travel, you know, through space, you probably also can transport your consciousness through data. And so what I think happened is that, uh, aliens from another galaxy or planet sent their consciousness, their mind, via like some sort of concentrated beam of light, a laser, if you will, to earth. And then in uploaded it into some animal body, that, that could have been a body that was just like organically created and it sort of looked like a person. And it was meant to kind of go around and scavenger around and report back then on what, you know, what was seen and then that data gets deemed back to the planet. Like, why would you go in person in a dangerous environment when you could just send up an organic drone to do it for you? But that's what I would do today. You had the, the power to do it. So that's my theory. So like, if this alien were real and again, I don't forget where, but if it were, it would just be a vessel and the actual aliens look wildly different, like in a way, we probably can't even imagine. Um, and they, they are not anywhere physically near us. It's a good theory. It's interesting. I like it. That's very interesting. And that is just more proof that Elon Musk is an alien. But also that makes me think like, damn, there really are probably like, I mean, yeah, I, I do kind of believe that there are aliens and stuff walking among us. But it's just kind of makes you think more like, damn, what if I'm an alien? You know what I mean? Like, how would I know what I know that I'm an alien? Or would I just, well, we've been, our planet may have been populated by our species. We might be alien to this planet. It's possible. Chip, right? That's, I mean, or we could have been spliced with something native that really made us smarter. Our brains grew bigger. You know, I don't know. No, I could tell me another planet, um, you know, blowing up somewhere and then the organic material eventually making its way down here. You know, that turned into us. So make that out. It could be by mistake or purposefully. Good. I don't know. I don't think we're going to figure that out in our lifetime. Yeah. It's a shame. I know. That's what I love it. I want it to be real. I want them to make the announcement. Like, and I feel like they kind of are. But I want them to just tell us like, yes, there are aliens. They've come here. We've had, we've even had some communications. Like, I want that official announcement. There's documentaries of like, there's all kinds of good stuff. Yeah. There's like, it's out there. It's just, I guess, not like super, super public. But there's definitely, they've been studying. All the reverse engineering stuff. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. I just, I don't know. It's like, that's such a big secret to eat that, um, either, there's something there and anything you've seen thus far is just like, a little bit BS or if it was real, they would have about leaked already because everything gets leaked now. So yeah, we'll see. But then they can bury it. Like, like, you know, okay, yeah, sure, anything can be on the internet. But they can easily bury stuff so that it's hard to find. Like do you ever watch this? Yep. So I can't say stuff is getting leaked all the time. It's just, it's not like photos. Maybe they're like, super careful with anybody taking any photos of the stuff, right? Because like, there's all kinds of people saying that they've had interactions with some of the stuff and it's all compartmentalized and all that stuff. Right. I don't know. Yeah. But I think generally, you know, what, what has happened in society, at least in the last 10 years is a really large population of a large percentage of the population has shifted its bully. And actually, there are still a lot where they think it's like, in some way, right? And I think that's probably healthy. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, you should be like, what? No, aliens are like, nobody believed in aliens. Like that was the thing. Now I feel like everyone you ask is like, yeah, probably like, that is true. That is a good observation. Okay. We got a pivot from the aliens. Yeah. Over to, I wanted to talk about Opepping and the whole Thread Guys saga will call it because I feel like you really kind of started that. We were talking about that. Obviously, several episodes ago. That was probably over and one they're going out. I don't even know. But yeah, how you offered to buy Thread Guys Mutant and just kind of started this whole effect. Next thing, you know, he has the whole Opepping and you know, you can mint it for what, $7, $2. Actually, I don't even know. But two books. Two books. Okay. Yeah. So bored. I would love to hear your side of the story on that, I guess. Like how that came about and why you offered to buy Thread Guys Mutant. Well, and then there's there's some important comments actually that before any of that happened. Opepping is an NFT project that existed