Anthony Padilla and Will Neff dissect the chaotic production of their podcast, recalling how a 2005 Pokémon lip-sync video launched Padilla's career despite copyright strikes. They contrast early Flash animation with current "double dipping" strategies across live streams and fan channels, while discussing coping mechanisms during COVID isolation that included interviewing trauma survivors like kidnapping victims. Reflecting on personal losses, including a brother who died without a funeral, they argue that revealing career details therapeutically defines their legacy beyond early comedy, suggesting digital creators must embrace vulnerability to connect with audiences facing global isolation. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Janky Podcast Vibes00:02:54
It's all good.
I'm like weirdly placed today.
I don't know what is going on.
Should I fall apart?
Yeah, the entire podcast is over.
I think janky is one word I would describe.
No, no, it's fine.
I'm happy with this, I guess.
You know, fuck it.
Fuck me.
It's fine.
It was just, you know, I'm happy with it.
We can just move it.
Why does your shoes say think happy thoughts on it?
Man, these are the shackles.
Why does your necklace say fish?
Oh, it's my dog that passed away.
Oh, fuck.
My bad.
He's very many jam bands, too.
I was trying to deter the conversation.
Yeah, he just got back from Red Rocks.
He's been torn with a big fish head with the pH.
Isn't that how you say it?
Fish with the pH?
Yeah, it's just fish.
I fucking hate that, man.
I am not a...
Oh, you're a pish?
I'm not a jam-band guy at all.
If I started a popular bag, if I put you on the right drugs, I bet I could get you into a solid jam-band sash.
I've been to I've been to a Grateful Dead concert one time.
Huh?
None of them are alive anymore, are there?
Is there a cover band?
No, no, Bob Weir.
And they still tour.
I did not know.
They still tour.
They tour with John Mayer.
They were doing it for a while.
Oh.
Yeah, that's, I mean, I'll take you to some real Jam Band shit.
Jambro, the deadheads are fucking coming after you afterwards.
No, they won't.
We have a big, big audience of deadheads.
They won't come after me because they know after Garcia died, so went the band, too.
Okay.
I agree.
That's my contribution.
Yeah, this is the jankiest.
Welcome to the Jankiest podcast.
God, that's a good name.
The jankiest fuck.
Yeah, the janky.
You guys fucked up.
You're in the hanky panky.
All right.
This is our producer, March, on the ones and twos over here.
Fucking.
Give me five minutes to send it.
It's in frame, the other camera.
Okay, I think this is good.
Yep.
All right.
Crossing.
He's the fastest producer in the world.
Damn.
You got that set up in three seconds full.
Yeah.
We've done this so many times.
So he's just, he's quick with it.
He's nice with it.
All right.
Like I said, welcome to the Janky podcast.
It's Anthony Padilla in the building.
Hello?
That's right.
We are spending a day with Anthony Padilla.
Let's be honest, it's only going to be an hour and 20 minutes.
Am I allowed to...
Okay, technically, that's what you did as well.
Hey, shut the fuck up.
Okay.
We don't talk about that.
I know.
He's on the DMZ shit, dude.
I'm going to take you down.
Dude, that jacket is so sick.
I just want to get started on that.
What's going on there?
I have no idea.
It looks like someone straight up took sandpaper to it, and I'm so into it.
It looks dope.
It looks like a costume.
Anthony Padilla Returns00:10:08
Yeah, I kind of like that, right?
You look like you just came right out of slaying Ludwig in Bloodborne.
Yeah, that's what I was going to say.
You kind of feel a little colonial.
Yeah.
But like, not the fucked up kind.
Yeah, yeah.
I like the Imperial.
Like the good kind.
Like the cool kind.
The cool colonial kind.
As a matter of fact, sir, we should not do this.
That's what you were saying.
Yeah.
We should not do it.
Do this podcast.
No, no, no.
More like slavery, very bad.
Oh, yeah.
I'm talking about that stuff.
Yeah.
I might be in the minority.
But slavery is bad.
Yeah.
That kind.
I would peg you as that.
You would just.
I don't know what that clip.
You just said you would peg me and it just really took me out for a second.
Yeah, I'm sorry.
There's going to be sexual innuendos throughout.
But that was intended.
That was intentional.
We're trying to get some TikTok.
Blast through our bumbling here for a second.
I kind of wasted all the good conversation before the podcast.
Oh, we did.
We already talked about it all.
Let's just do it again.
And I will not say any of that stuff again.
So, I'm going to ask you a question.
Oh, God.
Toleda.
What is the first video of his you ever saw?
Oh, that's actually a good question.
It was like, I spent a day from his I Spent a Day.
That's crazy.
You Turkish fuck.
I never watched you did Smosh, right?
Yeah.
Never watched.
Never watched that.
Did not know anything about it.
Was like that part of YouTube.
I just smosh.
Yeah.
Like, not even remotely interested in any of that.
Hold on, you're the day in the life guy.
No, I mean, to a lot of people, that's the idea.
So let me open a conversation.
Go ahead.
You're red, right?
You're bright red with elation.
That's like, that's like someone to Peyton Manning being like, I remember you from football commentary.
You played once before then, right?
Like, well, don't okay.
Now you're making it seem like his career is over doing damn.
No, That's not.
Okay.
Let me let me shift the focus of the conversation.
A 15-year-old Will at one point watched a video that is kind of, I would say, legendary on the internet in the hollows of like Charlie bit me type internet fame.
Okay, I know Charlie bit me, but you're not, but he's not the Charlie.
I'm not the Charlie Bitman guy.
He was in the car.
He was driving.
Yeah, yeah.
No.
So he and his partner made a video where they lip-sync along to the Pokemon theme.
