Cortex

00:00:00 ◼   ► I have a question for you.

00:00:01 ◼   ► Have you ever had a hangover?

00:00:02 ◼   ► - Why, what do you mean have you ever had a hangover?

00:00:05 ◼   ► - It's a thick and some valid question.

00:00:06 ◼   ► Not everybody's had a hangover in their life, you know?

00:00:08 ◼   ► - I mean, I guess it is true.

00:00:10 ◼   ► Not everyone has had a hangover.

00:00:12 ◼   ► Obviously everyone who is under age

00:00:14 ◼   ► has yet to experience a hangover.

00:00:16 ◼   ► There may be other reasons why you've never had a hangover.

00:00:19 ◼   ► I haven't had a lot, but I've had them.

00:00:22 ◼   ► Why do you ask?

00:00:23 ◼   ► Are you hungover for this recording?

00:00:24 ◼   ► - No.

00:00:25 ◼   ► Have you ever experienced that feeling from working?

00:00:28 ◼   ► (sighs)

00:00:30 ◼   ► Okay.

00:00:33 ◼   ► - 'Cause this happened to me yesterday.

00:00:35 ◼   ► - You had a work hangover.

00:00:36 ◼   ► - I had a work hangover, I think, for the first time.

00:00:39 ◼   ► And it's not something that I knew existed.

00:00:42 ◼   ► I don't know if it does exist,

00:00:44 ◼   ► but yesterday I felt horrifically hungover

00:00:47 ◼   ► and I had no alcohol the day before.

00:00:49 ◼   ► And the only thing that I can attest it to

00:00:53 ◼   ► is the fact that I was working until, I don't know,

00:00:56 ◼   ► like one in the morning.

00:00:58 ◼   ► and still trying to stay awake with caffeine and food

00:01:03 ◼   ► at a time when I should have definitely been sleeping.

00:01:06 ◼   ► - Right, you've been spending all your cortisol

00:01:08 ◼   ► and adrenaline on getting things done.

00:01:11 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:01:12 ◼   ► - And then you are tapped out, my friend.

00:01:16 ◼   ► Yeah, no, work hangover, I think that's a real thing

00:01:18 ◼   ► if you've really been going for a whole bunch.

00:01:20 ◼   ► Work hangovers, yes, regular hangovers, not so much,

00:01:23 ◼   ► but I'm sorry to hear that you had a work hangover,

00:01:25 ◼   ► though it is completely understandable

00:01:28 ◼   ► because it is Apple events time, which I totally knew about

00:01:32 ◼   ► before you messaged me about it and I saw it

00:01:34 ◼   ► in the show notes.

00:01:35 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:01:38 ◼   ► It's a busy week for you.

00:01:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, so Tuesday was when the event was

00:01:42 ◼   ► and they're obviously later in time anyway, right?

00:01:45 ◼   ► So if I'm recording, which I am, I recorded with Jason,

00:01:48 ◼   ► we do our kind of like post event analysis.

00:01:51 ◼   ► I can't start that until we're ended.

00:01:53 ◼   ► And then I also had some meetings,

00:01:56 ◼   ► which to get some more information about the product.

00:01:58 ◼   ► So all of that just kept pushing the day on and on and on.

00:02:02 ◼   ► And I think adrenaline is one of the things

00:02:04 ◼   ► that I can assume was a big factor for how I was feeling.

00:02:09 ◼   ► Because I had like a weird feeling after I was finished,

00:02:11 ◼   ► like it was kind of like one in the morning,

00:02:13 ◼   ► I was super hungry and I was like incredibly sweaty.

00:02:16 ◼   ► And so like I can assume, yeah lovely right?

00:02:19 ◼   ► I can assume it must have been adrenaline based.

00:02:22 ◼   ► And I think that set me up for a bad Wednesday.

00:02:27 ◼   ► I was bad, it was so bad.

00:02:30 ◼   ► And I still had a bunch of stuff to do.

00:02:32 ◼   ► We did an interview for next week's upgrade

00:02:35 ◼   ► and again, I'm trying to like get through it.

00:02:37 ◼   ► And I just, I felt like I was, I don't know,

00:02:40 ◼   ► like 22 again or something.

00:02:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, I could see in my head, Myke,

00:02:43 ◼   ► with the sunglasses as you're recording a podcast

00:02:48 ◼   ► and drinking coffee.

00:02:49 ◼   ► - From underneath my desk.

00:02:51 ◼   ► - Yeah. - In the fetal position.

00:02:53 ◼   ► It reminded me of when,

00:02:55 ◼   ► so I used to work in retail banking

00:02:58 ◼   ► and my very first jobs in that field

00:03:01 ◼   ► was actually working in the bank branches,

00:03:04 ◼   ► opening bank accounts and that kind of stuff.

00:03:07 ◼   ► And I remember what it was like to work Saturdays

00:03:09 ◼   ► having gone out on Fridays.

00:03:11 ◼   ► They were rough times, man.

00:03:13 ◼   ► And that's what I felt like yesterday.

00:03:15 ◼   ► - I'm so sorry.

00:03:19 ◼   ► Because that's the worst thing then, the hangover is having to do something, right?

00:03:24 ◼   ► Working through a hangover is one of the most excruciating things a person can go through.

00:03:29 ◼   ► It's so bad. Like, if you have to sit in a meeting, you know?

00:03:32 ◼   ► The universe feels unjust in those moments.

00:03:35 ◼   ► And so I've discovered that it's possible now, maybe this is in my advancing age,

00:03:44 ◼   ► that now I can just work too hard and get a hangover, which is not a thing that I knew.

00:03:48 ◼   ► I had to consider, but I guess that's kind of where I am in my mid-30s now.

00:03:53 ◼   ► Happy birthday! Here's a new problem for you.

00:03:56 ◼   ► Oh, I'm so sorry, Myke. I'm so sorry that this is now a thing that can be part of your annual life.

00:04:04 ◼   ► Yeah, maybe. I made a decision though, which was a pretty good one.

00:04:08 ◼   ► I had like a positive thinking kind of moment, you know, like a positive mental attitude kind

00:04:12 ◼   ► of moment. It was like, I was looking at my calendar and these weeks they were just like,

00:04:16 ◼   ► it's like dropping a nuclear bomb into my calendar because there is a moment on the Tuesday that is

00:04:22 ◼   ► where like the bomb hits and then the shockwave hits out across the rest of the calendar as all

00:04:27 ◼   ► of my shows will start getting moved around. It's kind of an incredible thing. It's like this event

00:04:32 ◼   ► occurs and then this has to move and this has to move and then having moved that means I need to

00:04:37 ◼   ► move this and how you know and it's just like this. I've heard it described as silly season.

00:04:42 ◼   ► My friend Merlin calls it silly season which is like if one person who's in a podcast goes

00:04:46 ◼   ► goes on vacation, the effect of that person

00:04:49 ◼   ► going on vacation can be felt across

00:04:51 ◼   ► like four different podcasts, right?

00:04:53 ◼   ► So I was looking at all of this and I was assessing

00:04:55 ◼   ► the amount of work that I had to do

00:04:57 ◼   ► and all these extra things and all my editing projects

00:04:59 ◼   ► that I'm gonna have to do.

00:05:01 ◼   ► And I made the decision in that moment

00:05:03 ◼   ► to not look at this as, oh man, this is so much to do.

00:05:08 ◼   ► But to choose to feel grateful for it

00:05:13 ◼   ► because this is what I wanted.

00:05:15 ◼   ► And it is what I wanted, right?

00:05:16 ◼   ► this is what I signed up for, all of this stuff.

00:05:18 ◼   ► When I set out on this path to try and attain the career

00:05:21 ◼   ► that I have, it was to get these moments.

00:05:25 ◼   ► So this week especially, I am appreciating the work more

00:05:30 ◼   ► than thinking, oh man, this is gonna be hard to get done.

00:05:35 ◼   ► I'm just choosing to feel grateful for it

00:05:37 ◼   ► instead of tired about it.

00:05:39 ◼   ► - I think that's really good because I think about the Myke

00:05:43 ◼   ► who I first met, and he would be thrilled to hear how busy your week is because of the

00:05:51 ◼   ► things that you're able to do.

00:05:52 ◼   ► Yeah, the opportunities and that kind of stuff.

00:05:54 ◼   ► You really work towards this over the years, and this is a good example of where trying

00:06:00 ◼   ► to reframe something really can work.

00:06:02 ◼   ► You know, it's like with the journals and if you use them for gratitude journaling,

00:06:05 ◼   ► like I always say, it's frustratingly effective, but this is one of the reasons why that stuff

00:06:09 ◼   ► kind of works is you can, to a limited extent, reframe things under the right circumstances

00:06:16 ◼   ► and choosing to be grateful for all of the stuff that you get to do this week is like

00:06:23 ◼   ► I'm glad to hear that you did that after hearing that you had to go through your work hangover

00:06:27 ◼   ► while also working with your sunglasses on and drinking your coffee.

00:06:31 ◼   ► And the electrolytes. I was I was burning up on electrolytes yesterday. Is I gonna get

00:06:36 ◼   ► those in?

00:06:37 ◼   ► Electrolytes and bone broth, all to be perky on a podcast.

00:06:41 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:06:43 ◼   ► Not a fan of bone broth?

00:06:45 ◼   ► I don't like the words.

00:06:46 ◼   ► I never really thought about it.

00:06:48 ◼   ► Look, you just- Myke, you just grind up a bunch of bones,

00:06:51 ◼   ► you broth them, and then you drink them.

00:06:53 ◼   ► How doth one broth something?

00:06:56 ◼   ► Look, I don't know.

00:06:57 ◼   ► I'm not a witch with a cauldron, you know, mixing these things together.

00:07:01 ◼   ► Toil, toil, bubble in trouble or whatever, I don't know.

00:07:04 ◼   ► I have mute and all that stuff, yeah.

00:07:06 ◼   ► [BEEP]

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00:09:09 ◼   ► I opened our document a couple of days ago and was met with something that I couldn't conceive of.

00:09:16 ◼   ► Oh, this is the thing I forgot about. Is this the Slack notification flow chart?

00:09:22 ◼   ► Yes. So I'm going to put a link in the show notes to what I ended up finding,

00:09:29 ◼   ► which is a blog post from Slack's engineering team

00:09:32 ◼   ► where they show off this flow chart.

00:09:34 ◼   ► And we can talk about what this is in a minute

00:09:36 ◼   ► and why it's here.

00:09:37 ◼   ► But when I first saw this, I thought you had made this.

00:09:41 ◼   ► - Oh no, no.

00:09:41 ◼   ► - And this was something that you were trying to,

00:09:44 ◼   ► I don't know, tell me how I should be sending notifications

00:09:47 ◼   ► to you in our Slack or something.

00:09:48 ◼   ► I was like, oh God.

00:09:50 ◼   ► I could just imagine you and your assistant coming up

00:09:53 ◼   ► with this system of like, when can Gray be notified?

00:09:57 ◼   ► And that's what I originally thought this was.

00:09:59 ◼   ► - I actually kind of like that as an idea.

00:10:01 ◼   ► Like the when and how to approach gray, the flow chart.

00:10:05 ◼   ► I like that, but maybe I should make that.

00:10:06 ◼   ► - I mean, honestly I would like that

00:10:08 ◼   ► because then I would know when I can alert you or not.

00:10:10 ◼   ► Right, like what are the types of messages

00:10:12 ◼   ► which warrant the @gray and where do they go?

00:10:16 ◼   ► Because I will say, since we created the Cortex brand Slack,

00:10:20 ◼   ► our communication has gotten much more complicated.

00:10:22 ◼   ► - Yes it has. - 'Cause now we have

00:10:24 ◼   ► three places. - Three places.

00:10:25 ◼   ► And I never really know now where to put things again.

00:10:29 ◼   ► I think we need to have a meeting about this

00:10:32 ◼   ► 'cause it's, everything's gotten more complicated again.

00:10:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, it definitely has gotten more complicated.

00:10:38 ◼   ► And also in all fairness to you,

00:10:39 ◼   ► this is where I am completely unhelpful with the show notes

00:10:43 ◼   ► because I was sent this diagram as like,

00:10:46 ◼   ► oh my God, look at how complicated Slack notifications are.

00:10:49 ◼   ► And I thought, oh, I'm gonna forget about this.

00:10:51 ◼   ► Let me just quickly drop it into the show notes.

00:10:53 ◼   ► with no context, right?

00:10:55 ◼   ► Not a sentence or anything.

00:10:56 ◼   ► I just dropped it in as an image.

00:10:58 ◼   ► And then of course, promptly forgot that I had ever put it in there.

00:11:02 ◼   ► So you're presented with this, how to run a nuclear power station level flow chart

00:11:07 ◼   ► that is absolutely nothing surrounding it.

00:11:10 ◼   ► I just wanted this as, as a little bit of like follow up to our conversations

00:11:14 ◼   ► where I sometimes express frustration about notifications.

00:11:18 ◼   ► And we've talked about Slack a whole bunch and even to this day, still

00:11:23 ◼   ► find it really endlessly frustrating about what do I or do not get notified about in Slack.

