Jack "Courage" Dunlop and Hasan Piker navigate 100 Thieves' chaotic recording, where Dunlop reveals his anxiety-driven gamer tag and rapid rise from MLG intern to Fortnite streamer. They debate SBMM's impact on competitive balance, Ricochet's anti-cheat efficacy, and Dunlop's weight loss journey from 285 to 240 pounds via treadmill gaming and intermittent fasting. Piker shares his own pandemic weight struggles and mental toll covering tragedies like January 6th and John Fetterman's stroke, while Dunlop addresses drama avoidance and future Patreon content plans. Ultimately, the episode highlights the intersection of gaming culture, personal health, and the heavy psychological burdens faced by digital creators. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Impromptu Recording Start00:06:27
You do that.
And then we can start.
I like to sometimes start impromptu.
You know what I mean?
It's like, oh, we were just having a normal conversation.
It's like, oh, hello.
Didn't see you there.
Boom.
All of a sudden.
Did we start recording?
Did we start recording?
That's crazy.
Like, there is so much loud noise outside that the microphones are probably picking up.
Guys, we're recording.
They stopped on a dime right now.
Yeah, it's impressive.
They're professional.
Well, they're professional.
They know what's going on.
I literally have my previous guests still in the house.
They have not left yet.
They're on their way out and in and out.
We're swapping them like crazy.
You're probably thinking, what's going on, Hassan?
You're in an entirely different outfit from the episode that I watched last week because this is a different week for me.
Guess what, viewers, listeners?
This is happening right after the Me Young and Tina Kitten episode, back to back.
I have an incredible guest here.
Will is, of course, not here.
Once again, as always, he's off, fucking off somewhere, probably at a wedding or a party.
I don't know what the fuck he's up to.
I think he's at a wedding.
But I am joined by my esteemed guest.
Oh, incredible.
I mean, we've been trying to get fucking this man on this podcast for like years.
Before I even started a podcast, I was like, I need to have this guy on.
Such bullshit.
And he was like, ha ha, get your money up.
Not your funny up kid.
I'm not coming on.
It's Jack Courage Dunlop in the building.
That's right.
One of the thieves owner.
Co-owner.
Co-owner.
You were a caster at a certain point, I think.
I don't know anything about that side of the world, but I'm going to ask you.
That's all right.
New Jersey's very own.
Yes, sir.
Yeah.
Jack Courage Dunlop in the fucking building.
Wow.
I made it on the fear and pod.
Yeah, that's right.
Fear and pod.
You practice that.
You're like, what the fuck is this dumb thing called?
No, no, please.
My publicist.
I don't have a publicist.
Yeah, I had to go through your podcast.
I'm just done with this BS of me being like unreachable.
I never was asked.
I was never asked.
And then when I got asked, I thought it was a mistake.
I said, are things getting, or like you're having that much trouble getting guests for the show?
Because I'm low on the list.
That's not true.
Like, you said Meung and Tina Kitten on this.
This episode's going to get five views compared to this.
That's not true.
That's literally whatever the hell we want on here.
That's also true.
But also, what's not true is that I have been trying to get you on.
That is true.
Well, thank you.
Because I was very excited to have you on.
I love hanging out with you off camera.
I think you're a very interesting, very funny person.
And, you know, we have a lot of, we have a lot of similarities, you and I, in many different ways.
We look very similar.
We come from similar backgrounds.
Yeah, for sure.
No, I mean, no, no, no, but I, but there's a lot.
You seem like a pair.
There's a lot of stuff that you're going through that I have gone through and am still going through with respect to like weight loss, being a Jersey boy, you know, eating bagels.
Yes.
So all of that I'm excited to talk about.
And also you're like an analytics wizard.
You love looking at analytics.
Okay.
I'll take it.
I'll take that.
Thank you.
I think like, well, and I am too.
I like looking at the, you know, I think it's fascinating to be able to look at something that is otherwise qualitative and arbitrary, subjective, and then and then being able to quantify that is something that I find very fascinating.
So I look at that a lot.
So there's a lot that we're going to talk about.
But yes, I'm joined by Jack Courage Dunlop, co-owner of 100 Thieves.
Well, thank you for having me.
And I can't believe I'm finally here at the house.
Yeah.
The place.
Wow.
So it's so rich and so expensive.
Oh my God.
I mean, I actually can't believe that you had armed security and turrets.
They checked my net worth walking in here.
Yeah, they were like, is that real?
They like literally were like, they checked his neck.
Like the guys on TikTok with the fake.
Thanks, Nate Chop.
Yeah.
They were like, this is not VBS.
Yeah.
No, I can promise you it's not VBS.
There's one thing it's not.
It's that.
Yeah, they're like broke boys.
But anyway, listen, you're here.
You finally made it.
First question immediately, okay?
I'm firing this off.
Why courage?
Wow, great question.
And for what it's worth, listen, we don't need to make this whole episode about me and my history.
I'm more than happy to talk about whatever you want to talk about.
No, I know, but I just, but that's what I want to talk about.
All right, good.
Well, why courage?
Growing up and still now, I have a lot of anxiety.
Anxiety has always been one thing that I battled.
And when I was making my gamer tag, I was originally, I used to play called Bambino from my baseball days.
Fucking dude, you are so good.
I was number three.
I was a first baseman.
I was a lefty.
I was overweight.
I would hit home runs in little league.
I would literally eat in the dugout.
My nickname was Bambino.
And then I became XX Lethal1XX and Call of Duty 4.
Come on now.
That's badass shit.
That is the most no-pussy-having ass gamer tag I've ever heard.
Do not be rude, okay?
I got a lot.
I got a lot of pussy.
No, you didn't.
And then I woke up.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, no, it's definitely a virgin throw.
Wait, wait, wait.
XX, X Lethal 1, XX, and the 4, the T, and the O in one were all numbers.
It was like 4, 7, 0, basically.
You got a leads.
If you are jealous, you didn't have that name, just say it.
My name is Hellboy Hassan.
Oh, Jesus Christ.
My entire, like, pretty much.
You definitely like getting pegged.
Sorry.
No, hellboy with the comics.
Yeah, no, for sure.
Yeah.
I was a big Hellboy fan.
I don't know why I call myself Hellboy Hassan.
It's so weird.
That's kind of weird.
But either way, before you so rudely interrupted me, go ahead, lethal one.
Continue with your.