And I was telling him, you have to watch this.
A 15-year-old Will Neff.
This was a life training.
It got taken down for copyright infringement.
Yeah.
Let's see.
So we uploaded that in November 2005.
And I think it was June, maybe a little bit earlier, 2007.
I was in Turkey back.
Yeah.
I think I gave him a lot of people.
Yeah, what were you doing?
Smosh?
Like, what?
I was playing Dota.
No, but I was saying that that video is kind of pivotal in a lot of young creators' lives, a lot of YouTubers' lives.
I mean, mine.
I can only speak for myself, but I'm assuming because that video was the first time I was probably 14 years old.
I saw this video and I was like, holy shit.
You can just make stuff and put it on YouTube and become famous.
Yeah, what was it about?
Because it was so crudely made.
I think that was it.
Was it that it was like it was crude, but it was like two friends having a great time.
Yeah.
And it went ballistic.
Yeah, we went crazy.
It went ballistic.
How many views?
It had 25 million before it was removed for copyright infringement.
And at that time, that's like actually in the entire world.
You got to pull it up.
It was the number one most viewed video on YouTube at.
Yeah, my son has no idea what we're talking about.
He was in Turkey crying five.
Yeah, what were you doing in 2005, 2006?
I was literally in like, I was in high school.
There it is.
I was in high school in Turkey.
No, there it is.
Okay.
Yeah, I can't see, but uh, no, no, he's gonna pull it up.
Yeah, show it.
Wow, dude.
You know what's crazy?
In this video, you look like Marsh.
Yeah, yeah, okay.
Okay, just like play it on mute.
Let's see.
No, just play it and mute it after because this makes no sense whatsoever.
We don't want to get the video taken down.
He can just mute.
Okay.
No, he can't.
Well, because we're doing commentary over it.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
First of all, you don't know the Pokemon song.
This is.
Oh my God.
Wait, at first I was like, which one are you?
Can you even tell which one I am?
You're the one with the insane hair, which is really narrowing it down here.
Yeah.
You're the one with.
Oh, what the fuck?
That was a look.
A mistake?
Is that what you just said?
No, no, no, no.
Plus, if you say it about me, you're saying about March right now.
You got to take it in the context, man.
In 2000.
That shit went hard in 2005, probably.
It went so hard.
Lip-syncing videos were really popular at the time, but we just threw in so many insane things.
Good thing that changed a lot since 2005.
That is literally.
Yeah, musically.
Well, TikTok essentially is where YouTube was.
Yeah.
Or it feels like it.
Yeah.
It was a place where everyone could have their 15 minutes of fame.
It was literally called broad.
I mean, YouTube broadcast yourself was the tagline.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Man, this fucking platform.
And we're the old dogs.
Like, I mean, I was on the Young Turks and obviously you are like one of the institutions of YouTube originally.
I mean, for people who don't understand it, this is stuff I learned after the fact.
But you were basically Smosh was like PewDiePie.
Like it was to that level or what Mr. Beast is now.
You were that before PewDiePie and before Mr. Beast.
Yeah, we handed the crown to PewDiePie.
We made a video when he became the number one most subscribed YouTube channel.
We had this little video about it.
I do want to add a caveat though.
You were doing it with a lot of sketch.
Yeah, which I think is more difficult.
I mean, I hate to rate difficulties, but I think reality TV shows and kind of like competition shows on YouTube are much more base.
And turning out a sketch that has that kind of appeal was always very impressive.
Yeah, it's difficult in another way.
Yeah.
Yeah, of course it is because you can't always make everyone laugh.
Like SNL has awful seasons.
Yeah.
We're living in it right now.
And it's like, and in order to be able to like reach the broadest audience possible with sketch comedy is profoundly difficult.
Rather than being like an influencer that everyone likes the personality of or whatever.
Yeah.
I just want to say, I want to finish this thought before we move on.
That video inspired me to start making YouTube crap.
And I made a video in my high school about a fictional porn website called naughtyenef.com.
And I would do weird things like hang upside down from my bunk bed and stuff like that.
And then I would crop in videos that I would take of my teachers using the computer when they'd be like, who's on this site?
And it would just cut to like a back view of like my physics teacher on the computer.
And it went crazy among my high school friends.
But that was the beginning for me.
It was naughtynef.com.
That sounds really hot.
My interest in making videos actually has a similar beginning to yours.
I did my research.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Anthony.
You started off with Flash animation.
Yes.
I did.
Yes.
In 2002, I made smosh.com.
And at that time, I was super into Flash animation on Newgrounds.
Did you use Newgrounds?
Yeah.
Holy shit.
Like sick figure animations and shit.
Yeah.
I was fascinated with animation.
I did Macromedia Flash.
Like I literally.
Do you have any of your Flash animation?
I don't believe so.
I think one is on the internet somewhere.
I don't even remember.
I don't know how to like access it.
I don't know how to find it.
I would love.
But it was like a shittiest one.
I actually did a really good one when I was at Parsons.
Like I took a I took a summer semester at Parsons specifically on Macromedia Flash, like learning how to do two-dimensional design.
And, you know, that was what my first inception.
Yours, let's talk about you though.
You're the guest.
Yeah, I loved that so much.
And I was submitting my animations to Newgrounds and they were getting blamed.
Do you remember that term?
I never submitted.
Okay.
So they were getting voted down.
And if they didn't have like something over like a 3.5 rating or something like that, it wouldn't be allowed to live on the subscribe.
You were making mid.
I was making real mid.
Was that's even being a little generous?
Some of them are still online.
I think you could find them.
No way.
They were so rough.
Let's try to find it.
I don't know what you have to type in to find it.
I'm in the same grounds portal.