months before the whole Thread Guys population and still does. And I'm big fan of it. And the, the CLDR on that thing, it was 16,000 items that were minted for free. And they were completely blank and had no value. And then the founder Jack Butcher, who is a really smart thinker and I recommend everyone check out this is writing. Decided it started into something different, which was slowly reveal or release the actual artwork for Opepping in increments of 80. So we took the 16,000 in base and said, okay, every few weeks, we're going to release 80 at a time. Every 80 is going to have a different style of art. It might have collaboration with other artists. I think that's super interesting because most sort of digital asset collections, they get released all at once and they all hadn't seen from the five and looked to them. This is something that's more of like an art project meets key at year, you know, Avatar. And, and that's what really got me super exciting about exploring what we've been into. And so, you know, fast forward to the Thread Guys thing. Thread Guys is this really, you know, compelling, funny, positive guy who does a lot of their spaces and talks a lot about what three. And he was, I was on a space within, he was having kind of a bummer of a day, sounded a little, a little sad about the state of affairs in the web three. And he was like, I just don't know what ends of any go. And on a whim, I basically said, hey, I've got a few of these Opeppin. They're pretty valuable. I'll give you one of them. It's worth quite a bit of money. If you trade me for your, your, your, your, your, your, your, your, Board of God Club Newton. And, you know, he being the good sort of like, you know, type man, engagement farmer that he is, turned it into like three days of him publicly debating, shouldn't take the deal or not. And it created all this drama and fun and all that. But ultimately, where it netted out was, we didn't do the deal. But Jack Butcher, the founder of Opeppin, created his own special, you know, Thread Guy Aviation, the FPD. And he allowed them to $2.00, which is really fun. Super cheap, basically, nothing. And that, that turned into $100,000 worth of beats that he's been minted. And basically, Thread Guy getting this whole collection of, you know, people and followers who wanted to support him and bought something for a very low price and expect the basically nothing. And it was a really fun moment on the internet. Like I, I didn't, I didn't plan any of it. It was really just like, we try to use something nice and, and fun. And it turned into this way bigger sort of like cultural destruction about the value of NFTs. And ultimately, where it's netted out is enough Thread Guy and become a big advocate for Opeppin. And I'm happy about that because I'm a big holder of their, okay, at least. And we'll see where it goes. But that, that, you know, there's so many like nuances to the story. But that's, that's a little bit of a snapshot into what happened there. And if you're not an NFC nerd, some of this stuff that I just described will not make sense. I have all of this. No, yeah. I mean, we've, we've definitely talked about before. Michael's way better at explaining the whole story. We had Marka on talking about it. And I think everyone listening is, I mean, this is an exclusively NFT podcast. So everyone's really deep into the NFT space here. But, but yeah, isn't the name. So I guess that makes sense. That was, that was a slick branding move back in August of 2021, wasn't it? It was, you know, well, if that, if that continues to be used, it's going to be a relic. Well, we have to change our pod name. You know, it's funny when you say that because like, when I was in, I guess high school and later, everybody was downloading music as MP3 files. And I think everybody still knows what MP3s are. But we don't really say just music. It's just music. Yeah, they're doing that look file. Yeah, I'm straight out of fire, whatever. But that term did stick around nonetheless. But I do think that NFTs will have a similar pattern to what you saw in music. Yeah. And speaking of pep and and Marka, we got to talk about row pep and because you probably don't know that I am the number one player on the leaderboard. You would say, and you were actually, yeah, Michael Keen, that's me. And I see your number four, and you're actually the closest one to me in rows and levels. But obviously not anywhere near and scored. I don't, I don't have rich reflexes. Unfortunately, that's, I know, you got that, you might mean, you definitely played for longevity on that one. You got to, because I start off, I go for, if I'm not getting a bunch of tendresses right away, I'll restart it and get back in. Yeah. You got, you got to build your tendresses early. You got to get like six, seven in a row to start the game. I'm okay. That's a good score. I will, I will, I will try that again. And then you're getting, well, yeah, you