I was then death by headshot.
Dude, why the three?
And then I became courage, I courage, because I wanted to have more courage in my everyday life.
I was very easily struggling with my anxiety.
Does that mean you wanted to be the lethal one beforehand or do you want it to be the headshot haver?
Beforehand?
I wanted to try to feel cool online, and I thought that that helped me because I was an absolute pussy in real life.
And none of it helped.
Very different from the experience of every other lethal one that you can find.
The Hellboy Identity00:03:14
No, absolutely.
John Wick absolutely is a lethal one.
I'm the opposite.
Okay, that's, I love that.
That's cool.
My name is Hassan Abi just means older brother Hassan.
It's not as cool, but it's Turkish.
She means like the older brother.
You know, Maddie was this one, went to Turkey.
Really?
Yeah, she had a great time.
Why did she go?
She went with her family and they had a, they went to Cappadocia and beautiful Bodrum.
Also beautiful.
And this time that's where I've spent a lot of my summers.
Yep.
So she had a great time.
And it's almost where I grew up.
They stayed at a hotel where they had a wine dispenser, like in the walls.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
And she said it was really bad wine, but they had a great time.
They also got scammed about this pottery thing.
Always.
Yeah.
Oh, you have to get scammed.
It's like the Turkish experience.
Is that really it?
It's weird.
Like if you're a tourist in Turkey, 100%.
Like when I go, I like to fuck with the cab drivers because they think I'm American.
You know what I mean?
And I'll just like go in and I'll go speak in English.
And then, and like they, it's weird.
You can kind of tell when someone's Turkish.
Like if I see someone and I'm like, that motherfucker is Turkish, I think.
Like, it's like a weird sixth sense, right?
And I think they get like a little suspicious at first, but then when I'm like speaking English, like an American person, they try to fuck with me.
And I'm like, and then I'll just like bust in and like, na piusun na, kuruma.
Na biosun.
And then they're like, holy shit.
Yeah, I'm like that fucking white kid who speaks fluent Mandarin on vice goes down.
Yeah, yeah, oh, dude, have you seen that?
Yeah, he's like, crazy white boy spits Mandarin.
He actually crushes it, bro.
He does.
Or maybe we think that because we don't speak Mandarin.
No, but he does all different languages.
He's thinking the same guy.
Like, dude, every time you get to see people's reactions to that, man, talk about a way to bring people together and make people smile.
That content was so, so good.
I just like, I don't know if he has like picked up like a couple words from because like sometimes he'll just be in like Uganda and I'm like, but you don't fucking speak this language.
What do you mean?
There's no duolingo for this.
Like, what did you do?
Who's checking his ass?
Because I sure was hella.
Yeah.
Well, then all those episodes, he could just be saying he's like paying someone to be like, oh my God, this is brilliant.
You know what I mean?
Like, but I don't know.
I don't, it's just, that's too much.
It's too much languages.
There's too many languages that know.
And I love the challenges too where they'll be like, if you can speak a language, I can't, you get like a gift card for a free sandwich.
And they're like, they have to come up with the most obscure language.
He's like, all right, you win.
Here's a free sandwich.
I was about to say, that seems like a like, what?
I'm like, all right, well, shit.
Yeah.
Okay.
All I know is English.
Yeah.
Really?
Let you know.
You don't, you don't speak anything else?
Took French for nine years.
Je boné petit per franca.
Wee wee.
And that's also just a fake sentence.
Oh, you're just like, it's like, I think that was so convincing.
I speak a little bit.
I tried to say crazy white boy shocks shopkeeper with his fluent French.
See?
And then there's like little sound effects.
Yeah.
That shit goes viral on TikTok.
That's crazy.
We know Omelet de Fromage and Sacra Bleu.
Omelet de Fromage is just a cheese omelette.
Yeah.
Crazy white boy, dude.
Look at me.
Come on now.
I'm fluent in French.
So where are we talking about?
Oh, yeah, Leaf did one.
Fortnite Controller Debate00:14:46
And that's how I got into my gamer tack.
I love that.
That's cool.
What is for people that don't know?
How did you, how did you become 100 Thieves Courage?
Like, what are the steps that took in your life?
Because there's going to be a lot of people who are like, Hasan, who the fuck's this?
Who is this guy?
Not because you're not famous.
You are.
Sorry, man.
I've already felt flexed on by coming to the house.
No, God damn it.
No, I meant like, you know, I have a different audience.
I get it.
I get it.
So I was just a fan of competitive gaming growing up.
Wound up becoming friends with people involved in competitive gaming because of a game called StarCraft.
Those people became friendly.
They worked at a company called Major League Gaming.
I then got offered an unpaid internship at Major League Gaming because I was a video intern or as a video editor in college.
I was going to school for media and film.
Wound up having an opportunity to go and host the show with Chris Puckett, the MLG host and legend.
From that, I did a good enough job that they offered me a spot as like a tier two caster.
I need to pause you for a second there.
Like your YouTube video.
Fuck.
My brain's so broken from Twitch streaming.
Chris Puckett also happens to be the name of a chaotic vice president of advertising that I had to work under.
And it like reignited some trauma.
Oh my God.
This dude was a psycho, bro.
Sorry to hear that.
That's crazy.
Anything okay?
Are you good?
No.
Okay.
I don't know if I can get.
I was just thinking about that.
Keep going.
You say Chris Puckett?
I'm like, it'd be crazy if it was the same person.
I promise you it's not.
Chris is a very good man.
He's a very good man.
Yeah, this guy was not a good guy, but go on.
So then he got me an internship.
I became a Call of Duty commentator and went up kind of the ranks in that, became like the top Call of Duty commentator alongside my great friend Maven.
Fortnite came out.
I was streaming on the side for supplemental income.
Began to get a bit of a following in Fortnite.
Took the leap to going full-time into Fortnite.
How many viewers did you have when you were like, this is my shit?
I'm doing it now.
So I originally joined Optic Gaming and had the opportunity to get my full casting salary under Optic Gaming.
But Optic at that time, for anyone that's deeply involved in knowing of esports, it was run by a terrible ownership group at that time.
And so I kind of joined like a shell of Optic Gaming.
But thankfully, I was still basically paid to just stream by them and like rep their brand.
So it worked out great for me.
My goal was to hit 3,000 subs on Twitch.
That was like my, I'm going from a thousand subs.