So you drew, you like started off in the visual arts.
Kind of just because I wanted to make jokes and stupid stuff in my mind come to life on the screen and it wasn't getting accepted to this website.
So I made my own ripoff of the Flash portal called the Flash Gateway, which I just literally typed in like synonyms for portal.
And I just made my own version of that.
And actually, if you've ever heard of Tom Ska, who made the ASDF movie, he makes like these really, he made these really popular Flash animations for a while.
And he said, he told me that he was getting rejected from Newgrounds and he was accepted on Smash.com in the Flash Gateway.
And that's what encouraged him to continue creating stuff at that time.
So there was like a little legacy of the Flash Gateway.
I did not know that part.
That is wild.
So that was really cool.
But talk more about your transition from Flash animation to making video.
Yeah.
So I borrowed my dad's webcam.
I grew up with very, very little money.
And even like getting my hands on tech to create this stuff was just insane for me.
But my dad had some tech.
He had a webcam.
And I remember over at his house, I was like, are you using this thing?
From Flash to Viral00:16:09
I never see you use this thing.
Can I borrow it?
I brought it over to my place, never gave it back.
But my friend Ian and I were just hanging out and I had this new webcam.
And I was trying, I was obsessed with learning every single thing about the internet and technology and things that I could do with it because I grew up with an agoraphobic mother.
I felt very trapped in my house.
If you don't know what that is, it's where you feel like your only safe space is, you know, in a very confined area.
So for me, or for my mom, it was within my house.
And I had this lingering fear that I was going to be trapped in my house my whole life.
And I felt like I didn't really have any resources.
So, you know, whenever I would see my computer in my room that my dad bought for me, I would see that.
I was like, that is, that is infinite possibilities.
Exactly.
Bringing it back.
And I was like, I can do anything with that.
All I have to do, like, the only limit is my knowledge about this stuff.
So I was teaching myself about all these things.
So I wanted to learn how to edit.
And I was playing, I was illegally downloading some childhood theme songs that I grew up with.
You're going to jail.
I know.
And I'm okay with that.
Okay.
It was so funny because when those ads came out, I was like, yeah, but if I could duplicate it, no one would know.
Yeah.
You would duplicate a car.
That's what I'm saying.
When I saw that ad reverse, I was like, of course I would download a car.
What the fuck are you talking about?
Right.
It's not taking it.
It's duplicating.
Also, that song that they had, there was no reason it went that hard.
It was all grainy, like in the episode of The Wire.
You know what I mean?
That aesthetic is like super back now, too.
Oh, it has the Y2K aesthetic.
Yeah.
It's vintage.
It's a trailer for our stream or our podcast, like the you wouldn't duplicate a car.
That's why you should.
That's why you should.
That's why you should go to patreon.com/slash freeoran to unlock some of the episodes.
I'm going to support that shit.
So I had just downloaded them and I was playing those songs and I started like lip-syncing to it like over the top, just ridiculous.
Because at the time, there were some viral videos of people lip-syncing to things.
They were like lip-syncing to Backstreet Boys in like a very serious way where they were kind of like doing, it looked like they were doing karaoke.
And I was like, what if we just kind of tune that to 11?
Yeah, like that flash animation over the top kind of comic book brought to life style.
And Ian and I did that and I edited, stayed up all night editing it and we just laughed together, making all those cuts.
And it's so funny, even looking back at the editing software was so crude at the time.
There'd be black spaces between every cut because nothing would snap together.
And it was like, that's good.
Put it up there.
Who gives a fuck?
Would you make it with like Movie Maker?
Pinnacle.
I think it was called Pinnacle.
It was an editing software, something that does not work.
The only experience I had with editing software is Final Cut 7.
Oh, yeah.
No, I edited probably like eight years worth of smosh videos on.
Did you ever edit off tape?
Yes.
Yeah.
Oh my God.
That's the worst.
Yeah.
And you have to do playback every single second of like we recorded for like two hours and you have to play it back and be like, cool, come back in two hours and it'll be loaded on the computer.
Yeah.
That's crazy.
That was rough.
And you could hear the tape playing because it was all an internal microphone.
Yeah.
When I was in film school, they had digital at that point, but they're like, you got to learn tape because it's never going anywhere.
Oh, no, no.
Analog is here forever.
Definitely.
Wrong.
Wrong.
Yeah, we are fucking old, by the way.
We're so fucked up.
There's no way they still edit on tape now.
No, fuck, no.
They taught basically as like the, they thought.
You were like the last class, probably.
They thought it was the same as like still teaching photo students to use a dark lab.
They wanted you to have that analog experience of like having hands-on relationship with your tape, taking it off the tape, logging it, batching it, all that kind of shit.
And that went away like moments after I learned it.
Yeah, you were literally the last class.
I feel like people still do that with photography, but with internet video.
Photography, I think it's kind of, how can I explain it?
It's almost like a yoga process where it's like very, like people like to get like they meditate in the process.
They like to get in the dark room.
Well, the other thing is a lot of people treat their photos in very weird ways where they'll like double expose it or do stuff like that.
There's cool tricks you can do.
Yeah.
Well, to the layman, it's like the coolest thing ever, but to a guy who's ever used a dark room, it's like, oh, you spent 10 extra minutes on your photo.
Cool.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So at that time, there was no place to upload video on the internet really at all, unless it's E-bomb's world, which all they did was rip things off and put their URL huge on the screen.
Not salty about that.
Which they did.
It's because we got so much shit for our videos when I tried to submit it there for a little bit because I was like, that'd be sick to have our video hosted on a site where I didn't have to pay for the bandwidth.
Because at that time, if someone viewed your content, especially video, you had to pay, it was coming out of your own pocket.
