The Story of CboysTV
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I have fully done things around the home that I think look good and then a bang in the night and I wake up to a shelf collapsing, a painting falling off the wall. Like it, I've seen it all go south. I own a home and I can tell you, I know how much work it can take. Whether it's everyday maintenance and repairs or making dream projects a reality, it can be hard just to know where to start. But now all you need to do is Angie that and find a skilled local pro who will deliver the quality and expertise you need.

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but I'm so scared to try that on my own. Angie has 20 years of home experience and they've combined it with new tools to simplify the whole process. Bring them your project online or with the Angie app. Answer a few questions and Angie can handle the rest from start to finish or help you compare quotes from multiple pros and connect instantly, which means you can take care of any home project in just a few taps.

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You can make money from your podcast with no minimum listenership. It's everything you need to make a podcast in one place. Download the free Anchor app or go to anchor.fm to get started. Is this happening? From now on, when we're on the podcast set, we'll be referring to Big Ken as Jamie. Yeah, Ken's our Jamie back there. You'll never see his face, but you'll only hear that beautiful, beautiful deep voice. Oh. Is that camera going? They're all going.

Alright, we're doing this. It's about time, man. We're live, dude. I felt like if we didn't do it soon, people were going to just start calling us cappers. Quite frankly, I was embarrassed at how long it took for us to get around to doing this. The issue was there was so much... Well, we were hung up on the name for the longest time, and I think we got it locked down. Life Wide Open podcast. It was easily the most requested name or the most recommended name. I love how you're like, I think we have it locked down. Well, that's the thing. It's locked down. Yeah.

Is it? Yeah. I mean, we're on the LifeWide Open Podcast YouTube channel right now. Unless the name below this video is something else. I already made it, man. It's a done deal. All right. What's done is done. Yeah, it made the most sense. For all you guys over here, obviously you're all new because this is our first podcast. If you guys want to hit the subscribe button, I don't know if you're watching on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, and then on YouTube...

drop a like, drop a comment, and then hit the subscribe button. We're going to be giving away $500 to two of you, randomly selecting you guys out of the comment section. So, yeah, I mean, if you want the opportunity to make a little bit of money, follow those three things. That's the only thing I got to do. We've been talking about doing a podcast for like...

Three years? Two years? A while. Like, before podcasts were popping, I would say. Yeah. And we just never did. We were going to do it on Patreon, weren't we? Yeah, we got, like, some shitty-ass mics because that's, I mean, literally all we could afford, and then we never even fucking used them. We still got them sitting in some box in the back. But, I mean, the whole idea of this podcast was to show you guys...

you know, more of a real version of ourselves. Because when you watch the YouTube videos, it is all real, but it's like so cut up fast and fabricated. It's like the highlight reel. Exactly. It's a highlight reel. We don't get the time in that to really tell you guys and show you guys who we really are and what our lives are really like. Yeah, I mean, like on the YouTube videos, you can't just...

state your opinion and then ramble on about it for 15 minutes. Yeah, because it would get old. Yeah, people don't click on our YouTube videos to watch that. They basically just watch them, I would assume, for entertainment. Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, that's what surprises me that it did take us this long to do that because I feel like once we get into this, it's going to be, like, really refreshing. Right. Well, I mean, we had to get the whole setup. You know, we wanted to do it right. We got this custom-made table from Anth's Chop Shop.

Shout out Anthony. This whole set, you guys. It turned out so good. It turned out so good. It's not going to be that much of a drawback, but... Ceiling's right there. And Ben's not tall. I'm really not tall, but...

Actually, I don't know if he can stand. He's 5'9 and a half, not tall. Everyone thinks Ben's not tall, but I just like leaning into it. Yeah, he's pretty short. Half the time I'm standing next to Ken, and Ken's, what, 6'4"? Sorry, Jamie back there? Yeah, Jamie, I mean. Yeah, but on here we're going to be obviously showing our life's

behind uh youtube telling you guys a lot of stories funny stories that happen off camera and then also you know uh doing business advice kind of talking youtube talk for a lot of you guys that are interested in learning about youtube i think we'll be able to give some advice and and help you learn how to navigate it and then um just other other stuff going on in the media yeah

We all are pretty opinionated, especially me and CJ. Definitely. I don't know if it's good or not, but we like to talk. And I figured this was probably going to be the best way to share our thoughts in a long-form piece of content. And I think definitely it will be the four of us. It could be Ken will be in here. But then we'll have some guests, too.

And I just have to – I just really – I'm sorry. I'm going to pump your tires, Ben. Ben is a phenomenal interviewer. I don't know. He just sits – yeah, it's called the Benterview, you guys. And he just sits down, and he, like, asks someone questions. We're just out to eat, and he's asking them questions. And next thing you know, that conversation lasted a half an hour. And it's just good. You ask really good questions. Dude, it's with the most random people, too. Yeah. And you dig up more questions as they answer your questions. So, like, I'm pretty excited to have some guests on. Don't know who it's going to be. No one –

Yeah, I mean, yeah. Well, for sure have Justin on. Probably have Jake on. We're not from L.A. We don't have a plethora of creators or, like, influencers or any people like that at our disposal. But we have each other. We have each other. So, basically, this is going to just be camaraderie and us fucking around. Yeah, pretty much. Let's talk about what's kind of going on around here this weekend. It's basically the pinnacle of...

time to be in cormorant area i mean otherwise i don't know if i could say that ever for at least tourists like it's it's popping in town today yeah basically so where we're from it's a gas station bar and liquor store liquor store like three people live in town actually it's like three farmhouses so cormorant's literally a village like it's not

I don't even know if it has a zip code. Honestly, it doesn't know, but that's like the C and C boys TV. So C is for Cormorant. Um,

We'll get into kind of how we got that name, like Seaboys, later. But to be completely honest with you, it really sucks dick living here for like nine months out of the year. Yeah. But for the other three months, it's lakes country. So there's a ton of lakes and there's people from all over the cities that have lake cabins on these lakes. So they come out during the weekends in the summer to, you know,

go out on the lake, have a good time, party. It kind of turns into, like, a party area around here in the summer, and especially over the 4th of July week weekend. So it's fun. Like, this is, like, the best time to be here because, like, we love... I mean, it's probably not any secret, but we do love to party. So, yeah, we...

We get distracted this time of year. I mean, it's hard not to, though. We live out here, so it's like when you live at, like, the vacation town. You know? Yeah. When all the people come to town, they're here to have a good time. They're here to, like, relax, party, drink. And, like...

That's the issue is like turning that switch on and off because, you know, we still got business to run. We still got videos to make. This is like a seven-day-a-week job. I mean, no matter what, whether you work a full 14-hour day or you work just even two hours, every day you do have to work. It's like you're on call. Moral of the story is being that Fourth of July is on a Sunday this year, we're going on a bender. The boys are going on like a four-day bender. Started last night.

It's going to go until probably Monday night. I think Mike's still kind of riding it. If I'm not mistaken, I saw him pour a twisted tea into his cup this morning. Do you want to show the camera, Mike? Fuck twisted tea. Just a quick PSA. Fuck twisted tea. Water over here. Water over here. I want to be on my A game. We got three cameras rolling here. Feels kind of high production. I feel like we haven't figured it out. We're in the loft of our garage. Yep.

All set up by us. And then three lights bright as shit. I know for a fact we're going to get better as we go. You go back and look at our first YouTube videos. Obviously, we've gotten significantly better since then. So just stick with us on here. It's going to be a good time. I think we should really get into, you know, what's something good we could talk about? We talked about talking about kind of the origin of...

Yeah, that'd be good. I think that'd be a good first. Original story of how we... I would say, like, how did we all meet? And then you're... Yeah, I mean... Like, CJ's the one who had the idea to start the channel, and it's, in my opinion, it's a very important move in all of our lives. So going back to, you know, around Cormorant, Minnesota, where we live, there is really no one here for, I mean...

Nine months out of the year. It's very secluded. There's not a lot of kids in the area. So that's kind of how we all came to be friends. You know, we just kind of ran into each other. Me and CJ are friends. Yeah, we're just cousins. We're cousins, actually. And also, for the record, the nine months out of the year does suck because of, like, the weather. It's so cold. But it's amazing because nobody...