And if I can hit 3,000, I can really do this full-time.
That's good money.
I mean, that's 1,500.
15,000.
Sorry.
Yeah.
And so when I took that leap, I went from 1,000 to 5,000 subs in my first month of being full-time.
Like my community really went all in.
That's what happened with me, too.
Yeah.
And, you know, I'm super grateful for that.
And it kind of just blew up from there.
And Fortnite was.
What was your peak at Fortnite when Fortnite popped off?
Because for those of you who don't know, Fortnite was the thing.
We still haven't had another Fortnite.
It'll be tough to have another Fortnite.
Yeah, I don't know if there ever will be.
It's like thinking about Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson.
These are world change, the Beatles.
These are world-changing performers and acts that probably will never be replicated because everyone else that comes after them is kind of biting their shit.
I'm formulating the tweet in my head.
I can already see it.
Michael Jackson, the Beatles, LeBron James.
Fortnite.
No, but like, obviously we're clowning on it and it like, it's whatever.
But at its peak, like it kind of redefined.
I mean, it took VR to the next level.
It just took gaming to the next level.
I mean, there was no Battle Pass before Fortnite.
Every game had loot boxes before Fortnite.
They were just hooking us up on gambling.
There's now more both.
Sorry?
Now Riyadh does both.
We're just kind of fucked up.
It's pretty crazy.
There are more collaborative skins in Fortnite than there are of their own that they've created now.
So like in Fortnite, you now could be Master Chief with Rick and your car from Rick and Morty, with Michonne from The Walking Dead, with Kratos from God of War, with a lightsaber as your pickaxe, and the glider is from Naruto.
And you can do that combination hundreds of times over now because of how many.
To be fair, I kind of hate that.
It's very profitable, but I do hate that because it's like IP plays are now becoming like the easiest way to kind of get everybody excited.
Yeah.
And I think like while all art is derivative, if we're going to talk about this from a higher level, I think that that does have the capacity to just kind of fucking ruin art in general.
That's how you get all the free guy movies.
Well, I also think that a lot of like the dedicated Fortnite fans of like the lore of Fortnite do miss when it wasn't every season wasn't a big character from a movie or a show because I think it harmed the Fortnite storyline that people so loved in chapter one into chapter two.
Yeah, there was like bombs and there was rockets and rockets getting destroyed from the black hole.
And then like midway through chapter two, the Avenger showed up and then it like, then it kind of all began to get like, what's even going on in this?
Yeah.
But with that too, Fortnite also changed things where like there was no cross-platform before that.
Like people on Xbox couldn't face people on PlayStation.
Is Fortnite the first cross-platform?
That was the one that broke down all the barriers.
Like PlayStation had no reason to do it because they were winning the console wars and it was this whole big thing.
And then finally now you can have Xbox with PlayStation with Switch with mobile with your that was not a thing.
So I remember back in the day, which was simpler time, better time, I would say.
There was no spirited debate around, you know what I'm about to ask you.
No spirited debate around mouse and keyboard versus big deal.
Controllers.
It's a big deal.
Now, for those of you who don't know at home, you're like, what the fuck are you talking about?
This is the biggest debate in the gaming community.
You are, what side are you on on this?
I'm in a bit of a unique scenario as a little bit of background because I was a Call of Duty commentator.
That was only controller.
So I was always only playing controller.
And I have 10 plus years of controller experience.
And I will say I'm quite good on controller.
But then I also, on Fortnite, and on other, I've played PC since 2011 as well, but I'm also pretty darn good in mouse and keyboard.
There's a lot of people who only are good on one and not the other.
You could just say Nick Mercks.
Damn, you called his ass out, huh?
And Tim the Tatman and Tim the Tatman.
You know, he's ass on controller.
Isn't he also ass on mouse and keyboard?
Yeah, he's just ass at everything.
Yeah, I was about to say, I mean, I'm terrible.
So it takes one to know on Tim.
The good thing is, though, you can beat his ass, so you can say whatever you want about him.
I don't know.
He's a big dude.
He does have dad strength now.
So he's got his father.
So that gives you like 50% bonus strength.
Okay, so you're good at both.
And you can totally see the strengths and weaknesses to both sides.
Mouse and keyboard, better from range, weaker, up close.
Controller, weaker from range, micro adjustments up close.
Aim assist does the job for you.
The issue, though, is that now competitive games have the ability Apex Legends.
It's like a necessity.
It's necessary to have a controller player on your team for up close fights.
They can run an SMG or a shotgun and dominate inside building fights, or then you can have a mouse and keyboard player from range being able to.
Timing.
Yeah.
And I think for a lot of people, it's like, well, it shouldn't matter.
It's just come down to their skill and those should be equal, but it'll always be tough to balance.
And obviously, just like most things in life, controller players think that mouse keyboard's overpowered.
Mouse keyboard thinks controllers are overpowered.
And it causes a lot of stress.
I don't really understand how you can say mouse and keyboard is overpowered, though, because it's all technical.
It's like all, there is no aim box.
I mean, the copypasta and meme with it is that like you have your whole arm to aim versus me only having my two thumbs on the joysticks.
Yeah, I mean, no one is, I think, saying that it's just as easy to aim with a thumb and a joystick.
It's not.
But, you know, there's a lot of things.
I think the frustration is just the strength of rotational aim assist and how powerful aim assist in games has gotten.
I mean, there's videos out there, and I feel like all half the time they're just fake, but there's a lot of videos out there where just like the guy will swear.
He's like, I don't even have the hands on the controller, and the controller is just moving around.
Like, the crosshair is moving around.
No, there's absolutely, it's definitely very strong.
And now you can do all these micro things to dead zones and vertical and horizontal, you know, aim speed and this and that.
And in COD, you can have dynamic or black ops or this aim assist.
And it's like, holy shit, there's 800 aim assist options.
Nadeshot just hopped on COD for the first time in a long time and was reacting to everything he could change on his controller.
And it's like back in the day in Modern Warfare 2, you were like force sensitivity, tactical, hopping a game.
Now there's 50 options that you can change.
That's crazy.
Do you think that's better or worse?
I mean, I just think it's great that like players can play whatever they feel comfortable, but at the same time, it's like, can't we just like make it?
Can't we just like hop on and game?
I'd have to change 800 things.
Okay.
There's another robust debate that's happening that you've also thrown your hand in the ring on and you've gotten a lot of criticism for it.
