TubeTalk: Your YouTube How-To Guide
TubeTalk tackles the questions that real YouTubers are asking. Each week we discuss how to make money on YouTube, how to get your videos discovered, how to level up your gaming channel, or even how the latest YouTube update is going to impact you and your channel. If you've ever asked yourself, "How do I grow on YouTube?" or "Where can I learn how to turn my channel into a business?" you've come to the right podcast! TubeTalk is a vidIQ production. To learn more about how we help YouTube creators big and small, visit https://vidIQ.com
TubeTalk: Your YouTube How-To Guide
Is Vlogging Making A Come Back? Featuring Benji Travis
We explore the revolutionary shift happening in YouTube content creation with special guest Benji Travis, filmed in-person for the first time ever in Benji's studio. Today's conversation unveils how "dead" vlogs are now dominating on the platform through an unexpected return to authenticity.
• The surprising power of unedited, 30+ minute videos gaining millions of views
• Why YouTube's dominance as a TV platform is creating massive opportunities for creators
• How the algorithm is now finding perfect audiences for small creators without promotion
• The "Three T's" framework for successful modern vlogging: Theme, Topic/Takeaway, and Telling stories
• Why highly-produced content is becoming less effective as viewers seek more authentic experiences
• Creating content specifically for the "couch viewer" instead of mobile optimization
• How this shift represents a space with high demand but low competition
• The revelation that YouTube's advanced AI is making success more accessible to new creators
Check out VloggingAcademy.com/checklist for Benji's complete guide to creating successful vlogs using his three T's framework.
Hey, welcome back to the only podcast that sometimes is in person for the first time ever. I'm Travis and guess what? I'm here in person. Finally, with Jen, jen, we did it In real life.
Speaker 2:We did it Real life.
Speaker 1:It finally happened. But why did it happen? It happened because we're here with a very special guest and the host really hosting us for this podcast episode, Benji Travis, longtime friend, how you doing, buddy, it's good I'm doing great.
Speaker 3:You guys are here. It's been a while since we hung out and it just met jen we just so, I'm pumped and I'm a fan of the podcast which finally is on youtube. It's crazy that vid iq didn't have it on youtube. Seriously, so, uh, honored to be here and excited for the conversation, I think um.
Speaker 1:One thing that we were talking about right before we went live is uh, there's something about being in person and, for the viewers of the show, finally, they get to see Jen and I here making fun of each other in person, which is great.
Speaker 2:They get to see our height difference.
Speaker 1:That's the real shebang. We might have to do a screenshot of that later on.
Speaker 2:Wait no, I was told to sit up really tall, so you might not notice it.
Speaker 1:But more than that, I think to what you were saying, which I think is really important is is really important is when we're having conversations with people, while you can have the same conversation over video in person, there's something else that happens. There's like a chemistry that happens. There's just these moments that happen, that can't happen over video, and that's why you built this right. Talk a little bit about this studio that we're in right now.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah. Well, this YouTube studio was for my business. My wife and I have been creators since 2008. It's evolved. I started multiple channels, one of them being video influencers, and so I was interviewing people on location. So oftentimes VidCon or other industry events, and then sometimes locally, I would interview people and I would go to their studio or wherever they film. So I decided to create this, and then the pandemic happens, right. So we still use it as a recording studio to record podcasts for other people whenever I do interviews, hence why you're here. But that's why.
Speaker 3:But, yeah, I totally believe in the power of the human connection and, of course, we're talking about in studio, live in person. But I think it also speaks to what makes YouTube special. See, I was just talking to some other creators earlier about YouTube 2007, 2008. Why was that so significant compared to anything else? It's because you were connecting with other people anywhere in the world. Though it's not in person, you're connecting with somebody you had a similar interest to passion, hobby, whatever, and so that is going to be 100x if you're in person with that person, right?
Speaker 3:But I think, beyond us talking right now, who's out there that's going to watch this, that's interested in the same topics. I know we're going to be talking about vlogging, obviously YouTube and that, to me, is just like what we're doing here in person in my studio. But again, if we're talking about YouTube, you're able to connect with other people that are passionate, in some cases obsessed, on the same topic as you, and I think that's one reason you and I became friends too, because we both loved YouTube and helping other creators. I know we have completely different niches in our own personal channels, but if it wasn't for YouTube, we wouldn't have that connection, and so I think that's one of the reasons why in-person is really powerful, but just kind of speaks to the power of YouTube.
Speaker 1:I love that Now you and Jen have something in common you both vlog, and we definitely want to talk a little bit about that. It was a niche that once upon a time was super big, and then people thought that it was dying, and now there's seemingly like a resurgence of some sort. How do you? I'd love to hear you guys talk shop about this, by the way, because I've always kind of wanted to vlog, but I'm just not interesting enough. So I would love to hear what your thoughts are on this and then see what Jen has to say, what she's seen as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know so, my wife. She started in 2008 as a beauty creator and I was just managing the business in the background. I was really just like the token boyfriend in the background, just like would show up once in a while. I didn't think anything of it, and then slowly she started vlogging, without it being called vlogging in the beginning, and I was included in that, and so she wanted to do more of that type of content. So she started her actual vlog channel because of me. I was like, hey, this is like throwaway content. I know you want to do this because you know you see other creators doing it. Let's start a whole nother channel you can put whatever you want over there. And so her first channel called it's Judy Time. Her second one called it's Judy's Life. I actually was the one that came up with the name, which is kind of crazy.
Speaker 3:She's a star of my life, so I don't want to take any of the credit away, but I was the one that said, hey, let's start this second channel, not knowing that one or two years later, it would become her vlog channel. So we started when vlogging was really birthing into YouTube and obviously everybody started watching vlogs. Casey Neistat came into the scene and it became a thing and, yes, in 2015, 16, 17,. At that height, it was also starting to die, and we can go into why that happened. Long story short. People literally thought vlogs are dead, but then in 2020, I started noticing vlogs came back, but these were completely opposite Meaning as time went on. One of the reasons why I think vlogging died is because it got so competitive and so produced. You can actually blame Casey for this to a certain degree, and I think this is one of the reasons he got burnt out. It took so much effort, so much production and crazy ideas. We don't have to talk about which creators are doing this, but the most craziest stuff you can imagine. That's what got all the attention for vlogs. So people that were doing more like laid back stuff. So when you're doing that and you're optimizing for attention and excitement and entertainment, the vlogs were starting to get shorter right, more produced.
Speaker 3:Fast forward to 2020, when vlogs were dead. One hour vlogs getting a million views. A guy literally working out the gym, sam solik shopping at the grocery store for protein shakes, no editing at all, all million views. Why was that happening? I was like this is like vlogging 2008 status. Why is this working? And so that's what led me down this rabbit hole of not only watching the vlogs but starting to vlog in this new method that I saw these kids really doing. That wasn't really. There was not a lot of attention on it because YouTube shorts got all the attention right the competitor to TikTok.
Speaker 3:So, of course, me being this you know, grandpa, in the YouTube space I'm still like vlogging with my wife at this time, even though vlogging was dead, we were still doing that, and not because we were worried about being famous or whatever. Like that's just what we did. We did it genuinely because we loved it. It wasn't because being famous or whatever. Like that's just what we did. We did it genuinely because we loved it. It wasn't because it was trendy. It was just something we're doing before it became trendy. So you combine my love and genuine interest in vlogs plus this new wave of YouTube and this new style of vlogging, and that's what led me to vlogging again and what I've experienced in the success of my personal channel, and so that's kind of what I'm seeing. There's a new way of vlogging that's getting a lot of views and it's easier, and there's, I think, some significant reasons why it's successful. I'm curious what you see, jen, in terms of your perspective, why you're vlogging right now, even yeah, I mean, people got burnt out of overproduced content in general.