No one is. We capitalize on it. No one's around. I think the best way to put it is we are a product of our environment. The reason that we do most of the stuff that we do is because of the area that we grew up in. And, like, going back to... Dude, I was probably, what, eight, seven? And you were nine? Ten. Yeah, so CJ's parents...

Bought a cabin right next to my parents' cabin on the lake. And that was kind of when we became... Like best friends, yeah. Yeah. Because it was just me and CJ out at the lake. Right. I met you guys from snowmobiling. Can I tell a little funny story about the first time I met Mike? Oh, God. Yeah.

So the first time I met Mike, I hang out with him. Pretty cool guy. We were talking cars. I had a Subaru WRX. And I don't know. We exchanged numbers. I'm at work the next day or Monday. And he texts me and goes, hey, dude, we should hang out again. Smiley face. Not the emoji, a smiley face. And back then, you just don't send smiley faces to guys back then. So I'm kind of like...

Why is he sending me smiley face? In CJ's rule book, you don't. And I mean, like, either way, I get that. Back then, it was a big no-no. You can get away with it now. I just send smiley faces because I'm always super happy. Yeah, yeah. Let's do it again. Yeah, that was fun. It was nice. We should hang this weekend. He goes, yeah, definitely. Smiley face. I'm like, this dude, this dude's gay. This dude's hitting on me. And I actually thought Mike was gay the very first time I met him, but he's not. That's funny.

That's what Ryan said too, kind of. I thought that too. To be fair, I've never said that publicly, but I think that too. She was like, yeah, Ryan and I kind of thought you were possibly gay. And I was like, well, I'm not. I can confirm. Mike is not gay. Ryan and Ken...

They were like best buds. They were the jet ski boys. They would buzz around on their jet skis. They had jet skis. Ben and I were always hanging out. We'd be like, man, these guys are the fucking lucky ducks. We'd basically try to con them into letting us ride their jet ski from time to time. So, yeah, yeah, yeah. Those two were on the other side of the lake. Me and CJ were on this side. And then one day we were over at our friend's and Ken,

Ken and Ryan pull up on their jet skis and we were like, man, big dicks are in town. Ken's wearing his big old Oakley's. The oil rigs. I had the gas cans. When these guys showed up, dude, you better make sure your girls are not around.

Today's episode is brought to you by Angie. Angie has made it easier than ever to connect with skilled professionals to get all your jobs and projects done well. Let me tell you, there's the version of it where you try to do something at home and then there's a version of it where you have someone help you, you watch them do it the right way and you go, thank God I didn't try to do that myself.

I have fully done things around the home that I think look good and then a bang in the night and I wake up to a shelf collapsing, a painting falling off the wall. Like it, I've seen it all go south. I own a home and I can tell you, I know how much work it can take. Whether it's everyday maintenance and repairs or making dream projects a reality, it can be hard just to know where to start. But now all you need to do is Angie that and find a skilled local pro who will deliver the quality and expertise you need.

Whatever your home project, big or small, indoor or outdoor, you can Angie that and connect with skilled professionals to get the project done well. Right now, one of my wish lists is I want a bike for my condo in Milwaukee and I would love to rig it up on a pulley in the ceiling because I have one of those like lofted ceilings.

But I'm so scared to try that on my own. Angie has 20 years of home experience and they've combined it with new tools to simplify the whole process. Bring them your project online or with the Angie app. Answer a few questions and Angie can handle the rest from start to finish or help you compare quotes from multiple pros and connect instantly, which means you can take care of any home project in just a few taps.

Because when it comes to getting the most out of your home, you can do this when you Angie that. Download the free Angie mobile app today or visit Angie.com. That's A-N-G-I dot com. Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co-founder of Angie. And one thing I've learned is that you buy a house, but you make it a home. Because with every fix, update, and renovation, it becomes a little more your own. So you need all your jobs done well. For nearly 30 years, Angie has helped millions of homeowners hire skilled pros for the projects that matter. From

From plumbing to electrical, roof repair to deck upgrades. So leave it to the pros who will get your jobs done well. Hire high-quality certified pros at Angie.com. So at the time, I thought, I don't know, I thought you guys, not saying that you're not normal now, but I thought you guys were pretty normal, right? I thought you were pretty cool dudes. I thought you were badasses. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you guys pull up. I think CJ goes, dude, Ryan, can I ride your jet ski?

And Ryan's like, you know, a normal guy. He goes, yeah, sure, of course. Here you go. Ken's sitting there. I was like, hey, should I say his name? No. No, no, no. His real name? His real name. That'd be the name of this podcast. We reveal Ken's name on the first podcast. Anyway, Ken's not his real name, so I call him by his real name, his government-given name. I go, hey, Ken, can I ride your jet ski? He goes, dude, is this like the same shit you would do? Ken, it's nice to know you haven't changed one bit, but he goes, no.

No. Yeah, he wouldn't let you ride. I was like, why? And I don't even think you gave me a reason. So anyways, we kind of ran into them. We hit it off.

And then we ran into Jake at a sandpit. He was on his Kawasaki. Well, we're friends with Cody, Jake's cousin first. Cody, who hangs out here and there. Homie bro. He was like the original guy that we used to hang out with, the original Sherbrooke. And we always heard rumors about how crazy his cousin was. People would just be like, yeah, he's crazy. And Cody's crazy? You should see his cousin. That guy's a nut job. Dude, I was hearing this for like two years before I ever met Jake.

I didn't realize you guys hung out with Cody for that long. I remember the first time I met Jake, though. He was at the sandpit riding his cowie, which was in the older videos. He had no shoes on and was wearing an oversized white tee. Everything was just baggy. I was just like, what the fuck is this? What is this kid? He was just funny. He was just funny as shit. We were just eating pizza and we all hit it off. Oh my God, dude.

I'll never forget the first time I met Justin.

This dude, oh, love the dude to death. But, man, we call him a virgin for a reason. He's standing at the end of your dock. We're going on the boat to pick him up. You guys are like, oh, our buddy Justin from church is coming with. I remember this. Justin's standing there with his board he bought at the yard sale. With the board that he bought at the yard sale. Church auction. The church auction. It was called a scurf board. And Justin, dude.

From the moment I met him, I was like, this might be the nicest guy I know. Yeah, very nice guy. We had a blast. We had a blast. It was funny, though. Such a virgin. It was pretty par for the course. Love the guy to death. It was par for the course. Did he scurf? Yeah! Oh, he scurfed. I bet he still has that. I bet he still has that. But then at that point...

Let's see. Was the gang all together? Jake was pretty flaky. Yeah, but it's like the six of us would hang out. Oh, and then when Justin's parents would let him hang out with us. There you go. Yeah, then he would hang out. We got in trouble for vaping. Oh, that's true. We lost him for a long time. That was right around the time that I met him. Yeah, he got caught with a vape. Justin was actually, he was like the nerdy bad boy. He was. He was.

I mean, I know everyone had subs in high school, but Justin had subs that we now have in the boat that rattled his BMW. Rattled it apart. And it literally rattled it to pieces. And I'm like, I'm here for it, man. I thought it was dope. I've never experienced subwoofers in my life. I was like, this dude, he's sucking on this vape. His windows are all coated, and he's got the sub to...

I'm riding past her like, you couldn't breathe. Yeah. Oh man. Yeah. We'll get, we'll get Justin on a pod soon for sure. That's kind of how the gang all formed. And from there we were just constantly just Tom foolery, man. Like we were up to no good. Just fucking around. Yeah. Constantly. We would ride dirt bikes. Um,

just around... Like, there's nowhere to ride bikes. Like, if you see in our videos, like, we ride ditches, allegedly. Highways, allegedly. And, yeah, there's, like, no trails or, like, tracks or anything like that to ride. So we would just basically just dick around all day. We'd go from, like, riding dirt bikes in the most random places to, like, you know, that's how we got pretty good at wheelies back then because we just, like, really had nowhere else to go or, like, anything else to do. We were just, like... Fuck around on combo sticks. Constantly just doing stuff. Yeah. Everything we do in the videos...

