250: Ex-YouTube Employee Reveals Secrets to Viral Growth

I'm going to try a lot of different formats, I'm going to see what sticks, and then that one I'm going to double down on. I call it a three-in-one rule. Can I film three shorts at least in one hour? Mmm, and if I'm not, maybe the idea isn't simple enough. When you get that first scroll, people say, is there enough information there to build tension? And then when I come to sit down to a video, I'm sitting down with my editing team. I'm like, all right, how do I want to approach this? Like, what are the different inspiration? I like to say don't just take from one, take from many, and then give credit, and then put your own spin on it. What does it really take right now to make it as a creator in the creator economy? Today, I'm here with John Yushai, who has been a YouTube and Instagram, has worked at YouTube and Instagram, as an employee, has also interviewed some of the most famous creators in the world from Logan Paul to the Paris Hilton's Mark Robors, and ultimately is deep in research of what it takes to really crush it in the creator economy. So today, we're going to be hearing a little bit about his story and learning some tips that are practical for you, growing in your career, John. Welcome to the show. What's up? Good to be here. Thanks for having me, Sean. Thanks so much for meeting up at VidCon, Total Chaos, you know, being here in the lobby of the high it, and here we are. Yeah, yeah. I gotta say, this is one of the first, I've been doing more podcasts, but I'm so excited to sit down with you, because I know I'll smart your audiences, and let's just give them all the secrets and all the insights, so let's get into it. Yeah, I'm excited, because you have two keynotes here, so this is going to be a rich session on increasing engagement, decreasing production time and stuff like that. But for those that are just meeting you, what are you up to if they're learning a little bit about you? Yeah. Where you've been and where you are now. Yeah, I like to say I spent eight years at YouTube and Instagram, and now I'm making videos about what I couldn't talk about when I was on the inside, and I like to stay with my video. How many years are both? Five years at YouTube, and three years at Instagram. And what were your titles? A lot of different roles at YouTube. Most recently, before I left there, I was head of creator product marketing, and had a chance to launch a lot of the new monetization products. The thing I'm most proud of is creator on the rise, had a chance to launch that, and just see a lot of new creators grow, and come up through the Trending tab, which is really exciting, obviously work with a lot of product and engineering folks on that. And then on Instagram, I was one of their first hires to help build their creator team. And I like rewrite the playbook that I learned at YouTube, but at Instagram, and just really think about it from a different platform, before going out on my own and trying to implement those learnings. Yeah, and now you got 354,000 subscribers on your YouTube channel. So you're creating content on your own, and you're sharing a session on eight tips from an eight year YouTube and Instagram insider. What are some of the tips that you think are working best right now for increasing engagement, and how you've grown over 200 million views with some of these tips? Yeah, I like to say that history repeats itself, and I remember when I was working at YouTube, we had a chance to work with a lot of big creators, celebrities, and I'll never forget James Corden, who just was on late night and had his show, just came to an end. He approached YouTube in such an interesting way that he doesn't often get credit for, and I like to say that there's two kind of creators in the world. There's the James Corden's, and there's the Stephen Colbert's, right? And Corden has his variety show, right? He has so many different things that people know about, like Carpool Karaoke, you know, like Crosswalk Musical, like Rock the Mic, like so many different formats, but Stephen Colbert has much fewer, the monologue, a musical guest, an interview, and the show is over. And so I think what I saw with, like him and him, his approach to YouTube was like, I'm going to try a lot of different formats, I'm going to see what sticks, and then that one I'm going to double down on. And I think so many creators have tried to do a few formats, they stain their lane, they do a lot of monologue, right? They do a lot of interviews, and nothing wrong with that, like I do a lot of that too, but I say how can you get outside of your set? How can you go on the street? How can you think about different formats? So I think one of the things I've been able to see, and I'm happy to talk about all, like we've tried out like 9, 10, 11 different formats, and a few have taken off, just have popped off, 40 million views, 30 million views, and that's translated to long form, you know, traction as well. Yeah, when I was looking at your most viewed YouTube shorts, you really found one that really worked, and it's break that down. It's kind of comparing like to known people with like a traditional celebrity and a YouTube creator. Exactly, so I'm like, a lot of people obsess over stats and big data, right? I get it, like I worked in Silicon Valley, but I'm like, all right, what's the visceral reaction to that? What's the emotional side of those statistics? So I'm sure you've seen all those like variety articles like, oh my gosh, the creators