So I got rejected from there.
And then we had a MySpace.
No, I had a personal MySpace page with like a couple thousand people on there.
And I hosted these little lip sync videos that we would make on my own website.
And I created this little copy paste box where it had instructions like control A, then control C, then go to your page and then go to your MySpace editing editor and go press control V. And I had all the instructions there.
And when they did that, boom, it would go to their page and it would have the instructions paste it again.
So that's how I made my own little viral chain.
And I was really, I was really, I mean, I saw that the monthly fees were like $300 one month and I had no money.
So that's why when you look at those earliest videos, it says smosh.com because I was hoping people would go to the site, click some of the ads.
I think I ended up making like $50 or $100 profit in the end, but still, you know, that wasn't bad.
We put it all back into the videos themselves.
But I did a Google search.
I was like, clearly this is being viewed.
There's no way to see where your videos were being viewed.
All I could see that I was paying a shit ton of money at the time.
And I found that our, which one was it?
Our power.
No, our Mortal Kombat theme song, Lip Sync video was uploaded to the site called YouTube and it had like 100 views, 10 comments or something like that.
And I was like, we're doing it.
Like, oh shit, you can upload to this site and you don't have to pay for it.
Yeah, they're paying for you to upload your video to their site.
Um, so then I messaged them.
I was like, Hey, we're gonna upload this ourselves.
Cool if you remove this.
And they were like, Cool, we removed the video and we uploaded ourselves.
And a couple days later, we made the Pokemon one that you just mentioned, and that blew up and went to the front page of YouTube.
And YouTube was getting all this traffic at the time.
Everyone was writing news articles.
Yeah, man.
Yeah.
Back then, it was like having your fingertips on the pulse of the planet.
Every single person that went to youtube.com saw that video on the front page.
Back then, too, like the front page was the highest viewed, right?
Like, there was no curation.
So it was just like, well, whichever video is the highest view, which they changed, I believe, very quickly.
They changed that in 2011.
There used to be a not very quickly then.
No, not very quickly.
But at that time, it was actually curated somehow.
They used to have at the bottom of each video had a little link that said recommend for front page.
And I spammed the shit out of that because I was a website designer at the time, I knew that sometimes there were flaws in these types of systems where I was going to abuse them.
And I wanted to see what would happen if I did it.
I don't know that was why it might have worked.
I like to think it worked.
How much did you fucking spam that shit?
I sat there for an hour.
I was like, I was like, this might work.
This might work.
And I don't know if it did, but it was on the front page.
And shit.
They're like, this video has been recommended one million times.
Yeah, yeah.
Doesn't even have that many views.
How did this happen?
People really must have loved it.
There was no checking or anything.
I don't know, man.
But I like to think maybe that was the reason I had any career with one hour of work.
That's now Canon.
Sure.
That's it.
Go-getters.
Sigma grind set music enters the room.
You know, boom, boom.
You rose early and you fucking rised in grind.
Grinded.
Ground.
I don't know.
The ground upside down.
I'm going to ask you a deep, impossible to answer question.
Okay.
Yeah.
I'm great at answering this question.
Someone who is so integral to the origins of YouTube and digital content.
Where do you think the future of digital content is?
That's, it literally is impossible to say.
For a while, I thought YouTube was possibly failing.
That's why I sold Smosh in 2011.
I was really nervous about what the future looked like.
And then like even live streaming popping off in 2020, I was like, oh, maybe everything's going to be live.
And then TikTok came out of nowhere.
I thought that shit was going to fail quick.
It did not.
So you're really good at predicting trends.
So good at predicting trends.
But I think.
What do you think is going to be a failure in the future?
Bet against them?
Just so I can figure it out.
Can you go back to your oh, no, no.
I mean, but I do really think that it's going to be an ecosystem now where unfortunately you're going to have to have your hand in a little bit of everything.
Yeah.
If you want to maximize it to its fullest potential.
It's like double dipping, triple dipping.
People that do live streams, you get to have the live stream and then you get to have the VODs and then you get to have the clips from the VODs.
And that's you get three different types of content maximizing that.
Yeah, live streaming is perfect for that, honestly.
Like I get to clip out for TikTok, I get to clip out for YouTube.
But you don't even do that yourself, right?
No.
You just have that's just fan uploaded content, right?
I have a lot of fan uploaded content in the Hasanab Eclipse Industrial Complex.
They're also on TikTok as well.
I mean, that's like 55 million monthly views, I think.
It's like an insane amount.
Yeah.
Like my YouTube, my YouTube channel itself gets like 25 million views a month, I think.
Which is not that great.
Or I don't know.
I think that's pretty good.
I don't know.
25 million a month is good.
Okay.
Well, I get 25 million on my main page.
Yeah.
And then the Eclipse Industrial Complex in and of itself gets like 55 million plus a month.
That's insane.
That's good for you, though.
You see it as a good, even though some people would say that's taking away.
I know that's like eating away at 55 million views that I could have on my channel.
But I don't see it that way.
I don't really care about it.
It's totally just like we have some boundaries, obviously, and some guidelines on like what everyone in the community considers to be like a faux pas.
You know, there was a channel that was like a bot farm that was trying to take advantage of this with like moist criticals clips as well.
They were doing it for XUC as well, where they were like literally DMCAing other fan channels.
Oh shit.
Yeah.
With my content.
Like, you know what I mean?
Even though I like released my IP, you know, deliberately.
And that's a big oh, no.
You know, you can't like you, you can't basically make it seem like I made the video.
That's another thing.
Like it needs to be like clearly defined as a fan channel, even though most people still don't look at that and don't realize that it is a fan channel.
And you also have to like at least link it back to my YouTube page and my Twitch is like all I ask.