00:11:30 ◼   ► And Slack is one of these weird cases where it tends to be the reverse of I actually want

00:11:35 ◼   ► more notifications from this system, but I sometimes find it hard to get the ones that

00:11:40 ◼   ► I'm looking for. But anyway, so this flowchart, I just put it in here to visually show how it is

00:11:48 ◼   ► actually incredibly complicated about does or does not Slack notify

00:11:54 ◼   ► you when a message takes place.

00:11:56 ◼   ► And I was really relieved to see this, to think, okay, it is not just me.

00:12:01 ◼   ► This flowchart must have what?

00:12:03 ◼   ► Two dozen boxes on it, all with yes/no options of, you know, is it here?

00:12:10 ◼   ► Is it there?

00:12:10 ◼   ► Is it under this circumstance?

00:12:12 ◼   ► What's the global state, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:12:14 ◼   ► And so that's why I put it here.

00:12:16 ◼   ► This to me is like vindication flowchart.

00:12:19 ◼   ► Slack notifications are super complicated.

00:12:22 ◼   ► - It's also an incredible example of how

00:12:25 ◼   ► you add complication by adding new features.

00:12:29 ◼   ► - Yes, yes. - Me and Adina

00:12:30 ◼   ► were talking about this yesterday.

00:12:31 ◼   ► She started selling some prints of the comics

00:12:35 ◼   ► that she's been doing.

00:12:35 ◼   ► She wanted to test it out.

00:12:38 ◼   ► And she wanted to set up Instagram shopping, right?

00:12:41 ◼   ► 'Cause you can buy things in Instagram.

00:12:43 ◼   ► - Oh, I didn't know that, okay.

00:12:44 ◼   ► Yeah, it integrates with Shopify, I think, and you can just sell stuff.

00:12:48 ◼   ► So it's physical prints of the artwork.

00:12:50 ◼   ► Yeah, she has some postcards made, it's like a test of a thing that she wants to try and do more of.

00:12:54 ◼   ► Mhm.

00:12:55 ◼   ► And she's also doing this as a test for us, for Clothix brand, right?

00:12:59 ◼   ► Right.

00:13:00 ◼   ► It's like, "Why don't you do this and tell me how it goes?"

00:13:02 ◼   ► "We'll see if this is a thing we want to do in the future, I don't know."

00:13:05 ◼   ► Right, it's great to have tasks have two purposes.

00:13:08 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

00:13:08 ◼   ► Two purposes is one purposes, so yeah, that's great.

00:13:11 ◼   ► And so to do it, she had to set up a Facebook page for her Instagram account and link them.

00:13:19 ◼   ► To do a lot of stuff on Instagram, you have to have a Facebook page attached to it, like

00:13:23 ◼   ► to do ads and stuff like that.

00:13:25 ◼   ► So she created the Facebook page, but now it refuses to link them.

00:13:29 ◼   ► Like she's hit some bug and she found a bunch of Reddit threads where people have been having

00:13:33 ◼   ► this bug for months.

00:13:35 ◼   ► And we were talking about it last night and it was like, this is an example of you start

00:13:40 ◼   ► with a product and then you have a bunch of other features and you keep adding like 20

00:13:44 ◼   ► layers on top because it doesn't make any sense why to make ads on Instagram you need

00:13:50 ◼   ► a Facebook page other than the fact which is this is the only way they could do it without

00:13:55 ◼   ► having to remake their system every time so you just keep adding more and more dependencies

00:13:59 ◼   ► on top of everything else and like that's this thing with Slack of like because they

00:14:04 ◼   ► added threads in, it added like 20 more boxes on this flowchart.

00:14:11 ◼   ► You can see the word "thread message" in question marks all over the place because

00:14:14 ◼   ► they added this feature in.

00:14:16 ◼   ► This is like a perfect example of how you can make things more complicated for yourself

00:14:21 ◼   ► because you try to do them in the most expedient way, which is to just add a feature on top

00:14:27 ◼   ► rather than trying to fully integrate it.

00:14:30 ◼   ► This is not a criticism on any of these companies because they all do this, right?

00:14:34 ◼   ► This is just, you can't every time you have an idea remake all of Facebook.

00:14:38 ◼   ► You can't, you know, it's like, "Oh, we've had this great idea.

00:14:41 ◼   ► Great.

00:14:42 ◼   ► We need to start again with Facebook so we can properly integrate this."

00:14:45 ◼   ► It doesn't work like that.

00:14:47 ◼   ► But this is how you end up building these layers upon layers of complexities in such

00:14:51 ◼   ► that to send a notification, there is one of the most complicated flowcharts I've ever

00:14:56 ◼   ► seen.

00:14:57 ◼   ► Yeah, it's great.

00:14:58 ◼   ► And then you think this also then interacts with, if you're me, your

00:15:03 ◼   ► notification system on the phone, right?

00:15:05 ◼   ► All of this is like before the notification even gets into Apple's system.

00:15:09 ◼   ► Right.

00:15:10 ◼   ► Which is, you know, so it's like, Oh great.

00:15:12 ◼   ► All of these complicated flow charts are interacting with

00:15:15 ◼   ► other complicated flow charts.

00:15:16 ◼   ► So anyway, it just, I wanted to throw it in here as like, Oh God, it's incredible.

00:15:22 ◼   ► How complicated software can be.

00:15:25 ◼   ► And this is one of the few cases where I feel like I dramatically underestimated what the

00:15:31 ◼   ► scope of the problem really is.

00:15:33 ◼   ► It's like, oh, I thought I was managing five things, but I didn't realize, oh, there's

00:15:37 ◼   ► 10 things here.

00:15:38 ◼   ► This is why I can never quite get Slack to work the way that I want to.

00:15:44 ◼   ► And I even learned new things from this flow chart of like, oh, there's the difference

00:15:48 ◼   ► between @channel, @everyone, and @here.

00:15:54 ◼   ► in my head I just sort of mushed them all together, but it's amazing to see this where it's like, "Oh,

00:16:00 ◼   ► okay, this is a mention. It's an @here mention. Is the user active? Like, are they in Slack right

00:16:06 ◼   ► now?" You know, no, then they won't get notified. It's like, "Oh, but if you're using @everyone,

00:16:11 ◼   ► it's like, yes, they will get notified unless the channel mentions are suppressed, then they won't."

00:16:17 ◼   ► Right? It's like, it's incredible how complicated this is. To go to your point, you can easily see

00:16:22 ◼   ► how someone at some point says, "You know, you don't always want to mention everyone in a channel.

00:16:29 ◼   ► You literally want to know who is here right now." And you go, "Oh yeah, that's a good idea. That's

00:16:34 ◼   ► a useful feature." But then fast forward to onboarding new users a year later, and since

00:16:41 ◼   ► they haven't seen each of the pieces come in and like read the changelogs as they get added,

00:16:47 ◼   ► You just go, "Oh, @here, @everywhere, yeah, all of this is like, how do I talk to everyone in the channel thing?"

00:16:53 ◼   ► It's a very hard design problem, like, I do not envy...

00:16:57 ◼   ► Just to be clear, this is not me being like, "Oh, Slack is ridiculous."

00:17:00 ◼   ► This is more like, I just don't envy the engineers who have to work on it, and

00:17:06 ◼   ► for a tool that is attempting to manage,

00:17:09 ◼   ► how does everyone in a company communicate with everyone else?

00:17:13 ◼   ► It's a really, really hard problem to solve.

00:17:16 ◼   ► We get to do that thing that we rarely do where there's some kind of like breaking news

00:17:20 ◼   ► that we can bring into the show because before we started recording today the WWDC rumors

00:17:26 ◼   ► started right?

00:17:27 ◼   ► Oh okay.

00:17:28 ◼   ► I want to read you a paragraph from a Bloomberg report from Mark Gellin because I think you

00:17:31 ◼   ► might like this.

00:17:32 ◼   ► Okay.

00:17:33 ◼   ► I know you hate the rumors when I'm telling you anyway.

00:17:34 ◼   ► Yeah I'm like why are you telling me rumors?

00:17:37 ◼   ► Because this is particularly exciting for you.

00:17:39 ◼   ► But they're nonsense.

00:17:40 ◼   ► It's just a rumor.

00:17:41 ◼   ► It's just not real.

00:17:42 ◼   ► The company is planning a new feature that will allow users to set different notification

00:17:47 ◼   ► preferences, such as if the phone makes a sound or not, depending on their current status.

00:17:52 ◼   ► The enhancement will come in the form of a new menu that lets users select if they are

00:17:56 ◼   ► driving, working, sleeping, or custom categories that they are choosing.

00:17:59 ◼   ► The menu will be shown on the updated lock screen and in Control Center.

00:18:02 ◼   ► So basically, you may be able to, with iOS 15, say "Hey, I'm working now" and then your

00:18:10 ◼   ► phone will send you a very limited set of notifications that you can customize.

00:18:14 ◼   ► Imagine that life.

00:18:15 ◼   ► Yeah, okay, so this is why I don't like rumors, because now you put me in a terrible position.

00:18:18 ◼   ► Yeah, I know.

00:18:19 ◼   ► I like to do this to you.

00:18:20 ◼   ► Because now you're like, "Oh, now I want it."

00:18:22 ◼   ► Because now you think it might be out there.

00:18:23 ◼   ► This is very fun for me.

00:18:25 ◼   ► Right.

00:18:26 ◼   ► So yeah, if this doesn't happen, I will be disappointed.

00:18:28 ◼   ► If it does happen, I will also take credit for the existence of this feature.

00:18:32 ◼   ► I'll just assume…

00:18:33 ◼   ► I mean, this is, without a shadow of a doubt, this only exists because people that make

00:18:37 ◼   ► iOS listen to you complain.

00:18:39 ◼   ► It's like, look, Apple engineers, I know you're there.

00:18:41 ◼   ► I know you can hear me now.

00:18:43 ◼   ► So I am gonna completely take credit if this feature exists.

00:18:48 ◼   ► But then that only serves to redouble my disappointment

00:18:51 ◼   ► if it doesn't happen.

00:18:52 ◼   ► So thanks a lot, Myke.

00:18:53 ◼   ► - This is like the many years of dark mode.

00:18:55 ◼   ► - Right, yeah, no, this is great.

00:18:59 ◼   ► Breaking news in Cortex, I give it two thumbs down.

00:19:01 ◼   ► Do not want, do not repeat, do not notify, please.

00:19:06 ◼   ► - We have a new product that I'm very excited about.

00:19:08 ◼   ► The subtle notebook.

00:19:10 ◼   ► - The subtle notebook.

00:19:11 ◼   ► - Love it.

00:19:11 ◼   ► - So we obviously have worked very hard

00:19:13 ◼   ► on creating the theme system journal

00:19:15 ◼   ► and we've had a lot of great feedback about it

00:19:17 ◼   ► 'cause people just really like to use

00:19:19 ◼   ► the theme system journal.

00:19:20 ◼   ► So we decided to take all of the work that we have done

00:19:23 ◼   ► in creating a fantastic paper product

00:19:26 ◼   ► that is really nice to use

00:19:28 ◼   ► and turn it into just a regular notebook.

00:19:31 ◼   ► So if you love your theme system journal,

00:19:32 ◼   ► now you can write all of your notes

00:19:34 ◼   ► in a book made just like it.

00:19:36 ◼   ► Or if for some reason you've been wondering,

00:19:37 ◼   ► hey what's all this fuss about?

00:19:39 ◼   ► But you don't want to be a journal person,

00:19:41 ◼   ► which I don't understand if you don't,

00:19:42 ◼   ► I think everybody should get a theme system journal,

00:19:44 ◼   ► but nevertheless, now we have a product for you.

00:19:47 ◼   ► So it's made exactly the same with the same materials.

00:19:50 ◼   ► It has a different cover,

00:19:51 ◼   ► which is a wonderful kind of slightly metallic blue

00:19:54 ◼   ► with a more subtle logo,

00:19:55 ◼   ► but otherwise is constructed identically

00:19:58 ◼   ► to the theme system journal.

00:19:59 ◼   ► It has dot grid, number pages, corner perforations

00:20:02 ◼   ► so you can keep your place, and a lay flat design.

00:20:05 ◼   ► It's on sale now at cortexmerch.com.

00:20:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, I've got mine right here, right next to me.

00:20:10 ◼   ► Obviously, Myke designed, it's beautiful.

00:20:13 ◼   ► And yeah, if you are looking for a high quality notebook,

00:20:18 ◼   ► it is obviously, we recommend it.

00:20:20 ◼   ► It's great, I love it.

00:20:21 ◼   ► And it's taken all of the work that you've done

00:20:24 ◼   ► for the theme system and notebookified it.

00:20:27 ◼   ► And I also just really love that when you pitched this

00:20:31 ◼   ► to me the first time, it was,

00:20:33 ◼   ► We want to take the subtle shirt and turn it into a notebook.

00:20:37 ◼   ► And that's exactly what has happened.

00:20:38 ◼   ► I 100% love that it matches this shirt so well,

00:20:42 ◼   ► like with a nice subtle logo on the side.

00:20:44 ◼   ► It's, I love it.

00:20:45 ◼   ► It's so good.

00:20:46 ◼   ► - It is a notebook version of a t-shirt.

00:20:50 ◼   ► - Yes. - That's what we've made.

