October 11, 2025 • 57 mins
Our guests this week come from Fanbase.com!
Isaac Hayes III – Entrepreneur, music producer, and son of soul legend Isaac Hayes. He has raised over $22M through equity crowdfunding, making Fanbase one of the largest Black-founded crowdfunding campaigns in history.
Tamisha Harris – Veteran TV news producer with an insider view of how stories are shaped and suppressed. She brings a powerful call to action for Black media to protect their narratives and audiences.
We discuss the role that social media plays in the division of this country…how content creators have key positions in shaping public opinion, and how Black-owned media ensures that Black perspectives are properly platformed.
Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/civiccipher?utm_source=search
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to
welcome you to another episode of Civic Cycer, where our
mission is to foster allyship empathy and understanding. I am
your host, Rams's job. Big shout out to Qboard in
the studio with us. Right now, we have a couple
of special guests joining us for today's conversation, Isaac Hay's
the Third and Tamisha Harris. We will give them full
(00:20):
introductions in just a quick tick, but just know that
we are having a conversation about media in the United
States and particularly a black media emergency. We are really
excited to get into the weed, so stay tuned for
a thorough, in depth conversation discussing all the goings on
with respect to the FCC, with respect to black media,
(00:42):
and with respect to what you can do to make
a difference. And now, without further ado, our conversation with
Isaac Hay's the Third and Tamisha Harris. Isaac Hayes the
third entrepreneur, music producer and son of soul legend Isaac Hayes.
He has raised over twenty two million dollars through equity crowdfunding,
making fan base one of the largest black founded crowdfunding
(01:05):
campaigns in history. To Misha Harris is a veteran TV
news producer with an insider view of how stories are
shaped and suppressed. She brings a powerful call to action
for black media to protect their narratives and audiences. And
they are our guests today. All right, So Isaac Hayes
(01:28):
and Tamisha Harris, welcome to the show. Let's get started. Isaac,
I know that you've been on the show before, but
for our newer listeners, people that are just coming to
the conversation, people that may not yet be familiar with
fan Base, let's revisit your background just a bit, a
little bit more in depth from what it is that
(01:50):
I had in the introduction.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Oh Man, I wanted to build in twenty eighteen. I
wanted to build a social media platform that disrupted the
distribution of content by democratizing the distribution of content to
every person on the planet, so that anybody could be
their own version of a Hulu or a Netflix or
a Disney Plus by having subscribers.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
And that was the birth of fan Base. No app
really did that.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
In the social media format, using InApp purchase capability like
Apple Pay and Google Pay. So subsequently, almost every social
media platform now allows the users in some way to
subscribe using InApp purchase capability. But the differences those platforms
shadow band and suppress the users, and so all of
your following never sees your content. And so the difference
(02:38):
between fan Base and everyone else is we're not here
to sensor people. We're not here to suppress your content,
limit your viewing. And so that was kind of like
the journey of fan Base. And then I wanted people
to own the platform and have equity in it, because
all these big billionaires and wealthy people over and over
again keep owning these social media platforms, and I wanted
something that everybody could own. So we did equity crowdfunding,
(03:00):
and we've been pretty successful. We've done four rounds of
equity crowdfunding and we've raised over twenty three million dollars
and we're coming to the tail end of our fourth crowdfund.
We've raised seventeen million dollars and so we were over
thirteen million dollars raised and we want to close this
round as soon as possible.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Absolutely, all right, and Ta Misha, this is your first
time to the show, and obviously we gave you a
brief introduction, but please, for our listener's sake, expound a bit,
just so that they have an idea of who they'll
be listening to today.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (03:34):
So, I'm Tamisha Harris. I'm a news producer of produced
news for about fifteen years now. I've worked forward every network.
And what does that mean? A news producer? So that
is the person who chooses the stories that go on
air that you watch. We assign the correspondence, We find
(03:56):
out what the president's agenda is, and we send course
bondings to wherever he is, wherever the stories are, and
we decide what order the stories will go in in
the newscast.
Speaker 6 (04:12):
So, Isaac, when we are introducing something new to people,
we often have to take what they might be familiar
with to describe what it is that we're doing different.
I want to give us an opportunity to not make
the low hanging fruit comparisons to what's already out there.
I'd rather start with what makes us different and what
(04:35):
makes fan base in my opinion better. When you're talking about,
you know, your competitors, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, why fan base?
If I'm a new user who might want to try
the platform.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Well, a couple of reasons.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
We're moving into an airin now where these platforms are
been gobbled up by these large right wing institutions that
will start the service or continue you to serve the
larger audience propaganda. And it really you know, again, social media,
it's supposed to be fun. And I think because of
(05:09):
the power social media, the effectiveness of being able to
communicate with large groups of people faster than anything on earth,
people see it as a tool and it's become a tool.
And so I don't mind fan base being the best
of both worlds. But this is a black founded platform,
and especially for the black community, we have to own
(05:32):
assets and vehicles that allow us to get information out
to our community. I think there's been an attack on
just black culture and black people period in this country,
you know, giving us new administration with trying to you know,
they're trying to wipe slavery out of books, and you know,
they're trying to roll back holidays and take stuff out
of museums and just act like black people never existed.
(05:54):
And so I don't expect anything different from the platforms
that exist already. Now that been the need of Trump
and idolize him to act the same way. So I
expect black culture to be diminished since they're exploited on
all these other platforms. And so fan base is not
that I am not a tool of any political party
at all. I'm something that people can use to communicate,
(06:19):
have fun, be creative, and then on top of that,
make money and own.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
I recognize that social media has taken center stage in
shaping the way of the world, and traditional media legacy
media has shifted in terms of its relationship to social media.
In other words, with traditional media legacy media, there's typically
(06:49):
a robust social media armed to that. Tamisha, I want
to get your thoughts first, and then Isaac, I want
to get your thoughts next. Tamisha discussed role of legacy
media in particular and the role that they have played
in terms of the political division in this country, and
(07:10):
then Isaac, I'm gonna go to you to follow up
with social media.
Speaker 5 (07:18):
So one thing that I noticed this is such a
great question, because one thing I noticed with the left
leaning networks that I've worked for, once Trump was out
of office and Biden was in office, we were like, oh,
thank god, now we can get.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
More news in.
Speaker 5 (07:43):
News that does not focus on the Trump administration, and
that did not happen. We still ran every story that
we could about Trump. And so what that told me
was what it told all of us, is this is
what makes money. It doesn't matter that this man is
(08:05):
out of office when he was out of office. It's
what our advertisers paying for. And I think that legacy
media had a lot to do with this man being
re elected. Regardless of what side uh they we were on,
we had a lot to do with the with him
(08:27):
being reelected because when you put him the stories about
Trump or Trump adjacent in the news, that's.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
Just giving him more and more promotion.
Speaker 5 (08:36):
And so what part do we play in the in
the division of it, You know, a lot. We play
a big part in it. I think media takes plays
a big part. People are going to choose their sides,
and you know, that's just what it is. Wherever the money,
(09:00):
wherever the money goes, that's where media will go.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
And Isaac, your thoughts on the role that social media
has played in you know, recent years in so far
as politics is concerned.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
I think it's been enormously powerful. I think it's been
underutilized by many people and I've been saying for years,
like even even in twenty seventeen, I was like, people
aren't looking at televisions, They're looking down at their phone,
and it's where your eyeballs are, and it's it's the
speed in which you could communicate and actually even you know,
(09:40):
kind of organize, you know, I think that social media
should be used to organize vorder registration or organize you know,
going out to vote, or communicating with different you know,
different groups about particular issues that matter most to your community.
And so it's an underutil live tool. But I think now,
(10:02):
I think the Democratic Party has dropped the ball per
se on not recognizing the power of these platforms, and
Conservatives have gone and bought the exes of the world.
They have true social They've basically acquired TikTok. Now you
have a meta with Instagram and Facebook definitely you know,
(10:25):
aligning themselves with whatever Trump wants to do. And so
they they figured it out, and I think it'll be
really hard unless there are new versions or new social
media platforms that arise that are just it's an app.
It's not supposed to be you know, for one party
or another party. It's just supposed to be a platform
(10:46):
where people can communicate, have discourse, and have fun, and
so I love the ability for discourse to happen. I think,
you know, the conflict and difference of the opinion that
people have are conversations that need to happen when it's
just an echo chamber of one side or the other.