are more popular in celebrities. I'm like, but okay, what does that mean? You know, what does that mean when you show people on the street and get that generation on age difference? So I was like, you know what, I'm going to go ask people, is Logan Paul more popular than Tom Hanks? Is Mr. Beast most popular than Tom Cruise? Like kind of find people who, for their respective, you know, industries, traditional or social, you know, they are similar and just compare. And the results, you know, people recognizing Logan Paul but not Tom Hanks blew me away and led to that format taking off. And I think that's one that like on that format alone, we put out, you know, 20 different comparisons that I've gotten over 150 million views on that alone. So it's crazy to see that. And that's just one example. Yeah, and that's wild. And so for those, it's such a powerful tip for those listening to think about experimenting with different formats. How many failed attempts led up to a winning attempt, would you say? A lot. And I'd say I categorize the failures in two ways. There's the failure of the that format in and of itself in the introduction, which I could talk about. And there's a failure of formats and I never even like took off. So for the first part, I would start out the video. I was like, hey guys, we're here in Hollywood. And I'm you want to ask people are creators more popular than celebrities? First up, we have Tom Hanks versus Logan Paul. Like that is such a long-winded way to open it. And then I'm like, you know what, how can I make this faster with editing? I was like, okay, I'm going to put the faces on there. And I'm going to just like say, okay, Tom Hanks or Logan Paul, but not enough context. Then I was like, you know, I'm going to go to FedEx. I'm going to print out a literal side by side poster board with their faces on it. And I'm just going to ask the simplest version of the question with the most visual, you know, stimulus and say, um, who are these two people? That's it. Yeah. That's it. That's that's the whole thing. And then what most people don't see is that while I'm on the street, I actually shone have an entire binder of like 10 of these comparisons. So that you could batch produce 100% and that's another one of my like big beliefs and something that I think has led to our viewership and the subscribers in the first years. Like, can I film like I called the three in one rule? Can I film three shorts at least in one hour? And if I'm not, then maybe the idea isn't simple enough. So you really refine the idea and having a physical prop in a real world was very powerful. And then it started to work. You started to double down on it. What are some of the other tips from that session? You're talking about eight tips. Was that just one of them? That was one is like thinking about like the variety format, be a cordon creator, not a cold bear creator is what I like to say. The other one we talked about is like the three in one rule, like, like really use that as a way to simplify. How can you make three videos in one? The other way I think like to think about it, I call this the first frame rule. And I know you guys put this in one of your videos in a compilation. That was really cool to see on your channel. But I like to say people obsessed over like, oh, the first three seconds. I'm like, uh, I kind of think it's the zero second mark today. Yeah. And so I'm like, when you get that first scroll on people see it, is there enough information there to build tension? You know, yes. So I'm like, all right, the physical printout is there. There's two heads of some kind of comparison. And I have a mic where I'm like trying to like immediately throw the mic to them. Like, who are these two people? So fast. So fast. You get it. Right. No build up that introduction. Those are the many failed attempts that led to that succinct version that popped off. So the first frame rule is another thing. Like, if you're not, you know, setting it up in that first frame, then you're, you're probably not succinct enough, you know, at least for a short. Looking at some of those by far, like your one, two, three, four, five top shorts are all that format, but cutting over to some of your most viewed videos. Yeah. What lessons did you learn? I mean, your biggest one was with Danny Duncan. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, is there a clip from it? And the full length interview? Both are your most viewed video. The full length interview is an hour long. So there are two different videos. One is an hour long sit down where, like, whenever I do an interview with someone, I try to make it the best interview they've done. You know, and so Danny got emotionally shared things. He never shared on camera. It's like full. Like, how did he grow his channel to $7 million sell $150 in merch? The other video was 24 hours with him. And it was like spending a day with him in his hometown of Inglewood, because he's bought over 100 acres of land. And like seeing how does a YouTuber develop build land? Think about this is almost like his little city. You know, got it. So they're two separate videos, but yeah, they've been most popular long form. And when you say, so what is your philosophy and interviews? You've got, they come to your studio. No, I go to them. Okay. That's why I really respect what you're, I mean, this is like, I go to them. Yeah. Yeah. Are we built a studio and we're trying to have more people come to us, but I will make it as easy as possible. Okay. So you go to them