00:20:51 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:20:52 ◼   ► You're listening to Cortex right now.

00:20:54 ◼   ► What more do you need to know?

00:20:56 ◼   ► Cortexmerch.com.

00:20:59 ◼   ► - We need to talk about live streaming.

00:21:01 ◼   ► - Do we?

00:21:02 ◼   ► Why? Why do we need to talk about live streaming?

00:21:04 ◼   ► - I think for a couple of reasons.

00:21:05 ◼   ► One, I have been live streaming weekly for six months now.

00:21:10 ◼   ► So I wanted to check in on how that's been going for me,

00:21:13 ◼   ► but also because you're a live streaming machine

00:21:15 ◼   ► who can't be stopped.

00:21:16 ◼   ► - No, I don't know if that's true.

00:21:18 ◼   ► Okay, if we're going to talk about live streaming,

00:21:21 ◼   ► what it actually needs to be is I need to learn

00:21:24 ◼   ► from your experience of live streaming.

00:21:27 ◼   ► - Gray, that's partly why we're having this conversation.

00:21:31 ◼   ► - Okay, is this like a streaming intervention

00:21:33 ◼   ► that's actually occurring? - A little bit.

00:21:35 ◼   ► - Hey, we need to talk about your streaming.

00:21:37 ◼   ► - There's some stuff that we need to talk about,

00:21:39 ◼   ► but there's other parts that I'm just intrigued about.

00:21:41 ◼   ► So to kind of give everybody a refresher,

00:21:44 ◼   ► I have been streaming weekly at mike.live

00:21:47 ◼   ► with keyboard related content.

00:21:49 ◼   ► This is my new hobby and I've really been enjoying it.

00:21:52 ◼   ► And every Friday I've been doing a stream

00:21:54 ◼   ► for an hour or two where I might be building something

00:21:58 ◼   ► or looking at some upcoming products.

00:22:00 ◼   ► This is kind of called like group buyer reviews.

00:22:02 ◼   ► We look at stuff that's coming down the line

00:22:03 ◼   ► and I give my thoughts and opinions on the designs.

00:22:06 ◼   ► And now that I'm back in the studio more,

00:22:09 ◼   ► I'm thinking about maybe doing more streams

00:22:11 ◼   ► and I've actually been wanting to do

00:22:12 ◼   ► some game stuff as well.

00:22:14 ◼   ► And I can maybe do that on different days in the week.

00:22:16 ◼   ► So I've really been enjoying it.

00:22:18 ◼   ► And I wanna talk a little bit about some of the changes

00:22:20 ◼   ► that I've gone through,

00:22:22 ◼   ► especially from an equipment perspective

00:22:24 ◼   ► and also talk about some of the stuff that I've learned

00:22:26 ◼   ► from having done this for another like six months.

00:22:29 ◼   ► So that's where I am right now, but now I want to kind of get everybody up to speed

00:22:33 ◼   ► and where you are too, so in the past you've been doing some director's commentary live

00:22:37 ◼   ► streams, right?

00:22:38 ◼   ► That's something you've been doing for a while when you post a big video.

00:22:41 ◼   ► Yeah, I feel like it's been about a year, I guess, that I've been doing that.

00:22:45 ◼   ► I think since the Tumbleweeds video, that was the first one.

00:22:48 ◼   ► Yes, yeah.

00:22:49 ◼   ► And so, you know, my understanding is that's like a perk for Patreon too, right?

00:22:52 ◼   ► They get like the video and stuff, your direct support gets the videos.

00:22:55 ◼   ► And you've done some occasional game streams, mostly Mario Kart, if memory serves, right?

00:23:01 ◼   ► But in the past week or so, you've been playing an absolute ton of Minecraft.

00:23:07 ◼   ► And so I'm keen to understand what triggered this.

00:23:13 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:23:14 ◼   ► Okay, that's a perfectly fine reason.

00:23:17 ◼   ► Saying "I just wanted to do it" is like, great!

00:23:20 ◼   ► Okay.

00:23:21 ◼   ► It's one of these- it's like, um, it's been a weird series of escalations combined with just a bunch of timing stuff, but...

00:23:33 ◼   ► [sigh]

00:23:35 ◼   ► Okay, so if I'm trying to reconstruct it- so there's the background thing which is going on here.

00:23:42 ◼   ► When I switched my business to be much more direct support, and I gave up doing embedded sponsorships in the videos,

00:23:49 ◼   ► One of the things that had been on my list for a really long time is I wanted to have

00:23:52 ◼   ► a second place that people could sign up to support the channel because sometimes for

00:23:58 ◼   ► whatever reason, like people don't want to use Patreon, they want like a second

00:24:01 ◼   ► option was a frequent request.

00:24:03 ◼   ► And I've been kind of looking at stuff for a while and eventually with the timing of

00:24:09 ◼   ► it, it's like YouTube has just been rolling out their members program.

00:24:13 ◼   ► And I got an invitation to be one of the early trial people for this.

00:24:18 ◼   ► And I thought, "Okay, let me give this a shot."

00:24:20 ◼   ► And so I've been trialing that out for, I don't know, maybe six months or so?

00:24:24 ◼   ► It seems like from the outside, basically, they took Patreon and Twitch and mushed them together.

00:24:31 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:24:32 ◼   ► I mean, I don't know very much about Twitch, so that's hard for me to comment on, but I think it is very fair to say that this is YouTube's answer to Patreon in a large number of ways.

00:24:43 ◼   ► Anyway, so I wanted to just have an answer when people email me and they're like,

00:24:47 ◼   ► hey, I want a different option.

00:24:48 ◼   ► So I've been trying it out and.

00:24:50 ◼   ► This actually just goes right into the, the like flow chart that we were talking

00:24:57 ◼   ► about before was like, as you keep adding things, each individual thing makes

00:25:02 ◼   ► everything much more complicated.

00:25:04 ◼   ► There's like a nonlinear amount of complication that occurs.

00:25:07 ◼   ► And so I've been working a lot on trying to make sure that people who sign up to

00:25:14 ◼   ► become members or patrons that for the primary two levels that people use,

00:25:20 ◼   ► everything is as the same as it can be.

00:25:22 ◼   ► I don't think that the content experience should be different.

00:25:25 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:25:25 ◼   ► And that ends up being a lot more work and a lot more difficult than you expect.

00:25:28 ◼   ► You've got to double the work now.

00:25:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:25:30 ◼   ► So there's, there is double the work.

00:25:32 ◼   ► Like, so that, that is the boring business background all to get to the sentence of,

00:25:37 ◼   ► so what I was trying to figure out how to do and completely failed in doing was how

00:25:44 ◼   ► can I stream the director's commentaries to both groups of people?

00:25:50 ◼   ► And normally the way that I've done it is since the director's commentaries

00:25:55 ◼   ► are for the supporters of the channel, like it's been a private thing.

00:25:58 ◼   ► Then I was thinking, okay, but how can I stream this to both groups?

00:26:02 ◼   ► And it's like, Oh God, this is a technical challenge.

00:26:05 ◼   ► And also a Gray's internet is not fast enough and not reliable enough challenge as well.

00:26:12 ◼   ► And I basically gave up with, what was it? I guess it was the metric paper video. I gave

00:26:17 ◼   ► up even attempting to do that and just did the director's commentary live on the channel

00:26:24 ◼   ► instead of having it behind a paywall because I couldn't figure out how to do the thing.

00:26:30 ◼   ► And I was like, well, I don't want to favour one group over the other. So, uh, everybody

00:26:34 ◼   ► can watch when it's live, I guess now.

00:26:36 ◼   ► Yeah, but then you can do, which I think you have been doing, which I think is, I think

00:26:39 ◼   ► a really fair way to do it is then the replay is only available for members or patrons, right?

00:26:46 ◼   ► B: Yeah, yeah, that's what I've done for now. This is also one of these things where, simply

00:26:52 ◼   ► because of the language issue as well, I've never really had a name for the group of people who

00:26:57 ◼   ► support the channel, but now that there's two system, it's like I need a way to refer to both

00:27:01 ◼   ► of them, and so I've come up with the Bonnie B Brigade as like an outgrowth of the Bonnie B that

00:27:07 ◼   ► that I've used on the channel for a long time.

00:27:09 ◼   ► But again, it's, it's one of these things of, I've always avoided

00:27:14 ◼   ► any kind of collective name.

00:27:16 ◼   ► That's fine until you have two systems and now you need one name.

00:27:21 ◼   ► First you can just adopt what that system calls their customers, right?

00:27:26 ◼   ► So like your patrons of Patreon.

00:27:28 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:27:29 ◼   ► Like I used to just say crowdfunders or patrons or whatever.

00:27:32 ◼   ► And, and I've used crowdfunders a little bit in the past year, but

00:27:36 ◼   ► I just really hate it as a word.

00:27:37 ◼   ► I think it's an ugly word.

00:27:38 ◼   ► That word doesn't mean any more, I think, what it used to mean.

00:27:42 ◼   ► Now like crowdfunding is Kickstarter.

00:27:44 ◼   ► Yes, exactly.

00:27:45 ◼   ► There's like a legacy term way that I'm using it, which is slipping.

00:27:49 ◼   ► Like you don't you don't want to get stuck on the old term for forever.

00:27:52 ◼   ► So I don't know.

00:27:53 ◼   ► It's just it's been it's been this weird time where I've been trying to solve a bunch of

00:27:57 ◼   ► these weird background technical issues.

00:28:01 ◼   ► Like the you know, the direct support is totally what the channel relies on and just trying

00:28:06 ◼   ► to make this work by what I thought was, "Oh, I'll just flip a switch and give it a try

00:28:12 ◼   ► and see how it works."

00:28:13 ◼   ► I didn't realize, "Oh, this is actually going to introduce a much larger number of

00:28:17 ◼   ► problems than I thought at first."

00:28:20 ◼   ► But so anyway, I gave up trying to solve one problem.

00:28:22 ◼   ► I just did the director's commentary live.

00:28:25 ◼   ► Then I was trying to solve the problem again and accidentally streamed live on the channel

00:28:30 ◼   ► when I didn't mean to.

00:28:32 ◼   ► and basically just said, "Okay, f it, let's roll with this and I'll just do some Mario

00:28:38 ◼   ► Kart on the mainstream." And then that just opened the flood doors of, "Oh, I guess I

00:28:44 ◼   ► can just stream on the main channel and it's okay dot dot dot question mark?" Like, I'm

00:28:52 ◼   ► not 100% sure. It's very early in doing this, which is probably why it's a good time for

00:28:57 ◼   ► your intervention if you're going to try to direct me here. This is like a very inflectiony

00:29:02 ◼   ► point kind of thing. Yeah so anyway it's a combination of so I sort of opened this door

00:29:08 ◼   ► accidentally and then it's I mean this is like a whole other side thing but it's just

00:29:14 ◼   ► worked out that some of my videos are in a really frustrating stage of development like

00:29:20 ◼   ► I feel really stuck on two of them in these really annoying ways and so I've ended up

00:29:25 ◼   ► having a bunch of days work-wise that are just kind of frustrating after the morning

00:29:31 ◼   ► and I feel like I just haven't really accomplished much. And so that has totally pushed me to

00:29:39 ◼   ► just try to play around with streaming a bit more and figure out what's here and what works.

00:29:45 ◼   ► It originally started with, I can't remember how, but I think someone mentioned when I

00:29:49 ◼   ► did that Mario Kart stream about Myst, which is a game that I really love.

00:29:54 ◼   ► Yes, you have played Myst, yes.

00:29:55 ◼   ► And just haven't played in literally over 20 years.

00:29:59 ◼   ► It's very old.

00:30:00 ◼   ► And I just thought, oh, that might be just kind of fun to try out on the channel.

00:30:05 ◼   ► Like I referenced Myst several times in my vlogs because it had a really big aesthetic

00:30:09 ◼   ► impact on me.

00:30:10 ◼   ► And so yeah, I gave that a try and I don't know, it's, I was really happy to just experience

00:30:17 ◼   ► the game again.

00:30:18 ◼   ► Like it was an interesting experience.

00:30:20 ◼   ► And also, you know, I could use help getting through it because I wasn't going to remember

00:30:23 ◼   ► all the puzzles. It was much harder than I remembered it. I thought like, "Oh, blast

00:30:29 ◼   ► through this, no problem." It's like, "No, it's still quite a hard puzzle game even

00:30:33 ◼   ► after 20 years." When I was doing that, someone mentioned Minecraft, which I didn't

00:30:38 ◼   ► realize was still incredibly popular. I just kind of assumed that it had faded away a little

00:30:42 ◼   ► bit.

00:30:43 ◼   ► I mean, I don't know if it's still now, but there was a time in the last year where

00:30:48 ◼   ► it was, again, the most popular video game in the world.

00:30:51 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, it has amazing staying power.

00:30:54 ◼   ► And yeah, so again, I just, I had some really frustrating days with trying to work on some videos.

00:31:01 ◼   ► And the Minecraft thing was just really nice.

00:31:03 ◼   ► Like, oh, I feel like I've done something in the day after a frustrating morning.

00:31:09 ◼   ► And it's also just genuinely quite fun to play.

00:31:13 ◼   ► So it's been this weird combination of one, like we've talked about streaming for years and years now.