Like, it's the same stuff we've been doing for 12 years at this point. We've just leveled up. We've just leveled up, yeah. And, like, obviously gotten to the point where, you know, we can afford to buy cooler toys and, you know, do cooler things. But, you know, down to the roots of it, like...

We haven't changed at all. Also, we have been fucking with people since we were, like, 10 years old. Like, me and CJ used to do this thing. It was called... People call it, like, BFC trolling. Yeah, best friend cousin trolling. And, like, we just got this reputation around the community. Like, you can't trust these guys. In a bad way. They don't call you the trollmasters for nothing. Like, that's what I refer to you. If someone's like, yeah, CJ and Ben are messing with... I was like, yeah, they're the trollmasters.

Talk about when you picked up the camera. Because we've been doing this stuff forever, but when you started picking up a camera. Yeah, I mean, honestly, it's a pretty intricate story. But I had suffered a really, really bad concussion. It was right after I graduated high school.

And it just kind of changed me. I mean, for a long time, I was like when you if you have like a significant concussion, it it changes the way you act, your mood, like depression is very common anxiety. And I was experiencing all those things along with like I was constantly dizzy. If I look at stuff, it would be like moving. And if I'd close my eyes, I would feel like I was moving. And that's

that went on for, I mean, probably a year and a half. And I went to college and I just, I was

Did not enjoy at all. Like the only friend I had was Ryan. Didn't make any friends. I was in this shitty ass dorm. I hated it. Hey, worst time my life's easily the worst time my life, like tenfold. Uh, it was just a struggle. And, uh, during that, you know, I feel like I was straight up at rock bottom. Uh, you start like wondering kind of, you know, what, what is it that would really make me happy or like what would,

uh, like what is it that I really want in life? And you kind of start realizing like the things that matter. And, uh, for me, it was just like, I, I'd always wanted to be like a YouTuber, uh,

Um, so I had that in the back of my mind and I ended up dropping out of college and I went through like the whole summer and I ended up going to this whole like rehabilitation program where I had to like learn how to do my eyes and stuff again. Like basically it's just long thing. And, uh, during that I didn't have a job, wasn't in school. I would just sit around all day, sometimes hang out with these guys. I kind of flaked from you guys for a while. I would say too. Yeah. Um, but, uh,

Yeah, it was just – it was terrible. Like, I remember thinking, like, there's no way that I will continue to live my life this way. Like, I can't go the whole life acting this way – not acting this way, but, like, feeling this way. Like, there's no way I'll do the whole thing. And that's kind of why I was like, there's no point in me going to college. What do you mean by that? Like, I honestly was like, if I would have –

If I still was, like, feeling that way to this day, I definitely wouldn't be here. Like, there's no way I was going to, like, keep riding that. So that's why I was like, fuck it. Like, I'm just going to do the things I want to do. And I feel like a lot of people that want to start YouTube, like, they're scared to. Or just anything in general. You're scared about what people are going to think. But, like, I felt like I didn't have anything to lose. Like, everyone already thought I was kind of weird now and whatever. Yeah.

Um, so I, I was like, okay, so I, I bought this camera and literally spent all my money, like all of it. I'd like 600, maybe I had like a little bit of money left. I'd probably like 650 bucks spent like 600 on this camera and, uh, just kind of started learning how to like film, um,

how to, like, edit, like, just monkeying around from time to time. Mike already was pretty good with cameras. I was, like, asking him, like, what do you think about this one? What do you think? You know, and we started basically just filming the things that we were doing, and I found a lot of joy from that. Like, it really helped me. Yeah, I had, like, a purpose because, like, back then, I really wasn't supposed to be riding dirt bikes or doing other stuff. And also to add to it, I, like, I was getting better as, like,

this over this time. Cause I was doing this therapy program, all that. And, uh,

Yeah, I think that, like, picking up the camera, like, gave me a thing to do and, like, something to work towards, which, like, it just, it helped me a ton. As soon as CJ had that camera, his joy was there, and then we were like, wow, CJ's rolling. Like, let's be crazy. Yeah. Yeah, it was like almost everyone kind of turned into their character. Everyone was always really good on camera.

From the start, I will say. Try to be. Dude, I remember when a huge part for me when you said we got to vlog. This is at the time when like daily vlogging was huge. Yeah, Mike was making like little edits. Yeah, I was like I can do cinematic stuff and all that, and I'd been doing that for a hobby or whatever. But, yeah, I was like, I don't know, dude, talking to the camera. I don't like how I sound on camera. Dude, now it's you don't even think about it. I edit myself like I'm a different person or whatever. Yeah.

Back then, though, it wasn't common. No, and the reason I really knew about vlogging was because literally I didn't have anything else I'd do. I'd just sit at home in my room all day, and I'd watch YouTubers. And I'd done that for a long time, but that's when vlogging, bringing the camera out and kind of making almost like a TV show out of your life became very popular.

And, yeah. I mean, that... And I was like, we are a TV show. We used to talk about it all the time. Like, man, if we could get MTV in here, we would be a great TV show. Without that insight, I'm not saying we wouldn't have succeeded, but, like, that was so important. I remember back then, actually. So, if you go on MTV's website, I don't know if they still have it, but, like, they have at the bottom, like,

Like, you can... They have, like, roles for shows that you can, like, apply to be in. I used to try that all the time where I'd, like, submit emails, like, me and my friends, we're so cool, and, like, we should have, you know... But, like, obviously, it never heard anything back. So, basically, just made our own show. And that's what it is. Cool thing now is that YouTube is way bigger than TV. It's way bigger. Way bigger. It's like if they... If someone was to come and say, we want to put you on MTV or whatever, MTV is practically dying. But...

Dude. What would you rather have now? Like a million subscribers on YouTube or your own show or be like a part of a show on MTV? Yeah. Yeah, it's going to last like one season if you're lucky, maybe two, three. Well, I mean, even if it lasts, yeah, even if it lasted three, like still YouTube. Yeah, you don't want to. YouTube is endless possibilities. Yeah. Yeah. Endless. Branding. Like there's so much you can do with this. Dude, I remember back when we were, it was probably right around the time that you were going through the everything with the concussion symptoms. Yeah.

Dude, that was like... Fuck, man. That was hard for me to watch, too. Because, like, we were truly best friends and, like, you know...

I'd be like, yo, you want to hang out? And you'd be like, nah. Well, it's because I couldn't do a lot of the same shit that you guys are doing. I didn't fully understand it at the time. We didn't understand it. Like, you guys would maybe go on the boat. I couldn't go on the boat. Like, I'm already nauseous. Get me on a boat. I'm really, like, it would, like, seriously fuck me up. I'd have to go lay down, like, lay on the floor and try to, like, calm it down.

But yeah, you just couldn't do any of that shit. Now it's like, I think a lot of people know, you know, how serious concussions are. Back then they didn't. Back then they didn't. Yeah. It was just like, you're just being a pussy. Yeah. And that's that. We were young too. Yeah. And like, I felt like I was being a pussy too at the time, which was like one of the harder things. Cause I've always, at least back then I felt like I was a pretty tough kid. Um, but you had, it wasn't just one dude. It was multiple. I mean, it was three or four, wasn't it?

more than I can even count. Yeah. Honestly, like it, it just really, it'd been a, I don't know what you want to call it, but a combination of adding them all up over time. And then just, you know, one that really, really did it. But, uh,

Yeah, so, I mean, luckily, after, you know, a certain amount of time, my dad actually came to me and was like, there's this program you can do for people. The hockey player, Sidney Crosby, for those of you guys who don't know, he's, like, one of the best hockey players. Anyways, he had a lot of the same problems as me. He had a really bad concussion, and they did this whole thing where they basically, like, retrained his brain, like, how to – it's a lot with, like, eyesight. Like, you do, like, a lot of –

How would I, how would I describe it? Like drills basically, like you would retrain your eyesight, like how to like focus on things and like change and then like turning your head. Cause like all of that's such a factor. Um, and then exercise as well. So like getting back into exercise, that's re that was really tough for me at the time. But like you learn how to, you know, just run or not run, but like I'd do like the stationary pedal bike and slowly worked up in the weights, but that's what really helped me as well.