I'm, of course, talking about skill-based matchmaking.
You've been playing Call of Duty.
It came out.
Did you give him these topics?
No, I follow you closely.
Wow.
I am very familiar with your video.
You want me to sign some stuff on the way out?
Yeah, that'd be nice.
I have the Courage JD Monster Energy, or not Monster, Game Fuel.
Yeah, the Courage DD GameFuel that I stole from your house.
Thank you.
That used real juice.
So we better not be around here still because you'll get sick, bro.
No, I drag all of them immediately.
But, you know, I have the can still.
So you can say that.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Skill-based matchmaking.
What is it for those of you who don't know at home?
You want to explain it first?
Yeah.
Skill-based matchmaking is essentially where the goal of the game is to put you in equal level lobbies or lobbies that are of similar skill to protect people from players that are much better than them or protect those that are much worse than them from getting stomped.
I absolutely think skill-based matchmaking has a place in gaming, but there is a place for it and it shouldn't just be everywhere at all times without any rewards for being in them, in my opinion.
I watched your video where you talked about it.
And at first I thought immediately, get better lol.
Yeah.
That was what I wanted to write.
I wrote it out.
And before I hit send, I stopped myself and I really, I did something that no one on the internet does.
And I and I tried to understand where you were coming from.
Oh, wow.
Wow.
And shit.
I just got the chills.
Yeah.
One thing.
Yeah.
It's very unique.
You guys try it out one time.
It's so strange.
It's a very strange experience.
And one thing that you talked about, which was something beyond prestige, like a ranking system, which I think they're actually implementing.
That's what, or at least I saw.
They made an announcement that there's a rank coming in 2023.
So that is, you are correct.
I think that Call of Duty's ranking system, the prestige system, is nothing.
Like it needs to be at this, in this day and age, if you want to have a competitive shooter, even if the dynamics, even if there are so many variables that will like ruin a game, make a game easier, whatever, you still need to have a ranking system.
You still need to have top 250, top 500, radiant, immortal, that sort of thing.
Like in Valorant, I know this from my personal experience.
Like I am a very casual gamer, but I've been playing Valorant a lot and it is, I'm obsessed.
Of course, I'm obsessed with the idea of ranking up, even though it's literally for nothing.
Not a single person is going to be like, oh, wow, like made it out of silver.
Yeah.
Like that's something that like 14 year olds do without even thinking about it.
You know what I mean?
But for me, it's like a big accomplishment.
And so I totally understand it.
No matter where you are in the world, no matter where you are in your own career, that little thing, especially when you're able to just like ride with it, like hold on to it, is a brilliant way to keep people sucked into the game.
But then like everyone values their time as well.
And like seeing the ability to watch yourself improve and the fact that, you know, there's the triangle badge that shows like what rank you've been across the axe.
Yeah.
You can go back and see.
Like the fact that in Valorant, I can go see three acts ago when I was silver to now being diamond and I can see my progression.
No, I was, I've always been diamond or low immortal.
Yeah, it's all right, man.
We're not all shit at the games.
It's all right, bro.
You'll get there.
You really will.
No, I won't.
I will never.
That's so many years of just playing.
People don't understand that.
People think like, like, I played basketball my whole life.
So I've always been able to recognize it from like that level of competition where it's like the difference between like some of the top players on the planet or, you know, someone who is like genuinely truly, what is it?
Radiant is the highest if you're not in the top 500 or immortal.
Yeah, immortal.
And then there's Ascendant is right below the player.
Yeah, Immortal Ascendant.
Yeah.
Like, let's say someone is an Ascendant player, right?
These are, you know, there's thousands of them.
Yeah.
But like the difference between that guy and, you know, the couch potato who plays casually or like plays, tries to play seriously or whatever at like, you know, gold or plat is truly like demonstrably different.
And I noticed that when I started playing with pro players because I always thought like, well, you know, anyone can do this.
Come on.
I've been doing this my whole fucking life.
Right.
And then I would play with like Shroud and I'd be like, oh, no, everyone can't do this.
This is literally like if I played with an NBA player.
Like it's, it's, you know, maybe not the top NBA player, but definitely like any NBA player would wash me.
I played basketball my entire life.
Every single person in the NBA would destroy me.
I mean, they see like how you put a little bit of weight on one foot too much and then, you know, let me attack that.
Exactly.
Like, I can just show you, like, whenever I go out to the course, I'm not super good or anything, but I have a size difference.
I have an advantage.
I've been playing basketball for many, many years.
So I know how to dominate a lot of players, right?
A lot of different players.
Is this why you asked me to play tonight?
Smurfing and Cheaters00:10:46
No, no, no.
Why the fuck would I say because you've been working out?
And we weren't going to compete against each other.
We're just going to shoot around.
Because you've been working hour out, which we'll talk about in a second.
But, you know, like I said, any professional basketball player would destroy me.
Right.
And the difference truly is like that.
Like, the difference truly is like between a pro player and like a casual person that's like really good is truly like a casual person who's good at a sport and a professional player.
I mean, Troud kind of went viral for that clip where he called out the person in chat.
This was like a month ago, I want to say now.
Or he had just gotten onto some game.
I forget what it was.
Maybe, oh, it was Overwatch 2.
And I think he clapped back at someone in the chat that trolled him or had mentioned something around a play Shroud had just made.
Troud hasn't played a lot of Overwatch.
Yeah.
But Troud, I think, clapped back at the person and had a line that was like, my 10 hours on Overwatch 2 is your 1,000 hours.
Like, that's just how Shroud is.
And people were like, I think I'm set by that.
And then Nate Shot made a TikTok kind of defending Shroud and that went viral.
It's like, yeah, it's entirely true.
It is 100% true.
Like, it's flat out.
Yeah.
Like, his mechanics are so advanced.
And that is not because Shroud is like uniquely and naturally talented, which I'm sure plays a role in it.
That's because Shroud has been fucking playing the mechanics for 10, 12 hours every day for the past 10 fucking years.
And you just got born.
Like you haven't, you haven't been thinking about it enough.
You know, you've been casually playing.
People don't understand that.
I think like for pro play in video games, like you're doing drills.
Like you're doing drills in a similar way to like organized sports, you know?
And when you do it over and over and over again throughout your career, you get better at certain things.
You don't even have to think about it.
And those mechanics absolutely translate to other games that you're playing, especially FBS's.