should watch Tetris the movie. So good. Really? There's a Tetris the movie. Oh, yeah. They did a whole, they did a whole, like basically they talked about the story of how like the idea got developed in the Soviet Union and how it, oh, oh, it's fascinating. I'm like semi-pro. I've been playing since 95 in a 10th grade biology. That's awesome. Well, you should play, I should play which one? Tetris 99 on Nintendo Switch. It's like 99 players. I'll start again with X-Ris until one. Oh, really? Yeah, it's pretty fun. Oh, that's dope. You download it on Nintendo Switch. My son doesn't have Nintendo Switch. That's really cool. You should see. I'll kick those kids butts. I will whoop those kids. We should find the reason to ground that and take their sweats. Yeah. No, I'm saying because I'm saying not my own kids. I'm talking about the kids on that page. I'm not going to whoop my own kids. I love the kids on playing and Tetris. I love that idea. But I can't mark, you know, mark's going to do a tournament at some point soon and I expect to win. Yeah. And mark is great. We actually, yeah, he's the best. He's the best for sure. Yeah, we've been chatting for a while that he's working on our own game. It's a little slow right now in the progress, but we designed a card game that it actually leveraged, you know, pep in a graphic. So I'm sure we'll get to start that again soon. Yeah, he's going to tell me about that. He's got a lot going on. He's headed. He's headed to the punk event next week in Charleston, South Carolina. People's place. Oh, man, I was going. I'm not. Yeah, for sure. Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, maybe you'll be there exactly. I do want a lot of I pretend that I'm not into that raw pictures. Everybody there and I'll use AI to like weed out who we know and then we get to know that I've legit gone to you certain events and tweeted that I'm not there and then just kind of listened in on conversation and then tried to extract. So like see what what what the pulse the pulse is. So yeah, it's been you would think people would recognize your voice though. Yeah, I don't know. I you know, yes, like if you were if you were actively trying to do it in the moment, maybe, but I think if you're at a party or something like that, you're really not going to I don't think you're going to come to that conclusion. It's not that I think. And I'm not I'm not thinking publicly enough. I think for it to be that bird into people's brains. So I've been okay so far. And the real me doesn't really have a lot of recordings. So it's it's tough to like spin point, you know, who I am for now. I think I can make it another two years at least without we'll say. Wow. Okay. So it's kind of one of those games of like you're trying to see how long you can last, but you feel like you will inevitably get dogs. What if you piss somebody off to probably get dogs. That's impressive. It's impressive that you've done it this long. I know. Because a lot of people I think to to to Jenny's point being nice and reputable helps a lot. It's probably the biggest reason nobody's come after me and try to figure it out. And he does I, you know, I haven't like done anything to give him a reason to do it. And that's a good strategy. I did I did hire a cyber security expert go to try to crack it. So I basically gave no information, paid him a brick loan. It was like, have at it, you know, try to figure out who I am. And he couldn't do it. This is the guy who was like, you know, he's worked for the government. He knows what he's doing. So he wasn't able to do it. So that gave me a good sign that whatever I've been doing so far has protected fairly well. And yeah, I tell people I live in California, but you know, it was like 45 million people there. I'm okay. Yeah, that's fair. Well, you live in a place where there's a lot of famous people around. Exactly. I'm the last person. They're going to care about them. I've already determined. I've already determined that board is famous. They're particularly families. I'm trying to pinpoint the voice. Not granted. I don't know about many like famous people. So I don't know, but I do feel like they're some type of somebody in Hollywood. I'm getting I'm getting a vibe towards somebody in Hollywood. Also, I know you have a history in video games. So maybe it is like, I don't know, you're a history in video games. We're trying to figure it out. What did you do? What did you do in video games? Well, I'm going to tell you anything. I'm pretty good at that stuff. I got a we had a Julian doodles on and he was talking about their big thing. They're going to do the summer and I thought I was like, it's got to be Chicago then. Remember, he's like, why is it have to be Chicago? I ended up being the doodles game Chicago. So you can stop because I am a little investigator. I can. That's okay. I don't worry. I'm sugar or me a model. That's fine. I got it. Okay. What can you tell us about board box? What