I mean, before I knew, because I didn't just go to the page and like look in the bio to see, I was like, damn, Hassan has like, why is he running four different channels?
Yeah.
Like four?
That's weird he named your name channel Hasan is a thought.
There are, I think there are like there are more than 200 fan channels.
Some of them range from like 30 subscribers all the way to a lot of them ranging at like the five to 10k to some that are verified by YouTube that are not affiliated with me.
They're fan channels.
Yeah, when you look at Hasanab Eclipse, like daily Doso Hasanabi, Hasanab Eclipse, like some are verified.
Some are verified, yeah.
I have also literally duked it out with YouTube to make it so that like, you know, they don't get demonetized.
Yeah.
Do you think there's so many because people hear that you encourage it?
I think that, yeah, I think that there, that is a reason for that.
And you see it as a positive because it's getting more of your stuff out there to, you know, more eyes.
My goal ultimately was to always reach as broad as an audience as possible.
Yeah, yeah.
And so that was like, I see this as a benefit.
It's kind of the viral video approach, you know?
Like, well, yeah, what the viral video, like, obviously the fame and fortune that comes along with it is great, but like, I also have an overarching goal of like, you know, spreading my message as far as possible.
Like, I do want people to watch it and go, oh, I hadn't really think it.
I haven't really thought about it like that.
You know, that really changed my mind.
So if that's my goal, then yeah, I don't give a shit if people like literally steal my talking points or anything.
Like, that's what some people will say.
They'll be like, oh, this sounds like you.
And I'm like, I don't, that's great.
You know, I want to.
That's good.
That's what you want.
You want more people to be talking about the things that you're talking about.
Exactly.
And have a shared perspective.
So, you know, it's doing something that I would otherwise want.
Yeah.
And a lot of people want, you know, their thoughts to be, to live on and to be, you know, start discussions and allowing people to rip off your content.
It's yeah.
What do you watch on YouTube?
I'll give you an example of my secret pleasure.
I like hoof grooming videos.
Just cleaning the hoofs of various things.
They manage like the abscesses.
And it's like, it's almost like a pimple popping video.
It's kind of got that effect of like kind of a deep sense of stress relief.
Like it's gross, but also a little satisfying.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because you're ungrossing it.
Yes.
They're fixing it.
Yeah.
Fixing the gross thing.
Fixing the gross thing.
What do you have anything like that that you're watching?
I watch the strangest things.
Usually when I put on YouTube, I'm like, I'm ready to sit down and watch like a long, relaxing thing.
So there's this channel, I think it's pronounced Liziki.
And Liziki.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, Chinese master chef.
Best girl, best girl.
Oh my God.
She's so shocked.
And it's so amazing.
And I just imagine what my life would be like if I could live like that.
And even though she's doing so much hard work, manual labor, all these things, like spending hours making food, months making a certain dish, essentially.
I'm like, actually, it's reminding me that, you know, it can be relaxing to do things that I otherwise might find stressful, you know?
Yeah.
No, her, her.
People say it's CCB propaganda.
I'm like, fucking, I don't give a shit.
I don't give a shit if it is.
Yeah, I love that.
I want to live in the Chinese rural village.
Yes.
And then also Kurt Skazakt, you know, for those educational videos.
They're animated videos that take one topic.
That's kind of an absurd thing.
Like, I mean, I can't think of any off the top of my head.
I don't consume any YouTube for fun.
Really?
It's all work?
Do you consume any at all?
Just none.
Nah, not searching.
That's wrong.
You just talked about Lizzie.
That's wrong.
He's saying that he doesn't watch any videos for fun off of his stream.
Yeah.
But he's streaming 11 hours a day.
True.
So he's watching videos for him.
Yeah, I watch almost all of it is watching videos.
But when it comes down to like, you know, when I turn off the stream and I sit back, I kick back, I'm not growing up.
I'm not a YouTube app.
No, that's not true.
I watch anime.
I watch anime.
I watch movies.
I watch TV shows.
I never will turn on YouTube and be like, let me watch my favorite YouTube channel.
I feel like whenever I pull up YouTube in my free time, for the most part, I am just kind of seeing what the environment is looking like.
What types of videos are on the trending page?
What types of videos are popping up and recommended to me?
Watching Without Growing Up00:09:11
I watch a lot of New York Jets content.
Oh, big time.
You literally, while we were going live on the podcast, we're watching a clip.
I was watching Rich Eisen.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Is that sports?
Anytime sports.
Yeah, that's sports.
My brain hit out.
My brain stacked out.
No, not interested.
You're in the fucking drunk crowd, bro.
You're fully jetted up.
I just want to be honest about what I'm doing.
I also watch Jets content on the elliptical at the gym.
Yeah.
Nice.
Yeah, yeah.
You're like, go team.
We'll just draft speculation.
I know there's so much more to it than just like throwing the ball.
When you are a fan of a bad sports team, it's always like hope for tomorrow.
Yeah.
So it gives you something to look forward to.
Yeah.
It's like political content where you just keep watching different videos until you find the take that best suits your hope and ambition.
Then you go, that's what's going to happen.
Even though you know it's not.
Even though you live in a hellscape and the jets.
So that's when we all thought Bernie was going to win for one second.
Bernie Sanders is the Jets.
Yeah.
You're the rich Eisen of socialism.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You just pull hope.
I have no idea what that means.
That's okay.
Okay.
Yeah.
JETS, Jess, yes, yes, baby.
You mentioned legacy.
We want your legacy to be on the internet.
Good God.
I'm just throwing, I'm just throwing six shades of shit.
Yeah, yeah.
Let's see.
Shit.
Should I refer to my notes?
Let's see.
My legacy.