Yeah, man, that was, that was, but I feel like then I started getting better and, uh, it was right around the time that, uh, we started taking off. So shortly before that, uh, we posted the infamous, infamous shifter cart video. Yeah. And that was kind of like the very first vlog vlog. Uh, I remember we had the, the, the very first video was like an edit Mike made.

Life of a seaboy. Yep. And then the second video was the slip inside one. And I had filmed a vlog.

And I edited it all up really poorly. But I remember showing it to people, and they're like, cut the talking out, cut the talking out. I was like, okay. So I cut it out, and I wasn't super happy about it. So then I filmed the shifter cart one, and I remember I got it all edited up. And it took me like two weeks, because back then I couldn't stare at a computer for longer than like an hour or so, because it would just fuck me up so bad. So I'd edit for a little bit, and I'd stop. Stop.

And I go back and I also keep in mind, I'm learning how to edit. Yeah. It was on iMovie, dude. I didn't know how to like, I didn't know what I was doing. I was figuring it out as I go. I'd watch like YouTube videos and just kind of learn, taught myself and end up with the product after two weeks. And I showed a lot of people and they'd be like, it's good, but cut the talk, cut talk. I was like, no, no, like the talking part and like you need that. And then ended up posting it. I'm like waiting, thinking like I'm going to post this and it's going to blow up.

Nothing. It didn't. But you're sitting there. You have seven subscribers, and five of the accounts are my own personal ones that I made to try to follow it. And then the other two were probably one of you guys. Nothing happened. And like a month or so later, it started kind of generating views. The very first comment we ever got on our YouTube channel

At least on that video, we probably maybe had two before that. The very first comment was, you should delete this. This is bad or something. You're going to get in trouble. And my response at the time was like, you know, back then we were all like, fuck everyone, like, you know, whatever. And my response was, yeah, if I was a pussy. Yeah.

I typed that back. That was, I think, our very first YouTube response. And then, literally... Super savage with the responses. Yeah. Even on YouTube, if you go back to our earlier videos, we had the biggest potty mouths. I don't... You're so cringy to watch. Back at...

back when we first started those first three videos, like, I don't even know if any of them are out yet, right? We filmed, like, three videos before you had even released. Yeah, well, it's because I was, like, well, I was filming them, but I didn't know how to edit them. And also, like, I didn't know they were... Yeah, and I also didn't really know what I was doing. I couldn't edit them. That was probably the main thing, but I remember filming the shifter cart, and I was like, this is gold. Like, this is gonna blow up. I felt like it was worthy to, like, we gotta get this out. Yeah, it was. But, like, we...

We had no following. No. So we didn't care what we said, which in hindsight is probably the best thing that could happen because the moment that you filter yourself, that's when you're like, you're not as genuine. I feel like the only reason... And that shows, but like, oh man, the shit we were saying. Oh, Jesus. Yeah, go back and watch it. The first scene is us asking how hungover Ken was. Micah pulls a condom out of his pocket. That was a different video. That was the... That was the slip and slide. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. But like...

Dude, man. That's funny as shit. We were savage. It was funny. Like, it was... Honestly, it was just true. But, yeah. And I like to think... I mean, I would not call us savage now, but we're just calculated with it. Yeah. I think nowadays... It's still so much funnier. YouTube's a lot different now. We try not to swear, and if we do, we cut out the F-bombs because otherwise you get...

censored by YouTube. Like, so like if your video is like got a lot of swearing or maybe like bad, bad stuff in it, like it's not going to push that video. You're not going to get a recommended. So it's harder to get more views and harder to grow your channel with that. I think a lot of people don't understand that. Like if you're a small creator and you're posting videos doing super savage shit and you have nothing else to push it on, it's going to be pretty tough to blow up.

Yeah. Which is tough. In today's day and age, yeah. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's my opinion. I agree. It's like you post a video, right? And it has, it's just savage, right? And okay, who cares about the money that it's going to make? Like ad revs, that's great. It's good to get. But like the fact that YouTube won't push it hurts way more than the ad rev that you're going to make on the video. Because unless you have like a cult following that's going to click on your video no matter what.

You know, you still gotta, you still gotta abide by YouTube's rules. Right. Exactly. If you're trying to be a YouTuber, like YouTube's your employer. The only people I can get away with it nowadays is obviously Danny, but he blew up in a time when you could get away with that kind of stuff. Yeah. And now he's, he's, he's established. Yeah. Nelk, they, they were kind of the same way they got up and then Steve will do it, but Steve will do it, had Nelk to push him. Yeah. So like if he would have just tried doing his own shit on his own without Nelk, there's no way he would have been where he's at today. Um,

Or if you would have even... Even if you would have heard of it. Yeah, I love Steve's videos. But anyways, where were we at? So...

Posted the Shifter Cart video. Like, two months maybe went by, and it starts, like, generating views. It was, like, 1,000 views. Or, it made 100 views, 1,000 views, 10,000. It was, like, what the frick? And we were all, like, this is so cool. Like, I can't believe this. And, like, all the comments were, like, we want more. We want more. It hit 30,000 views, and we were, like, 30,000. Yeah. It was 30,000 was the number. We were just, like, yes, we did it. Yeah, we maybe had 1,000 subscribers, like, after that, if we're lucky even. But...

Everyone wanted more. So I had this video from before that we had filmed in the bank that was...

Us buying a cheap shitty car and Ryan damn near killing Ken. So edited that up. Bro, I remember editing that. I've never been to Ken's family cabin before, but it's like 11 at night and we went to Ken's family cabin. Don't know why. And edited this on your computer. No, I had it all roughly pretty cut out, but it was super long. It was a lot of talking. I came to you guys like, hey, we need to sit down and tell me what to keep, what not to. It was so weird. I'm not going to lie. We dialed in.

Okay, I think it's good. Dude, that video is fucking funny. It's got some serious potty language in it. That video, post that. Everyone loves it. They love it. And when I say everyone, it's not really that many people. Probably like...

But the people who wanted us to come back was something of the same caliber. And we basically just kept, from that point on, filming whatever we were doing that weekend. Because, I mean, back then, everyone had jobs. Everyone had... Or maybe went to school. So you'd hang out on the weekend. This was just a hobby. For me, I do have to say, like, everyone always thinks...

I always, this is everything that this has become is literally, I knew it was possible. I knew it was like something that could happen. And that's what I wanted. Like I really did, but I didn't know, obviously I didn't know.

no, for sure. And it wasn't like, I was never like, I know this is going to happen. I was just like, I wish. I wish. I had a vision for what this could have been. You always had the most insight, bro. I remember. That's because I was a big YouTube consumer, man. I saw all these other guys. You were watching YouTube before anyone. I knew. Yeah, I was watching YouTube. And I remember you showed me one of TJ Hunt's videos, a car YouTuber.

massive now but at the time you i don't even know if you had 100k yeah and i just remember going how does this guy make money you know like the most common question that we get asked back then it was very young no one knew and no one knew and i just remember cj going oh i mean he gets like ad rev but i'm sure he'll start a t-shirt brand and uh grow that and then eventually just sell a bunch of merch and probably just live off of that

Sure enough, that's what he's doing. TJ Hunt's killing it now. Yeah, he's killing it now. But, like, dude, you always had that insight that was, like, four years in advance. I think the reason why it took so long to really do it was because –

I was more so scared of what people would think, but also I was scared of the work. I didn't know how to fucking do it. I didn't know shit about cameras. I barely knew how to work a computer, let alone edit. There is seriously a large barrier to entry just in that. I mean, it's a lot of work, and you got to learn. You got to be willing to learn. It is, but...

People overthink it, especially with YouTube, but really anything. People think that they have to have everything laid out. They think that they have to have everything perfect before they start. That was even us with this podcast. I think we were overthinking it. We wanted to have the set ready, and we wanted to have set topics to talk about. Dude, you just got to do it. You did it. You are a perfect example of just doing it. There is a tipping point in that, though, and I need to give a shout-out. No one knows it, but he deserves a shout-out. Isaac Girard.

Uh, he heard me talking about it and he goes, well, take initiative. Like quit talking about it. Take initiative. Yeah. I was like, God damn, you're right, dude. Like so many people nowadays. And I mean, I know exactly what it's like. Cause I used to be the same way until Isaac told me take initiative.