can I tell you about board box? So board box was a company I started in 2021 and the whole premise was creating a membership in a club that helped highlight the best blockchain games. So games where you've been on your assets on chip. The vision for it really was to be a curator of the best games, right? Because if you're if you're somebody who feels overwhelmed with the amount of games there are to pick from, you don't necessarily want to do all the research and I like to get out of this game. Gitch, I put in time into it. So we were going to do that for you. Admittedly, the market of games that have been released, the Avaga Webster component, is been pretty minimal, right? Like I was betting it would be much bigger. It's been slow. And it's coming. I think it is inevitable, but I think it's going to take much longer. So, you know, full transparency. Boot board boxes has become a bit more of a side project. We're going to still continue to like partner with game companies and help our community get access to new games, but yeah, it's it's changed a little bit. So where I've shifted my focus now in terms of the majority of where I'm spending my time is creating game events and bringing people together at one time to experience like a game like, you know, space in one place. So if you think about what companies like improbable are doing, for example, with building like, you know, digital digital events where like tens of thousands of people can basically hang out and have sort of like concert meets a video game. That's really what I'm spending a lot of time on. And I know I'm being a little cryptic here because I've got more news coming that I can share in the next few weeks, but I can't yet. But I would say, yeah, just kind of spending much interesting learning more about said you have a game events, follow me on Twitter, and I'll share more very soon. But that's that's what I'm super focused on. I think a lot of people, including myself, don't necessarily have time to play traditional video games that are perpetual, whereas like the playing hours and hours of the week or even day, and would rather just like play one thing one time, you know, once a week or once a month, and have a lot of fun. That's that's what I'm leaning into. So I'll share more on that soon. Fine. What's the best web story game out there right now? I would say the one to pay attention to, which is already in testing is called Wild card. So it's kind of like Pokemon meets League of Legends meets Rocket League. So you've got two sides of this arena. You release characters, character earnabilities, and they have to reach the other side of the arena along the way. They release their powers and fight each other. And then whoever reaches, you know, the opposing side first is the winner and scores the most points. So it's a pretty simple, simple premise to understand at a whole. But the creator of this game of Wild card was one of the original team members that built Age of Empires. So I feel like that series, you know, they've got a really extensive background in gaining very talented. And I've played the game myself and was very impressed with it. So I think it'll be available for public release sometime next year, early next year, hopefully. And that's the one that I would kind of paid the most attention to during terms of why we get wild card. Okay, that's cool. I've never heard of that before. So that's great to begin to wild card game.com, I believe. Hopefully I'm on the right one. You'll see a bunch of crazy looking animal type characters. Yeah, that should be it. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I see. Oh, that's nervous. I think you co-founder. You definitely look nice when I'm really cool back. Have you ever heard of the something called the market on the mythos chain? No, I have not. Okay. Yeah, I we don't know too much about it either, but we go over when we do our recap episodes collection sales volume. And like that has been one of the high, like I'm looking at it right now, NFT collection ragnas by sales volume over the last 24 hours. I mean, it's ahead of, you know, crypto punks, draft kings. The ones that are up there are like a mutable X gods and chain crypto punks, draft kings, rain makers, board apes, so rare. But number one is demarket mythos and it's some kind of gaming platform where people are trading gaming assets. Well, I'll tell you what, from my experience in the gaming industry, I will say that if you want to build a successful game now today, you need to release the game first and then let people buy sets and not the other way around. I think those days are over, especially the reality is that right now, like the average video game player is going to spend, you know, maybe they'll spend $70 on a really good game. And then they expect to have a damn good game that they can play over that year. If you're charging, you know, $700, $2,000, whatever it is for assets, and your game might