And that's kind of what it feels like nowadays on
(11:07):
these apps. We need new apps, we need new platforms
that people can utilize and have those conversations.
Speaker 6 (11:16):
No, an interesting thing happened in the wake of the
demise and the assassination of Charlie Kirk. I've always heard
about what the algorithm does to us, to our fee,
to what we consume, but I didn't realize how invasive
it was until I started getting messages from people that
(11:37):
I know, from people that I consider friends, who were
deeply troubled by how this kind hearted God and Jesus
loving man had met his demise, And they had no
idea what I was talking about when I told them
about the different messaging and the different things that he
(11:57):
stood for. So when we look could online radicalization, is
the algorithm doing that to us? Is the president to
blame for that? Like what's happening where people are actually
not getting full pieces of information, We're looking at the
same story at the same time, but getting very very
(12:18):
different versions of it.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Well, I'll say I'll start with I'll actually start with
the actual incident itself. Social media is heavily censored, and
any type of violence usually is pulled down.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Off these platforms.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
But if you notice that particular incident was allowed to
sit on social media platforms in every form. I've never
seen somebody be executed and it just sit up on
social media everywhere, And it was left up there for
a reason. So if everybody's seeing that, if everybody's seeing
that action take place, it's left up there for a
reason because that could easily I mean, these platforms are
(12:56):
now AI automated with violence. They know exactly what these
things are and they could tell them mediately. So one
I think that was left up there for a reason
so that people could see that and form this opinion
one way or another about that about the the the
assassination of Charlie Kirk, right, I think they were able
to form that opinion in that instance. Even like even
(13:18):
prime example, let's take for instance, like even when when uh,
when George Floyd was murdered. A lot of a lot
of social media platforms will blur his image out, or
blur the knee out, or blur all that up. So
I'm like, that's that. That's that part right there, is
like they don't want you to see the brutality, but
for whatever reason in this instance, people wanted to see.
(13:38):
They wanted these platforms wanted that brutality to be seen.
And so you got to think about that in itself
of why did people want people to see this violent act?
And then after the fact, what opinions are formed that
people saw that. Because I don't believe anybody should be
murdered for their beliefs, right for they for what they
what they say. But I think that it's dangerous that
(14:01):
we were allowed to see that over and over again,
young people, you know, kids being able to see that,
and then what that did to the algorithm and how
that created all the derivative content of people having an
opinion about Charlie Kirk one way or another. But it
elevated him to a conversation that was larger than anything
(14:21):
that I've ever seen in quite a long time.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Tamisha, I want to go back to you and then
of course I'm gonna get your thoughts as well, Isaac.
But you know, you mentioned something earlier about, you know
the role that legacy media had played in post Trump's
first presidency during the Biden administration, still amplifying all the
(14:48):
rhetoric and the moves and maneuvers and whatnot that were
coming from Trump's camp.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
And I'm curious as to.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
What difference perhaps black owned media outlets could have made
had there been more in the way prominent black owned
media outlets, And Isaac, just to preface this, I'm going
to shift to you having a black owned social media outlet,
the one that I believed to be very powerful. But
(15:22):
first let's get an idea of what a black owned
legacy media outlet could do so that we can get
our listeners familiar with exactly the power that is wielded
when that's owned and the power that doesn't exist when
it's not.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
So to me, share your thoughts.
Speaker 5 (15:41):
So, I used to work for MSNBC and I did
a special that lives on Peacock right now. It's called
Black Men in America The Road to twenty twenty four,
And that particular special, we traveled across the country talking
(16:02):
to black men about their issues leading up to the
twenty twenty four election. And I think that it was
a really strong preview of what black media can do
to educate because we were able to talk to black Republicans,
and we were able to talk to independents and Democrats
(16:23):
and people who don't identify with any political affiliation whatsoever.
But I think it was I think it's important for
us to hear everyone's perspective and to learn what people
what their concerns are, particularly black men in this in
this instance, but the role of black media, we would
(16:48):
be able to hear and educate people. A lot of
people don't go to the White House, don't go to
white House dot gov and learn with this administration what
any administration is doing. So they'll say they'll just go
by whatever they're hearing on social media. Oh, well, the
Biden administration is doing this or is not doing that,
(17:08):
or the Trump administration is doing this and not doing that,
or any administration. But when we have black media, we
can extract that information and then we can focus in
on how this impacts our particular community, our families. And
that's important because when it's time to vote, we need
(17:30):
to understand who we were voting for and why, because
there was a lot of well you hear, we heard
there were a lot of black men voting for Trump,
which that was not the case. But when you are
consumed by rumors, that begins to fuel how you vote. So,
(17:50):
even though it was not true, there were people who
went to vote for Trump because they thought that's what
everybody else was doing. Black men or black women who
vote for Trump because that's what they thought everyone else
was doing when that wasn't the truth. So the role
of black media is to make sure that we are
delivering the right information to our people with urgency.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
That's our role, Isaac, your thoughts, because you've spoken about
this quite a bit and i'd love to get you know,
some of your reflections on record for our listeners.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Well, I'm a little disappointed in black media, not you guys, though,
but I think that they're I think we are all
faced with the issue do we want views or listeners
or do you want to disseminate information?
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Right and.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
With the way that legacy media, especially black journalists, have
been either removed from the platform from legacy media platforms
or having their voices for being fired or whatever, we
have to pick up the slack on social media, and
there's a lot of black OneD media that exists in
(19:09):
the digital space, but I feel like they spend more
time talking about the clickbaity pop culture things and not
necessarily utilizing the platform to disseminate real information. I don't
mind that you do both, because again, we're going to
hear both. If there's something that's really affecting black community,
then I need to hear about that, and that goes
(19:30):
all the way to the social media platform that goes
to media sites that exist on social media. So I know,
I know we're going to hear about the beef between rappers,
and we're going to hear about, you know, whatever the
pop culture story is. But also at the same time,
if we have to understand that if a lot of
black women are losing their jobs, if there are if
(19:51):
there's legislation and that's being passed in particular states that
could harm black people just based off what they say,
Like a friend of mine and consciously said that there's
legislation that they're trying to pass in Texas that if
you use social media to commit a crime, if it
has to do with drugs or anything like that then
(20:14):
it actually adds more time or escalates the charge.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
So I don't think people know that.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
So if you're one of these dudes that's you know,
posting drugs on your social media platform, or you are
deeming somebody even if you dm somebody to go buy
some drugs, you're actually actually quadrupling the time or adding
more time. And they know that that's what young black
people are probably doing. They're probably using social media, so
that in itself is something that can harm black people.
But I don't hear any black media talking about that saying, look,
(20:44):
you guys need to if you guys need to stop
talking on social media about the stuff that you're doing,
because now there's a long place they're trying to pass
along to Texas that actually even overcriminalizes you for the
stuff that you're doing just because you're using social media
to do it.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
And that's the role of black media.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
I understand, we're gonna we're gonna say the funny, entertaining
things that we love, but we also have to use
this to understand that it is a tool to disseminate
information to black people. And I don't know at what
point the black community will will come out of this
fog and not think that it won't happen.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
I think it's so subtle.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
I think, you know, the rollback of rights and opportunity
for black people. I think it's happening so subtly that
by the time he realized it, it's going to be
way too late. Absolutely, I don't think. But I don't
think black people really think that. Oh, Like like if
I if I were to tell you guys right now,
like I really I'm not joking, but I really think
(21:40):
they're trying to bring slavery back, and somebody would laugh,
like they not try to do that.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Because I've been.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
I've been a person that's responded that way myself to
some of the things that Tamisha has talked about.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
I'm like, not gonna do that. Literally, Like we were.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
Having this conversation the other day when when when Jimmy Kimmel,
when these those station stop airing Jimmy Kimmel, She's like, oh,
they're about to pull him off the air, and I'm like,
say not and then they and then by the time
I can refresh my phone, he was fired from ABC.
And I don't think people understand like, oh, this is real,
Like they're not playing, and so black people need to
(22:17):
realize while we're listening to these rap beefs and these
rap songs, we're doing dance challenges and we're having all
this great fun, they're changing laws that ship away the
rights of black people, and that puts us in danger.
Speaker 6 (22:31):
So I don't want to move from here yet, because
you just brought up something that struck a nerve with me.
Being in the spaces that we're in. All of our
friends do not consume information in the way that we do.