How do you want people to remember what you've made on the internet?
I guess, you know, there's two different sides to the top.
There's lots of different type of content that I want to make.
You know, there's the content that I make now, deep conversations with people.
Sometimes we get into philosophical conversations.
Sometimes we just talk about things in a vulnerable way that most people aren't always comfortable talking about.
I want people when they watch that stuff to just kind of have their wheels turning afterward to think like, oh, am I, you know, suppressing something?
If I talk about something like this openly, am I going to feel better?
Like watching people have these kinds of open conversations, I hope will encourage others to have open conversations about themselves and be vulnerable or might consider therapy or like even getting into different parts of their history that may have shaped them and why they think and do the things that they do.
Let's open that up.
What would you ask us?
I've interviewed this fucker.
I've already done it.
Yeah.
Okay.
You have an ability to make fun things bad.
I watched you watch the same show that I watch, The Joe Shmo Show, and you managed to suck all the joy out of it.
That's not true.
People loved it.
No, they love you.
But I watched it.
I was baffled.
You're like a Debbie Downer.
No.
Yes.
No, I was having so much fun with Matt.
Bring the mood down.
Okay.
Go on.
What was it?
What was the question?
So when I've changed the way I do it a little bit since I interviewed you, Hassan, but when I get on a pre-interview call with someone, I kind of rapidly go through the different types of topics that I'm that I'm hoping to talk about with them.
But the one thing that's a little bit open-ended that I usually integrate into the final interview is I would say, like, are there any moments from your childhood or, you know, just growing up in general that you think shaped you or made an impact that has lasted with you to this day?
And then we kind of usually get there.
So like.
And I was in my English lab at Blair Academy.
I saw a video on YouTube.
I thought you were going to say the porn thing.
But you have a video that you said you made.
What was it?
Naughty Neff?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
The fake adult website.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which, by the way, people say that a lot of different creators say that that early stuff that we were doing made some impact or encouraged them to do what they do.
And it just does not resonate with you.
Yeah, you don't own it.
To the point where you say it, I'm like, interesting.
Why don't you own it?
I feel like it's just hard for me to, I don't know if it's just that, I don't know if it's imposter syndrome or what, but it's a little bit of like.
Not me.
Not this motherfucker.
You are a Debbie Downer.
Your vibes are fucked, dude.
Fuck it or out.
Go on.
Sorry.
No, no, you're good.
Yeah, it's a little bit like, I feel like if it wasn't what I was doing, it would have been someone else anyway.
So it's not really like that big of a moment.
Like, I don't know.
So I have an interesting thing that I believe in.
It's like one of the few little bits of mysticism that I keep in mind.
Okay.
There is a South African deity that they believe in called Spiritus Munday.
And Spiritus Munday is a like a, and I might be botching this, but this is how it was told to me by my drunk South African friend.
It's like a, it's like a spirit of inspiration.
Okay.
Spiritus Munday gives us all good ideas.
Spiritus Munday is very fickle, very bitter.
And if you don't act on that good idea, it takes it and gives it to someone just close enough to you that you have to see it succeed.
Oh, okay.
And I've experienced that in my life, I feel like.
Do you have any examples that you would feel comfortable saying?
Of a good idea that I saw just take flight somewhere else.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I can think of a few, but I think it's like something that everyone experiences where you have an idea and you're like, oh, that'd be great.
And then you see it flourish.
So like to a certain extent, yes, I'm sure someone else would have cornered the market on kind of the first very whimsical smash sketch on YouTube, but it was you.
Yeah.
Still, my brain shuts down a little bit when I'm like, I'm like, yeah, no, it's, it's, it's really interesting.
I feel like one thing that I have always been really good at is if I have an idea, I feel like I can't not do it.
Really?
It eats at me.
It's all I think about.
Where do you think that comes from?
Does that come from the agoraphobic home life and kind of like this want to escape?
I think it's a little bit.
Yeah, you know, I think it is a little bit of like, I think growing up, I always wanted to say to my mom, like, I just destroyed this very expensive setup.
No, no, no.
That part breaks all the time.
Okay.
That is kind of cool, though.
I don't know how that's picked up.
I got my tricks, okay?
Is the audio still fine on Will's mic, by the way?
Okay, perfect.
I do think it's from that.
I think it was a little bit of me wishing I could, because my mom would tell me all these things that she wanted to do.
She wanted to go out.
She wanted to be able to get the job at the preschool down the street.
She wanted to do all these things.
And I wanted to just be like, just do it.
Please, just do it.
You know, you know, the steps.
And I, I, in my own head, I'd be like, I'd work backwards.
I'd be like, okay, then you have to do this first and then that second and then that third and then fourth, you do it.
Like that's, we just, you have to do it.
And it's like this innate drive that I can't help but just want to see the things that are in my mind come to fruition.
And I think it did come from that experience that at the time I considered a really negative experience.
Yeah.
I hated growing up in a house feeling trapped.
And it's really cool now being able to look back and see all the ways that it's motivated me to.
Well, that always seems to be the case, right?
Is that trauma is more formative than good things, which is kind of ironic.
Yeah.
Speaking of things that you want to come to fruition that you internalize and you drum up, this is a classic Will Nev question that I'm going to ask you.
What's a piece of content that you wish you could make that would define your legacy and that people would look back at and say, that's Anthony Padilla.
Yeah, what's it look like?
Is it a movie?
Is it a song?
Is it a one-man, two-hour stage show?
It's so hard because I feel like there's not ever one piece of anything that could ever actually define anyone.
And I think in the history books, we think that's the way it is.
We're like, this thing happened.
And then that was what this person is known for.
And that's what we teach when in reality, they had all these little details in their life that are actually wanted to be, though.