and, and then set up and really give the margin and the time to do it, because one of the things you do that's cool is you do the pie chart of how you earn money. And you wheel out a little pie chart and then people draw 5% affiliates, 20% brand deals. So, but what is your other philosophy for those that would want to do interview shows what you think makes a good interview? You got to have a short segment in your long form, like bake it in. Like so that draw your income segment that you're talking about where we're sitting down in an interview. Then I'm like, Sean, how do you make your money as a creator? All right, we have a segment called draw your income. Like outcomes like this dry race board that we got with a circle on it, 5%, you know, cutouts. And I was like, you know what? This is designed for it to be valuable in the context of the interview, but then for me to take it as a draw your income short. Yeah. So we have a lot of those coming out as some like, okay, can that be a way to, you know, kind of marry short form and long form as opposed to just thinking about one versus other. Okay. So do you think that Danny's influence was why those did so well? Yes, but also Danny has had other interviews even in the past few months that got nowhere near that. So I think that the preparation, the production, I tried to build a lot of trots that took over a year of us like just chatting. Yeah. And thinking about like, okay, what's something that's like I could share that most people don't know about somebody who's already very known. And thumbnail hook the opening structure editing you put effort into editing everything. Yeah. Yeah. And okay, amazing. Then your third most viewed video is a great thumbnail. And it's your tips on X YouTube employee exposes good word how to grow a YouTube channel. And that one is continues to get views. And what would you learn about that video? First off, I think that the whole idea of like, can you find something and take out and turn into a series? So that X YouTube employee explains we're turning into a whole series where I feel like I could talk about stuff now being on the outside, but still having the knowledge on being on the inside and applying it as a creator. So one, I was like, all right, I want to try something that I could serialize turn into a form of X YouTube employee explains. We're also going to debut X Instagram employee explains on my channel because I had a chance to work there. And there's a lot of just a lot of stuff. Like you see, like I'm like, that's not a, that's actually how Instagram works. Well, that's not how YouTube, I feel like I just feel like I could talk about that stuff more. But the biggest thing I learned is like, can I launch something that's serialized? And then can I also just like have a really tight script before I sit down? Yeah. And make sure every second of that video has something of value that, you know, to me, it's like I like to say I need to write it down on the page before I take it on the stage. Right. Whether that's video, whether that's actually speaking it. So to me, scripting is like, I was like, OK, it works. I need to repeat it. I love this serialized idea. I actually just caught an Instagram reel. It was an editing tip. The whole thing captured my attention. And at the end, and he said, and make sure to check back tomorrow, because I'm going to be sharing a hundred of these tips. And I was like, so smart. So what could you, how could you map a hundred creative series? And if any one of them popped up, it's going to, you know, kind of cross promote the rest of the series. Exactly. Thinking in series, thinking and something that you can multiple. It's also probably just sustainability and the creator economy, which is one of my questions for you. Because, you know, I think, I don't know how old VidCon is. It's close to 10 years. It's over. I think it's a, yeah, definitely over 10 years. I think I was here 10 years ago. I think I might have been at 2013. Yeah. And which seems wild. What's, what is crazy is the landscape changes. People really come and people go, people who seem like they were the most famous, maybe are gone now from multiple different reasons. From your perspective, because you also have massive longevity in the creator economy. What do you think are some of the things greater should be thinking about when it comes to sustainability, not burning out so many articles about the mental health challenges of being a creator. What's your take on that? I think, to me, the two things that make for a really long career as a creator are, are you experienced and are you entertaining? And I find too many people try to rely on one and it may lead to burnout. Like, for example, I find that a lot of folks now is like, like, you know, being entertaining on camera dancing or like creating these skits. Like, it's something that, like, I think people have to ask themselves, is this something that you could do for the next seven years, eight years, ten years even. And if not, how can you think about diversifying today, either with different formats, which is why we see a lot of people doing podcasts, much easier with products, you know, launching something that doesn't rely on content or if it does, you could plug it in seamlessly. Or are you experienced about something, and can you, like, maybe get your delivery a little bit better? Are you ready to start or grow your YouTube channel? Do you feel stuck and need help connecting the dots? Join this free web class where you'll learn the