They talk about like, oh, I want to start this business. Listen to this idea. And a lot of people come up to us, I think, to like tell us that because they maybe think like, I don't know. But anyways, like they always come up and they have this idea or whatever. And it's like, why are you talking about it? Why are you telling me? Go fucking do it, dude. If you're going to sit here and talk about what you've been talking about for a month, go do it or don't. If it seems like a good idea, which obviously. If you're about it, go do it, but don't talk about it. And that was kind of my mindset. Yeah.

Take initiative. Do it. I remember like, dude, I was, I'll say it. I was like skeptical because I, not that I was, yeah, I was like, I'd put videos on YouTube. I'm like, yeah, they get like 10 views. I remember everyone thought, like, everyone was pretty skeptical. I'm like, yeah, getting, like I said, getting big on YouTube, you know how hard that is? But the fact that CJ was willing to also do that, I'm like, well,

It's probably been appealing to every kid ever that's grown up in this era. But I was like, that's appealing to me. And if you're willing to put in that work, I'm willing to also...

Try, for sure. I think the turning point is... Well, there's a couple things. Everyone, I think, was a little scared of what other people would think. Yeah, and for me, it was really easy because I didn't really associate with anyone other than you guys, so I didn't care. I was already kind of like the weirdo from everything. I think the parents aspect of hearing their kids on there dropping F-bombs. I don't know. They were seeing what we were really doing. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's still...

It's just one of those things you have to deal with. It's just how it is. Dude, I lost my train of thought. You're going to have that on these first jobs. But...

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know, bro. I knew I wanted to say something, but now I forgot. Fuck. That's all good. It's all good. Fortune favors the bold. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. And that's why I was like, I wanted that story to come across because CJ pushed all of us through to do this. I remember it now. I remember it now. Okay. I'm done. I'm done. Okay. Okay. Okay. No, you're kidding me, dude. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Tipping point. Here's the tipping point. Tipping cows. When that first, when the Shifter Cart video hit like 30,000, dude, it just changed everything. Everyone was just about it. It felt like it was cool, dude. People were just like, we're filming this weekend. Let's go, boys. We're just stoked on it. Yeah, you got some momentum. Yeah, we had momentum. That is where we're extremely lucky because I'm like, I can't say that. And granted, people, when we say blow up, like you maybe got, we maybe got a thousand subscribers.

maybe yeah a thousand subscribers people think like oh they their video blew up and then like they were just but no like we still have to keep going and it was only it was such a small amount of following like we probably gained that amount a day now not to brag but like realistically yeah um but we

we just got some momentum and momentum is the biggest thing in life. I mean, Logan Paul says all the time, you know, it's either working with you or against you, but we had the momentum behind us and we, we just, we were about it, dude. We were having fun doing it, dude. It was, we didn't have much thought behind it. It was just like, what are we doing? And we're going to hide the camera. We didn't care so much about the cinematics or like the storyline. We were just doing it.

It was authentic. Yeah, it was very authentic. I was like, there's definitely no storyline. And there was... I mean, and not that that's... I think it's a very good thing we have now. But yeah, we picked the camera up and there was just nothing to it. It was like, all right, the camera's rolling. Jake's going to burn your pants with a torch. Yeah. Just because the camera was rolling. Yeah. He would have done that either way. It would have happened either way. But like, we were kind of the first country... We're not...

necessarily country country boys but we are probably more on the country boy side when it comes to YouTube. As opposed to a city. We were the only channel that was doing shit like us. We were. And that's I think why it also helped. We weren't copying anyone. We weren't copying any formula. We were just literally being ourselves. And that's another thing I feel like a lot of people when they start YouTube they try to copy or emulate these people and it's like well dude you're not going to do it as good as them. Dude. I'm

Quite honestly, I'm surprised that a group of friends hasn't tried to replicate our formula. So many have, but they just don't... You don't hear about them. They don't get big. Yeah, I should say I'm surprised that somebody hasn't tried to replicate our formula and it worked. Oh, yeah, true. Yeah, I don't know, man. You know why? It's because I don't have a group of badass friends. Dude, it's hard. I mean, making it on YouTube is super hard, but...

Doing it with your friends and then becoming business partners. That's so complicated, bro. Like, we've gotten so many arguments, so many fights. I mean, just so tough because everyone's equal owner in this. If it would have been, like, let's say it was, like, just me that owned it and, like, you guys are still getting paid, none of you would have been. You'd have been like, I'm not doing this. Yeah, if you don't have any sweat equity. Exactly. You guys wouldn't want to do that. So it was, like, only right that it was cut off.

down the middle at the time seven ways at the time seven ways um because you're not making any money i knew no one else yeah but also yeah yeah but i remember we made like a thousand bucks so that's why we had to start an llc and we had to in order so we could get a bank account yeah um but

We donated it. And then we just donated it. We donated the first thousand bucks. We didn't know what to do with it. We're like, what are we going to do? Split 1100 bucks by seven of us. And we're like, you know, yeah, go out to dinner. Yeah. I think it was just something, it was just something nice to do. And, uh, it, it made a video and it, it was good. Um,

So I guess long story short, or just to fast forward, basically we continued making YouTube videos whenever we could. It would be maybe every two weeks, maybe once a month, maybe every week. But we slowly did that for a while, and we did that for around two years. Ben had started up the website with the shirts. At that point, I was in high school. So, I mean, going back to the fact of –

you know, your, your surroundings almost like not necessarily like chirping, you were making fun of you, but like, you're always kind of conscious of it with your surroundings. I know Ryan was getting fucking reamed in college. I'm sitting at home doing nothing, but this dude was probably, I know for a fact you were getting made fun of. He was getting chirped. I was getting made fun of too though. People were, people make fun of you when you try to step out of the norm doing nine to five bullshit, at least around here. I probably everywhere, especially when it comes to entertainment. Like they're able to sit down and watch you. It's the,

MC boys. Like, oh, what? You know, I don't know. I know you had to deal with it quite a bit. Yeah, I'm sure. It was like during college, a freshman. Well, you would do it. I mean, it was so tough. Like, you even pulled back for a while. Like, Ryan, I remember, was sometimes not about it. Yeah. Just because, at least in the very early...

Or maybe like, it was just more so you're like, why are we filming this? It was hard. Like you're a freshman or a sophomore in college. You have no idea like who you are. And literally every one of my friends other than you guys was either skeptical, silent, or like would kind of like make fun of you. And now those people show up to our shop

Hang out and drink. But like that's what I was around like five days a week. And then it was just tough. It was like really discouraging. And I mean the more that I would see that you guys were really about it and the more that we would accomplish. No. And like the stuff. And it just like then you got more and more excited about it. It was fun too though. It was a lot of the same stuff that we were doing all the time. Yeah. It was just public then. Yeah. I think that's what I'm saying. The fact that you're putting it on a video and they're like.

I already... All the people that were, like, haters, like, I already knew these guys were doing this, but now they're putting it on online thinking that they're gonna make...

They think they're so cool. Yeah. They think they're so cool. I'm like, we're genuinely trying to make it out here. But then when you start really kind of doing it, the tides change. I would say like ever since we hit a million, like nobody says shit to me anymore. Like I used to go to the bar and there'd always be like a few people maybe making fun. But now it's like, what? No one said anything. Now they always say congratulations. Not like that. Well, someone do. Kind of. That's how it goes with anyone though. You know, like.

starting a business, you know, doing music or anything like that, like it's easier to critique or to criticize than to create, you know, anyone that's doing it, anyone that's doing is not hating, but the guys that are like, they're fucking pussies, dude. I mean, look at the people that were talking shit. Where are they now? Nowhere, you know, not to be cocky, but like,

Let's be real about it. Just don't hate, that's all. Don't be a hater. I'm not salty about it, though. I like that. I like it when people are young. It didn't hit me. Dude, I still remember. I had a couple teachers that would make little sus jokes about it. Bruh. And like...

I'm like, what? Dude, I had a business professor. I did a paper on this when we were like pretty big. Like we had like over a hundred K, not pretty big, but we like, we're going. And I was like, yep, this is my full-time job. And he goes, that's not a business. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.