00:31:20 ◼   ► And I think, to anyone who's been with us, it has always been clear that I'm the one

00:31:24 ◼   ► who has a much harder time with this, and I don't get it, and I feel like I've never

00:31:28 ◼   ► really figured it out.

00:31:31 ◼   ► And this is much more of me making a concerted effort to try to figure it out, because it's

00:31:37 ◼   ► just happened to work out that I have a couple of good games that I wanted to try anyway,

00:31:43 ◼   ► and a, like, bumpier period in the main script time.

00:31:49 ◼   ► So yeah, so it's really just been a bunch of messing around is the long answer to why

00:31:54 ◼   ► has this happened?

00:31:56 ◼   ► It's just been like one thing on top of another.

00:31:58 ◼   ► That's why it's happened.

00:32:00 ◼   ► This episode of Cortex is brought to you by our good friends at Memberfall.

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00:33:46 ◼   ► and Relay FM.

00:33:48 ◼   ► Poking in and peeking in,

00:33:50 ◼   ► as you've been doing this over the last few days.

00:33:52 ◼   ► I mean, I can say from business perspective,

00:33:54 ◼   ► this is a good idea.

00:33:56 ◼   ► Your numbers are incredible.

00:33:58 ◼   ► - I didn't realize you've been spying on me.

00:33:59 ◼   ► - I've been spying on you, yeah.

00:34:01 ◼   ► I mean, YouTube actively tells me when it's happening.

00:34:04 ◼   ► Like you can't get away from it,

00:34:06 ◼   ► which is really interesting.

00:34:08 ◼   ► Now it's good, this is good, right?

00:34:09 ◼   ► I think that, okay, 'cause here's the,

00:34:11 ◼   ► like when I first saw it, I was like,

00:34:13 ◼   ► why would you stream on YouTube?

00:34:14 ◼   ► Like Twitch is the place, right, for streaming.

00:34:17 ◼   ► It's just about a platform for it

00:34:18 ◼   ► because it's built around it, right?

00:34:20 ◼   ► Like that's what Twitch is.

00:34:22 ◼   ► YouTube's like trying to make fetch happen, you know?

00:34:25 ◼   ► Like that they are really trying with live streaming,

00:34:27 ◼   ► but people go to Twitch because it's kind of

00:34:30 ◼   ► the expectation now, is that that's where you live stream.

00:34:34 ◼   ► But you have this inbuilt audience there already subscribed.

00:34:39 ◼   ► YouTube wants to tell them, like every time you're streaming

00:34:44 ◼   ► you are the top video in my subscriptions list

00:34:47 ◼   ► no matter what's coming in.

00:34:48 ◼   ► They put you right up there and you're like live.

00:34:52 ◼   ► So like for you, I think it makes perfect sense

00:34:55 ◼   ► to stream on YouTube rather than,

00:34:57 ◼   ► 'cause then, I mean, honestly, if you did on Twitch

00:34:59 ◼   ► you would then be having a third option, right?

00:35:03 ◼   ► - Right.

00:35:04 ◼   ► of like, now you have these subscribers and where do they go, there is something to be

00:35:09 ◼   ► said about the diversification of that, which is intriguing, but I feel like would add so

00:35:15 ◼   ► much on top that probably makes it more complicated.

00:35:21 ◼   ► And also just from watching, like, it seems like it is a really great way to encourage

00:35:27 ◼   ► people to subscribe.

00:35:29 ◼   ► Because when you're streaming live, if you are a person who watches live streams, you're

00:35:34 ◼   ► very used to the idea of this will encourage people to subscribe and then at least with

00:35:40 ◼   ► the YouTube stuff they get additional benefits they don't really get on Twitch, right?

00:35:44 ◼   ► Like Twitch is just kind of like I support this creator now I don't see ads and I get

00:35:48 ◼   ► some emotes but at least with the YouTube stuff I assume from what I could glean if

00:35:53 ◼   ► somebody supports you by like subbing while you're live they also get all of the benefits

00:35:59 ◼   ► that you would get as a patron/regular subscriber. So there is definitely something to be said

00:36:06 ◼   ► for someone like you using YouTube as your live streaming platform rather than trying

00:36:12 ◼   ► to start something new on Twitch. And I've also found it intriguing to watch some of

00:36:19 ◼   ► these streams because it's so different content-wise to the stuff that you normally

00:36:24 ◼   ► right because it's live which is not a thing that you really do and I was kind

00:36:32 ◼   ► of intrigued as to how that makes you feel to be creating live.

00:36:37 ◼   ► Yeah I mean when well you know when you pitched me on Cortex years ago I remember one of my

00:36:42 ◼   ► main points was like just so you understand this will never be live right

00:36:47 ◼   ► because you were doing other shows live.

00:36:50 ◼   ► Most of my other shows, especially my weekly shows, we stream them live.

00:36:55 ◼   ► People can listen in our members Discord, they can listen on the web.

00:36:59 ◼   ► It's just a thing that I've always done, so it's just a thing that I do.

00:37:03 ◼   ► I don't particularly feel like that there is a reason.

00:37:06 ◼   ► Like this is other shows that I do that I don't stream live.

00:37:09 ◼   ► It adds and it also makes some things more tricky at the same time.

00:37:12 ◼   ► For the shows that are like quite news focused and information heavy, it can be useful because

00:37:17 ◼   ► the live stream actually provides information, right?

00:37:21 ◼   ► But say for a show like ours, the one we're doing right now,

00:37:24 ◼   ► I don't think streaming live would help.

00:37:26 ◼   ► It would actually make the show harder to make.

00:37:28 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:37:30 ◼   ► Back in the day, you would have wanted it to be live,

00:37:34 ◼   ► and I think-- - 'Cause it was what I was used to.

00:37:35 ◼   ► - I was very firm on not live. - Please no, yeah.

00:37:39 ◼   ► - Yes. (laughs)

00:37:40 ◼   ► - And it's for the best for this show.

00:37:42 ◼   ► There has been one live appearance ever, right?

00:37:45 ◼   ► When you came to San Francisco,

00:37:47 ◼   ► we did a segment.

00:37:48 ◼   ► - Right.

00:37:49 ◼   ► - But, so I just find it very interesting

00:37:51 ◼   ► to watch you creating live.

00:37:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, there's so much

00:37:55 ◼   ► in what you've just already said is,

00:37:57 ◼   ► and this is where I really feel like

00:37:58 ◼   ► I'm trying to figure it out.

00:38:01 ◼   ► I am concerned about the notification issue.

00:38:06 ◼   ► I don't think it's a problem,

00:38:09 ◼   ► but I just don't know. - No.

00:38:10 ◼   ► - And it's just-- - It's not a problem.

00:38:11 ◼   ► - It's early days.

00:38:12 ◼   ► - It's not a problem.

00:38:13 ◼   ► - I mean, yes. - Well, okay.

00:38:15 ◼   ► It will maybe become a problem

00:38:16 ◼   ► if you streamed a lot and then people turn off notifications and they don't get notifications

00:38:21 ◼   ► for the videos anymore.

00:38:22 ◼   ► But that's not a thing that you can work out.

00:38:25 ◼   ► And as well, it's like, if you start relying on the notifications to tell people when you're

00:38:29 ◼   ► streaming live, you are then at the whim of YouTube again, as to when they may or may

00:38:33 ◼   ► not send that notification that you expect.

00:38:37 ◼   ► And also, how much sense this makes to do long term, I just don't know.

00:38:43 ◼   ► I suspect that a lot of this might just be a kind of novelty effect at the moment.

00:38:48 ◼   ► Like, it's novel for me, which is what makes it interesting,

00:38:51 ◼   ► and it can also just be novel for people to watch it.

00:38:54 ◼   ► Yeah, there's always a novelty to stuff like this.

00:38:56 ◼   ► Yeah, I think one of the other big things about having direct support

00:39:01 ◼   ► be the main thing that supports the channel,

00:39:04 ◼   ► that, you know, now that I've been doing this for a while,

00:39:08 ◼   ► is I've realized like I have to have a visible reminder that this is a thing that people

00:39:15 ◼   ► can do now that like the business and the people that I work with depend on this as

00:39:20 ◼   ► an income source.

00:39:22 ◼   ► Because what happens over time with any of these kinds of things is like, okay, if I

00:39:25 ◼   ► make a video that says, you know, please support me on Patreon or whatever, over time, the

00:39:32 ◼   ► number of people who are there decay just as like credit cards expire or people like

00:39:37 ◼   ► lose interest or whatever.

00:39:40 ◼   ► There's always a certain amount of churn and like it's a thing that I've- if the business

00:39:45 ◼   ► depends on this, I have to promote it in some way, but I am just- I'm deeply uncomfortable

00:39:53 ◼   ► with the direct ask.

00:39:56 ◼   ► I've done it two or three times in 10 years, which is not enough if the business actually

00:40:05 ◼   ► needs to depend on this as the primary source of income.

00:40:08 ◼   ► So one of the things that I've been doing with this is just to have a visible reminder

00:40:14 ◼   ► to people that like, "Oh, you can support the channel."

00:40:17 ◼   ► And if you do, there are perks.

00:40:20 ◼   ► And it is one of the things that's quite interesting about YouTube members to me is

00:40:26 ◼   ► it does make it very visually and immediately obvious to people, "Hey, there's more content

00:40:33 ◼   ► here."

00:40:34 ◼   ► Like, I always find it quite interesting with the creators that I support on Patreon that

00:40:39 ◼   ► I almost never consume their additional content that exists there.

00:40:45 ◼   ► It's a pain.

00:40:46 ◼   ► It's a pain.

00:40:47 ◼   ► It's very hard to go back and to find it

00:40:50 ◼   ► I have a couple of people that I support on patreon and one of the things that they'll do is you get the video

00:40:56 ◼   ► early, right

00:40:58 ◼   ► mm-hmm, so

00:41:00 ◼   ► They send me an email and then I have to open the email and then I want to save the video to my watch later

00:41:06 ◼   ► Queue which means I didn't have to sign in to YouTube again

00:41:10 ◼   ► Even though I'm already signed in in another tab right and then open the video and then press the button. It's a pain

00:41:16 ◼   ► It doesn't just show up where I want it to be.

00:41:20 ◼   ► So for like, for more text people subscribe

00:41:22 ◼   ► and it's in their feed.

00:41:24 ◼   ► It's like if every time we were like,

00:41:26 ◼   ► we sent people an email every month,

00:41:28 ◼   ► which had an MP3 attached to it,

00:41:31 ◼   ► which had the additional content.

00:41:33 ◼   ► And it's like, you can go listen to this now, right?

00:41:36 ◼   ► Like it's like, it doesn't,

00:41:37 ◼   ► it's not meeting people where they are.

00:41:41 ◼   ► And I think that's the interesting part of

00:41:44 ◼   ► you leaning into what YouTube's offering,

00:41:47 ◼   ► as well as what Patreon's offering,

00:41:49 ◼   ► because it really is leaning into where your customers

00:41:54 ◼   ► are already, which is YouTube.

00:41:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I mean, part of the experience that I had,

00:42:00 ◼   ► which also made me consider this,

00:42:02 ◼   ► is I signed up for a couple people's memberships

00:42:04 ◼   ► on YouTube myself, and found,

00:42:08 ◼   ► oh, I'm actually watching the additional stuff

00:42:11 ◼   ► that they create.

00:42:13 ◼   ► I mean, it may be literally true a thousand percent more because I would basically never

00:42:17 ◼   ► watch it on Patreon.

00:42:19 ◼   ► And I've caught myself thinking, oh, there's some channels like I wish they would put their

00:42:23 ◼   ► stuff on YouTube.

00:42:24 ◼   ► So I don't know, it's interesting and the, you know, the program is still in beta, so

00:42:29 ◼   ► I'm a little bit limited about what I can say about it.

00:42:32 ◼   ► But what I can say is it presents this real split where, you know, when someone is supporting

00:42:39 ◼   ► the channel, it works much better for me if they do that on Patreon.

00:42:47 ◼   ► Like all things being equal, I would much prefer someone to sign up on Patreon by a

00:42:54 ◼   ► big margin.

00:42:56 ◼   ► But I know as a user, it's way more convenient if it's right there on YouTube.

00:43:04 ◼   ► So it's an interesting split and I think well if I was a supporter of me I would prefer

00:43:13 ◼   ► to sign up on YouTube and so that's one of the reasons why I'm just kind of giving it

00:43:18 ◼   ► a try and seeing how things go.

00:43:22 ◼   ► You know it's funny because like obviously I had the 10-year thing that we talked about

00:43:26 ◼   ► last time or the time before yeah and so obviously I've been thinking a lot about the next 10

00:43:31 ◼   ► years of the business. And, you know, I really want to lean on direct support quite a lot

00:43:37 ◼   ► through, you know, memberships and through merchandise, you know, weird stuff like the

00:43:42 ◼   ► stamp or whatever. But one of the things that sort of dawned on me is that I think I've

00:43:47 ◼   ► been doing my career in a little bit of a reverse way from the way a lot of content

00:43:54 ◼   ► creator production facilities go where my early stuff was also much less personal.

00:44:03 ◼   ► And over the last 10 years, I think there has been a trend towards more personal.