Speaker 2:We're in a new era of YouTube, where YouTube is now TV. Youtube themselves said it's TV, now we're podcasts and we're TV, so it makes sense. I also think that people became very burnt out and overstimulated with short form content and it's the polar opposite. How do I watch something that's like 60 seconds or less and it leaves me feeling just absolutely insane? I want to watch something that's like 60 seconds or less and it leaves me feeling just absolutely insane. I want to watch something that's completely unedited and I can sit back and I can relax and I can clean my house while something's on my TV. It's the new background noise, but also the new relatability, and it's just all stemmed from what I think is a million different reasons. But I would say the highly produced content is so dated, so so gone, and it's a hard conversation to have with people who still like that content.
Speaker 3:And you know my thought on that is 100% agree with everything you just said. It's crazy because you took the words out of my mouth Like literally we can just stop the podcast here, because basically that's what I was gonna say but there's still room for that highly produced stuff because you see those videos still getting views.
Speaker 3:It's just this other style of content, the vlogging style. It seems like it shouldn't work and that's why people, like are conflicted. They're like look at mr beast, not only is he getting 100 million views on youtube, he's on amazon prime. He's like giving 10 million dollars away. I think that guy won 10 million, after taxes, 5 million, but it's still a lot of money, right and so like, why is this like more casual stuff, working and I don't want to assume anything about your age, but you probably from a different generation than me, because everything you said is what all those new vloggers have been telling me. They're like I don't like that short form, highly choppy, overly produced kind of stuff. I want to do something different and actually there's a guy that I want to talk about today. His name is Matt, a cook named Matt. He was one of the biggest food TikTokers and then went to YouTube Shorts. He's done really well, but he's like I think, besides us being genuine friends, he also was like how do you vlog? I want to vlog myself right.
Speaker 2:I think that's a big component. Right there is that we have a generation who started their social media careers on TikTok and they don't know how to do YouTube. They literally don't know how to do it. So you get someone who's only known how to make short form content and then when they go to produce something, they don't have the editing skills, they don't have the punchy effects, like they don't even have those skills. That was the only thing you did 10 years ago. So now we have just this generation of people who are making content because that's just literally how they know how to make content. When it's I'm making my first YouTube video ever. I have a million subscribers on or followers on TikTok, but I'm still making my first YouTube video ever. It's a crazy, it's a. It's a big path for a lot of people.
Speaker 3:And it was funny is because you would think vlogging of this new style is like the old way of doing it, but they're doing it a little bit differently. And Austin, who's here in studio with us. He works with me and my coaching program.
Speaker 3:One of the observations he made was they're almost like rebels of the content creator world, meaning they're doing the opposite, right, in addition to the Mr B style highly produced produced stuff if you talk about tiktok shorts and reels this new style vlogging is completely like a middle finger to all of that. And what's crazy is, you know, I wrote this book called youtube secrets and even in there we talk about optimizing your content, right, like thinking about the person searching and then giving them what they want really quick. Even my wife and I. What happened is my wife like. I mean, I label her like a casey nice, that level creator, right, even though she might not like be at his status like fame wise, she's been doing a very long time, gotten over a billion views by herself.
Speaker 3:She also optimized too. In fact, her style, whole, whole style is about how do you take like a normal day and just make it interesting, no matter what, and we've been doing it for so long. There's sometimes I I feel like I'm getting this deja vu moment where I'm doing the same thing. I'm like documenting the same thing I did five years ago and guess what? I'll go five years ago to that exact day and have the same date, just with more kids. Right, because I have five daughters.
Speaker 3:So my point is this she's making all that very interesting and she went down that path. So then, when I saw all these other creators doing something completely opposite, it was almost like a protest to all that. And I believe and this is always the case the people that get the most famous, that go the most viral, that people care about right like that, start a new wave, usually don't do it because they think it works. They're just such a rebel. They just do it because they can and they don't want to do what everybody else is doing. This is how fashion is too, you know, like the people doing the craziest kind of new thing, usually like something in their fashion line becomes what old navy is creating, right, nothing against old navy, but they're usually not like you know leading the way they're not leading the way.
Speaker 1:So we had a.
Speaker 2:We had a sponsorship with the old navy all the way up until five minutes ago.
Speaker 1:But thanks anyway.
Speaker 3:But what I'm saying is what's happening on the catwalk for fashion shows isn't necessarily what the masses is loving right now, but is like the trendsetter. So in YouTube, the same thing happened, you could say. My wife was one of those people in 2011, when we started doing the daily vlogs. There was a very small community. No one really cared about it, except her own audience and, I think, in that era, the beauty audience. This is like I'm literally going down like memory lane right now. That was the birth of daily vlogging, the birth of this new style of vlogging. Same thing People doing something totally opposite, not because you were gonna make a lot of money.
Speaker 3:In fact, they probably thought you know what? I might not make money, but I'm gonna still do it anyways and there was something that they felt that guess what Millions of other people I think young people felt the same way. They're like something about scrolling through TikTok is making me sick, something about the algorithm feeding me all this stuff. Maybe it's not even what I want, but for whatever reason I click on, I get more of this junk. Doesn't feel right, like I feel like. You probably know what I'm talking about yeah, but this no tiktok this year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, let's talk about that.
Speaker 3:But but then what happens is this you get this other channel creating these videos where it's like none of that. I'll tell you my experience. I'm curious what you say Specifically. You know Sam Solak, everybody knows him. There was a channel of a couple. I think the wife was pregnant.
Speaker 3:They were doing these hour-long vlogs that were getting hundreds of thousands of views, a million plus views, and they live um off the grid and they're making their life in the forest doing like very, like mundane, normal things. It's like everything from gardening to like building like an outhouse or whatever. And I remember running to my wife holding the laptop. I was like honey, somebody put up an hour-long vlog. This is again during you know that 2020 shutdown everything. I was like they've got an hour-long vlog and it's got like 400 000 views. She's like oh cool, and she's like not interested.
Speaker 3:But my mind just I was blown. I was like what the hell is happening? How is it that they put an hour-long vlog? It was barely edited. It was just them doing like chores around the house getting that many views. That was the moment. I was like something is happening here, because this is not supposed to work right, because a 10 minute highly optimized vlog, kind of competing against the Mr Beast of the world and those type of videos. That's what you're supposed to do. But why is it? I bet you, whatever feeling that you I feel like I'm reading in your eyes right now, is what the people that watch that vlog were feeling that didn't want that like short form type of content.
Speaker 2:Even in like long form content for YouTube, when you have that same punchy effect, just because you're holding your phone horizontal doesn't mean that it's still not that same overstimulating, disconnected feeling and sure that's fun. And I think there is a place and there's a niche for that type of content. Still, because it exists, do I think that it should be your day-to-day life perceived as that? Should it be your grocery shopping trip like that? No, I think there's opportunities that people have taken advantage of with taking it down a notch, the off-grid lifestyle like you're saying, the couple who's out there? Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:One of my guilty pleasure channels is country life vlog I knew this was coming country life vlogs where I will watch this woman bake everything from scratch while her husband builds like a shed in the backyard, hours at a time do they show? There's no sound, it's just asmr.
Speaker 3:Nobody speaks is it one one camera or multiple cameras?
Speaker 2:it's. You know that's funny that you bring that up, because when I watch it anytime like my husband walks by I'm like how do you think they got that shot? You think they have a film crew there. Like, I think they have a film crew. I don't know the behind the scenes because they're an older couple and in my world where I'm watching them, I'm like they don't know how to use cameras. She's just making her bread. Obviously they're very skillful, talented people. When you watch those vlogs, what device are you watching?