step-by-step playbook for YouTube success. We've helped thousands of purpose driven entrepreneurs just like you grow their influence with video. Register today for this exclusive training at thinkmasterclass.com. Right, I remember I didn't interview with Jordan Madder, who is one of the oldest YouTubers across 10 million subscribers, right? I think at the time of our interview is 54 or 55, which is incredible, right? He's huge, he's at that age. And I asked him a similar question. And he's like, yeah, I think it's like, he had the experience he was a photographer for many years. And for him, he had that bucket down. He just had to figure out how to make an entertaining, how to bring it to life. So I think you have those two things, and you think about it, and then you build a team around it. Yeah, I mean, how can I ask you questions, too, is it like, yeah, I mean, how do you think about, like, longevity in terms of you as Sean versus the think media brand? Because I think that's another way I've seen people do it. You've brought in hosts. Yeah, exactly. And I think for me, you know, my background is in the church world. And one of the things that I learned was seeing senior pastors wait too long to think about succession. Because a lot of people who hold the mic, a lot of people who hold the vlog camera, a lot of people, you're like, okay, this is on me. I'm going to be the person, I'm the communicator, I'm the one doing it. And I think that the early you actually think about replacing yourself, even if you don't plan to go anywhere, still the better you are, it's just if you can step into that mindset. So what I would watch is they'd start all the sudden, maybe their energy, their health, something's happening, there's challenges, they're facing. So they're like, oh, maybe I should start preparing a success. And I think if you're thinking about it, then it's too late. So I am so grateful for that lesson, spending some years in ministry and thinking about, okay, one, I in a way got lucky because the channel was called Think Media. I do have a channel on my first and last name, I don't really upload there. And then two, what could it look like? It was very organic. I didn't actually immediately think, let's do multiple content creators. I ran into Omar while I was working out at Fitness 19. We had worked together at a church. I was like, would you want to collab? He was more videographer first. I was like, you can make videos. Then we had Heather for a while. Now we have Nolan. And we're actually going to do auditions. And now we're moving into the full creators of building the next generation of media companies. So, you know, drop a comment if you want to, you know, be on Think Media legit. Like I don't know, let's talk, you know. And so we're thinking about, so I think it's starting to like steer the ship that way. And then I think studying it intentionally. So we're so education. And I think education's maybe a little bit different. I really love Linus Tech tips. I think what they're doing is incredible. I think that entertainments, maybe similar to you're trying to put other people on, but Dave Ramsey's one who's he's thinking about, he said it's his succession plan. And he's created Ramsey personalities. You know who that is? Of course, I know, Dave Ramsey. I'm not as familiar with the whole Ramsey personality. He's like, he's bringing like host. He might be 20 million views on YouTube a month right now on clips. So yeah, and he has them sit with him. So one of the things would be like, he's the main host. And it's like he brings someone by his side to kind of mentor them. But it also introduces them and diverse, you know, different ethnic backgrounds, kind of different ages to hit different demos. And so it's his succession plan to build out Ramsey personalities. So I start thinking, I'm actually going to turn 40 this year. You look great, man. What is what is his skincare routine, man? Anybody know? I need to know what it is. That's what we'll talk about the new channel. Yeah. Yeah, I'm starting a new one. And I'm starting to know where marketing company too, actually. So you could sign up under just kidding, but. But yeah, so he's doing it like 65, you know, and I'm like, why not think about it now? Because I don't plan on going anywhere. But I think the sooner you think about it, and I think maybe reinvesting which is a big challenge. It's like kind of the leadership CEO, build a team. Can you create a vision big enough that really talented creators vision can live inside of it? Can you also not be like weird and and realize like we're just want to be chill like, hey, you know, Omar, what do you want to do? Nolan, what do you want to do? But you also need some level of. And the final thing I think about is two illustrations, the office. It still was it was sad when Michael Scott left, but it kept going. You know, and so the TV shows they sign people. So I thought about like a sports team. And we're not even fully there yet, but kind of think about like, hey, could you roll with us for like a year or two? Sign a contract and different things. And then Wu Tang clan is the other one actually. It was the idea that what what would happen if you also have some of our individual projects, but if nine of us got together and made something that's a little bit bigger. Yeah. And and then value team at Patrick David. He's building a media company. He offered its conservative news kind of now. He was business and entrepreneurship. And I don't know if it's more of a media