00:44:11 ◼   ► And I've also trended away from advertising and like both of those are very in the

00:44:19 ◼   ► opposite direction of the way most things go. That as a channel gets bigger, often one

00:44:25 ◼   ► of the things that people want to do is they want to try to more formalize, like, what's

00:44:30 ◼   ► the system? How does this work? How do we make this more reproducible? And like, that's

00:44:33 ◼   ► how you make a bigger business. But I've realized I'm very happy to lean into the channel actually

00:44:41 ◼   ► becoming just more personal over time, which is why like, oh, the vlogs have gone up. And

00:44:48 ◼   ► also why I feel comfortable experimenting with the live streaming stuff because that

00:44:53 ◼   ► then feels incredibly personal on the spectrum. It's like, "Oh, I'm here right now, you're

00:45:00 ◼   ► listening to me talk, and I'm just kind of playing a video game, and so there's something

00:45:07 ◼   ► incredibly unserious and hangouty about it."

00:45:12 ◼   ► I'm pleased you said that because I wanted to say this.

00:45:16 ◼   ► You probably won't like it but I'm going to say it anyway.

00:45:20 ◼   ► In watching you play the game, I see more of who I know because there is more silliness

00:45:34 ◼   ► because you're playing a video game and so it's funny and you're doing silly things

00:45:37 ◼   ► And I know that side of you more, and it's not the side of you that comes out in your videos, especially, like most of the time.

00:45:45 ◼   ► Most of the times, you are presenting something and it's serious, right?

00:45:49 ◼   ► And that is what people see from you.

00:45:52 ◼   ► But in the live streaming stuff, because it's happening live, your natural reaction to things is coming out more.

00:46:01 ◼   ► Right? Like I was watching you build a train track and I think one moment you

00:46:07 ◼   ► press the button and the train car flew away and you know you're just like

00:46:11 ◼   ► giggling up a storm.

00:46:13 ◼   ► Trains are fun.

00:46:14 ◼   ► Yeah and it's like there's a spectrum I think that people would see you on right?

00:46:18 ◼   ► So people that watch the YouTube videos see one side of you, people who listen to

00:46:23 ◼   ► the podcasts get a little bit more of that right? Like a little bit more of you

00:46:27 ◼   ► as the full person but content where it's live just naturally you will give

00:46:34 ◼   ► more of you like the whole you because it's not written it's not planned in

00:46:40 ◼   ► advance it's not being presented you're just playing the game and being yourself

00:46:45 ◼   ► so all this is to say if the goal is to give more of your personal side because

00:46:53 ◼   ► that is the way that the business continues with a direct support model.

00:46:57 ◼   ► Things like live streaming I think are a very good thing to continue and to add

00:47:02 ◼   ► in because it does open you up a little bit more as a person and as a creator

00:47:09 ◼   ► because people get to see more of who you are and I think that that is why, you

00:47:15 ◼   ► know, like I'm watching and I've seen lots of people were subscribing and that's kind of

00:47:19 ◼   ► the way that I see the popular Twitch creators that I watch.

00:47:23 ◼   ► The more you watch, the more you're like "oh subscribe because I enjoy, I'm having

00:47:28 ◼   ► fun here over a period of time."

00:47:31 ◼   ► So I think if that is your goal, I think that this helps continue to further that.

00:47:38 ◼   ► Yeah, I would say less as like, it's the goal, but more like it's okay, right?

00:47:45 ◼   ► Like it's okay to have the more personal stuff.

00:47:48 ◼   ► I mean, this, this again is where I was really worried about having two vlogs in a row and like,

00:47:54 ◼   ► oh, it turned out fine.

00:47:55 ◼   ► And I think this is, this is a side effect of audience expectations.

00:48:00 ◼   ► Again, people know what the deal is.

00:48:01 ◼   ► You know, again, I'm slightly worried because the YouTube streams are subscriber net negative.

00:48:08 ◼   ► if I look in the back end, but they're not very net negative.

00:48:12 ◼   ► - What does that mean?

00:48:14 ◼   ► - So I mean like if I do a stream,

00:48:16 ◼   ► I lose subscribers on that stream.

00:48:19 ◼   ► - Oh, you mean overall subscribers.

00:48:20 ◼   ► So this is where, okay, this is where naming is difficult

00:48:24 ◼   ► because subscribers on Twitch means

00:48:26 ◼   ► the people that pay you money.

00:48:28 ◼   ► - I know, I know.

00:48:29 ◼   ► This is one of the like sidebar, I'm always harping on this.

00:48:35 ◼   ► I think YouTube should just ditch the whole concept

00:48:37 ◼   ► of subscribers, but they can't because they built their dumb awards around it.

00:48:41 ◼   ► But I've thought forever, like they need to get rid of this.

00:48:44 ◼   ► Well, it's all changing now.

00:48:45 ◼   ► Like, so we're recording this just as Apple's launched their Apple podcast

00:48:48 ◼   ► subscriptions thing, which obviously there is a parallel to that conversation,

00:48:52 ◼   ► but it's too early for me to even have formed a full opinion on this program.

00:48:58 ◼   ► But Apple and Apple podcasts now has follow and subscribe.

00:49:02 ◼   ► And follow.

00:49:04 ◼   ► Oh, that's way better.

00:49:05 ◼   ► Follow is what people do for our show right now, right?

00:49:09 ◼   ► Like the vast majority of our listeners,

00:49:11 ◼   ► they are now like, if they use Apple Podcasts,

00:49:14 ◼   ► following us, they've just,

00:49:15 ◼   ► and what we would have always called,

00:49:17 ◼   ► subscribe to the show, right?

00:49:19 ◼   ► - Right, yes.

00:49:20 ◼   ► - But then you have the membership and the paid stuff,

00:49:23 ◼   ► and that is now a subscription.

00:49:25 ◼   ► I mean, I'm just old school, so I'm used to it,

00:49:27 ◼   ► but I wouldn't mind if this naming actually just changed

00:49:30 ◼   ► and just standardized,

00:49:31 ◼   ► 'cause now I'm used to, with Twitch,

00:49:33 ◼   ► subscriptions is where the money occurs. That's where there's an exchange of whatever. I now want

00:49:39 ◼   ► just please standardize this language across the platforms.

00:49:44 ◼   ► Right, yeah. No, I didn't know Apple changed the language and I'm 100%

00:49:49 ◼   ► behind that. I think subscribe has, it's an anachronistic word, it doesn't make sense,

00:49:53 ◼   ► it's confusing. It's confusing even between right now and this moment, two professionals talking

00:49:58 ◼   ► about what's going on. I was like, "Oh, I'm net negative on subscribers." And you go, "Wow, that

00:50:02 ◼   ► Like, how are you losing money?

00:50:04 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:50:05 ◼   ► - Right, and I'm like,

00:50:06 ◼   ► "Oh, I don't think it's a big deal at all."

00:50:08 ◼   ► Whereas it's like,

00:50:09 ◼   ► "Oh, if my direct supporters were abandoning me en masse

00:50:12 ◼   ► when I streamed, it's like, I would stop streaming real fast."

00:50:16 ◼   ► Like, you know, so it's-

00:50:18 ◼   ► - That doesn't make any sense.

00:50:19 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:50:21 ◼   ► They're all off refunds.

00:50:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's hard to talk about,

00:50:23 ◼   ► but I guess what I was trying to say there is,

00:50:26 ◼   ► I'm worried about the notifications thing.

00:50:28 ◼   ► I know that the people who follow me on YouTube

00:50:31 ◼   ► with the subscription button, that number goes negative when I stream, but not by a lot.

00:50:37 ◼   ► And I also easily expect that's hugely disproportionate to people who like just signed up on the last main video.

00:50:45 ◼   ► Like, I would bet 80% of those unsubscribes are people who just subscribed when they found Metric Paper.

00:50:51 ◼   ► And then they're like, "Oh, this is a nostalgia streaming channel? I didn't know that, like unsubscribe."

00:50:57 ◼   ► Or it is the far less engaged person who is now annoyed that this is happening, but they

00:51:04 ◼   ► were not going to particularly watch every video or ever sign up.

00:51:10 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

00:51:11 ◼   ► Anyway.

00:51:12 ◼   ► And this is also where one of the things related to the whole concept of YouTube subscriptions

00:51:17 ◼   ► is I'm trying to just psychologically let go of, you know, it's a bit like the serenity

00:51:24 ◼   ► prayer and you know, hey, you know what you have to say the serenity prayer about?

00:51:27 ◼   ► When does YouTube notify people about your videos?

00:51:29 ◼   ► And it's like, well, you know, don't spend a lot of time and energy on the things you

00:51:34 ◼   ► can't control and you don't know about.

00:51:36 ◼   ► So it's like, I don't have any idea when YouTube notifies people about the main videos or the

00:51:42 ◼   ► streams.

00:51:43 ◼   ► It's incredibly difficult to even try to get any kind of idea of when that happens.

00:51:47 ◼   ► So it's like, you know what, whatever, I'm going to just give up and let YouTube sort

00:51:53 ◼   ► it out and I don't know, maybe YouTube will figure out at some point which people do or

00:51:58 ◼   ► don't want game streams and which people want the main videos.

00:52:02 ◼   ► But that's also where I'm not as confident as that, like, oh, I'm not going to worry

00:52:06 ◼   ► thing, you know, as that sounds like, well, you know, we'll see how this pans out in the

00:52:11 ◼   ► future.

00:52:12 ◼   ► But yeah, I guess the original idea here about like just being more personal is also trying

00:52:16 ◼   ► to eliminate the complexities is it makes more sense to just consolidate everything

00:52:24 ◼   ► onto the main YouTube channel.

00:52:27 ◼   ► So it's like I used to have that's the secondary channel for streaming games, but that doesn't

00:52:32 ◼   ► make sense anymore once there's the members program like this is where oh that just kind

00:52:37 ◼   ► of has to go because I don't want three places where people try to sign up and they don't

00:52:43 ◼   ► work with each other and it's confusing.

00:52:45 ◼   ► And you have enough control where it doesn't mess up the video list and stuff like that.

00:52:51 ◼   ► Yes, yeah.

00:52:52 ◼   ► You don't get all these game videos intermixed.

00:52:55 ◼   ► Like you're able to kind of like split them out.

00:52:58 ◼   ► Yeah, I think it's clear that YouTube is interested in this as an important future part of their

00:53:04 ◼   ► platform and I don't know if they're going to continue doing this but it is a big deal

00:53:09 ◼   ► to me that, yeah, this kind of stuff doesn't show up as main video stuff. It's very clearly

00:53:16 ◼   ► separated from the main videos. This allows me to have it be much more obvious like, "Hey

00:53:23 ◼   ► guys, this is bonus, not serious stuff. This isn't what the channel is. It's just like

00:53:30 ◼   ► these extra things." So it does allow me to consolidate this stuff. But I think thinking

00:53:35 ◼   ► about the channel long term, it's helped me also realize it makes sense and it's fine

00:53:41 ◼   ► to consolidate all of these things. My audience, I think after 10 years, gets it that there's

00:53:46 ◼   ► going to be random things all the time on the channel. It's not advice that I would

00:53:50 ◼   ► generally give. This is what I mean by like, it's the reverse of how I see most YouTube

00:53:56 ◼   ► channels go that I think many people as their channels grow, it makes way more sense to

00:54:04 ◼   ► to do spin-off and secondary channels.

00:54:07 ◼   ► And I think for almost any creator, if they're asking me,

00:54:12 ◼   ► oh, they want to do a very different kind of thing,

00:54:13 ◼   ► it's like, you should have a separate channel,

00:54:17 ◼   ► but that's also dependent on the whole business model

00:54:19 ◼   ► of like embedded sponsorships are very important

00:54:22 ◼   ► for most content creators.

00:54:24 ◼   ► So it's just a very different position

00:54:26 ◼   ► that I find myself in.

00:54:27 ◼   ► - I do think that we're on a bit of an inflection point

00:54:30 ◼   ► with this type of stuff though.

00:54:32 ◼   ► - What do you mean?

00:54:33 ◼   ► So I think that the pandemic has forced a lot of creators to consider their revenue

00:54:38 ◼   ► streams differently.

00:54:39 ◼   ► And so there is a lot more trending towards asking people to, you know, if you like

00:54:44 ◼   ► the content, support the content and we'll try and give you something extra for that.

00:54:50 ◼   ► Right.

00:54:50 ◼   ► And so I expect there to be a lot more of people doing the type of thing that you are

00:54:56 ◼   ► attempting to do right now of leaning into the main source providing some kind

00:55:03 ◼   ► of incentive to build a larger support base and rely less on advertising.

00:55:10 ◼   ► I'm not confident about that as a general statement but I don't know maybe.