I think that's the worst part. What do you mean it's not a business? I was like, no, we do the thing. We got the LLC. We make money. We pay taxes. Like all this stuff. I was like, no, it's a business. He goes, that's not a business. That's not a real job. What do you mean? It's a LLC. It's an S-quarter. How is this not a business if it's not making me money to pay my bills? Yeah.

But yeah, dude, I hate when teachers say that. Yeah, dude, that's the... I mean, particularly when teachers and principals and stuff like that... And that pisses me off. I hate that. I hate that. Dude, that is why to all you kids out there, I don't care if you're a kid or a 50-year-old man, like, if you want to do something, do it. Don't worry about what other people think. Like...

If you feel passionate about something, you want to do it as long as it's not hurting anyone else or, you know, yeah, you can make, you can make doing anything in America. It's a broad blanket statement, but you absolutely can. Yeah. Yeah. Not to get like too motivational, but yeah. I mean, if you're like a parent or a teacher, um,

you make a very big impact on these kids' lives, you know? It's like if somebody came up to me, or if I went up to somebody when I was younger before I was doing YouTube and was like, hey, I maybe want to do YouTube, and they were like, oh, don't do that. Well, that could have altered, you know, my entire life, and I wouldn't be sitting here right now. But, like, dude, yeah, especially the day and age that we're in, I

You really can't say that shit. You can't tell people not to do the social media thing anymore. Back then it was different, but right now the proof is in the pudding. We're living proof of that. Whether you're trying to be a rapper, an artist, a dentist, anything, I just try to support because I know what it's like to have someone have people against you or talking shit. All you want to hear is that that person is...

Happy to be doing what they're doing. Keep doing your thing. Yeah, we definitely did get motivational on you guys. Sorry. Yeah. So anyways, let's get back to the story as to like how this has all come to be. So Ben, you started making the shirts at around like way too early, quite frankly. Yeah. Oh, in hindsight for sure. But I mean, dude, honestly, I was just like. Like 30,000 subscribers. We dropped t-shirts. Yeah. Yeah. And we do. We sold. Yeah, we sold them. I mean, a couple hundred. A couple hundred.

Oh, maybe. Oh, 75 of each. Yeah, we probably ordered most of them. Yeah, most of them. Dude, we had a lot of friends and family that ordered those. Yeah. But it was fun. So, yeah, all I got to say is, like, if you're going to do merch at 30, I think it was 50K for the record, but, like, don't. Don't.

I'll see people dropping merch before they even have like three videos. I'm like, what the fuck, dude? No loss of, that's just the word of advice. New podcast merch drop. Yeah, dude, there's, you got steps, A, B, C, D, E, you know, you can't jump, you can't jump things. But I mean, in hindsight, it's easy to say, but like, back then, you're kind of just in, you're just living in the moment and,

It was very run and gun. I mean, I wouldn't change. I wouldn't change anything. We just, yeah, it was like, we wanted t-shirts that said our name. Like at the very least we want our own. Worked out good. I wouldn't change anything about what's happened, but yeah. So you, you did that. We ended up making all of our own shirts ourself because we couldn't afford to pay other people. So Penn, we were going to buy this, this old screen press from,

from Ben's girlfriend's dad. He had, uh, he runs a screen printing business. This is like a 1980s screen press. We go over there, we're gonna give him like a thousand bucks for it. It's like literally held up by Bunchy Corp. Like it was, it was pretty toast. It's as janky as, yeah. Yeah. And he goes, he's like, you know what? You guys can just, you can just have it. You know what?

really? Okay. So we get this thing and, and basically we drag it over to Ken's uncle's shop. A total nuisance by like everyone, like bringing it to Ken's uncle's. We had to like borrow, we had to borrow somebody's truck. Whose truck did we borrow to get it? And then we put it in another truck shop. I think I'm pretty sure we borrowed your dad's truck that we own now.

Yeah. Duramax. So anyways, we set that up and, I mean, basically just like editing and filming taught ourselves how to screen print and, you know, set up a website and do it all ourself. We were probably at...

Almost probably a hundred K at that point. No way. Not even close to a hundred K bro. We were, we were, it was in like November, December. It was in December ish. And I mean, we had only been like getting views since like that September. So it's like three months. But anyway, I was just like looking back at it.

We're just honestly excited about, like, starting a business and making money and just, like, working hard. Yeah, we've always... I will say, like, you know, why this has worked is just because everybody involved...

was down to work. You know, everyone's hard workers here. Everyone is. And everyone also is like pretty good self-starters. Like, we don't look to have someone else teach us. You just start figuring out, honestly, thanks to YouTube, you can pretty much learn anything nowadays. Actually. Yeah. You know, so we got the t-shirts rolling.

We're balancing working jobs, going to school, running the t-shirt stuff, filling orders, and then printing them as well. The biggest thing that stood out to me was that as well as filming, we would only print on the weekends. We'd come home.

Friday night. No joke until 4 or 5 in the morning. And then we'd do it again Saturday or Saturday night. So that's why. In hindsight, it was not the way. You should just be filming videos. Don't worry about the merch until you've got a strong following. But we basically did a lot of stuff the wrong ways through trial and error.

Slowly figured out how to do things the right way. He gave us some money too. Out here though, we had no one else to like talk to. We couldn't... We weren't big enough where we could hit up another big YouTuber and ask them a question. Or really anyone... Around here, no one would like...

No advice. No one could relate to this. And people that were trying to give us advice are still doing that. We're trying to give us advice on our business or our channel or any avenue that we were working on. It was like nonsense compared to what we were dealing with. Yeah. You got to take advice from the right people. Just because someone's a successful, let's just say a successful chiropractor, doesn't mean that they should give you advice at...

how to run your YouTube business, for instance, or any other business that's not related to that. I say chiropractor because my dad and then Ben's parents are chiropractors. But, yeah, so...

Yeah, but we still deal with that, dude. Like people try and tell us what to do and we're like, bruh, not even close to what it is anymore. Yeah. Just because you, you've been successful in your Avenue. It really doesn't equate. It goes back to the very beginning of making the videos. If we would have just been making little two minute edits, we would have never blown up. Everyone thought that's what you needed to do. Uh,

I remember Ken saying one time in a chat, like the videos need to be two minutes max. It's like, get the fuck out of here. Ken didn't, I mean, nobody knew, but like, I remember I was working on it. Like no way. Like you have to be able, if you believe and feel strongly about what you're doing, you have to be able to block off what those people are saying and follow with your gut, following with your gut,

It's probably the best thing I've ever done is just listen to my gut. Honestly, it has not failed me yet. That's true, dude. Which we'll get into later. Over the years, we've had a lot of people come to us to try to help us do business or whatever. Yeah, okay. So at that point, what are we, 100K? Yeah. Let's just say. And so we get a call. The TV show, man. We get a call. Pick up. We can't say the person's name. It was this time, too. We have to make a fake name. This hot shot producer. Let's just say Dave.

Jerry. Jerry. Let's say Jerry. So Jerry gives us a call. Hey, came across your guys' YouTube videos. I'd love to put together a pitch deck to pitch to MTV at the time. Which we're thinking is the biggest thing. We're like, we're going to be famous. We're going to be rich. MTV, holy shit. We're freaking out.

And this guy starts just pumping our tires, telling us all this shit, right? So... We start sending him footage. Yeah, we send him footage. To put together a highlight reel. Man, so that went on for what? It goes on for over like a year or two. Like a year. And they're dragging us through the mud. This guy's just wasting our fucking time. Starting drama. The biggest fucking idiot you'll ever meet in your life. They are! Which at the time, we didn't know. I was so pumped on. I'm thinking like, I'm doing whatever I can to get this. So they come out finally.

This is like a year or two later. Come out to film this pilot episode or a pitch episode or whatever the fuck it was. Yeah. Come out, brings out like these two guys and we're sitting around and it was probably two days go by. And after the second day, I was like, this guy, he's not the guy. He doesn't know what he's doing. It's because you got to keep in mind. I had at this point had two years of making YouTube videos under my belt. I make videos every week. I know what it takes to make a video.

And this guy's here, and I'm like, what? He's asking questions or not doing certain things. I'm like, what the fuck? Like, what?