They are not as informed as we are. So when
you say things like they might bring slavery back, they
think you're being dramatic, hyperbolic, and just talking out of
(22:53):
your rear end. Except we're paying attention and the clever
thing that they've done because it's not that they been subtle, Isaac,
it's that they've been disguising those stripping away of riots
and liberties as someone else's problem. They're doing it to
someone else, and the rest of us are just watching,
not realizing that these things impact all of us.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
You brought up, Jimmy.
Speaker 6 (23:15):
Kimmel, we're in some pretty unprecedented times. Right as we
were getting to the end of the election, cycle, I
told ramsays, you know, if that dude wins, what we
do for a living might be illegal. And I think
everyone thought I was being dramatic and hyperbolic when I
said that. And now you look around and we are
(23:37):
on the precipice of being called the Black Information Network
might be something that's illegal soon. Talking about talking negatively
about this administration might be illegal soon. But when you
see companies like YouTube settling suits where they haven't been
found to have done anything wrong and still saying here,
(24:00):
take this money to Mesha, I'm going to start with
you and Isaac, and I got to hear from you too.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
Man, what do we do in this space? Like what
does this mean for us?
Speaker 6 (24:10):
Might we still have a show that we can have
you come on and talk about the things that we're
doing in the next few months as this administration is
showing if you disagree with me, if you don't pledge
allegiance to me, I do kind of have the power
to erase you. And I think that's something that people
would have thought was ridiculous nine months ago.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
Man, that's such a great point.
Speaker 5 (24:35):
Will you have a platform, Maybe not if it's named
the Black Information Network, because that may be illegal.
Speaker 4 (24:43):
Will you have a platform.
Speaker 5 (24:45):
Not If you speak possibly not If you speak unkindly
toward the administration, you may be sued. That is why
I went to Isaac and I said, we need fan
base because I was seeing everything happening and I said,
(25:05):
wait a minute. We are in deep trouble here because
this administration is coming after networks for everything. Say one
word that is not flattery toward not flattering toward to
the president, then you're going to be sued. You'll be
(25:27):
taken off air. You have anchors softening their language. We'll
put in a script and they're like, no, listen not.
I don't want to say that. I don't want it
to come out of my mouth because people are being fired.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
So that's why I said.
Speaker 5 (25:41):
When I came to Isaac, I said, okay, our only
optionist fan base.
Speaker 4 (25:45):
I didn't know Isaac at the time. A friend, Angela.
Speaker 5 (25:51):
Watts, introduced us and I said to him, this is
and I'll say it again, this is our underground railroad
when we need to get information out that is critical.
Fan base is where we need to go while we're safe.
Because it sounds, you know, it sounds alarmous, but it's
(26:14):
really not. It's really what's happening. We are not safe.
Our voices are truly being silenced. We can be sued,
whatever can happen. We can be pulled off of whatever
platform that we that were on. So that's why it's
so important to go to fan base. I have no Again,
I didn't know Isaac. There was no vested interest.
Speaker 4 (26:35):
I just know.
Speaker 5 (26:36):
I just knew there was a black social media site.
Not black because it's it's I know that it's for everyone,
but it was a social media site that was owned
by a black man, and that felt safe for me.
Looking coming from a network perspective, someone who's seeing things
from a you know, at a higher level, I would say,
(26:59):
I said, this is that, that's where we need to go.
Speaker 6 (27:01):
You know, Ojie, the first time we had a conversation
about fan Base, you were talking about building an equitable
space for creators. Being a black founder, of course, people
are going to say it's a black social media network,
even though you've made it very very inclusive and welcomed
all creators and explain to them how they can get
(27:22):
so much more of their fan base to engage with
them and even it be a more profitable endeavor for them,
But we are speaking to black creators now in this time,
same question that you know, I just asked to Misha,
what is your forecast for black creators in this current uh,
(27:43):
this current atmosphere?
Speaker 3 (27:46):
Rim I mean, you know, there is a.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
You know, attention is a heck of a drug, right,
and we kind of get real caught up in popularity
and people views and all the things that come with
being on social media. But I think we're getting into
an era right now where we need to read the
fine print on any platforms that we use. Right I
(28:12):
think we need to understand what effect does my presence
on this platform have? The ripple effect of what my
presence on this platform has for my people. So, if
I'm using a platform that is funded by people that
lobby Congress and lobby the federal government to work against
(28:35):
my best interests, should I be using that platform even
though it gives me a lot of views, even though
I get a lot of attention and all things like that.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
And that's really really hard.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
I think I always say that people really don't change
until they get angry enough or afraid enough, and so
hopefully the changes that take place on these platforms like
TikTok scare creators or piss them off enough to know,
and we don't need to be using them. And we
need to be using our own platforms, and we need
(29:05):
to be using new platforms and taking our voice and
our power someplace else. Because it's funny, our community always
screams two things that we always say, right, we're the culture.
We make everything move right, But for some reason we
don't act on that. We don't act as if we do.
We act as this the other way around. We act
(29:25):
as if the apps and what moves the culture. And
we're just lucky to be there, right, And we love
to use the phrase standing on business, right, Well, we're
the least likely to actually stand on business.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
And so.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
You got to scare people and make them mad, and
that will result in our community. And let me tell
you when that happens, I think that's the scariest thing
for this entire country is Black awareness and unity in
a way that moves like that shifts the ethos, you
(30:01):
know what I'm saying. The amount of people that downloaded,
the amount of people that downloaded Blue Sky in sixty
to sixty days to ninety days is about half of
what the Black population is in this country. If black
people did that alone, that would scare the crap out
of a lot of people. But it also wake us
up that we have the power to shift hundreds of millions,
(30:23):
if not billions of dollars in a direction that can
benefit us by something that we can own, something that
we can use, something that's not going to do censor us,
something that's going to recognize us, something that's not going
to not going to suppress our Juneteenth posts or our
post about black history, or our post posts about the
atrocities that happened in our community. That those things will
be elevated and shared. We can have dialogue around those
(30:46):
And so that's what I hope is that, you know,
the creator community gets angry enough or gets scared enough
to make that change.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
You know, being in this space where we're beholden to
the Federal Communications Commission, we have been paying particular attention
to the goings on with respect to this administration ever
since the introduction of Project twenty twenty five. There's some
(31:23):
person that I know that you've spoken highly of, and
I think that he might serve as a good example,
and i'd love to get your thoughts, Isaac this one
is for you and to mishall. Feel free to add
something if you feel so inclined. But I know that
I've heard Isaac talk about this before. Roland Martin, I think,
(31:43):
is somebody that many folks could look to. And I
just loved how you gave him his flowers for people
that might not know kind of what's going on behind
the scenes, talk about what's going on with Roland Martin
or what has been going on with Roland Martin.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
Well, well, Roland was a yarnalist that was on.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
He was on Urban one, and he was on CNN,
and he felt the need that he couldn't say what
he wanted to say the way he wanted to say it,
when he wanted to say it, how often he wanted
to say it, And so he struck out on his
own and created something called the Black Star Network, which
is a media platform, and he coupled that by using
(32:26):
YouTube as a distribution model to be able to get
his message again in people's pockets at all times. And
when he first started doing that, a lot of people, again,
as I said, are enamored with the bright lights of
being in mainstream media, right being you know, really really
powerful and being on CNN. It's like it's like an
(32:49):
artist being like, oh, I'm signed to deaf Jam right,
or I'm on Interscope. It's like I'm on CNN, I'm
on MSNBC, I'm on CBS ABC.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
It's like it's like the legacy that goes with that.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Of course, it sounds amazing and you love it and
you feel like you want to be part of that.
But in actuality those platforms are on the decline and
more people are watching what's on social media, you know,
in real time.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
It is an interesting stat ky san.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Knot at Mafia Thon and yesterday, uh, yesterday when he
had at the end of Mafia end of Mafia Thon,
he had Lebron James come on for that last segment
of Mafia Thon and he had a million concurrent viewers
watching him at that time, Like Jimmy Kimmel gets like
(33:37):
one point two million concurrent viewers. This is a young
black kid on the Internet that's having as many people
watch him as a major network site. And so when
Roland made that shift, people laughed at him and they
were like, ah, you know, that's like corny or that's
not the way. And then what happened is Roland's platform
(33:58):
started to grow. I think two things happened. Roland also
was helping during the election last year with Kamala Harris.