play, but he offered Tucker. Matt. He offered. I saw you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which which probably was nowhere near what he probably could come. But a smart move to even for the PR play. And if he said either way, it would have been like smart. Yeah. But I guess you start getting in that world where I mean, we can't do that kind of stuff yet. I don't even know if that would matter for teaching tech and camera reviews. But anyways, just a few thoughts. Like I just kind of studying the world, thinking about it, trying to stay humble, learn and figure it out as we go. It's funny. Like how like for creators listening to this, like how much like as you start, you already put the wheels in motion for either being a solo channel or like a umbrella for other personalities. So I think like for what you're trying to do, like with the think media umbrella, you set yourself up really well for longevity. And I think the last thing is also trying to extract out like no doubt about it, your personality is going to carry a big weight to it. But seeing how practical could this be if we made this like CNET or the verge. Like when I watch CNET admittedly or even the vert, I haven't made a connection with any of those content creators. But the brand has enough value to it that like whatever content they put out, Vox sometimes to like maybe maybe some people have affinity for who's doing the voiceover. But I don't know. I'm like, it's just if I care about the topic. So thinking about tools for creators, our niche and we're trying to get back to it as far as cameras, gear, like they could be more sustainable trying to think like that's off of just if I'm not peddling the bike. Then the whole thing falls down and obviously, yeah, I think it's tough. I think a lot of creators are wrestling with these questions. Are you doing a great job, man? It's really cool to see. So as we land the plane, you have another keynote here. And you have studied extensively, Beyonce. And you have discovered though, as much as my most creators might think, what could I possibly learn from Beyonce, the superstar that could apply for like the practical creator. But there's some tips you've learned from her that can boost our creativity. There's things in terms of how to reach billions on a budget. That seems like you've created attention there because Beyonce's budget is huge. She said, put some respect on the check. You know what I mean? She's doing all right. I think they just bought a record house, Jay-Z and Beyonce, but they just bought the record $50 million house or something. And so what are some tips from Beyonce from your presentation? That's a great clarification. To me, billions on a budget is not Beyonce's budget. If you're starting out and you're a creator on a tiny budget. She reaches billions, but how can you take that and make it your own? But yeah, I studied her career probably more than any thesis or whatever I did in school. 20 years of how did she stay relevant? And the biggest thing I saw is that she is so good at adapting work from so many different sources around the world. Like the talk, and I wish I had some of the visuals here. Maybe we could put it on screen. I'm going to try to make a video about this as well. But essentially if you study like single ladies that video that took off, you know, Connie called it like one of the best videos of all time. It actually comes from 1969, Bob Fossy, a choreographer who took these like this very minimalist background, put three women dancing in actually very similar choreography to Beyonce. And she adapted that and made it into single ladies. It's fascinating is like she didn't go to the 1960s archive of like studying Bob Fossy choreography. See, she saw a DJ unc remix of that to walk it out. Remember when I walked it out like took off like in 2008. So like she saw a remix of the original, I made her own remix. And she is so deliberate about trying to fill like what I like to call and what a lot of advertisers and marketers called her swipe file. Have you ever heard that term? 100%. Yeah, so it's like, you know, like as she sees stuff, she like stores it, right? And she's like, okay, when I'm coming out like where my next video, my next tour, my song, I'm going to go to the swipe file, which is just like stuff I've swiped like, you know, from like things that have inspired you. But she's so conscious and deliberate about it that it just blows me away that like her makeup artist, for example, is giving her ideas. For example, like a performance that she gave at the 2011 Billboard Music Awards is actually adapted from Lorella Cucurini in 2011, who made a similar visual performance in Italy. But Beyonce took that, took a lot of different inspiration. And so I think it just reminds me of I think it's a Mark Twain quote that's like inspiration. I'm paraphrasing is either conscious and you're aware of where you heard of it or subconscious and you don't realize it. And I think so many people would say they're original, let's say don't realize that the inspiration is subconscious. And if you could consciously fill yourself with like more inspiration, whether that's like I'm going to keep a folder of all the best YouTube thumbnails, which is what I do. You know, when I see something I click on, I'm like, why did I click on that? And I have a folder which I'm happy to share with anyone if they want a DM me or like, like I'll be curious to see like what's in your swipe file. In fact, I'm like, whoa, that's an amazing intro hook. Literally do a screen recording, put that in the folder of my best intros. Yes. And then when I come to sit down to a video, I'm sitting down with my editing team. I'm like, all right, how do you want to approach this? Like what are different inspiration? I like to say don't just take from one, take from many, and then give credit and then put your own spin on it. And that's kind of like how you channel Beyonce. And there's a lot more to it, but that's in a nutshell. And I think you you said something like, but she's not doing copy and paste. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's doing copy and taste. Yeah, so my money line that I was like, okay, how do I like summarize this? It's like, okay, so everybody's talking about copy and paste. She's all about copy with taste. And so copy and paste is like you steal from one source. You give no credit. Like you don't lift the art. You just like replicated copy with taste is like you share the credit. You you adapt from multiple sources, not just one. And you kind of elevate it in a new way and just leave it out in the world for somebody else to copy with taste. So yeah, you know what's kind of funny is there's some critics of like the TikTok and shorts remix. There's some critics and maybe the react format and how much echoing it can feel like there is on YouTube. But there's a documentary called Everything is Remix. Really good. We'll actually link to it. I think they eventually it was on Vimeo originally. And I think that we could put it we'll put in the show notes. It's very worth your time. But they'll take even people like Quentin Tarantino. And scene from scene of like Kill Bill. They'll show you exact scenes in other films that are just structured the same way. Yeah. Like shot for shot almost. Of course, it's original because it's his own thing in the ways. But he's inspired by cinematography from these other films that were inspiration for him. And it's bringing it into his work. So why maybe things are faster now. And certainly there's some where people are just doing copy and paste. And they're not copying with taste. But I think that this is not even a new thing. I think the art form of remixing making it original but consuming a lot of divergent content. And then synthesizing it is a very powerful insight that a lot of us can learn from. 100% and like it's just it's crazy. Like how much of that goes on and we don't always know the original source, you know. Sure. Yeah. Okay. Is it too late to start YouTube? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I have so many thoughts on like I think it's now is the second best time to start a YouTube channel. Why is that? Okay. 2012, 2013. Things are taking off. Not as much competition. Like I think it's always easier to grow when a platform is growing, right? Yeah. Things are more settled now. I think the biggest opportunity and why I left my jobs at Instagram and YouTube. Is there is such a need for more professionalism in the creator economy? Like it blows my mind. How many brands we talk to and I'm like, wait, you like, okay, you have talking points. Like we're going to send you a script. We're going to send it to you for review. Here's our timeline for the video. Like we're going to take it through and like, you know, like we want to like study your blog posts. We want to go through like I even like watch the old earnings reports to figure out what can I say for a brand to really be a good ambassador to them in our like sponsored segments. Or like we're consulting which we do. I'm like, you know, just how can you make them know that you care about their goals or metrics or KPIs. And I don't know. I'm like, I'm always baffled that like I talk with creators and they don't ask those questions to brands when they work with them. This is a big unlock. There's so much need for professionalism. Big time. So if you up your professionalism, you're going to stand out. Oh, yeah. And I mean, we're just one other nugget if I could give. Like if you guys are trying, I don't know why I keep addressing the cameras, but it's just natural. It's if you're pitching a brand and trying to get a brand deal and you have a team. Put your team on your media kit. You know, I find that like people like are like, whoa, oh, I'm not just hiring John. I'm hiring his editors. You know, his operators like his his his content strategy is like like we have an entire team that puts together that content. So it's almost like you're not just hiring an individual. You're hiring a mini creative agency and letting them know what they're investing in. And that makes them more comfortable with like the cost that they're putting into it. Because I'm like, I'm hiring like a lot of people to make this piece of work come to life. And so that's something that I'm like, you know, I'm surprised. I'm not saying not not every creator is I'm surprised more creators haven't done. Totally. And if you step in and have had a job before, I think we're going to see a rise of more corporate creators. And seeing that, you know, then leave that and start a career. What is from all the interviews you've done with creators and celebrities? I think you've had Jake Paul, Paris Hilton, all kinds of people out of all these different interviews and conversations. What's one of your favorite moments? And an insight that you gained from one of those interviews that impacted your life? I think too. One, I have an interview coming out with Liza Koshi. I'm super excited about because she, like, it's been a while since