It's like Timmy too.
It's Timmy.
You put him on a game and it's just like, oh, you give him 10 hours with it.
He's better than you after you've probably played for six months, legitimately six.
Like he will, he will make it, you be like, whoa.
Even if you're really good and he's got 10 hours on your game, he'll have moments where you're like, oh, shit, I can see what can happen.
We are talking about like unique people, though.
I feel like Shroud and Timmy with like their versatility.
They are in the 0.001 of the 10%.
They are definitely, but those are the people that I was thinking of when I was like, when I played with them, I realized we're playing different games.
My first ever ranked game on Valorant, I played with Todd and I made him play for me.
No way.
Oh, God.
And he just played Reyna in Icebox.
And I still think about that.
What rank was that in?
Probably Silver?
Yeah.
I mean, he dropped 37 or something.
Yeah.
No, but like...
It's like going to the playground with the Hulk.
Yeah.
And tell him to fight the third graders.
The way I describe it is like, I play a game that's like very clunky.
He was swimming.
Like, it felt like he was swimming.
His movement was so fluid.
Oh, yeah.
There's no his mind is thinking of 87 things at once, too.
That's what I find most fascinating is that they can aim like that while also getting the little bit of information, thinking in his head like what corners he should clear versus not clear, you know, knowing just every little bit of detail.
It's fascinating when you then watch.
It resembles chess a lot, in my opinion, I feel like those games for sure.
You need to take the smallest bit of information. and see far ahead.
That's why I love StarCraft.
I mean, it's a real-time strategy game.
But you need to be able to go scout your opponent and see the littlest bits of things and then be able to plan four moves ahead to be able to win the game.
There's no more rewarding feeling for me ever than winning a StarCraft 1v1 because I can't blame anybody.
It comes down to my ability to have seen what you were planning to do, out micro, out macro, and win the game.
And when they type GG, it's like, let's fucking go.
And the game had a great rank system.
Yeah.
Ranking systems are great.
Yep, I agree.
But going back to skill-based matchmaking, you think that the ranking system should be there, but you also want a no-skill-based matchmaking type arena play, I guess.
Well, not arena, but...
It's a little bit tough.
Like right now, there's two weeks of dead air before Warzone 2 and Season 1 come out for Call of Duty.
Everyone, for the most part, many people are leveling up their camos and trying to use random ass weapons that kind of suck compared to the best guns.
Well, because of my skill-based matchmaking, I'm facing the top 1% while I'm using like a slow-ass, terrible LMG and like a rocket launcher trying to shoot down killstreaks.
But I'm facing kids who like want to be optic scump and only use the best gun and only do all this stuff.
So it's a little bit of a frustrating situation where it's like, I get the situation I'm in.
Give me the ability to go like search a social playlist and mess around with these guns so that there's like less on the line.
And then it'll also keep me in my skill-based matchmaking when I'm actually trying a bit more seamlessly.
Like now that I'm using all these shit guns, it drops me in my skill base.
And then I wind up just kind of shitting on everybody when I use the real guns again because my skill base goes down a little bit.
Let me just go use the shit weapons that I want to level up in peace.
So you don't want to pub stomp?
I have no want for that.
No.
So I, because I think a lot of people, when they complain about this, many people just immediately assume like, oh, you just want to pub stomp.
Like you want to.
I want to rank.
Like Timmy was talking about that.
And I think Myth said something along those lines of response to Timmy or was or not Timmy, sorry, Tim the Tatman.
And his response basically was like along those lines where it's like, you just want to pub stomp.
You want to get like 30 bombs.
You want to get a good clip.
You want to get YouTube videos.
And skill-based matchmaking is good across the board.
I'm not sure if Tim the Tatman wants to completely eviscerate skill-based matchmaking or not.
Is that something that he's talking about?
No, I think him and Doc are just a little bit frustrated where it's like, there's just, and one of my issues is there's no variability because skill-based matchmaking's goal is to put everyone between like a 0.8 and a 1.2 kill death ratio.
No one's getting high kill streaks.
No one's being able to use different weapons.
It's like you just need to use the best to compete with these guys that are all in your lobby that are the best.
And every game, everyone in the lobby is like 28 and 22.
And that makes 22 and 22.
So that makes it so that you don't feel the fruits of your labor.
You don't feel like your progress.
Exactly.
And whereas like, I'll go 22 and 22 every game, but I'll win and rank up and be like, fuck yeah, I did what I needed to do to win.
I got the win.
Whereas now, you can't even see your KD ratio.
You can't even see your win-loss record in the new COD.
It is.
It feels when you most people, I think right now, when you end a COD session, I think a lot of people end it exhausted versus feeling rewarded because at the end of it, you're like, man, I just want to see.
I just want to see that.
I just want to see the ringer.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's like, holy shit, every game was sweaty.
You know, the COD moments growing up, it's like, run around with just your knife only, you know, or, or, oh, let's all use riot shields.
If I did that shit right now, I would be getting fisted by this dude with smiley face in his name or clan tag this or wannabe pro player that.
And me and my boys can't even fuck around with knives out because we're just in the, we're in the blender.
What about what about cheating?
Is cheating still a big problem in the news?
It's gotten way, way, way better ever since they updated Ricochet or added Ricochet.
Cheating was horrible in Warzone 1.
I remember the reasons I quit.
But Ricochet has actually had a lot of good and cool moments.
The premise of Ricochet is that instead of outright banning cheaters right away, it puts them in cheating lobbies.
It does all sorts of different things.
But one of the funniest parts, which has gone viral a lot, is that the name is Ricochet.
Basically, a cheater will shoot you and their bullets will just ricochet off of you.
So they'll shoot you a million times and you'll be getting hit, but it does no damage.
So this cheater is helplessly aimbotting you and you can literally just walk up to them and just bop, bop, and they're dead.
That's fun.
So it's like they run around and cheat, go for it.
You just turn and you just laugh at them and just kill them.
So like there's clips of Tim and them just stunning the cheater over and over as he's like trying to, you know, he's aim hacking onto everyone, shooting them a million times.
They don't die.
And then they like take turns assassinating him.
And they, and, and people eat that shit up.
That's pretty cool.
I like that.
I think it'd probably still be better if they had like an anti-cheat system, but I don't know how you can do that for PlayStation.
And I've been a bit removed from well, there's no cheaters on PlayStation at Xbox.