Speaker 1:on only tv. I don't watch youtube on my phone same. I have a 90 of myself, by the way.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that is the thing that the new style of vlogging is revealing that every creator can learn from, and it's actually the biggest missed opportunity right now, and I would love to dive into it. But the quick version is this it's the place that has the most demand with the least amount of competition. Right, and I've said this from the very beginning the easiest way to succeed on youtube is be one of the first michelle fawn.
Speaker 3:They'll actually credit she is an amazing beauty person, uh, one of the first beauty gurus. She would hate that term. Judy hates it too, but that's what they were right there with the it's true, right?
Speaker 3:yeah, sorry, judy, but they started in the beauty blog space and they went into the um beauty youtube space and she you know high, high level production, whatever, but I would say michelle fawn became the legendary number one beauty person because she was the first one to do it the way she did it and that has been the case throughout all niches, all genres, all formats and platforms. Whoever's there early right like sam solik. There's a lot of people trying to be sam solik, but he was the first one willing to do it. Now, credit. He actually has like an interesting uh personality, interesting things to say. He's a huge buff guy, so there's like a value in all of that. But man, when I saw that pushing the grocery cart in the grocery store and no edits and he's just talking about his favorite protein, that's his number one viewed video. By the way, that's what's crazy. First on scene, first one to take advantage of all this demand. Where is that demand coming from? That's why I asked you that question.
Speaker 3:Television, and nobody is talking about it, even when the CEO saying, oh, television is number one, that's our focus, and even with people having a television viewing kind of experience, nobody is talking. As a creator, I'm going to make YouTube videos for TV. Why wouldn't you YouTube videos for TV, right, why wouldn't you? The reason is people like Benji and Sean wrote in YouTube Secrets look at your video on your phone, right, like see how that thumbnail looks.
Speaker 3:Vidiq everything is optimized for the smaller device, right From the laptop to the iPad to the phone. It just got smaller and smaller. Nobody could have seen the curve ball that television is and it still will be. To the phone it just got smaller and smaller. Nobody could have seen the curve ball that television is and it still will be. And the one big takeaway, if anybody listening to this, if you want to win and you want to be in a space that's not as competitive and in fact, I believe right now is easier than anything on YouTube create content for the television. And this is why vlogs win, because I would tell you this that I don't know this country family channel that you're talking about. I actually think they could be doing it all by themselves, like how they got that shot, because I know as a vlogger, guess what? So I use a I'll show it to you guys later the dj, osmo, whatever and it has a little stand on it.
Speaker 3:I talk like such an old person, like I'm not I don't know tripod right, but I literally will just put it off in the, the like off, like costco, I'll put it on a shelf and it gets me is that I don't have a crew. So then the question is like, does somebody say, I wonder if somebody is like holding?
Speaker 3:that or whatever. No, it's just you just run over there and do all that kind of stuff. The point I'm trying to make is vlogs are really easy to create. The content that's perfect for televisions. The one thing I didn't see when I was watching that person living off grid and then say I'm so like in this new wave of vlogging, I didn't realize one of the reasons why they're getting a lot of views because they're being watched on a television when you're watching on a tv.
Speaker 3:You want longer videos. You don't want the 10 minute video. You because you don't want to pick another thing we'll get into this later but I was talking about how, like, I could be on netflix looking for 20 minutes for the perfect movie or show, but on youtube instantly I'm going to get the perfect recommendation, and if that's a 30 minute video around the thing I'm obsessed with, I'll just let it play, yep.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we talked about this, we talked to us a couple of times where the tolerance for watching content, uh, is a lot of times dictated by the device you're on. So for a phone it might be, and I think this is why the tech talk is so, so popular, because when you're holding a phone like this, your tolerance isn't going to sit. You're not going to do this for an hour, right, you might do it for a couple seconds and then you're talking to someone and then you're doing it for whatever. So that makes sense. And the television, just from our culture, has always been a sit down on the couch kind of watch. Back when we had commercials that were a lot more invasive than maybe they even are on YouTube, because I have premium.
Speaker 2:I'm not out here trying to watch these Me too.
Speaker 1:We don't know what ads look like Not at this table, I didn't know. Youtube even had ads. What are you talking about? I think it definitely kind of rolls into what you're saying is people want to sit down and relax and enjoy that experience. I know I do. And when you say shoot for television, I think for some creators might think well, what does that mean? And that can mean a lot of different things. I have my own thoughts, but I would love first to hear Jen and then hear Benji what it means to shoot for television. What does that mean?
Speaker 2:Remember that creator that I told you about, where I told him? I said give me 30-minute videos.
Speaker 3:He had one 30-minute video I said stop putting out.
Speaker 2:He started putting out his nine minutes, his eight minutes. He was bouncing around time stamps a lot and I said I only want your content over 30 minutes. Since he changed every single video 100 to 500k, no questions asked, consistent views, I'll knock on wood for him. Let's go. And it's crazy because it's tv and it's tv and he had targeted a tv audience.
Speaker 2:But you have to think about you're still targeting an audience in general and tv and mobile don't surface the same. What you're going to see on your phone, even if you're looking at your TV home screen, are completely different videos and if you're having success on TV, you need to continue to target that TV audience by putting out those longer timestamps. But you still have to make good content. At the end of the day, we can't just you know let's not put out like a 10 minute black screen at the end of the video and trick YouTube into putting you on TV. Still has to be good, engaging content. But when you have the retention graphs to bump your content longer because you're making shorter content, do it and you might be surprised. You might be able to unlock a new audience that is just coming from a different place.
Speaker 3:Or the same audience that now has the option to watch a longer version of your old video style or whatever. I'm curious are you allowed to say what type of niche or type of content that creator is? You don't have to say the channel name, but what kind of content is it?
Speaker 2:If you had to describe it name, but like what kind of content is it? Um, if you had to describe it, it's a I would say action sports, action sports.
Speaker 3:Okay, channel is a, but there's a it's.
Speaker 2:It's actually more of a commentary, but it's around, but it's got action sports it's got a specific value proposition.
Speaker 3:Now I'm starting to really like date myself, like that's what we used to say you have to have a value proposition for your channel right like you, go on clubhouse in 2020. Everyone's like value proposition clubhouse remember 100x.
Speaker 2:Right, I was in a pizza clubhouse because the reason I bring that up is you're absolutely right.
Speaker 3:You still have to have quality content, but I think even more so, you still have to have clarity in your content. See, on the polar opposite side of everything we're saying vlogging, tv viewing and longer videos. Youtube's just getting way better. The algorithm's getting way better. What is all the rage in the tech world right now?
Speaker 2:I literally could never tell you that. Well, you should.
Speaker 3:What's like what's all the rage, what is, like, everyone talking about? What's like driving the stock market, what are all the like mag 7 investing in? I mean, there's a lot of ai stuff going on. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, the ai and the algorithm. It's like two, like like salsa dancing partners find each other and they're perfect.
Speaker 3:The algorithm, ai and they've probably applying AI forever, but now it's like on steroids. It's getting so good that now you can just put out a video. You don't have to have a huge audience, you don't even have to promote it. You know, I know that there's some people that run ads. They drive traffic. You don't have to do anything. The algorithm is so good that if the content has clarity by the way, this is everything from shorts, you know, we now call them mids, longs or podcasts If there's clarity around what it is, the algorithm will find the audience, if not right away. Eventually we hear about channels just popping off. A year later, this video like goes and goes viral. It just took a little while for the algorithm to work. The reason I'm bringing all this up is behind every single successful tv youtube creator, if we, we're literally gonna birth a new name, by the way, like I was gonna say, I kind of like that I also like mids.