He had like win with black men and win with
black women, and he was, you know, really using his
platform to amplify our voices, and so his platform took off.
In fact, out of the one hundred, he's fluctuating a lot,
(34:21):
but out of the top one hundred podcasts that are
on YouTube, Roland Martin was the only one feature in
there that was doing news. Everything else might be Joe Budden,
or might be Shannon Sharp, you know, it might be
something funny.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
Again the things that were entertainment.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
But for a black media site and a black man
to have like true media because Roland doesn't hold back
in the way that he talks to him to be
in the top one hundred of YouTube's top podcasts for
months at a time speaks to what he's been able
to build. He has almost two million YouTube subscribers. I'm
really proud of him, and he's been the biggest advocate
(34:58):
and the biggest supporter of fan base from day one.
He's the only person that no matter what the situation is,
with us. He'll say add me as a collaborator to
that post. That's a big deal because he has like
a mill almost a million followers on Instagram and he
always gives us the opportunity to be on the platform.
And I know a lot of people that don't do
that and I don't, and I think everybody gets kind
(35:20):
of a little funny with their social media. They feel like,
you know how they feel about it. But Roland is
a true ally that really cares more about the message
than what it looks like.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
And I appreciate him for it.
Speaker 5 (35:32):
To your point, Isaac, when you are I get a
lot of people who pitched me and they're like, hey,
I want to come on your show because they think
just to just to your point, these networks have the
power when they are on a very sharp decline. And
if you just build your own community the same that
(35:54):
Roland as Roland did, you are the one that will
have the power.
Speaker 4 (35:59):
And so that's what I want to get people to understand.
Speaker 5 (36:02):
It's not the big networks, it's not you know, build
your own community, build your own ecosystem, and then you
will be able to make the decisions and decide who
comes on the stories that are told that's where the
real power is not what it's really just not with
these big networks anymore. Really is social media, and right
(36:26):
now it's social media. But the big thing is now
that social media is going to be government managed that
we have to figure out, we have to figure out
a different platform, which is one fan base and or
having your own platform outside of social media.
Speaker 6 (36:47):
To Misha, that's that's a perfect segue for the next
question that I wanted to ask. We spoke about the
launch strategy. The first conversation that you and I had
offline about fan basing about you know, do you have
a big celebrity come out and champion the side, or
you know, what's the best way to get the brand
and the name in front of people. And you spoke
(37:08):
to me about community versus celebrity, about the creator versus
the app and which one powers the other for potential
new users who might want to know, is it the
app that I'm on, is the content that I create?
Which one makes the other one cool? Because you know
that we are collectively Probably and I say probably because
(37:29):
people like the nitpick and use semantics against ramsen I
all the time. The coolest people in the history of
a planet Earth, I think can help determine what's cool
with regard to everything food, fashion, music, culture all over
the world, this generation of Black Americans. So with regards
to fan base, is it the creators that come to
(37:52):
that app, the community that you build, or the app
itself that creates the cool factor?
Speaker 2 (38:00):
It's it's the people. It's a community. Like it's not
even celebrities. Celebrities don't build apps, communities do.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
People do. The users are what power these platforms.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
The celebrities benefit from large groups of people being gathered
in one place, or they have the ability to move
community where they are, but there still has to be
something for the community to do once they get there.
So again I talk about this all the time. It's
like any platform, like you know, you can have I
can have the biggest celebrity in the world come on
fan base, but once that celebrity has to go shoot
(38:32):
a movie, play a game, uh you know, film a
TV show, go on tour, there has to be something
for the community there to do, and that's interact with
each other. That's like, you know, talk to each other,
share share content, and create and be a part of
each other's lives and that's the part that's really really important.
(38:54):
So yeah, community is the biggest part about around what's
going on with social media.
Speaker 3 (38:59):
What I what I know for what we do in
fan base.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
I was just having a conversation with one of our
team members today and I was talking about a couple
of new features that I wanted to bring to the platform,
and he's like, I've never no one's ever done that before.
And I'm like, bro, that's what I keep saying, is
like we have all the ideas. He's like, no one's
ever did that. He's like, Yo, we need to add
that fast. I was like, yeah, we need get money fast.
(39:24):
We need to We need somebody to We need somebody
to drop a hundred million on us, because they could.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
You could not catch us. You cannot beat us.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Because the things that are in our heads, the ideas
that we have, the way that we innovate it. Money
is the big is the big equalizer in all of
these things. Something that I said that I talked about
on one of one of one of the shows that
I I've done before is that you think about uh
(39:51):
turning point USA, right, they were getting ninety five million
dollars a year in donations just to operate.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
Imagine somebody give me.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
Imagine I might have given you, guys ninety five million
dollars a year just to push a message, just.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
One particular message.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
I just want you to say that these people are
bothering us and they're taking our jobs away, and I'm
gonna give you ninety five million dollars a year.
Speaker 3 (40:14):
Just to do that.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
And so you can talk to young people, old people
and create festivals and events and all those kinds of things.
I'm not even talking about doing that. I'm just saying
to build the infrastructure of building community. That's why we
have to recognize, especially Black culture, our power to elevate
and lift and build up platforms, because that's what really
where the money comes from. It's the community first, most
(40:35):
of the people get over there. Then everybody else is
the celebrity is going to follow behind that. Everything It's
a bottoms up approach. It's always been a bottoms up approach.
That's why we focus on algorithm, and we focus on retention,
and we focus on building something that people are on
twenty four hours of the day, seven days a week,
and then everything else falls to the place for the
funding for you know, building a platform like fan base,
(40:57):
it costs a lot of money, which is why we
do these raises, which we like, I say, we want
to scale the app and continue to do so. But
that's the community aspect is the most important part.
Speaker 3 (41:04):
For sure.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
I've heard this conversation before, obviously in the prior conversations
that we've had, that it's the people that are kind
of the engine behind the culture behind the early adoption
of this product versus that product, et cetera. And you know,
(41:28):
when you first introduced it as a concept, in my mind,
I started like thinking and looking back in hindsight and
I'm like, man, that's actually true. And it's funny because
I went to school for marketing. My undergrad is in marketing,
and so having it framed through the lens of black culture,
you get to see it.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
It's plan as day.
Speaker 1 (41:46):
Of course, they didn't teach me about black culture at
Arizona State University in the undergrad program, but it certainly
did follow all the rules of marketing and the result
was undeniable. But I think that there's something else here. First,
you touched on it earlier in the conversation, Isaac, and
(42:06):
I think I want to start with you Tamisha, because
I think you might have some interesting insight into this
as far as you know, people being early adopters, people
being the engine of the culture in a manner of speaking,
Discuss the ways that people can use a platform that
(42:27):
is not subjected to the FCC and not subjected to
the tentacles, if you will, from Project twenty twenty five.
Discuss the capacity of people to organize to you know,
I'm not sure what your thoughts are on the boycotts
that have taken place, particularly with respect to Target, but
discuss how people can take their power back using a
(42:52):
site like fan Base.
Speaker 5 (42:56):
The second part to Isaac's story from earlier regarding Jimmy Kimmel,
when I said he's going to get fired and then
he was fired. The second part to that was, I said,
the only way he's going to get back on air.
The only way is if the people demand that he
(43:20):
gets back on air. And what I mean by that,
obviously is the boycotts and things like that. So in
terms of social that all happened via social media. Yeah, people,
you know, the word got out via social media that
this is what we're doing, and then people showed receipts
(43:41):
that they canceled their subscriptions. That is incredibly important and
very powerful because people want to be a part of
the cool thing. The cool thing to do was to
yay power to the people. That was the cool thing
to do, and it gave us the results that that
(44:04):
we wanted.
Speaker 4 (44:05):
That has to be applied to.
Speaker 5 (44:09):
Anything that we want, and social media plays a critical
role in that.
Speaker 4 (44:13):
Social media is the engine to that.
Speaker 5 (44:16):
So one of the things that people were concerned about
with the Jimmy Kimmel boycott was their favorite show.
Speaker 4 (44:24):
What was it? Reasonable? Reasonable?
Speaker 3 (44:26):
Reasonable doubt?
Speaker 5 (44:27):
I think that elementary, Yeah, and ab elementary people were
concerned that they were taking away from black creators. And
what I want to encourage people to understand that the
power of a dollar is just that, it's what that's
(44:48):
what makes people move. So when you removed the dollar
from their pockets, it won't take long for them to move.