Oh, it's impossible.
It's almost entire, it's 99.99% PC.
And that's for console players.
I'm not involved on console as much anymore.
But when the cheating was bad, everything in the comments was like console-only lobbies, console-only lobbies, because all their heads came from PC cheaters.
Yeah.
No, I know.
I mean, that's why Riots anti-cheat is like a kernel level thing that you need to like install.
It fucking breaks your computer, though.
It literally breaks your shit.
It's crazy.
Yeah.
I've never seen anything like it.
Like, I have you faced a lot of cheaters?
I've all no.
In all of the, all the time I've spent playing, and I've played a lot now, like, for the past couple of months, I've been obsessed.
I've only had one cheater, and it was right after the new map and the new character came out.
And it was in the beginning of act two, I think.
Like, I went into a game, and this dude on my team was fucking cracked.
Right.
And I was like, that's, you know, I didn't even think about it actually.
Cause like, you don't even think that there's a cheater ever in your lobby.
You just think that guy's smurfing.
Right.
Yeah.
And I got this red screen that said, cheater detected in your team.
Your match will be not.
Yeah, your match will be void.
Like, no points will be given to anyone.
And it's kind of cool.
But who else thinks they face cheaters?
Was the bronze kids that you faced in that game that Tarek played for you?
You dick.
Yeah.
Well, I think everybody knows.
Especially everybody knows in lower Elos, like, you're playing with a lot of Smurfs.
Oh, which kind of sucks, but there's like not really anything you can do about it.
I play with Smurfs too, like, because people want to play with their friends, you know?
So that's me right now.
Like, literally, when I play COD, this whole launch, I play my five buddies from home.
I'm the best of that group.
They join in with me, and their experience is quite literally multiple times harder.
Twitter DM Drama00:03:31
Yeah.
And then so now they're like, holy shit.
I'm trying to play with my boys.
And they're getting put through hell on earth.
Yeah.
No, I know.
I play with when I play with like Platt, Diamond, higher players, like and I do it regularly.
We do five stacks.
I'm like, I'm not getting RR because the game automatically assumes like I'm being carried.
So I'm not even getting the experience that I would normally get.
And I'm playing against some of the some much, much better players who are just going click, boom.
Yep.
Headshot.
You play in a close corner with a judge, and that's it.
You're just sitting there with a shoddy, hoping they run into you and you get a double kill.
It's it's it's ridiculous because they know they know how they know where I'm at every time.
It's like playing against someone with Matt Pack on.
Like it's just, it sucks.
But you know, it makes you better.
Talking about skill-based.
You want to talk about working out.
I do want to talk about working out.
There was one other thing that I wanted to talk to you about before that was in this arena, but never mind.
Let's do it.
Let's talk about working out.
Sure.
You've been working out.
You lost 20 pounds.
Yeah.
That's awesome.
Hyped.
Has there ever been a point in your life where like what were your workout goals starting out?
Have you ever achieved them?
And was there ever a point in your life where you were like, damn, like I did it?
2017 was when I was like, I did it.
I went from 200, I was 262 pounds of my heaviest in my life.
Do you have a photo of this?
Solid up.
Oh, man.
I got it.
It was like sophomore year of my Twitter of high school.
I can try to find it.
I'll try my best to find it.
This was a long, long time ago.
2000.
I don't even remember.
But either way, I was fat.
And 260 pounds.
Here we go.
That's like more than what I weigh right now.
Yeah.
And you're like, how tall?
6'4.
Yeah.
And I'm not.
Can I text you or no?
Send it to my Twitter DM.
Twitter DM it to me and then we'll pull it off.
Okay, hold on.
Let me try to figure out how to do this shit.
I'm gonna send it to myself first.
I'm stupid.
Or Discord.
Are we friends on Discord?
I don't know.
That's what I'm saying.
I don't really add people on Discord.
Yeah, I don't either.
Yeah, let's do.
See?
Are we friends on Discord?
I'm not lucky.
See, now we're just back to fucking square one.
Hold on, hold on.
Why don't you just do Twitter?
Do you not know how to do a Twitter duce?
How do I do Twitter DM from right here?
I hit Twitter and it's going to tweet the photo.
Oh, screenshot it so it's the top of your photos.
Okay.
Shot it.
Now go to your Twitter DMs and then pull it up.
God.
My Twitter DM up.
Pull it up right now.
Come on.
Bang.
Boom.
Boom.
There we go.
That.
What is that holy for?
He just said holy.
God damn.
Yo, what the hell was that, bro?
Why are we why?
What is that?
God damn.
God damn, you were a chonker, dude.
What are you saying?
You were thick.
Guys, thick ball.
Come on.
Fayed a kai boy, too.
Hell yeah, baby.
Faded delta kai.
Dieting and Weight Loss00:06:56
Oh, there you go.
So, yeah, no, I was uh, Jesus.
I was basically a bowling ball.
Chia pet hair.
That is the most New Jersey-ass photo I've ever seen.
Dude, I was a walking meatball.
Dude, that is so awesome.
Throw some sauce on me.
That is a that's a wait.
Are you a poor girl, Taylor Ham?
Taylor Ham.
So you were, that was a, that was a Taylor ham, egg, and cheese.
I'm a North Jersey.
Come on.
Yeah, true.
Uh, and then 2017 was when I lost a ton of weight with Maven.
I was working out six days a week.
Went down to like 195 pounds.
Do you have a photo of that?
Yeah.
All right, send that as well.
I want to see.
Let me go find that now.
Went to 195 pounds.
And it was a bit unsustainable because I was like chicken, broccoli, rice, miserable living life.
Like, you didn't like that?
Okay.
I fucking hated my life.
Oh, okay.
That's, that is unsustainable.
Talking about that, that is truly.
And I felt great.
Don't get me wrong.
I was really happy with how I looked, but I blew back up after I. You did yoyo dieting, which is what happens to a lot of people just like yourself.
And I've done this my entire life as well, where you did this thing where you had an unsustainable diet because you did not love the chicken, broccoli, rice lifestyle.
I did not.
Yeah.
I did not love it.
I'm trying to find this picture.
I'm sorry.
It's all good.
No, no, no.
No worries.
It's a podcast.
We can pause it.
We can fucking cut.
That is true.
It's all good.
But yeah, no, I did not like that lifestyle.
And then this past year or this past year, I went up to 239 and now I'm 219.