come out in two years, that's a really tough proposition because even if you're successful and bring again to market, is it going to be 10 times better than the game that activity can put out for seven? So that's the tough spot we find ourselves in. So if I was to have bet on blockchain gaming, I would say the games that can win over hundreds of thousands of millions of players were willing to spend two bucks, five bucks, ten bucks at a time, those are the ones that are going to win. The ones that have extremely expensive assets, they might stick around as like a niche thing for rich people, but that's not how video games work anymore. You need to scale to as many people as possible to make any series work. This sounds like a shot at other side. It's not. I mean, this is a mistake that I think a lot of a lot of, you know, NFT game projects have made, and I think it often is made by people who don't have a sort of experience in the gaming industry. But where things have gone and it's a street of play, right? Like you download a game on your phone or even on the console like Fortnite, and it is literally free. You can play it for free for as long as you want. If the game is good, it will incentivize you to spend money on cosmetics and other things. But that's the norm. And so you can't really undo that. That has become the situation. And the only game companies that can charge money in advance of you playing the game are the ones that have really deep experience. Like if you're in Nintendo or, you know, CD Projekt Red or Rockstar, you've been around for 20 years and you put out some banger games, you can get people to pre-order the game. But other than that, I just, it's not really feasible, honestly, to pre-sold your game for a significant amount of money. And then in any way, I think you're going to meet expectations relative to how much money people have spent on that item. So that's that's my stance. And I think that, you know, some of the news that I'm going to share in the coming weeks about game experiences will will be, you know, modeling that belief, which is I think you have to give people sucking for free and throw that you deserve it. But I like that. I don't know. Have you heard of Gods and Chains? Because that's the one game that I have, I mean, I was tricking put hundreds of hours into playing. It's free to play. But then like the cards are NFTs. So you can like buy better cards and stuff like that, which I think is just a great easy way to incorporate NFTs. Yeah. Yeah. No, I've heard of it. I mean, trading card games are a really good model for NFTs. And the ones that succeed, you know, have that balance. Like if you look at non, non crypto games, you know, like Marvel snap or heartstone, these are all games you can play for free. And eventually you get hooked on it. You can upgrade your cards and they'll charge you money for that. And that totally makes sense. So I think that any web regain, you know, is smart to follow that model, where it's like super cheap or free based radar to play the game. And the way the way this works is you need to have a small percentage of your player base that are the votes, right? So like the vast majority of your players are playing for basically free or very little amount of money. And they are the ones that make the whales want to spend the money. Because if I'm a whale, I want to look cool in front of all the menos, right? All the little fish who are playing around me. So I'll spend a serious money. But you can't have a game that's just whales because whales don't want to impress other whales. They're all rich, right? So they need to impress us, the dorms, which they don't want to spend then. And so both have to exist. But I've, yeah, God's Unchained is like, oh, gee, and you know, they've got a fun game. And the hardest thing I think is just competition because it's easier to make a trading card game when this to make like an immersive 3G world or shooter or something like that. So you've got a lot of a lot of hard games to consider. And what do you want to put your time into it? Interesting. Okay. Michael, do you have any last minute questions before we go into our guest words? I do have one more. The SEC regulations, we talked about impact theory and just about a week ago, stoner cats reach settlements with the SEC. There's even some conflict in the SEC. There was some dissension to the the rulings. Wanted to see what your thought on that was. What do you think the US government is doing? What they should do? And if projects should be worried, if people should be worried? I think that basically what they're doing is going after the most latent examples of people promoting something as an investment when it really is meant to be a collectible. So if you think about traditional no-world collectibles like Pokemon cards or no basketball shooters or whatever it might be, the companies that make those things never sell them as an investment. They