00:55:14 ◼   ► I think that 2020 has highlighted the fragility of advertising based support

00:55:22 ◼   ► models. So I can imagine a lot more people thinking okay there is a market

00:55:30 ◼   ► for people to want to support whether it's once or on an ongoing basis and as

00:55:37 ◼   ► long as creators continue to find a good balance, right, like it's not gonna work

00:55:43 ◼   ► for people in my opinion who are like alright I'm just gonna say my content is

00:55:48 ◼   ► all behind a paywall and that's not the way to do it. But if you can provide a value proposition

00:55:54 ◼   ► then they will give you their money. Like I know this because it's working for us, I know this is

00:55:59 ◼   ► me as a consumer of content, like I want to give money to people that I like and to get something

00:56:07 ◼   ► out of it. So I mean this is more of just like I agree with what you're saying about you're doing

00:56:13 ◼   ► things kind of in reverse to the typical creator because typically a creator begins they have a

00:56:17 ◼   ► small audience, they ask that audience for help, it helps them grow, they get numbers,

00:56:21 ◼   ► they get advertising and they grow from there and you have kind of gone in the reverse a

00:56:26 ◼   ► little bit. I mean there is a thing of like when you started there wasn't really a lot

00:56:29 ◼   ► of options for direct support though so you know it's that it is a slight inaccuracy

00:56:35 ◼   ► in that thinking right like Patreon didn't exist you know none of these things existed

00:56:40 ◼   ► but the point that I'm making is I do think that larger creators now are considering

00:56:47 ◼   ► direct support more than they would have say in 2019.

00:56:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think that's totally fair.

00:56:54 ◼   ► - But they're not doing what you're doing,

00:56:55 ◼   ► which is then saying, hey, I'm not doing ads anymore.

00:56:58 ◼   ► - Right. - On the YouTube channel.

00:57:00 ◼   ► Well, like most creators, like say me as well,

00:57:03 ◼   ► like with the membership stuff that we're doing,

00:57:05 ◼   ► we still do ads, but we also have direct support as well.

00:57:10 ◼   ► But you've gone an extra step in saying,

00:57:13 ◼   ► "Hey, I'm taking this leap now, please help."

00:57:17 ◼   ► Right, like that's the difference.

00:57:19 ◼   ► It's like it was a bigger step that you took,

00:57:21 ◼   ► which does put you on the, on the outs.

00:57:23 ◼   ► But anyway, we have gone way into reservation now.

00:57:26 ◼   ► I want to bring us right back into live streaming.

00:57:28 ◼   ► One of the things that I found, it was funny to me,

00:57:33 ◼   ► is hearing you do the live streaming thing,

00:57:36 ◼   ► which is the convention of live streaming.

00:57:38 ◼   ► When someone subscribes or becomes a member,

00:57:42 ◼   ► whatever the word is, you say like, "Thanks, Jane."

00:57:47 ◼   ► You know?

00:57:48 ◼   ► Like, that's what you need to do.

00:57:49 ◼   ► And when I turned it on, like, I turned on the screen,

00:57:51 ◼   ► I was like, "Is he gonna do that?"

00:57:52 ◼   ► 'Cause I just wasn't sure, right?

00:57:54 ◼   ► 'Cause this is new for you.

00:57:55 ◼   ► I remember when I first ever started streaming,

00:57:57 ◼   ► I didn't know you needed to do those things.

00:58:00 ◼   ► And people were like, "Why are you not interacting with us?"

00:58:03 ◼   ► And I was like, "I didn't know I had to."

00:58:05 ◼   ► Right, like, it's very strange when you start,

00:58:08 ◼   ► but you were doing it, you know?

00:58:10 ◼   ► you're like, "Thanks Billy Bob for joining," or whatever the words are.

00:58:14 ◼   ► Yeah, all my words are still very complicated.

00:58:16 ◼   ► They're all new.

00:58:17 ◼   ► It takes a while, like it really takes a while, because again, like Twitch is much more complicated

00:58:22 ◼   ► too, because there are like follows, subs, bits, gifted subs, like it's a much broader...

00:58:29 ◼   ► Oh great, sign me up for Twitch, this sounds like what I need.

00:58:33 ◼   ► I mean, I will say as a creator and as a consumer, I think Twitch is better at this stuff.

00:58:37 ◼   ► But again, it's not the right option for you.

00:58:39 ◼   ► The right option for you is to stream on YouTube

00:58:41 ◼   ► because it just makes so much sense.

00:58:44 ◼   ► There is like this whole vernacular that you need to use.

00:58:47 ◼   ► And it was like, as I could feel you were trying to like,

00:58:50 ◼   ► you're trying to find it, right?

00:58:52 ◼   ► Like, cause it is, it's very, again,

00:58:54 ◼   ► it's super different to all of the other types of content

00:58:57 ◼   ► that you make in that way.

00:58:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm totally unexperienced with this.

00:59:01 ◼   ► And also I have the additional problem,

00:59:04 ◼   ► which is because there are two ways

00:59:06 ◼   ► that people can sign up.

00:59:07 ◼   ► I have two chat rooms that I'm managing,

00:59:10 ◼   ► which is very like, oh God, where am I looking?

00:59:13 ◼   ► It's very, it's, it is surprisingly hard.

00:59:17 ◼   ► - So Adina was like, oh, great streaming.

00:59:19 ◼   ► And then she was watching, I don't understand the chat.

00:59:21 ◼   ► And I was like, okay, so he's kind of got these two,

00:59:23 ◼   ► he's got the Discord and the YouTube chat.

00:59:26 ◼   ► So, but why are they both there?

00:59:27 ◼   ► I said, yeah, 'cause they just have to be.

00:59:29 ◼   ► Right, like so.

00:59:30 ◼   ► Now I, so this is one of the things

00:59:32 ◼   ► that I wanna give you feedback on.

00:59:34 ◼   ► What tool are you using? What software are you using?

00:59:36 ◼   ► Streamlabs OBS, that's what I'm using.

00:59:39 ◼   ► Because I think one of the ways that you can benefit from this is some visual design to the stream.

00:59:45 ◼   ► What do you mean? My streams are beautiful.

00:59:48 ◼   ► They're gorgeous, like really amazing.

00:59:50 ◼   ► There are, you know, like there are visual tricks that you can play for putting things in boxes and stuff like that.

00:59:57 ◼   ► And, you know, you will see this with other people that stream, you know, you kind of have a layout.

01:00:03 ◼   ► I don't remember the exact name of it now, but you can kind of set up a layout and I

01:00:06 ◼   ► just think your layout could do with some refinement to make things a bit clearer.

01:00:11 ◼   ► I have refined it quite a lot actually.

01:00:14 ◼   ► It's great.

01:00:15 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:00:16 ◼   ► I mean, in all seriousness, this is just the problem of like the complication versus just

01:00:21 ◼   ► getting it done issue.

01:00:24 ◼   ► And I don't know, like Streamlabs, you recommended it to me and I do quite like it, but I constantly

01:00:32 ◼   ► run into just tons of technical problems with all of the streaming software. Technical problems that

01:00:37 ◼   ► are completely baffling, you know, the kind of thing where you're following through someone's

01:00:40 ◼   ► tutorial and then step six just doesn't work or like, "Oh, that button doesn't exist."

01:00:46 ◼   ► All right, okay. So now we need to actually get into the real meat of this.

01:00:49 ◼   ► Okay.

01:00:51 ◼   ► If you're going to do this, you need a PC. I'm sorry, you don't want to hear it,

01:00:55 ◼   ► but this is it because so many of the problems that you're having

01:01:01 ◼   ► would be solved by using a PC.

01:01:03 ◼   ► 'Cause when you say the button isn't there,

01:01:05 ◼   ► well, you know why the button isn't there?

01:01:06 ◼   ► 'Cause it's in the Windows version.

01:01:08 ◼   ► It's not in the Mac version.

01:01:09 ◼   ► And that's so many of the technical issues

01:01:11 ◼   ► that you find yourself in,

01:01:13 ◼   ► because the Mac is not good at this.

01:01:16 ◼   ► - Right, no, I understand the Mac's not good at this,

01:01:18 ◼   ► but I'm not getting a whole other computer for that.

01:01:21 ◼   ► Like this is, you talk about now,

01:01:24 ◼   ► like introducing more complexity.

01:01:26 ◼   ► Every operating system is literally a universe

01:01:30 ◼   ► unto itself.

01:01:31 ◼   ► No, I know.

01:01:32 ◼   ► And you're like, "Oh, hey, you can't get subscriber names to pop up nice on the screen?

01:01:36 ◼   ► Well don't worry, just pop over into this parallel universe where all the physics are

01:01:40 ◼   ► different and you can solve this problem."

01:01:42 ◼   ► It's like, guess what?

01:01:43 ◼   ► I don't need to solve the problem that badly.

01:01:46 ◼   ► Like it's fine.

01:01:48 ◼   ► What I'm saying to you is for what you're doing right now, right, right now, it's fine.

01:01:55 ◼   ► But if this is a thing that you will want to continue, it is my strong recommendation

01:02:04 ◼   ► that you make your life easier for yourself, ultimately, in having a small form factor

01:02:10 ◼   ► PC.

01:02:11 ◼   ► Yeah, but you're presuming that it will make my life easier.

01:02:14 ◼   ► I know I know.

01:02:15 ◼   ► I don't think that it will.

01:02:17 ◼   ► I really don't think that it will.

01:02:18 ◼   ► I have been on this journey.

01:02:20 ◼   ► I know how much easier it can be.

01:02:23 ◼   ► My PC is just set now.

01:02:27 ◼   ► I do two things on it.

01:02:29 ◼   ► Nothing ever changes.

01:02:30 ◼   ► It works great.

01:02:32 ◼   ► Of course I get the occasional issue which is solved by unplugging and replugging a USB

01:02:36 ◼   ► device but that is like the majority of the issues that I have is just that, if that.

01:02:42 ◼   ► It's like once you set it up and you get it fixed in the way that you want, as long as

01:02:47 ◼   ► you don't do anything else to the PC, which I don't because I only use it for this, it's

01:02:51 ◼   ► fine.

01:02:52 ◼   ► But look, Myke, what are you trying to sell me here?

01:02:54 ◼   ► All I have right now is, oh cool, there's Minecraft on the right and there's Discord

01:02:59 ◼   ► chat on the left.

01:03:01 ◼   ► Great.

01:03:02 ◼   ► Like, I'm good.

01:03:03 ◼   ► Like, that's fine.

01:03:04 ◼   ► It works fine.

01:03:05 ◼   ► All I'm saying is I agree with you for right now.

01:03:09 ◼   ► But again, if this is something that like it becomes a thing in your portfolio that

01:03:16 ◼   ► do frequently. My recommendation is you make your life easier and the stream more professional

01:03:23 ◼   ► looking by enhancing some things. So you get some scenes made for yourself, right? So like

01:03:29 ◼   ► you end up with a more visual design to the stream where things are broken up and laid

01:03:33 ◼   ► out a bit better. And then you also have a PC that can render Minecraft draw distances

01:03:40 ◼   ► an awesome stream at the same time for you.

01:03:44 ◼   ► Putting this out there to you is just like just-

01:03:47 ◼   ► No, but like, no, but this is like, this, I don't know, to be like, this is, this is like

01:03:50 ◼   ► antithetical to what I'm actually doing here.

01:03:52 ◼   ► Like, number one, I'm not actually going to be a daily streamer.

01:03:57 ◼   ► Yeah, of course you're not.

01:03:58 ◼   ► Yeah, I've been doing it a bunch, you know, because this has been a confluence of events

01:04:03 ◼   ► that have made it happen more frequently.

01:04:05 ◼   ► Like, I think I would like to be able to do this somewhat frequently going forward into

01:04:09 ◼   ► the future I don't really know what that means but I wouldn't expect that it is as frequent

01:04:13 ◼   ► as it has been.

01:04:14 ◼   ► I have a question for you.

01:04:16 ◼   ► Why do you have a writing computer?

01:04:19 ◼   ► No Myke, now you're just trying to start a fight here.

01:04:23 ◼   ► Well I'm not trying to start a fight, I'm just asking, just a question that I have for

01:04:28 ◼   ► you is why do you have a writing computer?

01:04:32 ◼   ► The purpose of the writing computer is to try to physically separate the work.

01:04:37 ◼   ► I know where you're going with this.

01:04:38 ◼   ► Where am I? I don't know where I'm not going anywhere. I just, I just couldn't remember.

01:04:42 ◼   ► Look, the writing computer is very simple. It's for writing. It's for podcasting. It's also a

01:04:51 ◼   ► server. It's also a server for all of my video files. And it's a Hazel machine that automatically

01:04:59 ◼   ► categorizes and sorts all of the video footage that I shoot. It's my fastest computer. So it's

01:05:04 ◼   ► also my rendering computer when I'm short on time, and it's also my video game streaming

01:05:09 ◼   ► computer now. So that's what the writing computer does.

01:05:13 ◼   ► - Right. - Okay.

01:05:16 ◼   ► - I mean, just to finish the point, I do... I know what you're saying about getting a

01:05:26 ◼   ► PC and trying to make things more professional. I do get it, even though I'm giving you a

01:05:30 ◼   ► hard time about that. I understand your point, but part of this for me is like, but I am not a

01:05:37 ◼   ► professional streamer. No, I'm not recommending like you're doing this anytime soon. Yeah, if it

01:05:45 ◼   ► doesn't feel like I'm actually just playing this game and I'm enjoying this, I'm not gonna do it.