This guy doesn't know what he's doing. Well, dude, the fact that when he got there and we all sat in a circle and he goes, all right, what should we film? I'm like, what do you mean? You came on this way and you don't know what we're filming? You're a 50, 40-year-old man. What do you mean? I thought you filmed all these successful shows. And I'd always be like, so what shows did you film? And he would always say this one. There's just only one that he would mention. But he'd always have stories from all these others. But you never heard about it. Yeah.

He had only made one show and it was like a mediocre, shitty show that was like a copycat of Pimp My Ride. So anyways, this guy is the biggest fucking idiot. I still hate him. I'm so glad though that I don't have to deal with him anymore. But yeah, biggest idiot. We filmed this show.

Dude, the whole time. Fucking shittiest show. Oh, it was terrible. Oh, it was so bad. I'm so glad that never saw the light of day. They wanted to change Ben's name to Dougie. Dougie. Dougie. Who the fuck is Dougie? I remember telling him, I go, you know, like, I mean, we have, like, probably maybe 200,000 subscribers. You know, there's, like, 200,000, like,

subscribers on YouTube. And we have all these videos of us calling him Ben. Like, what do you mean? You're going to change it to Doogie? Like what? And like the whole premise of the show is that we were going to, it was like basically a mix between what we're doing right now, except with science and mathematics and that we were calculating out,

I don't know how much I can say, but we were calculating out the forest and the mass of doing this thing. I'm like, dude, no one's going to buy this shit. Trajectory. After that, I was kind of hands off. The guy didn't like me the most. I swear to God, he did not like me. Because you saw through it. Yeah, I think it was because I was a hater. I was a hater on him. I was getting in the way of his plan. Basically, the show doesn't get picked up. They edit it up. They show it to us.

the worst fucking TV episode I've ever seen. I was like, no one's going to watch this shit. So bad. Goes and brings it to Discovery. They say no, and then he doesn't even fucking tell us. Doesn't even tell us that they said no. So we're like drug on for like six months. I'm thinking like, God damn it. And you got to keep in mind, while we were filming this thing, which took way too long, probably took a month to film this episode, it was all scripted, and...

It was the worst episode ever. It was just so bad. And it took away from us making videos. It got in the way. Like, we went like a month without filming. I look at like our YouTube career. We always were taking these little like stops. It was like, and, but that's like any entrepreneurship thing. Like, it's not a straight line. It's like,

And that's exactly what we were doing. We were going, oh, I'm freaking way over. If we would have just stayed to it, we'd be here a long time ago. I mean, hindsight's telling. Exactly. We watched that episode back, right? We watched that back, and we were like, well, here's what we don't want to do. Here's what we don't want to look like. Yeah. Which was interesting to see. Dude, I remember we had one of the filmers. We were, like, shooting something. And I just remember going, so...

All right, let's quit beating around the bush here. How much are we getting paid? Yeah. And this guy goes, well, I'm not even getting... Nah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, he goes, I don't know. It might be a thousand bucks. A thousand bucks. A thousand bucks an episode, maybe a little less. And I was like...

What? We spent a week and a half filming this for a thousand bucks of hell? But the other guy was so full of shit. He was like pumping our parents. He's like, we're going to need to get them attorneys. Because they're going to be making some serious money. I remember my parents sitting me down like, why aren't you telling us about this? What do we need to get in order in line so that way you're taken care of? I'm like, why are you not more excited about this? I'm like, no, no, listen. It's not going to fucking work. Every...

It's not going to work. I can't get through to everyone else. Everyone else kind of was on board. It's not going to work. It's not going to work. And everyone thought I was kind of just a fucking idiot for that.

But it didn't fucking work. Oh, man. Glad it didn't. Like, I was like, I got to talk about it. And some people, I mean, we should probably not talk anymore about it. We'll really get into it maybe in the episode when Jake comes on, if he wants. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But some people were more enthusiastic and had more faith in the guy than the rest of us. I mean, is that? I think at the end of the day, it's because he's a schmoozer.

Yeah. The guy schmoozed everybody. I mean, he sold, sold. And I was like, again, I'll be the one to say it. Particular people. I, at the time, not necessarily, I was like, we need to, yeah, but I was like, he schmoozed me. I felt like he knew more than he did. Yeah. Because he didn't know anything. The guy was a great salesman. He shouldn't have been making videos or TV shows because he sucked ass at that. What he should have been doing is selling like shitty cars. He could have sold so many of those or like. You would have bought up that label. That's so true. Shitty like vacations. Oh.

Oh, just timeshares. Way overpriced. He could have been a timeshare salesman. God damn it. That guy sucked ass. CJ hates this guy if you haven't figured that out yet. But I probably don't hate him anymore. The rest of us do too. I probably don't hate him anymore than the one other guy. Which is funny. Yeah, no, I don't mind him now. I don't even think about him anymore until now that we brought it up. So anyways, that all happened. And then where do we pick up? Where do we pick up? Should we pick up after last season?

Oh, so there, we got to mention this in the story. Something that was a big pivotal moment in our YouTube career was when, uh, Jessica took us on to do merchandise. Cause she, at the time we were printing all of our own shirts. So it was like, we were only making, we were making very few videos, but we were selling shirts. We were just totally preoccupied doing that. Um,

Trying to keep up with it. We just weren't focused. She DM'd us and was like, you guys need to outsource your merchandise and just focus on making more videos. And I would love to do it or something like that. I was like, well, okay. So, like, I DM'd her back and she didn't DM me for, like, two weeks later. Then finally she DM'd, you want to hop on a call? I was like, okay. So, we hop on a call. She talks to us. She flies out.

visits with us for like literally three hours. There's a baller move. Came out to talk with us in person for three hours and show us like some like products. We're like, okay, yeah, yeah, we want to do it. We signed this thing. And keep in mind, so this is also Tanner Fox's business partner. They own it together. It's like they do the merchandising, which is no secret. They talk about it all the time. And basically she was like,

Gave us so much insight into the YouTube game and kind of helped steer us in the right direction. And she told us what was possible. What was possible. If we were to outsource our merch, what was possible. And then she kind of taught us about how to do drops. And then also like making more videos. Making more videos. And making videos, yeah. Because she was telling us how much these other YouTubers were making off their merch. Yeah. Like I knew how much they were making off ad rev, but we weren't pulling that many views at the time. And so we were relying on the merch.

But she was telling us how much these guys that were pulling the same amount of views as us were making off of merchandise. And I was like, this is fucked. Dude, we were like looking at each other like, what have we been doing the past two and a half years? So anyways, she takes us on. We start outsourcing our merch. We basically kind of followed her game plan. Game plan, I'd say, yeah. I mean, just like her suggestions. She took us under her wing. She changed everything for us. And we started...

Post some more videos. That's when we started doing two a week. We started blowing up, dude. Or maybe it was one a week at a time. Then we started pushing it to two a week. And we started making... That's the only thing we focused on. And views started climbing. Subscribers started climbing. And then we started doing the merch drops. And shit was selling like... It was just selling really fucking good. We were doing kind of the Supreme-styled limited...

Which I don't think she necessarily invented. She didn't invent that. She suggested it. And I hope that you guys like that because we like doing that. It just makes more sense. It's more exciting for me. Because before we would just put shit on the site as we were able to print it, I guess. But...

Yeah, it's way more fun the way we're doing now. Right, yeah. It's just more hype. Exactly. So we have to thank Jessica for that. For, like, teaching us just how to do it. Dude, it'd be fun to have her on, like, a podcast. Yeah. That'd be really fun. I don't know if she... It'd be a lot of work for her to come on without her. Yeah. I would love to. Yeah. So we have to thank her for that. We're no longer with them just because, I mean, we got... We got the new shop. We got a new shop. We can warehouse our own stuff. We got a team of five guys. We're more refined. We're more efficient. It...

It didn't necessarily make sense from a business standpoint to keep doing it with them. Nothing happened. Like, we loved it, but it just didn't make sense for us. If we were a solo YouTuber or a team of two or three, you'd have to. There's no other option. But for us, being we're in a weird situation, we do it this way. Brought it back in-house. Yeah, it's going really well. You got five mouths to feed. Being that there's five of us at that point...