The difference this time is that I've lived a really sustainable diet.
I've had like a really sanable diet.
I've been doing a lot more fasting, which has been really helpful.
Fasting really, the first time around, I lost a lot of weight fasting.
Yeah.
I did intermittent fasting.
I did OMAD, which is one meal a day.
I did that too.
And of course, tracking my calories, calories and calories out and using my fitness pal to do that and basically logging everything.
And it made me lose.
I was 200 and I think I was like 320 at my highest, but when I first started seriously dieting, I was like two.
Yeah, I was like 300 pounds and I went down to 220, 225.
That's when I had a six pack.
Congratulations.
I mean, that's a huge amount of weight.
Yeah, that is, God damn, look at this dapper young gentleman.
You look better now.
Yeah.
And so I and I thank you.
I agree with that.
I think I liked it much more.
Like that was 195.
My goal, if I had a goal weight right now, it would be like 205 with good muscle from lifting.
I'll never be a 180-pound person or anything like that.
I mean, you're more swagged out now.
You have like you're grown into, yeah, you've grown into your body.
Thank you.
That's what, no, but I talk about this all the time.
Like, dudes, good facial hair.
It's like 20, like four there.
No, but it doesn't matter.
A lot of people don't figure that out.
I look like, you know, I couldn't figure it out either.
And a lot of dudes don't realize like good facial hair, good grooming habits.
You know what I mean?
A lot of that goes a very long way.
Dressing well.
Oh, yeah.
Back then I like was barely tailoring clothes and things like that.
That is like a huge factor.
Most dudes don't realize that.
That's why I always say like every dude can be a seven.
No matter what, you can always improve in like pretty easy and simple ways, make immediate improvements in your life that will make you more attractive in general to a broader population.
People don't want to believe that though.
But yes, working out and dieting is the hardest one, but the most important one, definitely.
Yeah.
But yeah, I lost all that weight.
I gained all of it.
I gained so much weight during COVID.
I went, I shot back up like during COVID because I was like not working out.
My mom was living with me.
I brought her over here to live with me.
During COVID, she was just fucking feeding me, dude.
She was feeding me.
I was playing a lot of Grand Theft Auto RP.
Like I was just not leaving.
I was a potato.
I just didn't move at all.
And I felt like shit all the fucking time.
I was depressed.
It's crazy how that works.
Yeah.
And I went back up to like 285.
And now I'm down to 240, 249.
I'm still trying to get down to 225, but I put a lot of muscle back on.
My muscle has atrophied.
You know, I'm still working to get back to my peak shape.
And it's been a journey.
It's hard.
You're hot, bro.
Thanks.
You're a hot guy.
I don't.
Well, there's no other way to put it.
I hit it well when I was fat because people were still thinking that I was like in really good shape when I wasn't.
And it sucked because I was like big black t-shirts.
That's my black is nice and slimming.
Yeah.
But my hack this time for anyone watching that might want to lose weight if you have a Nintendo Switch, three incline on the treadmill or sorry, 10 incline of the treadmill, three speed, and play a turn-based card game like Slay the Spire or turn-based anything game.
And take the nunchucks off and you just kind of walk on the treadmill while playing the game as it's resting right there.
And next thing you know, 40 minutes of the treadmill, I'm dripping sweat.
It flies by and it's great.
And then I fasted the zero fasting app, which I actually got from Elon Musk.
Oh, God.
Thanks, Elon.
We don't like Elon.
Not too fond of him.
You have pictures out there of him.
Yeah.
You have like signs with X's marked on his eyes.
You have, it's like, your whole thing is like, Grimes brought it over.
Yeah, she was here.
There you go.
Yeah, I am not too fond of him.
Especially recently.
Well, what's funny is, no, I agree.
But what's funny is he just tweeted about how the way he was losing weight was he literally said, oh, there's this app called the Zero Fasting App.
And I looked it up, but now I've been using it.
What is it?
What is the app?
I have never.
It just said it helps hold me accountable.
So like when I'm fasting, I can hit like start fast and program my type of fast so I can see the benefits to what I'm doing.
It helps me actually see my goals.
That's interesting.
Again, I like a rank.
I like seeing what I'm achieved.
For everyone, it is very different.
Like every body is different.
I lost a lot of weight during OMAD.
I don't do it anymore.
I usually will break my fast, I guess, quote unquote.
If I'm working out, I usually break it with a protein shake in the morning after I'm done working out.
And then I eat lunch and dinner now.
Or if I'm not working out that day, I usually will break it at like around three.
But again, lunch and dinner.
And then do you stream before or after you eat?
No, I eat during.
That's straight up during.
Okay.
Yeah, I'll have one of my two meals while I'm streaming.
Behind the Scenes00:09:03
That's normally me too.
Yeah.
And, you know, people are always like, oh, bro, you're always eating on stream.
I'm like, dude.
You're not a ban.
You ban a piece.
Dude, if I had a dollar every time someone tuned into my stream and said, of course, courage is eating when I tune in.
Yeah.
I would have too much money to know what to do.
Yeah.
It's just like, is it like, dog, have you thought that maybe I eat at the same time every day and you're tuning in at the same time every day?
Maybe that's the reason.
No, they haven't thought that.
No, I know.
It's just so frustrating.
At first, you're like, you entertain it.
When you're a smaller streamer, you talk about it.
You're like, well, this is my only meal of the day that I'm eating on camera.
We'll give it the time.
And then when you have 30,000 motherfuckers in there and like 100 of them are saying it in a row, click, click, click, click.
You pop off like, you pop like five of them.
They're going to shut the fuck up quick.
How many people do you think you've banned in your stream?
More than 10,000.
Easy.
Easy.
I know for a fact that if I had 10,000 viewers, I'd ban all 10,000, but I don't.
Yeah.
I mean, this is over the course of many, many years.
And like, there have been moments where I've had, you know, 200, 300,000 people or 250, I think it was my peak during like events.
When was that peak?
Was that elections or?
January 6th.
Okay.
Elections was like 150.
Wow.
And then January 6th was 250.
But I.
Yeah, we need more insurrections for you.
Well, I mean, I like when shit like that's not happening.
You know what I mean?
I get that.
You know, and sorry to bring us off topic, but this reminds me of something.
Like kind of you kind of been a good little bill of of, always on the edge of drama, in my opinion okay, part of what you do I couldn't do it man, I couldn't do it does it.