Your show will be back on air in no time.
Everybody will be back and there's old cycle and no time.
But you have to sacrifice. People have to sacrifice, and
it has to be a mass migration of that. Everybody
(45:14):
pulling their dollars out of these companies, and that happens
via social media, information travels fast, and that's what we need.
That's why fan base is so important because there is
no suppression of information, there is no demonetizing, there is
no misinformation. The information is going to be right there
(45:36):
for you. So that's the world. That's why it's so important.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
And Isaac, I want you to add something here too,
because you mentioned this earlier shadow banning based on the
way fan base is built, and you can correct me
if I'm wrong, but my understanding that shadow banning isn't
even a thing on fan base and it could not
be a thing. And so if people wanted to organized
on fan base, they don't run into the limitations of
(46:04):
the more the older social media sites, the Twitters and whatnot.
Speaker 3 (46:08):
Am Am, I correct, and.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
Yeah you are. I add something to what to me?
She said the part of her story because it was
a couple of things. When as soon as as soon
as Jimmy Kimmel got fired, I canceled my Disney Plus subscription.
I saw that, and that was on maybe like a
Thursday or a Friday, I can't remember. I can't remember
what day it was. It was a Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
somewhere along that. But that Monday morning, I had a
(46:32):
conversation with one of my friends and we were talking
about how his you know, everybody was canceling their subscriptions
and I was like, they were like, Disney's lost four
billion dollars in revenue. And he's like, that's nothing, man,
that don't mean anything. That's not going to make any
difference in what they're going on. And I was like,
but I was like, that's four billion dollars in like
four days. What happens thirty days from now, sixty days
(46:53):
from now?
Speaker 3 (46:54):
Right? And Jimmy Kimmel was back on the air that
day and I sent it to him.
Speaker 2 (46:57):
As soon as he was back on the air, I
sent it to him and he was like, that really happened?
Like and I was like absolutely, Like the people care
about these all these This country is a capitalist society
is run all money, right, and and that that changes
the way that everybody behaves. And so it's proof that
(47:17):
when people stand up and stop and fight back in
the way with their pockets, it works. Something else is
that it's funny how art is not imitating.
Speaker 3 (47:29):
Life in this instance.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
I heard a creator say, whenever there's these movies about
a great catastrophe or a great you know, h issue
that plagues humanity. Right Like in Star Wars, it was
like Darth Vader in the Empire. There was the resistance.
In every movie, there's always the resistance, and everybody loves
that part of the movie. Everybody's part of the resistance.
But when it's happening in real life in America right now,
(47:53):
you just sitting here looking at like you're not part
of the resistance, like like you not, Like you love
the resistance and Terminator, you love other resistance of Star Wars,
but when it comes to resisting in real life, you're like, uh,
what we're doing, Like I don't know what we should do,
and so we're going to There's going to have to
be a resistance, a level of set like where things
get shut down.
Speaker 3 (48:13):
It's like if.
Speaker 2 (48:14):
Everybody I saw, I saw, I saw, I saw a
white creator today, a white middle aged man said that
people in America need to shut down the same way
we did in COVID. Stop going to work, stop buying everything,
just stop everything. And he said, man, they would they
would clear Trump up so quick, they would turn on
him so fast.
Speaker 3 (48:31):
All these corporations would be like bro.
Speaker 2 (48:33):
Yet messing it up now, cause now you people off
to a point that they're like, man, we're not going
to do nothing until he's gone. We ain't doing nothing
until this man is a bat of here. And so
that's the resistance, and the resistance is resisting spending your
money in these places and these companies count on they
count on the fractured community.
Speaker 3 (48:53):
I'm not being able to do that.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
The organization of the fear of an urgency of being
in COVID for us to separate and not be around
each other is what created that vacuum of not spending
any money. But it also opened up everything that happened
with George Floyd in that same period of time, and
that message was made clear that we are none of
(49:16):
this is going on.
Speaker 3 (49:16):
We're going to stand for that.
Speaker 2 (49:18):
So we don't need we don't need George Floyd's or
pandemics to do the same thing. And when we realize
that that we don't need a pandemic or we don't
need another black man getting murdered to just stop spending
our money as a country and stand up for what's
right to make change. And when that happens, that's going
to change everything. When when it came to fan base
(49:40):
and content suppression that I didn't build a platform like
that because advertising is not at the focal point of
what we do. We become profitable as the creators become profitable.
So it's not in our best interest to suppress content
because that limits the abount of people that see your content,
which creates the ability for people to have subscribe as
(50:00):
well as followers and make revenue. So it's a different
approach to building a community.
Speaker 6 (50:09):
It blows my mind the solidarity that the oppressors have
and the splintering that those who are being oppressed have,
Like they you see Baptist pastors finding a way to
wrap their arms around someone who's been convicted of Do
we even need to name all of the things because
they have a single thing that they've agreed on, so
(50:31):
they forgive all the things that are that they're opposite
with us. We agree on almost everything, but we'll nitpick
each other to death on the little things that we
don't agree on and will splinter in twenty five different directions.
It's a crazy thing to witness, and like you said,
hopefully we don't need another pandemic or another George Floyd
to give us some solidarity. As to Misha, we did
(50:54):
not intend to monopolize you guys entire evening.
Speaker 3 (50:58):
We're very very imp We're very very proud.
Speaker 6 (51:01):
You guys got some soldiers over here that are that
are ready for the call whenever we do need to,
you know, mount up at dawn.
Speaker 3 (51:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (51:09):
But with with regards to what's next for people who
want to follow you, who want to keep up with you,
who want to know what you're doing, uh social media projects.
You know, we got something pretty big coming up that
you want to share with the people. So let us
know how we can participate. Man, things that we can
do to to not just keep up with you, but
to support you.
Speaker 2 (51:29):
Well as always, I'll say, you know, download fan base,
create a profile, especially creators that are on TikTok, my
girt your content over because I don't know what's going
to happen with TikTok, you know, with this new algorithm change,
I don't know if there will be a new app.
There'll be there either there either be a new app
that you have to download or the algorithm will change
it in a way that's going to affect the way
that you need your content. And then investing and I
(51:53):
don't think we really even understand. I was having a
conversation with a friend of mine that didn't understand why
we don't understand investing, like why why would we why
would we go play parlays or get on gambling sites
or buy lottery tickets but not.
Speaker 3 (52:11):
Invest in that way.
Speaker 2 (52:13):
And I say, well, one, you know, black wealth is
not built on we don't have a foundation of wealth.
So investing is something that is that's been taught in
the white community for hundreds of years because they're handing
over stocks and property and all the and the behavior
and the and the information about doing so, and to
(52:33):
the point that that's how you create billion, billion dollar
you know, families and stuff like that. But here's the
thing that that also makes black people so powerful.
Speaker 3 (52:44):
So genius.
Speaker 2 (52:44):
And I'll use Jay Z as an example in this
one instance that he is the first person in his
life he went from poverty to being a billionaire in
one generation, something that takes families years and years to
get to. He did it in one generation based office
culture and move very very quickly. And if we realize
(53:05):
the power of investing in ourselves and even added that component,
we could compound our wealth along with our talent in ways.
That's why I say owning part of fan base. Anybody
that's watching this investing fan base, go to start engine,
dot com slash fan base and invest. The minimum is
three hundred ninety nine dollars. This isn't a GoFundMe or kickstarter.
This is actually equity in the platform that allows you
(53:27):
to own a piece. And as fan based scales and grows,
your investment grows with the growth of the app. And
that's something that you can control. So if you have
one hundred thousand followers, a million followers, five million followers,
do the same thing that you were doing Instagram and TikTok,
but own a piece of the company and then watch
how that value increases on the back end. Because a
(53:47):
lot of white creators are doing this. You don't know
that a lot of these white creators are taking equity
in some of these startups and investing in these startups,
and then on the back end they're making ten, fifteen,
twenty million dollars, thirty million dollars just by increasing the
value you have a platform.
Speaker 3 (54:00):
So do that.
Speaker 2 (54:02):
Those are the two things, Like I said, download fan base,
invest in fan base, follow me on fan base, my
social media is at isaac case three. But I would
much prefer everybody follow me on fan base and that's
that's where you can find me.