Speaker 2:I've never used mids before mid. Mid is what was long before, but now long is like 30 minutes plus we have short shorts, long shorts, mids, mids, longs, long longs, yeah, and then podcasts right yeah, three hours and podcasts and live streams.
Speaker 3:So the reason I bring that up is if you have some kind of clarity in your content and you know you're going for that television viewer, so it's longer. And you combine that with the for that television, so it's longer. And you combine that with the fact that there's less competition but high demand, it's like old school youtube again. It's the wild, wild west. Anybody literally anybody, can take advantage of it right now, and you don't have to be the best, you just have to provide the content. Um, this goes into a whole nother rabbit trail discussion, but did you know that youtube is the number one streaming platform across all streaming?
Speaker 1:yeah, they say like number one watch time especially um, I believe they were. They were saying that the average watch time on netflix is like eight or nine minutes or something, but youtube it's like substantially I can't remember for sure okay, I don't even know the, the, the actual numbers.
Speaker 3:I've never seen the data. I've just heard from people that I can rely, like austin, who's over there. He, he told me this. But the reason I bring it up is it comes down to one simple thing that youtube has over all the other platforms. I told you about when you go, when I've gone to netflix and like I'll like endlessly scroll through their options to find something, it's because I'm not finding something that I want right. But I can go to youtube and literally max within like two minutes I'm gonna find something right. If I don't find something in two minutes, I go up to the top and what do you do?
Speaker 3:we scroll down and then the the slot machine thing happens again okay, but you're going to find something, because youtube has an endless amount of content yeah just to give you a good example of this earlier today. So I've been teaching taekwondo again. I used to be uh, I am still a second degree black belt. I used to compete at the national state levels. I loved it, but it took a 10 year break because youtube, my wife and I got married traveling the world doing all this stuff we're doing plus five kids, yeah, yeah, but guess what?
Speaker 3:it's funny, my five kids guess what. They want to start doing sports, one of them being taekwondo. So now I'm teaching and coaching not only my kids, but all the kids at the YMCA I used to work out cool reason to bring that up is I'm watching taekwondo videos on youtube because I'm like, hey, what are the olympians doing now?
Speaker 3:what are the new things? Also, I didn't have that resource when I was getting my black belt, so it's cool to see these masters, these practitioners, right. So that's all normal. Everyone has like some vice or something they love watching or they're obsessed with some hobby, right? But just today, today, as I'm scrolling through, I saw a video that had a hundred views on it and it was some people in africa, specifically uganda, right, it's crazy, I know all this information about them and they were just sparring each other. There was just two taekwondo students fighting each other and it was a minute long. So you know, if I was coaching them, it's like make that a little bit longer, whatever sure yeah change the title thumbnail.
Speaker 3:But everyone's seen this. A random video with barely any views. And then guess what I did my you know little research. I go to their channel. Guess how many subscribers they had I don't know. Not even 250.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:They've been doing this for two years. Right, they probably need to be like you and watching your podcast by the way. But I looked at their number one viewed video also about 250 views. How is it that a channel that is really not getting a lot of views is being recommended to me right out of nowhere? Yeah out of all the other videos. Now there's two parts to this because we don't have to get into. Youtube is trying to promote smaller channels yeah but there's something else.
Speaker 3:I still clicked on that video and I watched these two guys fight right and I was like learning how did they do? I was curious like I wonder if in uganda they got the skills like yeah, right they did although that guy he would definitely beat me up, right.
Speaker 3:I mean, they got to fight lions and stuff, so maybe they're but going back to what I said, that YouTube has, that no other platform has endless amounts of content on specific obsessions, interests, hobbies, hobbies, everything and even more every single day. See, like Disney, that's one of the big competitors, and somebody today literally said this Disney has a great archive of amazing movies. Right, that goes back 100 years. Sure do, but there's still a cap. Yeah, why do you think they had to buy what? Is it Hulu, Marvel or whatever?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:They want to add more to their library. Now it makes sense. It's like, yeah, they just want to give more options. Then you got, you know, rink a dink, you know YouTube, over here coming in like with all the amateur content, these YouTubers, but it's endless. And I'm sitting there watching this Taekwondo student from Uganda fighting some other student that happened to be from Kenya. Right, they put the flags of the different people versus watching a Marvel movie on Disney, and you can do this across all the niches. And that's kind of my point.
Speaker 3:Right now, I believe, beyond everything we're talking about, youtube has a moment to literally dominate. It already is dominating, it's going to go through. So what am I trying to say? I believe that, oh yeah, I remember the algorithm. The algorithms will help this channel, who's not being optimized at all, get that content to me. Who cares about taekwondo right now? Right, everybody can take advantage of it. But there are ways to optimize, which, by the way, I'll tell you everything I know about how to optimize vlogs for not just TV but for YouTube in general. But the good news is this the algorithm is making it easy for both seasoned creators and completely brand new beginners and completely brand new beginners.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what's interesting? Jen and I talk about this because we get a lot of emails from listeners that are not only quote small creators, they're new creators Like they haven't even started their channel. We've had end of last year.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh so many For weeks we had emails from people like I'm going to start my own channel in the next year. I just listened to podcasts to get ready. Like they, they're getting ready, they're getting prepared, which I think is great to have creators coming to the platform already prepared. They kind of already know things, so the bar gets raised For those creators. We'd love to hear some of the unlocks that you've come across over the last couple of even months. I mean, forget about the years that you've been doing this forever. You've been doing this forever but, like, even over the last couple of months, what are the things that you've noticed?
Speaker 3:All right, so we talked about TV. The turnaround is crazy and, of course, that leading to longer videos. By the way, my threshold is 30 minutes too. Like I do have a couple that like don't get to that point. I was like oh, dang it.
Speaker 2:As a seasoned creator, though, like you, don't push it. It's hard. I think the longer you've been on the platform, the harder it is to push content even longer because, you're like no, I want to edit, I want to edit it just a little bit.
Speaker 3:Sure, absolutely. And my wife, who said she would start editing some of my content and has been editing, she's been pushing it too, so we're now doing vlogs that are 40 minutes. So that's number one. It's like unediting at this point. Yeah, anyone who's been on the platform long enough it's like, okay, you need to unedit, wow. Second thing is this it's like we're going backwards, though, on the best practices of youtube, because a lot of these videos guess what title isn't like the best title and the thumbnail sometimes, like I've had creators I coach that they get critiqued like their thumbnail is amateur hour, but they get the views right goes back to the number one thing. If you're watching on you, your your tv, the rules are different on there. Number one autoplay is happening right, and we just said it. We're looking for content that's longer, as I call it the couch viewer so like the thumbnail and title.
Speaker 3:Not being perfect is okay, because if it's 30 minutes about taekwondo this thing I'm obsessed about I'll let it play right. Like I've seen people that are doing daily vlogging on taekwondo, their taekwondo day. Never in a million years did I ever think I'd care about that. But for me, right now, because I'm obsessed with it, I'm watching it. So that is different, because you and I come from that old guard of like, hey, that title needs to be optimized because of search and this is the metadata and the thumbnail.
Speaker 2:You've got to have the whites of your eyes showing and all that kind of stuff, the whites of your eyes showing and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3:and then guess what that's such an old one right and you get this new wave of content creators creating this like it's funny because they're like benji. What do you think about my title and thumbnail? I have to like stop myself like I think it sucks.
Speaker 3:I'm just kidding I never, because I I've seen, I've seen, I was like it doesn't matter what I say. What do you think right? Even more so and this has always been the case, even when you're like optimizing, you know, like channel audits or whatever. Is the video good? Is the video scratching the itch for the person on the other side? If it's doing that at the highest level possible, and especially if you're targeting the television viewer and for that viewing behavior and need, then you're already right. So the the rules have changed there, I'd say the third biggest thing that I'm seeing too, by the way, all this kind of goes back to the tv when you look at the analytics of the devices, and the ceo definitely said this, but even individual creators, they're surprised. I just talked to uh andrew edwards. Andrew edwards, right, was at my house and uh austin, who's here, said hey, like, look at your analytics for this video, like what's the number one, like device? And he looked, he didn't even know and he like knows andrew andrew is.