All right, fine.
Play the game, goddammit.
Broke it down, dude.
Broke down your...
I think, God, I can't say exactly what it would be, but I could say the elements.
I think it would be something that, you know, in the same way you were inspired by our crude lip sync video, it would be something that could inspire people that watch like, let's say it was like an hour and a half piece of content that felt like a movie.
I'd want to do it on like a very, very, very low budget just to show anyone that they could do it if they wanted to as well.
And it would be something that would, you know, on the surface, just appear entertaining.
But then, you know, the takeaway, I would want people to kind of have it ruminate in their mind.
And then they can, I would want it to kind of catch people off guard and be like, oh shit, I didn't realize that this is a value that it was teaching me.
Embracing Physical Discomfort00:10:19
It was something that taught me, you know, something that I'm having a more and more firm belief is that aging is something that really happens more so in our mind and also from a lack of, you know, keeping up our physical body.
So, you know, like I'm 35 and people just say it.
It's hot.
Very hot.
Very hot.
For all of you at home.
He's as hot as he looks on camera.
Yeah.
Even hotter.
Strikingly hot.
So, you know, and people are like, oh, I'm getting into my 30s.
Of course, my knee hurts.
Of course, my back hurts.
What do you do to keep, what do you do to keep yourself?
Yoga.
So actually, I want to get back.
I want to do yoga.
I've got really inspired by seeing people.
Actually, my tattoo artist, I started following her on Instagram and she does these crazy yoga poses.
And I was so impressed because this is all hand poke.
And it was like, it was spread over a lot of my body.
How much time is that?
It was two eight hour sessions and one six hour session.
So she just had so much stamina the whole time.
And I was, I was like, because she was also in her 30s, but she looks damn good.
And I was like, there's got to be some kind of, kind of, some kind of secret here.
And I, I started kind of observing and she does this, the most insane yoga poses, like it's nothing.
And she's fit as hell.
Limber.
Just very limber.
And also I interviewed contortionists and one of the contortionists talked a lot about how, you know, she, she wasn't just like born like with a bendy body.
She had to just train and train and train.
And, you know, it made me realize that in my head, I thought that there was this physical wall, this limitation, like, oh, I just can't do that.
So why bother?
Oh, it hurts when I move down and try to touch my toes.
That's just the way it is.
But I'm realizing that it's just comes from a lack of pushing your body, kind of like the discomfort, you know?
So I've started to welcome a little bit of discomfort that I used to view as pain.
And in the process of getting like a hand poke tattoo, there was a lot of that as well, of getting in the mind of like, oh, I'm welcoming this.
This isn't actually pain.
This is discomfort.
And in my mind, I saw discomfort and pain as the exact same thing.
And, you know, I realized that there really is a mindset that is a difference there.
So, you know, I've started stretching more.
I started, I want to be able to do some insane yoga shit.
He can palm the ground now.
Oh, I showed him.
I showed him.
I had to show someone.
The ground?
Yeah, without bending my knees.
Whoa.
Yeah.
I think I can do that.
I see it.
Palm the ground?
Yeah.
Without bending down.
Bending your knees, though.
Yeah.
Can you?
Wait, you didn't bend your knees at all?
No.
Bro, he bended a little bit.
But still, that looks easy.
You made that look easy.
You opened up.
He opened up full standards.
Oh, wait, do legs together.
Feet together.
It's a little harder.
A little harder.
Yeah, you didn't quite palm the ground.
Okay, let's see.
Let's see.
Legs together.
Big Hank Parker.
Big Hank Parker, but I'm double jointed.
You guys better thank me.
Are you the throat?
Oh, that's a bad.
Also, legs together.
Yeah, you call me out.
I know.
I just died a bit.
But let feet together.
Yeah.
Yeah.
See?
See, it's hard.
It's hard.
It's hard.
Yeah, it's hard.
It's tough.
But I can't.
We just got our first physical demonstration on FearN podcast.
And I feel better already.
We do physical demonstrations.
Oh, yeah.
But that's usually behind the paywall.
Oh, yeah.
Fearand.com slash Patreon, which we will get to in a little bit.
I mean, a patreon.com slash fear and which we will get to in a second.
Plug, plug, plug, baby.
Are you a vegetarian?
Yeah, I'm vegan.
Dude, something about a hand poke tattoo gave that away.
What?
For real?
Yeah.
10 years.
He was talking about discomfort and pain.
You got to eat through the discomfort.
Shit, I don't remember where I was going with it.
But, you know, I've just been kind of trying to remind myself, oh, yeah, back to aging.
You know, and I want to be an example for my parents, you know, because it's a lot of, oh, well, I'm just, I'm in my 50s now.
That's just the way it is.
And I want to be able to show them that, you know, if I can do it, they can too.
You know, if I could get more limber kind of, because the more that I stretch and work out, the more that I actually feel, I feel like I feel like 10 years younger than I did like two years ago.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
And it's a huge piece of that.
Oh, yeah.
And interviewing contortionists, it was like anyone can do it.
And she's like, oh, when I, I fell in the splits formation and I was fine, even though most people would have like ripped something.
And I was like, I want to make sure that I'm not getting injured in all these ways.
I feel like for me, it's interesting.
I think he had a similar experience.
COVID, not having COVID, but the era that was like hard lockdowns, fucked my shit up.
Like your body was fucked?
Yeah, because they locked down the gym.
They put padlocks on the playgrounds.
He didn't do pull-ups.
He couldn't go out and run.
And so I would do walks around Beverly Hills at like 4 a.m.
Like a psychopath.
He's lying.
He also did rollerblading.
I rollerbladed.
Rollerblading is sick, dude.
But I did fall.