Yeah, five. Everyone needed a job. Everyone did. Everyone needed a position to fill and feel like, you know, that they had a job to show up for every single day. So being that we were outsourcing the merchandise, which was bringing in like...

It's 75% of the revenue. Like, it just made more sense. At the time, yeah. It made more sense for us to just bring it back in-house, being that we knew how to do it. Mike was still the designer, and he still is the designer, but he's been doing it since we started. Mm-hmm. You know, so that wasn't a complication. And quite honestly, like, we knew how to do it because we did it before. So we...

And I feel more accomplished that we did. As of right now where we sit, I feel so proud of bringing it back in house and even doing it bigger than that. We've done everything. That was the thing is like, oh, can you continue to do the scale that we were doing? And we did, and we did. And I think we probably doubled. We worked hard though. We worked very hard, but that brings us up to when we,

pulled back from working with them. We still talk with them all the time, by the way. But when we brought it back in-house, that was during a month before we were going to move into this shop. We had it all set up that we were going to buy this shop from Ryan's dad. He was building a new shop. So it was going to be a very clean transition.

At that time, we got hit with a bombshell back in like... It would have been like end of April, I think. Jake comes to us and tells us he's leaving to go and try doing his own thing. We'll talk about that more maybe on an episode if he ever decides to come on. Yeah. So then...

So it's like we have that. Right after we told Jessica that we were leaving. Then we got the merchandise in-house, and it was so much. It put us in such a bind. We had to make the payment. Yeah, we didn't have any of the money. Yeah, we had to make the down payment for the shop. I don't know if we can bleep that out. I don't know if we should talk about that. I mean, that's what the down payment was. I don't know if we should. I feel like normally people would bleep that.

Okay. Yeah. So it was an X amount of dollars. So we had to make this down payment, and we were going through, we were bringing the merch back in-house. But we're also going through a split with Jake. Well, that was, yeah. He had to get his name off the company.

And he had people possibly in his corner that weren't in his favor. I think he would agree with that. In our favor. They were also not in our favor. They weren't his favor. I guess maybe at the time, but ultimately not in his favor. But they were trying to fuck us over. They were trying to fuck us over. Yeah. And they wouldn't sign. They wouldn't sign. So we couldn't get a loan. So we had to keep paying cash. We couldn't get a loan to buy the shop because Jake's...

Didn't want to be on the loan, but we still signed into our business. Jake's guy wouldn't basically let Jake sign off of the company. Yeah. Well, we couldn't get a loan if Jake was still in the company. So we were putting a super hard predicament. Basically, every month we would fork over all of our cash. No one was getting paid. We didn't have money to make videos, which made us have to get very creative with our

Um, dude, when you're, it was the hardest time. Our back was to the wall and that lasted all the way up until November, bro. They pushed it all the way. I mean, maybe not they, I shouldn't say that, but it was just, it lasted all the way till November. And, uh, we had our backs up against the wall. Every dollar we made basically had to get paid to the shop because we couldn't get a loan. Um,

Which in hindsight was pretty cool. I'm not saying, yeah, in hindsight, the fact that we were able to just keep paying and buying this, you know, working towards the shop. I think when you don't have an option, that's when you like really like...

It's when you do stuff, man. We had to put our nose to the grindstone and fucking get it done. And that's what we did. God damn, that time sucked. So happy we're out of that now. It was tough because like... So stressful. Everything you had worked for was on the line. Everything you had worked for was on the line. Also, all these motherfuckers were just telling us how we were going to fail without Jake. Everyone in the community would...

And then everyone's commenting, oh, you guys aren't shit without Jake. And that's what fired us up. We were like, oh, we'll fucking see, buddy. We can't prove him right. Yeah, no, and that was the thing. It's like...

I think everyone truly up against the wall. People. Then that's why we started this podcast. When you watch the YouTube videos, you have a misconception. You don't actually know what's really going on around here. And I think a lot of people maybe thought without him, we were nothing.

They thought he was... I don't know. And he was an amazing character. Honestly, I wish Jake was still a part of the team. He's great. When we were filming with him at the bachelor party, that shit was fun. We didn't miss a beat. It was perfect. He went back right to... It was so fun. And we still do love Jake. I mean, what's done is done. I wouldn't change a single thing now that it's happened. It is. It's unfortunate. But...

Yeah, dude. I mean, there's just so much behind the scenes, you know, that –

You don't see in the videos because you click on the videos to be entertained. Obviously, at the end of the day, that's our job as creators is to make sure you're entertained. So we didn't want to bring in, you know, like the drama aspect of, like, what's going on behind the scenes, which is hard, dude. We also legally couldn't talk about it. Oh, that too. Probably still can't. Jake's not getting it, yeah. Oh, that's why it's Jerry. I don't know. Yeah, Jerry. But, uh...

so I mean that does somewhat lead us up to today. I mean, realistically now we're starting the podcast. We're just building, we're kind of rolling. Um,

Do we have anything else we want to talk about? I feel like we've really, we've gone for a while. Dude, we were all over the place, but I'm sorry. It's our first time. It felt really good. The fact that we were. It was just a conversation, bro. We wanted to like get a lot of stuff off our chest. I also feel like there was like a few, like, I mean, there was a lot of stuff we didn't touch on, but it's like, how do you do all that? You guys would be listening to like a 10 hour thing. Maybe we'll talk about it more if you guys are interested. Comment down below. But,

But the last thing I'll touch on, the reason why it's called Seaboys TV. So before we even were YouTubers, everyone used to call us the Seaboys because we were the boys of Cormorant that everyone would maybe come and hang out with on the weekends. So instead of saying, I'm going to hang out with Ryan, Ken, Micah, Ben, and CJ, and then Jake and Justin at the time, it was like, I'm going to hang out with the Seaboys, the Cormorant boys. It was Cormorant boys, then they started calling us Seaboys for short.

So when it came around to making a YouTube channel, it was like, okay, what are we going to call this? Well, it was more so me. I was texting Mike. I was like, what are we going to call this? And I'm like, bro, I don't know. It's a big deal. Knowing one day that we'd be where we're at. I'm like, that's a big deal. We'll do C-Boys TV because it's going to be like a TV show in our life. And yeah, that's basically how it happened. I think a lot of people think like...

We were just like, we're the C-Boys, and this is it. You can't join. This is a club. It's not like that. The name was given to us. We've been friends the whole time before that, and then that turns out to be our whole brand name. We might honestly owe somebody some royalties, but...

I mean, a random girl, dude, random girl started calling the seaboys. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, but you're, you're not kidding any brother. Should've, should've trademarked it. Yeah. Like, listen, it's not even that good of a name. It's just the name we got, but I think it's time to cut it. Uh, thank you guys for listening. If you have not yet hit the subscribe button, remember hit the like subscribe and comment on YouTube. And then we're going to be picking two of you to give away $500 to, um,

I really enjoyed this. Yeah, this was fun. Hopefully you guys did too. Ken, special appearance. Young Jamie, get in here. Ken, could you keep the headphones on? You just look so good in them. Yeah, hop in though. This is our guy, Ken. He's...

Show that beautiful face, Ken. Say, do you have anything you want to say, Ken? I just show him the laptop back there. Ken, we're going to get you in on the next one, Ken. I don't know why I had to use mine. We're going to get you in on the next one. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was. Also, every podcast is probably going to be different as we mention people on every time. You know, this was, I want to have Justin on. He's a great talker and he's easily way smarter than us. So yeah, very interesting aspect to the, to the group for sure. But yeah, every, every podcast is going to be different. We're going to,

Obviously, we got the story of how we came to be out of the way. I'm sure a lot of people are interested. And you'll learn more about it as we go on. But we have a lot more to talk about than just that. We have a lot of stories on how certain things came to be, like why we are the way we are. Yes, yes. We'll get into that. So comment those down below.

We're dragging out. Thank you guys so much. We will see you next time. Peace. Today's episode is brought to you by Angie. Angie has made it easier than ever to connect with skilled professionals to get all your jobs and projects done well. Let me tell you, there's the version of it where you try to do something at home and then there's a version of it where you have someone help you, you watch them do it the right way and you go, thank God I didn't try to do that myself.

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