Speaker 1:I'm friends with andrew like andrew a lot. I give him a hard time every time I see him, love him. He, that does not surprise me, he doesn't well, no, what's crazy is this? It was television, right and so his stuff looks good.
Speaker 3:His stuff could be watched on television for sure absolutely, because, well, he's a tech guy, so he's gonna have the nicest camera, the best quality and he's been doing it for so long.
Speaker 3:He was even surprised, so a lot of creators are being surprised by that. Yep, the biggest takeaway is you guys kind of I forget who said it it's a whole new source of traffic, even from your own audience that used to just watch you on the phone or the, the laptop. But think about this. Just let's go back even five years ago, so long ago. Okay, before 2020, like 2019, if you're done watching on your phone or your laptop right at night when you're going to watch something. What were the, the top three or four sources of entertainment for nighttime viewing, the couch viewer what were they back?
Speaker 1:when I was growing up. No, no, I'm just saying like in 19, like before this whole wave of tv being the thing for youtube.
Speaker 3:What was it like? How you were watching youtube how you're watching stuff outside of youtube outside of youtube.
Speaker 1:Oh, we were already talking about a lot of the platforms yeah, I mean, I was personally, just why I always watch tv.
Speaker 3:So I've been a tv guy for a very long time tv yeah, netflix.
Speaker 3:Yeah, amazon disney all the normal players yeah, what I'm seeing right now is you have the option, through the casting function, to make your tv an extension of your youtube. That was the case in, but something happened in the last literally like two to three years, at a high level, where now it's like way better. On top of it, more people are just watching YouTube on the TV's YouTube app. Both of those things are happening with two different generations. So, I said, a whole nother audience, audience. So what's happening?
Speaker 3:You, you know this about any platform once you get hooked in and you get addicted, it's almost like habitual, like you know. Like you open up your phone, you go to your text or whatever email, but then you like, might open up the first app that you're obsessed with, right, it doesn't matter what it is youtube, tiktok, instagram, whatever you just click on it. Starting to happen with youtube. Yeah, and youtube is the only thing on the television. That's like what happens on your phone. So people are like, so, like you and I growing up in the 90s, right, what do you do when you get home from school? Turn on the tv, watch some whatever cartoons, whatever shows. Same thing with saturday morning. What I'm saying is now, that's changing. Now you're not just turning on the TV, you're literally turning on YouTube, regardless of how you do it. Such a mind-blowing thing if you really think about it?
Speaker 3:because everyone has a TV. Everyone wasn't watching YouTube on the TV, but now they are All generations or whatever, because there's different ways to do it and all the other platforms can't keep up and the one thing that YouTube has that all of them don't have is an algorithm that follows you from your phone to your thing. Now you could say this about Amazon to a certain degree, definitely not about Disney, netflix. I mean, people watch on the phone, but again, like, only for those shows or those movies when they're on an airplane so it's like I could say I've never in my life watched netflix, hulu, amazon on my phone ever no I
Speaker 3:know, that's good, so unless I was on an airplane so that is what I'm seeing and, by the way, what's kind of crazy about what I just said has nothing to do with the youtube app on your phone or YouTube proper is lit all the television. It's this like percentage. It's like this data point in your analytics that people couldn't explain and now I can explain it. You probably know this, like inherently, because, like you, come from that new generation of viewers and creators, but like for the rest of the world that was reading YouTube secrets, watching vidIQ, all those things, it's like what, even though they're watching YouTube videos on the TV.
Speaker 1:So what I think you know in the tech sphere during 2020, during COVID and stuff, I remember a lot of things that were going on. So in the YouTube space, mobile was growing really fast around that time and then, when everyone was in lockdown, a lot of electronics were sold. I know this because I was doing tech YouTube pretty heavy at that time and I'm going to tell you RPMs were great, everything was great right.
Speaker 1:You could get videos on everything, because everyone was looking up reviews of everything, because you're stuck at home, so everyone was buying TVs. And the thing is, those TVs back in 2020 all had integrated apps. If you had an older TV that maybe you didn't upgrade for like five to seven years, and most people who weren't stuck at home they were like you know my TV's, fine. Well, now you're stuck at home and now you want a better TV, you want a better experience and that thing's built right in. So all the things you're talking about casting and all that stuff really became easier for people to do in 2020, 2021. And better too to and better when you kind of had this.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna buy a tv. It's on sale, let me go grab it. Oh, I can now watch youtube. I never tried this before. Oh my gosh, it's actually a better experience. So I think that that situation kind of has bled into what we're seeing now. The. The uptick in views is taking a little bit longer, but, man, it is so easy. Everything, everything. You go to the tv and now you can can see Jen on TV on this very episode, can you?
Speaker 2:believe that Right here, Right here, you want to know what happened. I think Netflix pissed everybody off and they were like you can't share your password.
Speaker 1:And everyone said fine, oh, that's right, I'm going to go to YouTube, you're not wrong.
Speaker 2:That's actually interesting. What if I?
Speaker 1:A lot of people I know canceled it based on that and now Netflix has ads again, or for the first time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, by the way, there's a lot of variables that are leading to what we're discussing today, but remember that it was like cable cutting.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Somebody today made fun of me for still having cable right. But cable cutting now about streaming service cutting right. No one's ever going to cut off YouTube, because why?
Speaker 1:You don't have to, it's free, it's free, right? Yeah, yeah, it's free.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, it's funny, they've struck the balance of ads to content, because that's their business.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:They know exactly how to do it. Another thing that's, by the way, this is a whole other note. I would love to talk about what you need to do if you're going to take advantage of this new style of vlogging. But another thing that happened to me in 2024, when I started vlogging right on my channel ads went crazy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I just recently I'm like andrew, like I don't care so much about my analytics. I look at every little thing. I'm like I want to just create content that people want to view, right I? I just recently went into my AdSense for my 30-minute vlogs. I'm seeing seven ads sometimes.
Speaker 2:Crazy. I don't want that.
Speaker 3:In fact, you know, I always just set the auto thing, assuming it'd be like beginning, middle, and maybe two if it was longer. Seven ads and my average view duration. Can you guess what my average view duration is on my 30 minute videos?
Speaker 2:30 minute video. I would say 12, 30 really close.
Speaker 3:It's usually closer to 15 minutes, but this was crazy.
Speaker 3:That means there's some people watching 30 minutes, right, of course so there's some people sitting through my costco vlogs where I'm just picking the same ingredients. Once in a while I'll show something different, and I am talking. I'm talking about what it is. I'm talking like you know, shopping for, and they're watching potentially five or six ads. That's something wild too, because could you remember when ads were turned on in youtube, like done, we're not watching this anymore, but it was good enough. We're like you know, maybe, and then we're like signing up for premium way before that was even a thing right.
Speaker 3:So I think that that's another thing that youtube's always been great at paying the creators. Still, there's no adsense equivalent anywhere else, and and this is why vlogging is kind of crazy, because it's the easiest way to do a 30 plus minute video and take advantage of everything good of YouTube, both on the algorithm, the search and ranking, as well as the AdSense and passive income, and that's why none of the other platforms. This is why Amazon had to pay Mr B's whatever a hundred million to do that show, because they don't have anything that comes close, though that show was a big one for Amazon. Guess what? It's just one show. Youtube has infinite amounts of previous shows.