she sat down and talked like this candidly. And just talking about how she thought about her career and like how she was uploading videos that got 20, 30 million views. But now how she's trying to like use everything she learned to make even longer career in media. So I think a lot of those lessons are like, what, like, and I think about like, what can I be doing right now that I can see myself doing in 10 years? You know, like, I really want to play the long game and just set. And if I'm repeating a piece of feedback to an editor or somebody on my team, I'm like, how can I create a document? We literally have a document that's like five, six pages long. That's all we're editing best practices, right? And so I'm like, before I review something, I want you to go through this checklist and see, does this meet all of the things that make for a video that would go on our channel? That would go on our socials. And the second one is I interviewed Logan Paul and there's so many good nuggets in that interview. But one of it that stood out is he, I talked about how do you write tweets? You know, how do you literally write tweets? You know, because he's had a lot of them, like, take off and what have you learned? And he told me about how try to avoid absolutes as much as possible. You know, and try to avoid superlatives, which is, you know, it's something I'm trying to get better at because like, things are so nuanced. It's hard not to do that because that's what gets clicked. It's funny. He says that because that's what gets clicks, though. It's up is absolutes. I know. I know. But it's like, I know it's like trying to be nuanced with it. Is that him saying a lesson he's learned the hard way? I don't know yet. Said absolutes and seeing a kind of backfire. Some way, but I think about it more of like, okay, like maybe like, do you have a hook that's more like towards an absolute, but then like, and Twitter's a tough platform for that, but it's like, can you like bring people in, which is why I'm like, okay, I see the value of short form, the long form is where you could let it breathe. Can you open a new nuance? Leave room for conversation. You lean away, but yeah, if you go absolute, it's interesting. Yeah, like we could have a conversation about like, okay, the best way to start a YouTube channel in 2023 is to start as a media brand, not as an individual, but I'm like, no, I think that as an individual, it's better because you could build more connection, all this stuff. But then we should acknowledge like nuances within that. Totally. It could go either way. It could go either way. There was literally a conference where I heard it. It was traffic conversion in San Diego, more of a heavier marketing conference, but they talked about movement makers speaking absolutes. Tell me more. What do you mean? And they said, and now they were speaking about these entrepreneur voices, but they were saying like, if you look at something like a Gary Vee, that everything he says is an absolute. Yeah. He'll be like, I remember in 2010 or 11, he wrote the book Thank You Economy and we went to Bellingham Washington to his talk. And on stage, he was like, my friends, if you are not using search.twitter.com, today, you will not be in business tomorrow. And I promise you, the 500 people in that room, none of them are using it, only 10 started to use it, and they didn't say consistent. And most of them were probably still in business. You know what I mean? Like, I mean, he has a point kind of, but like, you know, but it's just in their point, they had like five elements of movement makers. And one of them was that actually they speak in absolutes. So anyways, I guess, you know, as things get more fragmented, I guess there is a need to do that to get people's attention. But I think it's like, once you have that attention, how do you at least acknowledge or wrestle with the nuance in what you're talking about? And I think what's hard is, if you actually go out and just make a decree like that, that's kind of one thing, but these days, everything's getting clipped. So it's not that you actually are speaking absolutes, but you only have so much time. And that makes an absolute point. Context can be flushed out. A good communicator is going to maybe allow for nuance. For sure. And I think it's up to the viewers as well. And today's day and age, you'd be like, all right, I see that clip. I know what they're doing. That got my attention. Let me find more material from them to help explain that or help me grapple with it. Or let me hear it from other sources. So the game. Yes, kind of the game. Well, hey, you've added a ton of value. Where can people follow you? What are you up to? The YouTube channel? What other social media accounts are you active on? Yeah, check, check me out. If you go to at you shy on all socials, my YouTube channel is where I put a lot of just, you know, the stuff that takes probably months to edit. I really try to put out stuff that, you know, values and notification that goes out. And then our discord. If you go to created.club, we have about 2000 creators in there helping each other roast thumbnails, videos. I'm pretty active and they're asking answering questions about all my experience. But yeah, man, it's just a joy to be here on your podcast and just keep rooting you on, man. I'm a big fan of the media. Man, I appreciate that. And definitely check out the show notes for everything. Subscribe if you're not subscribed. Share this out. Think media podcasts. John, thank you so much.