sell them as the thing they're meant to be, which is like play a game where it is on your feet to be better at basketball. Now, the community might turn that into an asset and an investment. But as long as the seller doesn't do that, you're fine. So I think what the SEC is doing if I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt and I don't want to because I don't like them. But if I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt, they're basically saying like, yeah, guys, stop selling these things as if it's a share in a company or a stock. It's not, just say it's art or it's like a thing in a game that lets you view this other thing and that's all it is. And we'll leave you alone. But if you turn it into this, you know, other type of product that like gets you airdrops of coins and huge revenue, then you have a security. And I don't argue with it. It is a security. You shouldn't do that. And I think what it's done is basically made everybody's extremely careful about how they market any type of digital asset. Overall, I'm disappointed in the SEC's murky sort of stance on how they enforce this stuff and how selective they are because it does confuse consumers. And I think ultimately this just comes down to, is all this technology going to be adopted and you know, innovated on in America or is it going to happen in other countries? It's like, it's not going to stop. It's just a matter of like, you know, how popular it will have become in the United States. And I certainly would like the U.S. to lead the innovation in space and not, not lose to other countries. But that's CBD. And I think it'll probably was all the self by next year where either, you know, the current, the current powers that be continued to squash it out and make it unpopular. And then we're just left with like Bitcoin and Ethereum and everything else in the security or things change. And you know, maybe things will will become a little bit looser and that the U.S. can think of. But for me, personally, I'm definitely being extremely careful about any sort of public, you know, discussions around what I'm promoting, selling, etc. Because I don't want to be, you know, held accountable or promising something that might look like a security that, you know, that wasn't meant to do. Are there any other projects that off the top of your head, you think should be worried that are probably talking to an SEC now? I think that all the big ones, honestly, already are beat. Looked at and or underscored me. So, I don't think. Yeah. Yeah. I think if you look at the top, the top view and a deep project, they're all going to look that out. Yeah. You were for sure. I mean, it was announced. You was being looked at or whatever. It didn't seem like malicious, but whatever it was. I wonder what's up with Gary Vee because he made a lot of the claims and the investments, but he also gave three years of a conference to so far. So, I don't know if that helps his cause, but he made those claims just like Tom Bill you did. He sure did. I mean, yeah, I love Gary, but he did. Yeah, I certainly would be, you know, nervous about it, but I don't I don't wish that on anyone. No, of course. You know what the government coming down to be, for sure. Yeah, it's it's a bad use of resources. It's not really good for the consumer, either. Yeah. And frankly, I think that there are a lot worse actors outside of crypto that are continuing to cause a lot of harm to investors and everyday, you know, citizens that need to be protected as well. So, yeah, we we will see, but I, you know, I'm an OG crypto guide about my first Bitcoin on mob docs back in the days. I've watched this cycle go back and forth and back and forth, and right now we're kind of at a bottom. But inevitably, you're patient and you have the stomach for it. It'll resolve itself. You can't really stop technology, you know, like it once it's out, it's out. And it's just a matter of who wants to embrace it and who wants to try to, you know, bury it for a little bit, but eventually we'll come back. I love that. Yes. There will be another little run for us. Let's go. And you can find line everything will happen. Yeah. Okay. Infinite timeline. We don't. We're all going to die. Yeah. We're mortal. Got a few decades. Jenny's like speak for yourself. Jenny's got like 75 years. Yeah. 35 years. 