Speaker 1:And it has Mr Beast as well. And it has Mr Beast 100,000, mr Beast, already. I know right, we got all this.
Speaker 2:We don't even need the real one anymore. There's enough people who are trying to be Mr Beast.
Speaker 1:We don't even need the real one.
Speaker 2:It's all right.
Speaker 1:Oh gosh, yeah. So let's talk a little bit more about vlogging. We do have some vlogging listeners We've heard from some of them or people that do things that are like vlogs. Yeah, jen and I have talked a lot of emails we get about that and that the value prop for that is more about entertainment. So when you're about to shoot a vlog, or when you're even editing a vlog, how do you find the entertaining notes of that? Because, like you said, you might be in Costco and that sounds kind of you know. It's like all right, you're in Costco, so what? How do you make that interesting?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a good question. So the first off, I want to almost redefine vlogging, right, this vlogging style that my wife and other vloggers, including Casey Neistat, created. That's not what I'm talking about. Let's actually go way back in time to 2005 with the early days video blog. That is the original vlog. Okay, so if anybody knows about blogs, blogs is on everything and it's in different styles, and the first YouTube videos were just videos and it's funny that you said entertainment, right, like for vlogs. Actually, I think vlogs can be everything, just like blogs were about everything, sometimes entertainment, sometimes recipes, sometimes about information. So, redefining what a vlog is, it's a video blog and it can include everything from like a talking head video to me shopping at Costco to something a little bit more produced like the secret camera of the country, family or whatever, okay, but what do you want to do to make a 30 minute interesting when it had to be 10 minutes back in the day or even shorter?
Speaker 3:I call it the three T's of the new vlogging method. First off, you have to have a theme for your channel, right? You have to have something that your channel is about. It's more broader than a niche. Because the problem with the niches you sometimes run out of ideas and then when you just become too niche, somebody can out-compete you, right? A theme just gives you a general direction. So for me, it's like my obsession and passion for food and sharing it with other food lovers. Now you go one level down to the second T, right.
Speaker 3:First T being theme, second T being a topic or takeaway. You want to have a vlog. See, this is one of the big distinctions. The new way of vlogging has a topic or takeaway. For every vlog. There's something about it. So Sam Sulek is the greatest example. You think he was just walking through the grocery store being this big buff guy buying food. No, the topic was proteins. How do you find the best proteins at the grocery store? That'll make you big. And so you always have a topic or takeaway. And then the last one is telling stories, a little play on word. But the third t is telling stories. You've got to just talk. I know that sounds kind of crazy, but it's funny. We just blasted through 50 minutes telling all kinds of stories around, this kind of thing, unscripted, right, like did you come here, like I'm gonna say this and this and this story, whatever. There's banter between you two that I know was completely random or whatever, everything about and we're even trying to be nice in person.
Speaker 1:I know right, I'm not even really okay, well, wait, wait until almost the end. I got something for you. I got a little surprise.
Speaker 3:I haven't told you about but go ahead, okay, so who you oh, all right, so we can all tell stories and we don't know it. That's another thing too. People like have over complicated telling stories.
Speaker 2:Oh, I am so with you on this yes I am so with you on this and the first time I ever tried to tell a story. When you think of what storytelling is, or when, oh my gosh, when youtube was like exploding with like, you have to be a master storyteller and there's to be stakes and you have to oh my gosh, hilarious.
Speaker 3:I mean, this is back to like the casey neistat era, exactly, and that's what crazy casey tells the greatest stories. But the way he tells it, it takes a lot of work, right? How often on the weekend you're hanging out with your buddies, right, right, or your family, and you literally just say you won't believe what happened to me this week did you practice that?
Speaker 1:did you like? I still need to hear that story, by the way, yeah yeah, so telling stories is something everybody can do.
Speaker 3:The problem is they're uncomfortable on camera yeah, by the way that's a whole nother discussion. But if you just tell a story that's related to that topic or takeaway and is under your theme, you got a vlog. You got the new vlog. That will work. Remember what I said about the algorithm. You know what? It's funny because right now on youtube there's this whole costco niche. Okay, who's the most?
Speaker 1:famous.
Speaker 3:Right now there's two talking about yeah there's two that I think about double chocolate chomp cookie or whatever, guys, okay, it's a dad and a son. Okay, heartwarming, they love to go there, but short form or whatever. That's their style, whatever that goes viral. Then you got the other style, which is these are the top 10 things you need to buy at costco today, right? Or these are the top 10 healthiest things. So those are the two things that kind of dominate in the world.
Speaker 3:I'm neither one of those. I have a 30 minute vlog. I stand apart doing the thing. That's way easy. The one thing I talked about last year. That is so funny because no one ever flexes this, but it's a great way.
Speaker 3:And I didn't know about the TV yet. Right, you want to be second best with vlogs? Meaning, after you watch a double chocolate crunch dad and son guy, or the bobby guy, that does the top 10 things you buy, what happens? You get a suggestion on another video, yeah. Or if you're on the tv, they're like oh, that guy liked costco, so let's show him one. That's formatted for the couch viewer for TV. I'm that guy. I can promise you that double chocolate crunch cookie, dad and son guy. I don't know, you're going to have to fix me Nutri, okay, nutri's over here laughing at me. I can promise you they're not getting 50% audience view duration on their stuff, right? They're not getting 50% audience view duration on their stuff, right. I've seen stats that say, like shorts and TikToks can get like five to 25 seconds if you're lucky.
Speaker 3:Wow, how is it me? I'm definitely not nearly as entertaining as them. Way boring, right. I'm supposed to be behind the scenes. I'm the token boyfriend, turned token husband, token dad. And now I have this channel where I can shop for 30 minutes doing like really mundane stuff. It's me telling stories. It's a longer video and it's still following the three t's food lover, but topic or takeaway is usually costco and there's usually like another topic on top of it and I just tell stories about this ingredient, why I buy it, right, my own perspective, my own opinion. I can do it all day long. It's just crazy. My wife just shopped at costco. I'm kind of angry because that means I don't get.
Speaker 1:You don't get, right, like what are you doing?
Speaker 3:that's content, because it's easy. It's like really so easy. By the way, to be fair, though, what I said about first on scene there is somebody else I coach people on it that will do it way better than me, but I'm early on. The point I'm trying to make is that is how you create a vlog for not only just YouTube proper, but especially the TV viewer. Follow those three T's and do it over and over.
Speaker 3:Remember what I said about what's the number one reason why people can't tell a story? It's because they're uncomfortable on camera. The easiest way to get through that is practice. Do it a lot. Guess what Vlogs are such low effort compared to nice camera, three hours of editing, all these crazy ideas and all those kinds of things that you can just bang them out. You know like, the first phase of my coaching is like do as many vlogs as you can. Low stakes, don do overdo it. Use your phone if you want, don't don't like, in fact, and guess what all those vloggers that you probably know of, or like kind of, saw over the last few years? That's exactly how they did it. And then they get comfortable, and then they become natural on camera, and then one day everything lines up 100,000 views, a million views. So I'm not one of those creator, coaches or YouTube extras say yeah, you can just follow every little thing I do and in the next 30 days you're going to go viral, right? That's complete BS.
Speaker 1:Right, right, because you and I both know.
Speaker 3:We all know it takes a lot of work and effort and experience to get to that point. See, one thing that people don't know is my wife, for example. She's never really told this story. She made videos with her sister and cousins growing up, so being on camera wasn't that big of a deal. Even though she wasn't, she was a little uncomfortable, right, and she had a whole year of videos that she didn't like. Where she like removed a lot of those videos. That was her era of practicing same thing with me, right, like I had.