Speaker 5 (54:17):
To Misha, yeah, and I would say, you know, speaking directly,
my name is Tamisha Harris on all platforms, so including
fan Base, speaking directly to creators and consumers of information,
I would say, I know that it feels scary to
(54:37):
leave your platform.
Speaker 4 (54:39):
Don't leave your platform.
Speaker 5 (54:40):
Slowly migrate over to fan base, because you don't want
to be caught, even as a business person or as
a creator, you don't want to be caught in a
situation where you your voice has been silenced and your
fans or your followers don't know where else to find you,
and now you just go into this dark hole. Start
(55:01):
migrating over to fan base, Start building your community there,
because when the tiktoks and the igs when when they
when when the administration begins silencing our culture, just as
they're doing now in real life in front of us,
you want to already have established yourself on a safe platform.
Speaker 4 (55:28):
So that's what I want to say. Go ahead and
migrate over.
Speaker 5 (55:32):
Start encouraging your followers to go over and build your
community where you're safe, build your community where you were
loved and where you're where our stories are going to
be told accurately.
Speaker 1 (55:48):
I want to make sure that I let folks know
that you can also find me on all platforms and
fan base at Ramsey's Jah.
Speaker 6 (56:01):
And I am Q Award on fan base to me
s I just followed you on both, Isaac, I've been
following you on social media since social media existed, I think, so, yeah, same,
I'm on your heels.
Speaker 1 (56:11):
Brother, thank you. I've been following you on Facebook since
since I got on Facebook. That would have been probably
two thousand and eight something like that, so wow, yeah,
it's been a long time. I also want to let
folks know you can follow Civic Cipher on all platforms
and on fan base as well, where we are active
(56:33):
and we share content, data driven content, and we will
continue to do so. So with that in mind, thank
you both very much for your time. I'd love to
have a conversation with you in the future about black
entrepreneurship because I think that this gives some insight into
what is possible, and you have left very large metaphorical
footprints on this path toward fiscal independence, showing people what
(56:57):
it looks like to create generational wealth and uh, like
I said, showing people what's possible. And so that's the
conversation that I'm anxious to have with you at some
point in the future. So spare us a little bit
of time over here on our show, and uh, you know,
obviously when the time is right, we'll make it a priority.
All right, Absolutely, we'll talk soon. And that's going to
(57:19):
do it for us on Civic Ciper. We'll see you
next week.
Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to
welcome you to another episode of Civic Cycer, where our
mission is to foster allyship empathy and understanding. I am
your host, Rams's job. Big shout out to Qboard in
the studio with us. Right now, we have a couple
of special guests joining us for today's conversation, Isaac Hay's
the Third and Tamisha Harris. We will give them full
(00:20):
introductions in just a quick tick, but just know that
we are having a conversation about media in the United
States and particularly a black media emergency. We are really
excited to get into the weed, so stay tuned for
a thorough, in depth conversation discussing all the goings on
with respect to the FCC, with respect to black media,
(00:42):
and with respect to what you can do to make
a difference. And now, without further ado, our conversation with
Isaac Hay's the Third and Tamisha Harris. Isaac Hayes the
third entrepreneur, music producer and son of soul legend Isaac Hayes.
He has raised over twenty two million dollars through equity crowdfunding,
making fan base one of the largest black founded crowdfunding
(01:05):
campaigns in history. To Misha Harris is a veteran TV
news producer with an insider view of how stories are
shaped and suppressed. She brings a powerful call to action
for black media to protect their narratives and audiences. And
they are our guests today. All right, So Isaac Hayes
(01:28):
and Tamisha Harris, welcome to the show. Let's get started. Isaac,
I know that you've been on the show before, but
for our newer listeners, people that are just coming to
the conversation, people that may not yet be familiar with
fan Base, let's revisit your background just a bit, a
little bit more in depth from what it is that
(01:50):
I had in the introduction.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Oh Man, I wanted to build in twenty eighteen. I
wanted to build a social media platform that disrupted the
distribution of content by democratizing the distribution of content to
every person on the planet, so that anybody could be
their own version of a Hulu or a Netflix or
a Disney Plus by having subscribers.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
And that was the birth of fan Base. No app
really did that.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
In the social media format, using InApp purchase capability like
Apple Pay and Google Pay. So subsequently, almost every social
media platform now allows the users in some way to
subscribe using InApp purchase capability. But the differences those platforms
shadow band and suppress the users, and so all of
your following never sees your content. And so the difference
(02:38):
between fan Base and everyone else is we're not here
to sensor people. We're not here to suppress your content,
limit your viewing. And so that was kind of like
the journey of fan Base. And then I wanted people
to own the platform and have equity in it, because
all these big billionaires and wealthy people over and over
again keep owning these social media platforms, and I wanted
something that everybody could own. So we did equity crowdfunding,
(03:00):
and we've been pretty successful. We've done four rounds of
equity crowdfunding and we've raised over twenty three million dollars
and we're coming to the tail end of our fourth crowdfund.
We've raised seventeen million dollars and so we were over
thirteen million dollars raised and we want to close this
round as soon as possible.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Absolutely, all right, and Ta Misha, this is your first
time to the show, and obviously we gave you a
brief introduction, but please, for our listener's sake, expound a bit,
just so that they have an idea of who they'll
be listening to today.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (03:34):
So, I'm Tamisha Harris. I'm a news producer of produced
news for about fifteen years now. I've worked forward every network.
And what does that mean? A news producer? So that
is the person who chooses the stories that go on
air that you watch. We assign the correspondence, We find
(03:56):
out what the president's agenda is, and we send course
bondings to wherever he is, wherever the stories are, and
we decide what order the stories will go in in
the newscast.
Speaker 6 (04:12):
So, Isaac, when we are introducing something new to people,
we often have to take what they might be familiar
with to describe what it is that we're doing different.
I want to give us an opportunity to not make
the low hanging fruit comparisons to what's already out there.
I'd rather start with what makes us different and what
(04:35):
makes fan base in my opinion better. When you're talking about,
you know, your competitors, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, why fan base?
If I'm a new user who might want to try
the platform.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Well, a couple of reasons.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
We're moving into an airin now where these platforms are
been gobbled up by these large right wing institutions that
will start the service or continue you to serve the
larger audience propaganda. And it really you know, again, social media,
it's supposed to be fun. And I think because of
(05:09):
the power social media, the effectiveness of being able to
communicate with large groups of people faster than anything on earth,
people see it as a tool and it's become a tool.
And so I don't mind fan base being the best
of both worlds. But this is a black founded platform,
and especially for the black community, we have to own
(05:32):
assets and vehicles that allow us to get information out
to our community. I think there's been an attack on
just black culture and black people period in this country,
you know, giving us new administration with trying to you know,
they're trying to wipe slavery out of books, and you know,
they're trying to roll back holidays and take stuff out
of museums and just act like black people never existed.
(05:54):
And so I don't expect anything different from the platforms
that exist already. Now that been the need of Trump
and idolize him to act the same way. So I
expect black culture to be diminished since they're exploited on
all these other platforms. And so fan base is not
that I am not a tool of any political party
at all. I'm something that people can use to communicate,
(06:19):
have fun, be creative, and then on top of that,
make money and own.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
I recognize that social media has taken center stage in
shaping the way of the world, and traditional media legacy
media has shifted in terms of its relationship to social media.
In other words, with traditional media legacy media, there's typically
(06:49):
a robust social media armed to that. Tamisha, I want
to get your thoughts first, and then Isaac, I want
to get your thoughts next. Tamisha discussed role of legacy
media in particular and the role that they have played
in terms of the political division in this country, and
(07:10):
then Isaac, I'm gonna go to you to follow up
with social media.
Speaker 5 (07:18):
So one thing that I noticed this is such a
great question, because one thing I noticed with the left
leaning networks that I've worked for, once Trump was out
of office and Biden was in office, we were like, oh,
thank god, now we can get.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
More news in.
Speaker 5 (07:43):
News that does not focus on the Trump administration, and
that did not happen. We still ran every story that
we could about Trump. And so what that told me
was what it told all of us, is this is
what makes money. It doesn't matter that this man is
(08:05):
out of office when he was out of office. It's
what our advertisers paying for. And I think that legacy
media had a lot to do with this man being
re elected. Regardless of what side uh they we were on,
we had a lot to do with the with him
(08:27):
being reelected because when you put him the stories about
Trump or Trump adjacent in the news, that's.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
Just giving him more and more promotion.