24 years while 2049 is the magic year when we approach the singularity and we will be able to, you know, fork our consciousness into a machine. So I guess if you can lift about point. Oh, wait. That's when I'm 70. So okay. All right. Just, you know, job. Yeah. Well, no, I know. Yeah. I'm trying, man. I'm trying. He's been doing hot yoga. So yeah. I yoga. That might work the other direction. But why? I don't know. I don't know. I thought I was going to die. So now I just, oh, it's good. You know, it's good. If you feel like you're about to die, that's how you know it's good. Okay. That's one theory. That's like working out when you go super. Same with heroin. Right. Yeah. I feel like the best heroin. You feel like you're like, I'm going to die right now. It's amazing. Oh, I've never done heroin. Never in my life. That's the sound of NFC. Okay. We want to our final thing here, folks. We got the gas wars segment where we are going to ask board five rapid fire questions each that don't have anything to do with, uh, well, three. So here we go. I guess I was started off. If you could magically become fluent in any language, which language would it be? This is kind of a BS answer, but like code. I wish I, I wish I was a programmer. I wish I could read code. I do think that. So, um, yeah, that, that would be my answer. Chat GPT for that, bro. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of. What's your favorite flavor of ice cream? Another cliche or common answer, but cookies and cream can't be it. Would you rather be invisible or be able to read minds? I think I would rather be invisible because, I'm quite conservative. So getting away from people using me is great. And then if you have the power to read minds, I feel like you would just never stop. It would be. It's like Twitter. Like once you're on Twitter, you, you're just constantly using it and want to stay connected. And that if you could, if you could read minds, that would be like a Twitter on steroids and you would just, you would be doing that all the time. And I think that you, you, you wouldn't be able to help yourself in terms of reading the minds of loved ones. It would be bad. It would just be bad. Really bad. So I would not want, I would say that's a curse, not a secret. Yeah, that's true. Nice. Who is your role model growing up? And that's a good one. I honestly can't even come up with someone, which is crazy. It's probably not good, but I don't know. No one, no one really comes to mind. I would say like I didn't really have that kind of, I didn't really think about that as a kid until maybe college. And then I always point back to Gated Bowie as somebody who was able to just kind of shift the character of who he was as a person. Like in a way, he was kind of the first student him that caught my attention because every few years he would change how he looks, he would change how he acted. And what he did it from a performance standpoint. And I always thought that was really interesting and fascinating. And so I think whenever I started to think about that question, which was later in my field, he's the one who comes to mind. Well, Dave Bowie's amazing. I was lucky enough to see him in concert and over 20 years ago. That's awesome. I didn't make it. Do you have any hidden talent? I have double jointed thumbs. That's not only as I was born I can speak another language, but I don't want to share what it is. Okay. It will reveal more information about me. I will say the one that I can share is I'm a pretty avid game designer. So I've designed in public two tabletop board games, a physical board games, and Kickstarter. And I've spent many, many, many years studying game design, game character. So that's something I give you for fun. And it's not a very like profitable skill set at all, but it's one that I really like because it forces you to use a lot of different skills like math and just like, you know, figuring out statistics and strategy and other things. So that's my weird, weird skill that I actually developed and wasn't bold. Okay, cool. What is the best concert you have ever been to? Here's a concert in Las Vegas called Life is Beautiful, the best of all. And I really like it because it's smaller than, you know, Coachella Lollapalooza. It happens in down like near downtown Las Vegas. And there's a lot of medium, medium smaller bands there. And I think it's just it's a vibe. There's like a lot of sculptures. It's in the middle of nowhere. And one of my favorite bands that I saw in the last few years, when it's up monsters and men, really just a beautiful Icelandic band. And yeah, that was one of my favorite memories of an outdoor concert. Look, I believe it or not. It's this weekend. And I know I'll buy your ticket. We'll go together. I'll sign an FDA. Buying tickets, not not the issue. Yeah. For me, it's going. It's going out. It's like just sitting to the family like, Hey, you're all exactly exactly. The killers Kendrick Lamar 1975 loom. I bet I bet you love loom. Yeah, I was going to say something. Yeah. I just went to imagine in Georgia this last weekend. But okay, if you added to class on one thing, what would you teach? I think the most appropriate thing would be how to build an identity online, like the pseudonymous I then meet. I think that's that's something I'm very good at. And I think that it's actually a very important skill, especially today, when younger people are putting a lot of themselves, they're actually like then me online. I lose a lot of finger at that. Both, you know, from like up to like an actual major