Speaker 3:I mean you could say it took me 15 years to get to this point. I mean I've done legit vlogging and other channels, whatever. I'm just saying it doesn't happen overnight. But this framework, the three t's right Having a theme for your channel, having a topic, a takeaway for your vlog that you're focused on and you're telling stories. You do that enough times. Guess what? You could become a legit creator in three to six months and then you're off to races versus the old way of doing it Optimize, research, every little thing which I'm like.
Speaker 3:I'm a fan of both, but gets so overwhelming they just quit their first video is cringy and it took them like 10 days to create and they're like I can't do this like this is not sustainable. The way I vlog it is done literally in a matter of hours from the time I come up with the idea or research, uh, the topic or takeaway to me, filming to the time it gets edited and uploaded can literally be, in some cases, a three to four hour process, very like minimal investment. Anybody can do that, and so that that's what I would suggest if you're trying to get into vlogging and you need, like some kind of roadmap to get started and and this works cool, funny enough for seasoned creators who are part of that over optimized stuff, and I have my friend Matt who's doing that. Can I tell one more?
Speaker 1:quick story, yeah.
Speaker 3:So I have a creator friend, really successful TikToker and went to YouTube shorts, did really well as a cook right Worked in a restaurant for 10 years, legit knife skills I think that was one of the things I want viral um, and he has kind of like, like, um, edgy cooking content. You can just look at his channel.
Speaker 3:But he really wanted to vlog because he felt the same thing that a lot of people were feeling like I want to do something different and I see these other creators doing it too, like Sam Sulek, and he was trying to do vlogs and actually they were doing well on his channel, but not good enough and he went through some things and he just kind of stopped and then ultimately he made a decision based off of other people in his life not me saying hey, you should maybe stop vlogging and do this more highly produced stuff, right. So he's trying to do it. What he didn't tell them or me you know, I mentor him on his vlogging and stuff and I just talk about, like, how to do vlogs Uploaded his vlogs on a secret channel. He didn't tell anybody about it. I love that. So he has like 3 million followers on his main channel or something like that, or maybe less than 1.5. It doesn't matter, because his second channel was a channel he started a long time ago Does have 17,000 subscribers, right, but again, subscribers don't really matter.
Speaker 3:These days Right Because his million subscriber channel wasn't getting him a million views. Okay, we all know this. Everyone's shorts now, like metrics are just vanity, but the point is this he was getting, in some cases, four to eight times as many views on his vlogs in this new method of vlogging on his secret channel than his main channel, and this is a big takeaway. This kind of goes full circle back to what I talked about the algorithm, ai and how YouTube's easier than ever. He never once promoted his vlogs.
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 3:Not on his TikTok, not on his Instagram stories. He didn't even share it on his community tab, which anybody from vidIQ knows. Like. That community tab is underrated. You should share everything on there, right? He didn't even do that because the algorithm is so good that not only did it find that audience that's subscribed to his main channel that wants it, but the other people that wanted that specific content that didn't know anything about him.
Speaker 3:He's having people approach him in Seattle because a lot of his vlogs around Seattle that don't know he's this epic short form creator. They're like dude, love what you're doing for Seattle. Keep up the work Like talking on. Love what you're doing for Seattle. Keep up the work. Like talking on, like like you're doing a good job.
Speaker 3:Buddy, not knowing like this is what he does for a living and that's fascinating because it's proving one. It's not about the subscribers you don't have to promote, you don't have to do anything crazy and, by the way, I'm not saying that they're necessarily bad, but they're not optimized his title and thumbnail, not the way he would normally do it on his other channel, or best practices at experts, and still getting more views. His first vlog got 40 000 views, just like that right. I love that, and it was a long video, longer than what he normally, because he's doing short form. I tell that story because this is a case across the board, no matter where you're at in the creator journey, and it's something to pay attention to. And I do believe this new wave of youtube and people wanting this like more dressed down content to tv viewers, and then three high demand with low supply it's an opportunity. It's the biggest opportunity. I used to say shorts were the biggest opportunity.
Speaker 3:No, because actually shorts screwed up a lot of youtube, I think not necessarily fully in a bad way, but both good and bad, yeah. What's happening with TV, though, is it's like a goldmine.
Speaker 1:Yep, I agree. So on this podcast, we do talk about our YouTube, but also we talk about other things, and that's why I think when people email us, they'll send us little stories about things and little inside jokes. We have, and one of the things that we talk about here and I'm just going to ask for your unbiased opinion on this because there is a mini war in our podcast audience they're on one side of the fence or they're on the other side of the fence, so we need to figure out what side of the fence you're on. Okay, so I'm going to ask you and this is a very serious question because we are basically podcast as well Undercover candy podcast.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'll talk about candy.
Speaker 1:So let me, this is the thing. There are two candies and two teams, basically that this entire audience listens to, and I'm not going to bias you in any way, but there is only one answer. That's good. Okay, there are seasonal candies, one that Jen loves and one that I love, and we don't like the other person's candy at all, which is why we've kind of separated in this way. I hope I get this right. I hope you do too. I'm going to tell you what they both are.
Speaker 1:So the first one and again, I'm not trying not to bias you by saying anything, I'm going to say them both equally, the way that I should say them, so that you just make up your own mind. First one is candy corn, which usually comes out during the Halloween season, and the other one is Cadbury Cream Eggs, which happens around this time, easter time. Very controversial, some people like one, some people like the other, very few people like both.
Speaker 2:I'm here to ask you, maybe he's.
Speaker 3:It's funny. Sorry, austin, I want to hear a funny story about candy. My wife and I we're talking about this random conversation I can already see the anger I'm ready to leave.
Speaker 3:I'm ready to leave, okay, wow, let me explain dinner travis but let me explain, though this was so funny, all right, I was telling her and, like, we've been married now for a very long time. We've been friends since like literally the late 90s, okay, so we know everything about each other. So when there's something new that we find out, it's always like a big deal. Yeah, and recently I said I really don't like hershey's chocolate interesting and it blew her mind because she made like homemade chocolate.
Speaker 3:She melted down a whole bunch of chocolate but there was hershey's in there. I was like I like it when you use the like other, just regular milk chocolate. I grew up in japan so japanese chocolates are my jam and hershey's is like total opposite, anyways, doesn't matter. So went down this rabbit trail. Like the other candies I don't like. You guys probably not gonna uh like this, the other one that I don't like too. I'm curious what mutually thinks.
Speaker 1:I don't like tootsie pops yeah, I mean, I mean yeah okay, so going to candy corn.
Speaker 3:She said okay, then where would you put all these kind of different things right like?
Speaker 2:they have a whiteboard out, they literally have brackets basically, and then so she, she, um.
Speaker 3:She talked about candy corn and immediately like, oh, candy corn is better than all those ones, right, but it's not really high up for me. But if I had to pick between the two, definitely candy corn, but I made a point to say like I still will enjoy candy corn. To me, what's crazy about candy corn?
Speaker 2:is how delicious it is. It's just like it's a candle.
Speaker 3:It's an unburned candle yeah, no, it's like solidified frosting. That's been like. You know, like wood gets petrified it does.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, that's exactly what it that's what candy corn is to me.
Speaker 3:But you know you have to hand it like candy corn. Isn't that an old candy? It is. You would never know if it by the way, don't even get me started by cadbury cream, eggs or anything like that, okay, hold on.
Speaker 1:Hold on for a second. First of all, I actually did another podcast episode earlier this day. For people listening to this, you probably have already seen that episode. Jen doesn't know that. I actually asked Tricia this same question.
Speaker 3:Oh, no, tricia.
Speaker 1:And she also picked candy corn for some ungodly known reason. So I'm feeling some kind of way right now, but guess what? You can never get over on travis? Travis gets over on you. For those of you who don't know or maybe you're watching this later on this is being recorded in march, which is not when candy corn is kind of popular and available. However, you know what is available. Guess what I got today did you bring candies?