It sucks.
Doesn't it take a burden on you mentally?
It does it sucks.
I hate it.
I actually um, contrary to popular opinion uh, which people are always like oh son, you're always finding yourself in drama.
I don't like it.
That's why I often I want to do positive collaborative relationships with other streamers, like um, the way that like Xqc, for example, hangs out with like uh, Kai and and Aiden and all these other people.
I usually can't do that unfortunately because, like you know, they do a lot of stuff, or Aiden does a lot of shit with like Andrew Tate or problematic people, and he'll do something or say something.
That's like dumb and I feel like my community or even myself sometimes need to address it, so I can never have like a positive collaborative relationship.
It feels like and I think that sucks, and the only time i'm like quote unquote collaborating with people is when they fuck up, uh in a gigantic capacity.
Yeah, that like it's so much so that it becomes like platform wide or like real world news um, and I I hate that.
I I wish it was more.
Like you know, i'm just chilling casually and I play a video game with like would you do a cooking stream with me?
Yeah, would you, of course.
But you're also like you're very brand friendly.
You're not gonna say anything like I try to.
I try to avoid that again because I can't, I just can't.
That that's different, though.
Like I, I mean I hang out with like offline tv and, and you know, the roomies and everyone like that.
That's entirely different because, like they're never, they're very brand safe and also they're they don't have like problematic opinions or anything like that.
You know what I mean, but I do it does suck sometimes.
So I, I don't like um, I don't like that kind of drama.
But if you're asking about like real world news uh, from a drama perspective, that definitely is is burdensome for sure.
Like covering police brutality, mass shootings, um.
The worst is when you actually do have uh, a passionate, uh candidate that you, you like, fully want to support and are publicly supporting, like Bernie Sanders or even like John Fetterman in Pennsylvania right now um, and then he gets stroked out like he had a fucking massive stroke.
First day of his campaign looked like he was going to destroy this guy.
Dr Oz yep, heard of Dr Oz yeah uh, running for Pennsylvania Center as a Republican now and then that like renders his.
That really threw a giant uh mountain of a hurdle on his campaign.
And then you're sitting there and you have to like watch this guy try to fucking communicate and you know what he used to communicate like and it just breaks your soul.
Yeah, like that is the the worst.
My, my worst feeling moments are often during controversial instances like mass shootings and whatnot, or the invasion of Ukraine um, things like that.
But then also when I have the audacity of hope and then it's just like stripped away from me.
That's when it sucks.
That's like really, really sad.
Anyway, I didn't mean to get serious.
We don't do politics on this podcast so Hey, I enjoyed that conversation.
Thank you for answering my question.
Yeah, no problem.
I think you did a great job.
You should become a podcast host.
Yeah, this is, well, you could really make it.
You're lucky, you know, we'll let you host this today.
Yeah, it's really fun that he lets me host it quite frequently by not being here.
Yeah, it's great.
Yeah, he's a busy boy.
Don't worry.
That's what Courage and Nade Shot Show has definitely been more than a few times where Matt's available or I'm only available.
And it's just like, all right, we got to roll with the punches.
Yeah, it happens.
But isn't Courage and Nade Shot on hiatus?
It's so interesting.
It was on hiatus for a bit.
Then it came back, but then there was a miscommunication on it being like every two weeks.
Like we never wanted it to be every two weeks.
We just wanted to really have episodes that we cared about.
We oversold it the year prior.
Is that why you guys never asked me to be on it?
Because you cared about the episodes.
You were like, yeah, it's not enough of some.
We just knew this episode would suck.
That's interesting.
I mean, I don't know, man.
We have people who help get the guests.
Yeah, because when JHB had me on his show, they billed it to me as though, like, not build it, but like they sold the idea of me going on as I was going on the Courage and Nadeshot show.
You weren't on our podcast, I feel like we would have, first off, that's just stupid you weren't.
Yeah, I was never asked.
Okay, well, the only time I was asked to be on a podcast was the JHB show.
I apologize.
Which is not the Courage and Nadeshot show.
No.
But JHB's fantastic.
Yeah, he's great.
But I think Matt and I are also, you know, in the three years, over three years we've been doing it, life takes a lot of turns.
Matt's planning a wedding.
He just got a house.
100 Thieves has grown a lot more since then where it was like, oh, Matt was in every video.
Now he's helping launch an energy drink, helping plan a game behind the scenes, helping with our future apparel, like things like that.
And then for my end, I'm helping more behind the scenes than ever before with content planning, especially for 2023 and how I'm spilling YouTube secrets to 100 Thieves and trying to help them from a channel approach that we've gone very much from like being one of the only four people that can be on camera to like, hey, we're helping a lot more move, you know, move the yard line forward behind the scenes.
Is that football terms?
I don't know.
I don't think I watch football.
Yeah, neither do I.
But yeah, so I think right now I would love to keep the Courage and Aid Shot show going, but at the same time, it's both busy.
Very busy.
On that note, you just said spilling YouTube secrets.
And guess what?
We are going to be doing that.
However, not on the free episode, but behind a paywall.
Oh, my God.
Yeah.
We don't want to give these goods.
You guys are so out of touch.
Oh, I am.
Putting it behind a paywall.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Of course.
This is how we pay.
This is how we pay.
This is how we pay Marsh's salary, as a matter of fact.
Patreon.com.
Does it?
Oh, yeah.
Well, he was treated so badly.
When he's not fucking up the audio, when he's not fucking up the audio, Marsh.
Yeah.
I mean, every time I saw him at a shoot at 100 Thieves, I just knew this was going to go haywire.
Yeah.
We will talk about that drama as well.
Boss versus former employee.
Oh, my God.
Patreon.com slash fear and if you want to see the juicy bits.
What do you want to promote?
Where can people find you?
I just want to promote everyone having a happy and healthy holiday season.
Okay, but where can people find you?
Courage JD everywhere.
All right, everybody.
On that note, we'll see you on the other side past paywall.
Peace.
Maybe it's because I look it up on porn hubbins, though, but it's like not very good.
I also can't find myself like, I would never like read something and jerk off to it.
I'm surprised these books aren't like stuck together from how much you probably use these.
That's a nice cock.
Perfect cock.
Good cock.
Now that's a nice cock.
Who else has got?
By the way, we are fulfilling our contractual obligation to talk about penises every episode.