01:05:51 ◼   ► Like it doesn't really make sense for me to do as a business. Like it makes sense for me to do

01:05:58 ◼   ► as a fun bonus thing for people who support the channel and it also makes sense if it's a fun

01:06:05 ◼   ► thing for me to do in the afternoon when I wouldn't be doing anything else anyway like I'd just be

01:06:11 ◼   ► sitting around so this is why it all makes sense and like you have to be careful about how much you

01:06:17 ◼   ► professionalize some things and I feel cautious about this. Nobody understands this more than me

01:06:24 ◼   ► Because this is exactly where I am, right?

01:06:27 ◼   ► Like, I stream every week, but it's my fun thing that I do.

01:06:30 ◼   ► I look forward to it, and I don't want to think of it

01:06:34 ◼   ► as part of my job so much,

01:06:36 ◼   ► because it will take some of the fun away.

01:06:38 ◼   ► Like, it's my hobby, but as a hobby,

01:06:41 ◼   ► I get to share it with other people,

01:06:43 ◼   ► and it's just something that I really enjoy.

01:06:45 ◼   ► But it has become way less frustrating for me

01:06:50 ◼   ► once I had the equipment in place

01:06:53 ◼   ► to properly manage what I was trying to do.

01:06:57 ◼   ► Because what I found was,

01:06:59 ◼   ► when I was trying to stream everything from my laptop,

01:07:02 ◼   ► it worked most of the time,

01:07:03 ◼   ► because the laptop couldn't handle it,

01:07:05 ◼   ► and it was like random, where sometimes,

01:07:08 ◼   ► just like I would be at like seven frames per second, right?

01:07:11 ◼   ► And just like, as I said before, I think,

01:07:13 ◼   ► it's like people were joking

01:07:15 ◼   ► and calling it like a PowerPoint presentation.

01:07:17 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:07:18 ◼   ► That made it less fun.

01:07:20 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:07:21 ◼   ► - And when it made it less fun,

01:07:22 ◼   ► made it feel like work. So when I ended up investing, I built a new PC, I love my new

01:07:28 ◼   ► PC. I have a parts list that I'll put in the show notes if people want to check it out.

01:07:33 ◼   ► Now it's even more fun again because everything just runs so smoothly. I just turn everything

01:07:38 ◼   ► on and I'm ready to go. It's just a joy. So all I'm saying is I'm not recommending this

01:07:43 ◼   ► for now because you don't know if this is even something you're going to be doing in

01:07:46 ◼   ► six weeks time, right? My suggestion is if you decide this is something that you want

01:07:52 ◼   ► want to do for fun, but also as a community building exercise, my recommendation to you

01:08:00 ◼   ► is to really strongly consider some things that will make the experience smoother.

01:08:08 ◼   ► Recommendation noted, Myke.

01:08:09 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:08:10 ◼   ► And again, I just want to get this in your head, right?

01:08:14 ◼   ► And just keep doing what you're doing for now, right?

01:08:16 ◼   ► It's only come up because you mentioned about the two chats, right?

01:08:20 ◼   ► like that's what led me down this whole little road.

01:08:23 ◼   ► - Right, but your PC isn't going to solve the problem

01:08:25 ◼   ► that there's two separate systems.

01:08:27 ◼   ► - No, there were two parts of this, right?

01:08:29 ◼   ► Like the first part was having somebody create

01:08:32 ◼   ► a more visual scene, this guy called scenes for you,

01:08:36 ◼   ► which could help highlight things.

01:08:38 ◼   ► You could, you know, there could be some labeling

01:08:40 ◼   ► as to like why these things are both here,

01:08:42 ◼   ► but then the other part of it was

01:08:44 ◼   ► while I'm talking about this,

01:08:46 ◼   ► let me also mention to you how much

01:08:48 ◼   ► your life would be made easier if you had a Windows PC to do this with.

01:08:53 ◼   ► - Right, so that's what this intervention was.

01:08:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, this was like the other thing that I wanted to mention.

01:08:59 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:09:00 ◼   ► - In watching your streams and knowing how much easier and smoother and better looking

01:09:05 ◼   ► they would be if you had hardware that could actually handle it.

01:09:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, I do think my bottleneck is actually the internet connection.

01:09:13 ◼   ► It's not the hardware at this point.

01:09:14 ◼   ► - I think there's a bit of both.

01:09:15 ◼   ► I mean, because like stuff like your draw distance in Minecraft is not affected by your

01:09:19 ◼   ► internet.

01:09:20 ◼   ► Yes, that's true.

01:09:21 ◼   ► That is true.

01:09:22 ◼   ► I don't have the draw distance at maximum, but I do really think 80% of the problem is

01:09:27 ◼   ► the internet connection.

01:09:28 ◼   ► And also, I don't know anything about PCs and don't want to learn an entire other universe.

01:09:33 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

01:09:34 ◼   ► No, trust me, I feel you.

01:09:36 ◼   ► I've been there.

01:09:37 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:09:38 ◼   ► It's not as bad as it seems, though.

01:09:39 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:09:40 ◼   ► But it's the thing is you choose whether you want to give into it or not.

01:09:44 ◼   ► I'll just tell you my favorite little thing that's happened so far with the streaming,

01:09:48 ◼   ► it just made me laugh, is I try very hard on the streams not to curse because if it's

01:09:56 ◼   ► live there's no bleeping, right?

01:09:58 ◼   ► So sometimes I curse on this podcast and you bleep it and that always makes it funnier.

01:10:03 ◼   ► - I censor you.

01:10:04 ◼   ► - Yes, exactly.

01:10:05 ◼   ► - The reason I take curses out of the show is it's easier for people that don't want

01:10:08 ◼   ► it and it's also easier for people that are listening mixed company.

01:10:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly.

01:10:13 ◼   ► don't know, it's mixed company, there's going to be a grandma with pearls that she will

01:10:18 ◼   ► clutch if you curse, and you don't want that to be the case. Also, I suspect with streams,

01:10:23 ◼   ► it's much more of a background activity, so everything about it feels like you probably

01:10:31 ◼   ► shouldn't curse, so I try not to curse. Although of course when you're playing video games,

01:10:36 ◼   ► surprising things happen. LINDSAY: Especially Minecraft. Minecraft is

01:10:39 ◼   ► dangerous game for no cursing.

01:10:41 ◼   ► It is, it is dangerous, you know, because it is...

01:10:44 ◼   ► [sigh]

01:10:46 ◼   ► It is the perfect example of, "Oh, you've spent two hours doing a thing, and then in two seconds,

01:10:51 ◼   ► one stupid thing happens, and you've just lost two hours of your life that you're never getting back."

01:10:56 ◼   ► In all of my years, any time I've ever streamed, I think I have been 100% successful about not cursing.

01:11:02 ◼   ► But on the very last stream, I did once, because I was just too surprised.

01:11:07 ◼   ► I turned around and was just very surprised and cursed out loud.

01:11:11 ◼   ► And what I loved is before I'd even finished the stream, YouTube was like,

01:11:16 ◼   ► "Oh, we've demonetized this video for language."

01:11:19 ◼   ► I was like, "Wow!"

01:11:21 ◼   ► [laughs]

01:11:21 ◼   ► Oh my God.

01:11:22 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:11:23 ◼   ► I, yeah, I saw the little like ineligible limited monetization language.

01:11:29 ◼   ► Unbelievable.

01:11:29 ◼   ► I was like, "Boy, look at this.

01:11:31 ◼   ► These bots, they sure know how to look.

01:11:34 ◼   ► Like they are watching you with sharp eyes."

01:11:37 ◼   ► I thought that was amazing.

01:11:39 ◼   ► That's incredible.

01:11:40 ◼   ► And horrifying.

01:11:41 ◼   ► Yeah, so anyway, YouTube.

01:11:43 ◼   ► They're always watching.

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01:13:02 ◼   ► projects that I have, and I've had a website mikehurley.net on Squarespace for a while

01:13:06 ◼   ► and I haven't really done much with it, so I just spent some time one day, I put in a

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01:13:15 ◼   ► It was so easy, they had a template that was perfect for it, it was really easy to do,

01:13:20 ◼   ► to drop in a gallery of images, so so simple.

01:13:22 ◼   ► I really love how Squarespace gives me all of the tools that I need to do this in a way

01:13:26 ◼   ► that makes sense to me.

01:13:28 ◼   ► Go to squarespace.com/cortex and you can sign up for a free trial with no credit card required.

01:13:33 ◼   ► And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code "CORTEX" to save 10% off your first purchase

01:13:37 ◼   ► of a website or domain.

01:13:39 ◼   ► That's squarespace.com/CORTEX.

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01:13:51 ◼   ► [BEEP]

01:13:52 ◼   ► Great, let's do some #AskCortex questions.

01:13:55 ◼   ► So Cortex's have questions, we have answers.

01:13:57 ◼   ► Maybe.

01:13:58 ◼   ► I was like, do we have answers?

01:14:00 ◼   ► I don't know the answer to that yet.

01:14:01 ◼   ► We have answers.

01:14:03 ◼   ► Right.

01:14:04 ◼   ► They might not always be the answers people want or expect, but we do have them.

01:14:10 ◼   ► Jan asks, "What kind of art do you have or want in your offices?

01:14:15 ◼   ► Where do you choose form over function, maybe in regards to furniture?"

01:14:20 ◼   ► I mean, I won't be surprised.

01:14:21 ◼   ► I generally prefer function over form, particularly in a work environment.

01:14:27 ◼   ► I mean, I do think it is nice to have some kind of matching, you know, so like I have

01:14:34 ◼   ► the two desks in my office, one for the regular computer, one for the writing computer.

01:14:39 ◼   ► They're the same.

01:14:41 ◼   ► And when I got a storage unit, it was important to try to like match the wood so that it does

01:14:44 ◼   ► look nice in the room.

01:14:46 ◼   ► But yeah, in general, I care a lot more about office stuff being functional.

01:14:51 ◼   ► And to that end, I don't have any art in my office.

01:14:56 ◼   ► I painted the walls blue, which I love, but I don't have any, like, paintings on the walls.

01:15:01 ◼   ► You know, none of that is something that I would really want.

01:15:06 ◼   ► There's a window in my office, but it is permanently closed forever.

01:15:10 ◼   ► But I guess the thing that I would want as art, I guess, has always kind of stuck with me,

01:15:16 ◼   ► but there are companies that make these fake windows.

01:15:19 ◼   ► I don't know if you've ever seen this.

01:15:21 ◼   ► Like, I run across this on the internet every once in a while,

01:15:24 ◼   ► And it's one of these, like, how much money do you want to spend kind of questions.

01:15:28 ◼   ► But yeah, there are companies that will make these fake windows that try to create the appearance of sunlight coming through them.

01:15:35 ◼   ► Oh my god, these are so weird.

01:15:37 ◼   ► I'm looking at some now where they put, like, images.

01:15:40 ◼   ► Yeah, and so some of the better ones try to solve the parallax problem, because like, with artwork, obviously, it doesn't have any depth to it because it's just a flat image.

01:15:49 ◼   ► And so some of the better windows try to solve for the parallax problem by having just a little bit of layers that's offset in a way which exaggerates parallax, so it gives it a bit of depth as you're walking past it.

01:16:02 ◼   ► I'm looking at these ones now that are curved.

01:16:04 ◼   ► Yes, like that kind of stuff.

01:16:06 ◼   ► I hate this.

01:16:07 ◼   ► No, some of these are great.

01:16:08 ◼   ► Like, you know, for people who have underground prepper bunkers, like, you know, the real millionaire billionaire people who do this kind of stuff is like, "Oh, I have this underground nuclear bunker."

01:16:18 ◼   ► But also this window that always shows me what it looks like in Hong Kong now or whatever.

01:16:25 ◼   ► Like that's the kind of thing if money was no object and I could build my office from scratch,

01:16:31 ◼   ► I think I would, I wouldn't have art, but I would love to have like the best fake windows money can buy.

01:16:39 ◼   ► That's what I would put in my office.

01:16:40 ◼   ► For me, I like to try and display things that are achievements.

01:16:48 ◼   ► I have my prints from PodCon. Remember those?

01:16:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, of course.

01:16:53 ◼   ► - And those framed, I have some, like, those fracture prints

01:16:57 ◼   ► of like little moments.

01:16:59 ◼   ► I actually have a fracture of the aforementioned time

01:17:03 ◼   ► that we were on stage together in San Francisco.

01:17:05 ◼   ► I want to do more of it for the studio

01:17:08 ◼   ► because the studio is just big blank walls.

01:17:11 ◼   ► It's just like these large white walls.

01:17:14 ◼   ► But again, it's like, I haven't had the time

01:17:16 ◼   ► to really decorate this place.

01:17:17 ◼   ► I have a clock that I really like that has just been sitting in a box for 10 months.

01:17:23 ◼   ► I like the idea of having things in a workspace to make it feel

01:17:28 ◼   ► personalized to kind of take the edge off a little bit.

01:17:32 ◼   ► I mean honestly this is part of like the aesthetic desire for fun keyboards.

01:17:37 ◼   ► Yeah I think I imagine especially just being in a bigger space

01:17:41 ◼   ► you would have more desire to decorate something on the walls.

01:17:45 ◼   ► Especially because, I mean, it's not very soft feeling in this.

01:17:48 ◼   ► And it's just like, "White brick wall."