Speaker 1:today, jen is finally going to have a Cadbury cream egg for caulking all this mess, so we're going to watch this live.
Speaker 2:Oh, disgusting.
Speaker 3:I can't wait, have you had one of these before, or is it just?
Speaker 1:an idea of it. It's literally disgusting, it's the texture and stuff right. Disgusting All right, I'm going to need a picture of this. So first of all, let me get my phone. I'm going to take a picture of you, so I'm going to show this on the community tab so people can go. It's happening because that's what's going to happen. Our community is going to love this. It's happening. I need everyone to go ahead and just if you're listening on the audio podcast.
Speaker 2:You now need to go over to the YouTube channel because this is happening right now. You have have to watch this. Oh, it's literally all things I hate and don't eat milk chocolate.
Speaker 1:Gross, whatever is gonna be inside gross I need you to get to the surprise in here.
Speaker 2:No, just that I'm doing this, yeah and you have to make sure you get the goo.
Speaker 1:The goo is inside. You need to get to the goo.
Speaker 3:The fact that you just called it goo doesn't that tell you everything you need to know. Go ahead, bite it in, make sure you get the goo. This is worse than when I had the vomit jelly beans.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, the vomit jelly beans If anyone has vomit jelly beans they'd like? To swap this out for I'll take it, I'll absolutely take it.
Speaker 1:I want you to just really enjoy the moment, because I am Crunch it. There's the goo, Get it. You eat that young lady. You clean your plate. How are you doing?
Speaker 2:That's literally the most disgusting thing I've ever tasted. What are you talking?
Speaker 3:about. Is that an orange cream? Why is it orange?
Speaker 1:Because it's one of the flavors of the. It's supposed to be like the yolk of an egg.
Speaker 3:Except for it's not, it tastes good. This is how much I love you. Eat dairy, I'm going to eat one right now. Milk chocolate eggs with soft fondant center Fondant's good.
Speaker 1:That's disgusting what are you talking about? That's literally disgusting. Oh my god, this is the best thing ever.
Speaker 2:That's literally how much I love you. I don't eat dairy.
Speaker 1:I know she's a vegan. Ladies and gentlemen, this is like she's going. She's never going to. Let me live this down.
Speaker 2:I'm angry. The plant queens in the comments are going to be irate.
Speaker 1:Bro, they are going to come for me because people don't like that. Okay, look Anyway.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, no, no. You eat what you want, whenever you want.
Speaker 1:This is true. Benji's trying that too. Let's go, let's get it. I love them. I'm gonna get mine in too. Hold on.
Speaker 2:Do we? Does anyone have any? You know what, though? Wait, did it surprise?
Speaker 3:you. Cadbury milk chocolate Is very good.
Speaker 2:I've heard that people Love the little eggs.
Speaker 1:I might Like the little yeah, they're okay.
Speaker 3:I might change my mind. I might change my mind.
Speaker 1:See.
Speaker 3:I'm saying A convert no.
Speaker 2:Benji's like.
Speaker 3:You got another one. Let's go. I'm not going to finish this right now, but I might.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's thinking about it for later, I'm telling you good stuff Anyway. Gross.
Speaker 1:Benji, thank you so much for joining us. Tell us a little bit about where people can find you if they're interested. I know you've written a book and like where are all things Tell?
Speaker 3:us where are things? So what's my URL? Austin, I forgot. Vloggingacademycom. Forward slash checklist for anybody that wants to go through the full three t's and everything you need to know to literally upload your first vlog. Go there. That is the best place. The second place I would say is, like benjamin tv on instagram, have a creator secrets broadcast channel where I'll talk about this stuff, and the checklist is really the best place. But the last thing I would say is I've been doing this a long time. It's 17 years. I wrote a book on it.
Speaker 1:I'm throwing a YouTube event next week by the way, you're welcome to come if you. I know it's kind of a drive for you. There's one in Portland too right, though there is one next week.
Speaker 3:Anyways, I love YouTube. When I started saying I love YouTube, it was strange. That was like 2011, 2012. Now, it's not strange. It's a part of the media, it's part of the world and if you're not on there, to a certain degree, you don't exist. I mean that sounds harsh, but it's the of the world and if you're not on there, you like, to a certain degree you don't exist as long. I mean that sounds harsh, but it's the new tv. It is no pun intended. Based off what we just said, right now we have a moment for new creators, new channels, to take advantage of this thing in a way that you didn't, because everybody wanted to become a youtuber at one point right, and I believe that, by the way, shorts still great. Like we were kind of like shitting on all those like oh no, I shit on shorts every day highly produced content.
Speaker 3:Right, we were just talking about how, like it's really hard, there's still a place for it. In fact, guess what? Of course, vlogging is just one of the things of the greater YouTube space. It's just it's taken advantage of all the current benefits that no one's really kind of paying attention to or talking about, and it's also a really easy way to get started. And what happened was vlogging wasn't easy because you had to do drone shots and all that kind of crazy stuff now, you don't have to do nothing you can literally like put your camera on a log while you're like making pie or whatever you said right outside people are like
Speaker 3:making food outside and becoming these creators. So don't sleep on YouTube. Consider vlogging and, regardless if you get my checklist or not, you're probably noticing this is happening. So don't be the person that five years from now, says I wish I did it. Be the person that says'm glad I started. Yeah, and that can be as simple as like a 10 minute video of you talking about something you're obsessed with, because you never know when someone's gonna something's gonna go viral and I don't say that lightly, because content is going viral that I thought shouldn't be going viral. And, yeah, thanks for having me on your guys's podcast and huge fan of both you guys and vidIQ so awesome. I'll definitely be tuning into future episodes. So subscribe, even though you don't need to, because YouTube already knows what you want to watch.
Speaker 3:And yeah, that's what I say Awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you. And links will be in the show notes If you're listening to all your podcasts podcasts and in the description if you're watching here on YouTube. And Jen and I will try to do this in person again sometime soon, hopefully, yeah.
Speaker 2:I also just want to say that I took a bigger bite than you did.
Speaker 1:Well, because I'm going to eat the whole thing.
Speaker 2:No, I literally took a bigger bite than you did. I've been thinking about, I don't care. I could only take one bite, by the way. That's enough for me.
Speaker 3:I'm going to eat it, but if I had candy corn right now, I would eat more. Oh, I can't do that.
Speaker 2:I had to take candy corn off my desk because I would unknowingly reach for it and be eating it, and then I'm just chewing the whole time.
Speaker 3:This is why I say it's solidified frosting, because guess what, I'm the guy that, even when all the cake is on, if there's more frosting on the thing, I'm like mm-hmm, okay, wait.
Speaker 2:so as a food channel and stuff, oh, do we need to end?
Speaker 1:No, you finish this and then we'll end Wait.
Speaker 2:I'm like what is your? Well, there's two. Okay, what is the food you're most embarrassed?
Speaker 1:to say that you absolutely love food.
Speaker 3:You're most embarrassed to say that, like you, absolutely love, oh, oh, that's a good one. Oh, um well, actually, well, I mean, I share so much, so I'm not really that embarrassed, honestly but like if someone you told someone they'd be like huh what? What did you say? Oh well, it's funny. No, it was candy corn. I'm not kidding you.
Speaker 2:I just told you that's embarrassing I told my wife candy corn so like.
Speaker 3:How could you? You don't like hershey's and titty pops but candy corn. How could you? You don't like Hershey's and Titty Pops but candy corn. I forget if you said Cadbury eggs or candy corn first, I think you led with candy corn.
Speaker 1:I was like this is crazy Anyway we'll see you, guys and gals, in the next one.