Do not knock it till you try.
No, I'm not.
I'm just.
I never told anybody how badly I fell one night, but I fell like on a sidewalk on asphalt?
I was going down a hill pretty fast and I beefed it.
And I think I tore my rotator cuff.
Damn.
Were you wearing like any protective gear?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, not a helmet, though.
Oh.
Pinged my dome off the ground.
Did you hit your head?
Oh, yeah.
He's got a fat one, though.
He's fine.
Yeah, I got a bulbous dome.
Yeah.
Fat head.
Me too.
I have to wear a large helmet.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, me too.
You have to wear a triple XL helmet.
Yeah.
Thank you for saying that because people don't understand.
They always say I have a small head, but I don't know.
He doesn't have a small head.
You got a very broad.
Such a big body.
You just got a very big, broad body.
Okay, moving on from the COVID thing, or at least like talking about that.
What was your experience like with the lockdowns in general?
Yeah, I didn't think it was getting to me as much as it did, but something, I felt so trapped and isolated in a way where I felt like I had no right to complain.
You know what I mean?
Because so many other people had it so much worse that I was like, it's fine.
It's fine.
And I think that just in my head, I constantly had a voice just saying, it's fine.
It's fine.
It's fine.
Until, you know, I would recognize that some days I would just feel like complete shit.
I didn't want to do anything.
I didn't want to talk to anyone.
I just sat there with my internal monologue, just constantly playing about how everything is going to shit.
The world's going to shit, you know, and I, uh, it was really reflected in my content.
I started interviewing.
I spent the day with kidnapping survivors, school shooting survivors, human trafficking survivors, death row survivors.
It was all these like really, really deep, intense topics where it was, you know, there would be some positive takeaways and I'd find ways to be inspired by them.
Thankfully, I was doing the interviews at the time because I feel like talking to people who really pushed through it.
Had it way worse.
Yeah, pushed through these insanely difficult things in their life.
Like speaking to a death row survivor, someone who's on death row for 45, 50, 60 years for something that they did not do and how they get through it, you know, and they talk about the ways that they coped.
Some of them got religious.
Some of them just got into yoga.
Some of them, like the ways that they were able to stay within their mind and something that was so much more like clearly just solitary confinement compared to what I felt like COVID lockdown was solitary confinement, but they were like the definition of what that actually was.
It was a human rights abuse, human rights violation.
Yeah, isolation fragile rocks the mind so hard.
Did you guys have difficulty through that time period as well?
Absolutely.
The thing is, like in the same way that you found solace through interviewing people.
Yeah.
I did the same thing.
I just streamed 42% of the entire year.
I was in front of a camera for the entire year.
That's not even including sleeping, right?
That's separate.
No, just separately.
The rest of it was sleeping.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it was basically just sleep, wake up, and then stream.
Yeah.
And that's what I did to keep myself focused, to have a shared perspective, have a community that I could rely on.
Did you still feel isolated, though?
Because I was doing my interviews remotely.
And there's a difference in communicating with people, even if it's the same exact conversation via screen.
There's something about reading body language and minute little details that you just do not.
No, it's not the same.
It's definitely not the same.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It doesn't hit the same.
My brother died during the isolation part of COVID.
And so I was streaming a lot too.
I would stream a lot.
Then I would do VR a lot.
I did so much VR.
But I would get really ill.
I would get very emotion sick.
Oh, yeah.
So I would get done at like four in the morning.
And as I said, I would just go walk around Beverly Hills like a psychopath.
I'm sure there were families that have CCTV footage of me just walking around or rollerblading.
This guy's scoping out.
You're a killer for sure.
Be on the lookout for the rollerblading.
Yeah.
Could you visit your brother?
No, no, no, no.
There was not even a funeral because of like when it happened.
That's just broken.
It was not great.
Yeah, yeah.
My uncle passed also during that time.
And it was like, it was so.
I cannot imagine like, you know, especially like if you're isolated in a hospital setting and you just have machines around you and sterile environment.
Like again, that's like the feelings I was feeling with COVID, but amped up to a thousand.
I cannot even imagine.
Therapeutic Rollerblading Stories00:01:50
Yeah.
All right.
Let's move on to something a little bit lighthearted, subject-wise.
Actually, I lied.
We're going to be talking about deep dark secrets, but I think on that note, we can end the unpaywalled portion of the podcast here and move on to the juicy stuff.
I have a couple questions that might not even make it into the paywalled portion if you're uncomfortable.
Because I'm going to ask you to cut them out.
Yeah, maybe.
I'm not even kidding.
Okay, I'll sit back.
I have some questions lined up for you.
But where can people find you, Anthony?
You could find me on all social media platforms, Anthony Padilla, OneWord, P-A-D-I-L-L-A, Padilla, like Tortilla.
Yeah.
I have to say it.
Yeah.
You can say Padilla if you want.
That's what I say usually.
Yeah.
You know, like Case Dilla.
Yeah.
Jalapano.
I don't know why.
I just find it so funny to say it.
So satisfying.
You're almost perfectly lined up with a Trump hat back there.
I can hear it.
Hell yeah, brother.
That.
Well, you can find the rest of the episode, the paywall proportion, at patreon.com slash free your hand.
And we'll see you on the next one.
See you there.
I think this might be one of my favorite episodes.
I was about to say this has been one of the most personal.
That was so fun.
And one of the best episodes we've shot for sure.
Did you guys learn anything about yourselves?
About the world.
About your way of thinking.
But I think.
I think it's always therapeutic to voice things that you can.
Yeah.
I'm going to be honest.
Usually the spicy content is us, you know, saying something perverse or getting something out of it.
It's interesting that we both kind of revealed things about our careers that we had never previously.