01:17:52 ◼   ► The coziest of decorations. "White brick wall."

01:17:57 ◼   ► John asks, "I know Myke edits and posts the podcast, but what is the, quote,

01:18:02 ◼   ► 'final cut ownership' like on an episode? Does Gray just listen for mistakes and

01:18:06 ◼   ► note corrections to Myke, or do both of you listen and edit it equally?"

01:18:11 ◼   ► I like that. Oh Myke, I'll just send you my list of mistakes and I'll let you do it.

01:18:16 ◼   ► I think that's really funny.

01:18:17 ◼   ► I have had editing relationships like that.

01:18:20 ◼   ► I mean, I think it can make sense. It just strikes me as funny.

01:18:24 ◼   ► I mean, honestly, in some ways it's more logical than what we do,

01:18:28 ◼   ► which is literally pass a logic project backwards and forwards, which

01:18:32 ◼   ► is I can't believe we haven't had a problem that's occurred from that.

01:18:37 ◼   ► I'll give Logic a lot of credit for never really choking on that.

01:18:43 ◼   ► That's worked really well.

01:18:44 ◼   ► But I think this is also the case of we are both Logic editors.

01:18:48 ◼   ► It's no big deal for me to open up a Logic file and edit a podcast.

01:18:52 ◼   ► It's super easy.

01:18:54 ◼   ► It's way easier than working in Final Cut and is super fast.

01:18:59 ◼   ► I think there's two things going on here.

01:19:03 ◼   ► "Okay, well, when both of us know how to use the same editing program that reduces a lot of friction,

01:19:10 ◼   ► and when one of us is incredibly picky about a bunch of details, like, it also makes, like,

01:19:18 ◼   ► I would never send you a list of like, "Oh, Myke, here's the couple little things that I want you to change."

01:19:23 ◼   ► I tend to make a lot of very small edits on the final one, but honestly,

01:19:31 ◼   ► I think it's the two of us working on this that is part of why I think

01:19:36 ◼   ► Cortex sounds really good as a podcast is I always want to be clear, like

01:19:41 ◼   ► Myke is putting in 90% of the work.

01:19:44 ◼   ► I just view my edit as I always have picky stuff that I just want

01:19:51 ◼   ► to change or tweak a little bit.

01:19:52 ◼   ► I have a question for you.

01:19:54 ◼   ► Do you edit yourself more or me more?

01:19:57 ◼   ► It depends.

01:19:59 ◼   ► I mean, I think probably on average, I edit myself way more.

01:20:02 ◼   ► You know, I think this is just the human thing of,

01:20:05 ◼   ► you're always going to be more annoyed

01:20:08 ◼   ► by little things that you do wrong,

01:20:11 ◼   ► or you're more aware of when you've said things

01:20:14 ◼   ► in a weird way, like that was not what I intended,

01:20:17 ◼   ► but if I cut this, it sounds closer to what I meant to say.

01:20:22 ◼   ► - I edit you more than me.

01:20:25 ◼   ► - Oh, okay, that's totally shocking to me, why?

01:20:28 ◼   ► I'm gonna edit you more now.

01:20:30 ◼   ► Go for it. See if I can.

01:20:32 ◼   ► You're gonna edit me out.

01:20:34 ◼   ► I'll show you!

01:20:35 ◼   ► This is really funny, 'cause like, I've always kind of assumed,

01:20:38 ◼   ► "Oh, Myke is giving me this file.

01:20:41 ◼   ► He must be 100% happy with the way he sounds about everything,

01:20:47 ◼   ► because I'm not going to pass back the file to him until I've listened to it

01:20:52 ◼   ► and make sure that I'm happy with the way I sound."

01:20:55 ◼   ► I edit myself a lot, right? Like I'm not relying on you.

01:20:57 ◼   ► Like I'm not relying on you to do it for me.

01:20:59 ◼   ► The reason I edit you more is because I know how picky you are

01:21:03 ◼   ► for yourself, so I try and just pick up a lot of that.

01:21:08 ◼   ► - Thank you, I really appreciate that.

01:21:10 ◼   ► - Well, it's part of my job here is to edit the show.

01:21:12 ◼   ► And so like, as well, you have, I think,

01:21:15 ◼   ► more fixable verbal tics than I do, right?

01:21:20 ◼   ► Everybody has verbal tics.

01:21:24 ◼   ► I am just lucky that yours are more repairable more frequently than mine are.

01:21:29 ◼   ► I can't get rid of a lot of mine.

01:21:31 ◼   ► What are your unremovable verbal texts?

01:21:33 ◼   ► Oh, I'm not saying them on the show.

01:21:34 ◼   ► Okay.

01:21:35 ◼   ► Well, you can tell me later.

01:21:36 ◼   ► Right.

01:21:37 ◼   ► Because then everyone will hear them all the time and will lose their minds.

01:21:42 ◼   ► But you're quite controlled with yours, which makes it easy.

01:21:46 ◼   ► One of them is the exact opposite of a verbal take, which is you take a long time.

01:21:50 ◼   ► You pause.

01:21:50 ◼   ► Yes.

01:21:51 ◼   ► That, yeah, that is true.

01:21:53 ◼   ► Lots of pauses.

01:21:54 ◼   ► And your other thing is you just restate stuff a lot.

01:21:56 ◼   ► - Yes, well, this is also the magic of it's not live is, oh.

01:21:59 ◼   ► - It's amazing, yeah.

01:22:00 ◼   ► - I start this sentence and then, oh, it's a car crash.

01:22:03 ◼   ► And then you just wait.

01:22:04 ◼   ► - Start over.

01:22:05 ◼   ► - Start over, try that again and try to speak like a person

01:22:09 ◼   ► who could speak in full sentences.

01:22:12 ◼   ► Yeah, no, extemporaneous speech is not my strong point,

01:22:15 ◼   ► which is one of the reasons why it's like,

01:22:17 ◼   ► Myke, this podcast will never be live.

01:22:19 ◼   ► - Well, Gray, I'll tell you, it's nobody's strong point.

01:22:22 ◼   ► It really isn't.

01:22:23 ◼   ► - Extemporaneous speaking is incredibly difficult.

01:22:26 ◼   ► Most podcasts are not edited like us.

01:22:29 ◼   ► They're just not because it just takes too much work.

01:22:32 ◼   ► You wouldn't do it, right?

01:22:33 ◼   ► And it's like when I talk to people,

01:22:35 ◼   ► especially with the mentorship program that I've been doing,

01:22:38 ◼   ► when we talk about editing,

01:22:40 ◼   ► I tell them the different ways that I edit.

01:22:42 ◼   ► I tell them how I edit this show

01:22:43 ◼   ► and suggest nobody edit like this.

01:22:46 ◼   ► - Right. (laughs)

01:22:47 ◼   ► - It's not necessary to produce a good podcast.

01:22:50 ◼   ► We just do it because this is what we do.

01:22:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

01:22:54 ◼   ► - But I don't recommend people do things like we do.

01:22:58 ◼   ► You know, like if I say the word your twice in a sentence,

01:23:02 ◼   ► right, so like your, 'cause I'm just restating it,

01:23:04 ◼   ► I'll cut one of those out.

01:23:06 ◼   ► Nobody notices that stuff, but I just don't want it there.

01:23:10 ◼   ► So really, the final cut ownership,

01:23:13 ◼   ► I mean, it is kind of mine,

01:23:15 ◼   ► because you give me the final, final cut,

01:23:18 ◼   ► but I don't really change a lot

01:23:20 ◼   ► after you give it back to me.

01:23:21 ◼   ► Because I was just thinking, I don't even know now.

01:23:24 ◼   ► I don't know- like, you do listen to it again after I've edited it, or not?

01:23:28 ◼   ► - No, I never listen to it again.

01:23:30 ◼   ► - Oh, okay.

01:23:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, see, there you go, you didn't- I can't. I don't have the time for that.

01:23:34 ◼   ► - Myke, we need to do three passes on this podcast!

01:23:37 ◼   ► - Well, I'll tell you what, then, Gary. - One, two, three, pull out of it!

01:23:39 ◼   ► - If you want that, you gotta get it to me a day earlier, right? Like, that's the thing.

01:23:43 ◼   ► I can't listen to the show if you're giving me the show on the day the show's being posted.

01:23:47 ◼   ► - Myke, I don't understand. The show needs to be posted on Tuesday at 4pm,

01:23:51 ◼   ► and I got it to you at 3 p.m.

01:23:53 ◼   ► Didn't you listen at double speed?

01:23:55 ◼   ► I don't understand. - What's wrong with you?

01:23:57 ◼   ► - No, I don't listen back again.

01:23:59 ◼   ► Something that I do do is I would sometimes

01:24:01 ◼   ► check the edits that you make.

01:24:03 ◼   ► Sometimes I wanna just tidy up a little bit.

01:24:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

01:24:06 ◼   ► - And it's easy 'cause we edit differently.

01:24:08 ◼   ► You crossfade everything so I can see where your edits are.

01:24:11 ◼   ► - Yes, and this is where I crossfade everything

01:24:14 ◼   ► because I am not as good of an editor as you are.

01:24:16 ◼   ► And so like crossfades makes it much easier.

01:24:21 ◼   ► I open up Myke's one and it's like, "No crossfades here."

01:24:23 ◼   ► Myke doesn't rely on that low-level noob trash.

01:24:27 ◼   ► Like, he doesn't need to do it.

01:24:29 ◼   ► Myke just has hard cuts.

01:24:30 ◼   ► - I'm an artisanal editor, sir.

01:24:32 ◼   ► I find the natural point between the two words

01:24:36 ◼   ► to match that up.

01:24:37 ◼   ► No crossfade in here.

01:24:39 ◼   ► - In all seriousness, Myke's podcast edits look like,

01:24:42 ◼   ► I don't know, what professional sushi cuts look like.

01:24:45 ◼   ► Just these perfectly straight lines,

01:24:47 ◼   ► and it's like, "Wham, wham, wham."

01:24:49 ◼   ► and my edits look like trash.

01:24:51 ◼   ► (laughs)

01:24:52 ◼   ► - I would have done this a few times.

01:24:54 ◼   ► I'll include a link in the show notes

01:24:56 ◼   ► to what the Logic project just looks like at the end.

01:25:00 ◼   ► 'Cause it really is kind of incredible

01:25:02 ◼   ► to see what is often thousands of cuts.

01:25:06 ◼   ► And it's quite a sight to see sometimes.

01:25:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think, again, I'll just reemphasize here

01:25:12 ◼   ► that yes, no one should edit a show this way,

01:25:15 ◼   ► But this is the byproduct of I'm very picky, but I genuinely think that for this show,

01:25:23 ◼   ► it does make it much better.

01:25:25 ◼   ► And I also think that this show has above average, at least re-listenability.

01:25:33 ◼   ► And so that, that is something that I often have in mind when I'm doing my pass is someone

01:25:38 ◼   ► may listen to this, not just once, but they may listen to it several times.

01:25:42 ◼   ► And then it kind of changes the calculus in my head of if an edit is worth it or if it's

01:25:50 ◼   ► worth tightening up this little section.

01:25:53 ◼   ► So this is why most podcasts are more ephemeral and then that's why it doesn't necessarily

01:26:00 ◼   ► make sense to do like two and a half passes of it.

01:26:03 ◼   ► So yeah because it's also content.

01:26:05 ◼   ► That's the thing we didn't mention.

01:26:06 ◼   ► We do take things out, remove things, move stuff around to make the content of it sound

01:26:11 ◼   ► better as well as just the raw speech of it right yeah and that is again just a very different thing

01:26:17 ◼   ► the content editing i do recommend for people depending on the type of show that they're making

01:26:21 ◼   ► yeah this isn't something that i do all the time i think you can remove the need for content editing

01:26:26 ◼   ► by planning a lot and then also just by paying attention while you're recording you know because

01:26:31 ◼   ► this shows that i do where i don't edit as heavily but we'll remove stuff from the final edit because

01:26:36 ◼   ► because I just know it didn't work.

01:26:38 ◼   ► But this show, we do listen through it in that way

01:26:41 ◼   ► to make sure that it is relistenable and replayable.

01:26:45 ◼   ► And again, it's like there are considerations that we make,

01:26:48 ◼   ► which is this weird chicken and egg scenario

01:26:50 ◼   ► that because the show is successful

01:26:52 ◼   ► and has a large listenership, you edit it more tightly.

01:26:56 ◼   ► But is the show successful because it's edited that way?

01:26:59 ◼   ► We'll never know.

01:27:01 ◼   ► But that's this chicken and egg that we're in,

01:27:04 ◼   ► that we're happy with.

01:27:05 ◼   ► but it's also why the show happens every month and not every week.

01:27:09 ◼   ► It's impossible to know if the show is more successful because of the way that we edit

01:27:14 ◼   ► it, but I know for sure that the answer is yes, even though I also know that this is

01:27:19 ◼   ► not generally applicable to all podcasts.

01:27:23 ◼   ► That is perfectly acceptable, I think, to say all of what you've just said and I'm

01:27:27 ◼   ► pretty sure I agree with all of it.

01:27:29 ◼   ► Great, I'm glad it only took me three tries to get it right in that sentence.

01:27:32 ◼   ► But nobody will ever know.