Speaker 5 (08:36):
And so what part do we play in the in
the division of it, You know, a lot. We play
a big part in it. I think media takes plays
a big part. People are going to choose their sides,
and you know, that's just what it is. Wherever the money,
(09:00):
wherever the money goes, that's where media will go.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
And Isaac, your thoughts on the role that social media
has played in you know, recent years in so far
as politics is concerned.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
I think it's been enormously powerful. I think it's been
underutilized by many people and I've been saying for years,
like even even in twenty seventeen, I was like, people
aren't looking at televisions, They're looking down at their phone,
and it's where your eyeballs are, and it's it's the
speed in which you could communicate and actually even you know,
(09:40):
kind of organize, you know, I think that social media
should be used to organize vorder registration or organize you know,
going out to vote, or communicating with different you know,
different groups about particular issues that matter most to your community.
And so it's an underutil live tool. But I think now,
(10:02):
I think the Democratic Party has dropped the ball per
se on not recognizing the power of these platforms, and
Conservatives have gone and bought the exes of the world.
They have true social They've basically acquired TikTok. Now you
have a meta with Instagram and Facebook definitely you know,
(10:25):
aligning themselves with whatever Trump wants to do. And so
they they figured it out, and I think it'll be
really hard unless there are new versions or new social
media platforms that arise that are just it's an app.
It's not supposed to be you know, for one party
or another party. It's just supposed to be a platform
(10:46):
where people can communicate, have discourse, and have fun, and
so I love the ability for discourse to happen. I think,
you know, the conflict and difference of the opinion that
people have are conversations that need to happen when it's
just an echo chamber of one side or the other.
And that's kind of what it feels like nowadays on
(11:07):
these apps. We need new apps, we need new platforms
that people can utilize and have those conversations.
Speaker 6 (11:16):
No, an interesting thing happened in the wake of the
demise and the assassination of Charlie Kirk. I've always heard
about what the algorithm does to us, to our fee,
to what we consume, but I didn't realize how invasive
it was until I started getting messages from people that
(11:37):
I know, from people that I consider friends, who were
deeply troubled by how this kind hearted God and Jesus
loving man had met his demise, And they had no
idea what I was talking about when I told them
about the different messaging and the different things that he
(11:57):
stood for. So when we look could online radicalization, is
the algorithm doing that to us? Is the president to
blame for that? Like what's happening where people are actually
not getting full pieces of information, We're looking at the
same story at the same time, but getting very very
(12:18):
different versions of it.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Well, I'll say I'll start with I'll actually start with
the actual incident itself. Social media is heavily censored, and
any type of violence usually is pulled down.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Off these platforms.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
But if you notice that particular incident was allowed to
sit on social media platforms in every form. I've never
seen somebody be executed and it just sit up on
social media everywhere, And it was left up there for
a reason. So if everybody's seeing that, if everybody's seeing
that action take place, it's left up there for a
reason because that could easily I mean, these platforms are
(12:56):
now AI automated with violence. They know exactly what these
things are and they could tell them mediately. So one
I think that was left up there for a reason
so that people could see that and form this opinion
one way or another about that about the the the
assassination of Charlie Kirk, right, I think they were able
to form that opinion in that instance. Even like even
(13:18):
prime example, let's take for instance, like even when when uh,
when George Floyd was murdered. A lot of a lot
of social media platforms will blur his image out, or
blur the knee out, or blur all that up. So
I'm like, that's that. That's that part right there, is
like they don't want you to see the brutality, but
for whatever reason in this instance, people wanted to see.
(13:38):
They wanted these platforms wanted that brutality to be seen.
And so you got to think about that in itself
of why did people want people to see this violent act?
And then after the fact, what opinions are formed that
people saw that. Because I don't believe anybody should be
murdered for their beliefs, right for they for what they
what they say. But I think that it's dangerous that
(14:01):
we were allowed to see that over and over again,
young people, you know, kids being able to see that,
and then what that did to the algorithm and how
that created all the derivative content of people having an
opinion about Charlie Kirk one way or another. But it
elevated him to a conversation that was larger than anything
(14:21):
that I've ever seen in quite a long time.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Tamisha, I want to go back to you and then
of course I'm gonna get your thoughts as well, Isaac.
But you know, you mentioned something earlier about, you know
the role that legacy media had played in post Trump's
first presidency during the Biden administration, still amplifying all the
(14:48):
rhetoric and the moves and maneuvers and whatnot that were
coming from Trump's camp.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
And I'm curious as to.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
What difference perhaps black owned media outlets could have made
had there been more in the way prominent black owned
media outlets, And Isaac, just to preface this, I'm going
to shift to you having a black owned social media outlet,
the one that I believed to be very powerful. But
(15:22):
first let's get an idea of what a black owned
legacy media outlet could do so that we can get
our listeners familiar with exactly the power that is wielded
when that's owned and the power that doesn't exist when
it's not.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
So to me, share your thoughts.
Speaker 5 (15:41):
So, I used to work for MSNBC and I did
a special that lives on Peacock right now. It's called
Black Men in America The Road to twenty twenty four,
And that particular special, we traveled across the country talking
(16:02):
to black men about their issues leading up to the
twenty twenty four election. And I think that it was
a really strong preview of what black media can do
to educate because we were able to talk to black Republicans,
and we were able to talk to independents and Democrats
(16:23):
and people who don't identify with any political affiliation whatsoever.
But I think it was I think it's important for
us to hear everyone's perspective and to learn what people
what their concerns are, particularly black men in this in
this instance, but the role of black media, we would
(16:48):
be able to hear and educate people. A lot of
people don't go to the White House, don't go to
white House dot gov and learn with this administration what
any administration is doing. So they'll say they'll just go
by whatever they're hearing on social media. Oh, well, the
Biden administration is doing this or is not doing that,
(17:08):
or the Trump administration is doing this and not doing that,
or any administration. But when we have black media, we
can extract that information and then we can focus in
on how this impacts our particular community, our families. And
that's important because when it's time to vote, we need
(17:30):
to understand who we were voting for and why, because
there was a lot of well you hear, we heard
there were a lot of black men voting for Trump,
which that was not the case. But when you are
consumed by rumors, that begins to fuel how you vote. So,
(17:50):
even though it was not true, there were people who
went to vote for Trump because they thought that's what
everybody else was doing. Black men or black women who
vote for Trump because that's what they thought everyone else
was doing when that wasn't the truth. So the role
of black media is to make sure that we are
delivering the right information to our people with urgency.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
That's our role, Isaac, your thoughts, because you've spoken about
this quite a bit and i'd love to get you know,
some of your reflections on record for our listeners.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Well, I'm a little disappointed in black media, not you guys, though,
but I think that they're I think we are all
faced with the issue do we want views or listeners
or do you want to disseminate information?
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Right and.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
With the way that legacy media, especially black journalists, have
been either removed from the platform from legacy media platforms
or having their voices for being fired or whatever, we
have to pick up the slack on social media, and
there's a lot of black OneD media that exists in
(19:09):
the digital space, but I feel like they spend more
time talking about the clickbaity pop culture things and not
necessarily utilizing the platform to disseminate real information. I don't
mind that you do both, because again, we're going to
hear both. If there's something that's really affecting black community,
then I need to hear about that, and that goes
(19:30):
all the way to the social media platform that goes
to media sites that exist on social media. So I know,
I know we're going to hear about the beef between rappers,
and we're going to hear about, you know, whatever the
pop culture story is. But also at the same time,
if we have to understand that if a lot of
black women are losing their jobs, if there are if
(19:51):
there's legislation and that's being passed in particular states that
could harm black people just based off what they say,
Like a friend of mine and consciously said that there's
legislation that they're trying to pass in Texas that if
you use social media to commit a crime, if it
has to do with drugs or anything like that then
(20:14):
it actually adds more time or escalates the charge.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
So I don't think people know that.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
So if you're one of these dudes that's you know,
posting drugs on your social media platform, or you are
deeming somebody even if you dm somebody to go buy
some drugs, you're actually actually quadrupling the time or adding
more time. And they know that that's what young black
people are probably doing. They're probably using social media, so
that in itself is something that can harm black people.