standpoint, and just like a mental health standpoint. And I think that just basically like a class on how to conduct yourself online, how to be careful on mine. I think that would be a little useful. And if any, you know, local high schools want to bring me in as a teacher, I get that. Look, go to where? What's the school district? Because we'll reach out and show you what's going on. Yeah. I'm going to, yeah, with a California. Yeah. One of the schools in California. That's us. Okay. If you could travel time, would you go backward or forward? I would go backward. Again, sort of a situation with like similar to the mind reading thing where you know what was happening. I mean, it would be a crushing level of pressure to not tell people about it or have that weighing on you. So backwards better. First of all, if you're greedy like me, you could make a ton of money. If you like backwards, you know, just buy all the Amazon stock and Bitcoin. But also, I just think that it would be simpler, you know, like it would be a less intense life. And you wouldn't have to worry about as much stuff. So that's my answer if I have to choose. Like that. Yeah. And then before, but then I'm like, oh, that makes the last sense though, you would fill a lot of pressure. Okay. My last question. Oh, my last question is my favorite question. And it's what is a book that's changed your life? Probably. And I have a lot, I've been reading a lot recently, but the one that changed my life, probably the most with one called the Medici effect. And I want to say it's at least 10 years old. It's talked a lot about the Medici family during the Renaissance and how they kind of help you all these really smart creative people in Florence to do what they do best with hanging in science and music and all these sorts of things. And the whole premise of the book is how creativity is spurred by doing lots and lots of different things and having lots and lots of interests. Whereas most of society, there's in the US training you to sort of be specialized, right? Like you are this, you are a lawyer, you are a person who are a writer. Instead, people like DaVinci, for example, were really good at a lot of stuff. Well, we're really interested in a lot of stuff. And my whole premise for being a creative person is you have to put different things that don't seem to come together together, right? Find ways that they actually intersect to make interesting things. That's what makes somebody creative. And so for me, when I read that, it really kind of opened my mind and inspired me to continue to be curious and do a lot of learning even after college, which is where most of you all can stop. I love that. I got to read that book. It's a quick read. They all work right in like $8. What's the most adventurous thing you have ever done? I think it will probably be, I went to Thailand and this was before cell phones, smartphones were prevalent. And a lot of people don't speak English there. And I just kind of went and just, you know, got lost and it all worked out. Like I was going to play it or tell me where I was. Yeah. It was kind of nuts. Like in retrospect, or even today, imagine going to a country where most people don't speak English and not taking your phone with you. How much anxiety? Well, I did that. I did that for 15 years pretty much until I had internet and other countries because I've been traveling for a long time. I love my favorite part about traveling. Yeah, it was normal. Used to be. Yeah, for sure. Now in Russia, I would say that that was probably probably nice. Nice. That's awesome. Well, thank you so much, Board, for joining us on NFT catcher podcast. It's been a really fun episode and we appreciate you for coming on the show. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for the awesome questions. A lot of fun and appreciate what happened. Absolutely. So, all right. With that said, thank you all for tuning in to this episode of the NFT catcher podcast and we will catch you in the next one. Peace. Thank you for tuning in to the NFT catcher podcast. We hope you enjoyed today's episode and learned something new about the exciting world of NFTs. If you enjoyed today's episode, please take a moment to subscribe to our podcast on Apple Spotify for wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you really love what you're hearing, please leave us a rating and review when you're paid a bottle. If you want to stay up to date with the latest news and insights from the NFT space, be sure to follow us on all the socials at NFT catcher podcast. You can follow Jennifer at Jennifer underscore studio and Michael at NF ticket. I'm your producer Andy and I'm at AJC 254. Our theme song's by It's Just Loose. We always appreciate your feedback and support which helps us reach more people and bring you informative and engaging content about NFTs. We look forward to bringing you more great NFT content in future episodes. Thanks for listening. Peace.