But I don't hear any black media talking about that saying, look,
(20:44):
you guys need to if you guys need to stop
talking on social media about the stuff that you're doing,
because now there's a long place they're trying to pass
along to Texas that actually even overcriminalizes you for the
stuff that you're doing just because you're using social media
to do it.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
And that's the role of black media.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
I understand, we're gonna we're gonna say the funny, entertaining
things that we love, but we also have to use
this to understand that it is a tool to disseminate
information to black people. And I don't know at what
point the black community will will come out of this
fog and not think that it won't happen.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
I think it's so subtle.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
I think, you know, the rollback of rights and opportunity
for black people. I think it's happening so subtly that
by the time he realized it, it's going to be
way too late. Absolutely, I don't think. But I don't
think black people really think that. Oh, Like like if
I if I were to tell you guys right now,
like I really I'm not joking, but I really think
(21:40):
they're trying to bring slavery back, and somebody would laugh,
like they not try to do that.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Because I've been.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
I've been a person that's responded that way myself to
some of the things that Tamisha has talked about.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
I'm like, not gonna do that. Literally, Like we were.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
Having this conversation the other day when when when Jimmy Kimmel,
when these those station stop airing Jimmy Kimmel, She's like, oh,
they're about to pull him off the air, and I'm like,
say not and then they and then by the time
I can refresh my phone, he was fired from ABC.
And I don't think people understand like, oh, this is real,
Like they're not playing, and so black people need to
(22:17):
realize while we're listening to these rap beefs and these
rap songs, we're doing dance challenges and we're having all
this great fun, they're changing laws that ship away the
rights of black people, and that puts us in danger.
Speaker 6 (22:31):
So I don't want to move from here yet, because
you just brought up something that struck a nerve with me.
Being in the spaces that we're in. All of our
friends do not consume information in the way that we do.
They are not as informed as we are. So when
you say things like they might bring slavery back, they
think you're being dramatic, hyperbolic, and just talking out of
(22:53):
your rear end. Except we're paying attention and the clever
thing that they've done because it's not that they been subtle, Isaac,
it's that they've been disguising those stripping away of riots
and liberties as someone else's problem. They're doing it to
someone else, and the rest of us are just watching,
not realizing that these things impact all of us.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
You brought up, Jimmy.
Speaker 6 (23:15):
Kimmel, we're in some pretty unprecedented times. Right as we
were getting to the end of the election, cycle, I
told ramsays, you know, if that dude wins, what we
do for a living might be illegal. And I think
everyone thought I was being dramatic and hyperbolic when I
said that. And now you look around and we are
(23:37):
on the precipice of being called the Black Information Network
might be something that's illegal soon. Talking about talking negatively
about this administration might be illegal soon. But when you
see companies like YouTube settling suits where they haven't been
found to have done anything wrong and still saying here,
(24:00):
take this money to Mesha, I'm going to start with
you and Isaac, and I got to hear from you too.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
Man, what do we do in this space? Like what
does this mean for us?
Speaker 6 (24:10):
Might we still have a show that we can have
you come on and talk about the things that we're
doing in the next few months as this administration is
showing if you disagree with me, if you don't pledge
allegiance to me, I do kind of have the power
to erase you. And I think that's something that people
would have thought was ridiculous nine months ago.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
Man, that's such a great point.
Speaker 5 (24:35):
Will you have a platform, Maybe not if it's named
the Black Information Network, because that may be illegal.
Speaker 4 (24:43):
Will you have a platform.
Speaker 5 (24:45):
Not If you speak possibly not If you speak unkindly
toward the administration, you may be sued. That is why
I went to Isaac and I said, we need fan
base because I was seeing everything happening and I said,
(25:05):
wait a minute. We are in deep trouble here because
this administration is coming after networks for everything. Say one
word that is not flattery toward not flattering toward to
the president, then you're going to be sued. You'll be
(25:27):
taken off air. You have anchors softening their language. We'll
put in a script and they're like, no, listen not.
I don't want to say that. I don't want it
to come out of my mouth because people are being fired.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
So that's why I said.
Speaker 5 (25:41):
When I came to Isaac, I said, okay, our only
optionist fan base.
Speaker 4 (25:45):
I didn't know Isaac at the time. A friend, Angela.
Speaker 5 (25:51):
Watts, introduced us and I said to him, this is
and I'll say it again, this is our underground railroad
when we need to get information out that is critical.
Fan base is where we need to go while we're safe.
Because it sounds, you know, it sounds alarmous, but it's
(26:14):
really not. It's really what's happening. We are not safe.
Our voices are truly being silenced. We can be sued,
whatever can happen. We can be pulled off of whatever
platform that we that were on. So that's why it's
so important to go to fan base. I have no Again,
I didn't know Isaac. There was no vested interest.
Speaker 4 (26:35):
I just know.
Speaker 5 (26:36):
I just knew there was a black social media site.
Not black because it's it's I know that it's for everyone,
but it was a social media site that was owned
by a black man, and that felt safe for me.
Looking coming from a network perspective, someone who's seeing things
from a you know, at a higher level, I would say,
(26:59):
I said, this is that, that's where we need to go.
Speaker 6 (27:01):
You know, Ojie, the first time we had a conversation
about fan Base, you were talking about building an equitable
space for creators. Being a black founder, of course, people
are going to say it's a black social media network,
even though you've made it very very inclusive and welcomed
all creators and explain to them how they can get
(27:22):
so much more of their fan base to engage with
them and even it be a more profitable endeavor for them,
But we are speaking to black creators now in this time,
same question that you know, I just asked to Misha,
what is your forecast for black creators in this current uh,
(27:43):
this current atmosphere?
Speaker 3 (27:46):
Rim I mean, you know, there is a.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
You know, attention is a heck of a drug, right,
and we kind of get real caught up in popularity
and people views and all the things that come with
being on social media. But I think we're getting into
an era right now where we need to read the
fine print on any platforms that we use. Right I
(28:12):
think we need to understand what effect does my presence
on this platform have? The ripple effect of what my
presence on this platform has for my people. So, if
I'm using a platform that is funded by people that
lobby Congress and lobby the federal government to work against
(28:35):
my best interests, should I be using that platform even
though it gives me a lot of views, even though
I get a lot of attention and all things like that.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
And that's really really hard.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
I think I always say that people really don't change
until they get angry enough or afraid enough, and so
hopefully the changes that take place on these platforms like
TikTok scare creators or piss them off enough to know,
and we don't need to be using them. And we
need to be using our own platforms, and we need
(29:05):
to be using new platforms and taking our voice and
our power someplace else. Because it's funny, our community always
screams two things that we always say, right, we're the culture.
We make everything move right, But for some reason we
don't act on that. We don't act as if we do.
We act as this the other way around. We act
(29:25):
as if the apps and what moves the culture. And
we're just lucky to be there, right, And we love
to use the phrase standing on business, right, Well, we're
the least likely to actually stand on business.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
And so.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
You got to scare people and make them mad, and
that will result in our community. And let me tell
you when that happens, I think that's the scariest thing
for this entire country is Black awareness and unity in
a way that moves like that shifts the ethos, you
(30:01):
know what I'm saying. The amount of people that downloaded,
the amount of people that downloaded Blue Sky in sixty
to sixty days to ninety days is about half of
what the Black population is in this country. If black
people did that alone, that would scare the crap out
of a lot of people. But it also wake us
up that we have the power to shift hundreds of millions,
(30:23):
if not billions of dollars in a direction that can
benefit us by something that we can own, something that
we can use, something that's not going to do censor us,
something that's going to recognize us, something that's not going
to not going to suppress our Juneteenth posts or our
post about black history, or our post posts about the
atrocities that happened in our community. That those things will
be elevated and shared. We can have dialogue around those
(30:46):
And so that's what I hope is that, you know,
the creator community gets angry enough or gets scared enough
to make that change.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
You know, being in this space where we're beholden to
the Federal Communications Commission, we have been paying particular attention
to the goings on with respect to this administration ever
since the introduction of Project twenty twenty five. There's some
(31:23):
person that I know that you've spoken highly of, and
I think that he might serve as a good example,
and i'd love to get your thoughts, Isaac this one
is for you and to mishall. Feel free to add
something if you feel so inclined. But I know that
I've heard Isaac talk about this before. Roland Martin, I think,
(31:43):
is somebody that many folks could look to. And I
just loved how you gave him his flowers for people
that might not know kind of what's going on behind
the scenes, talk about what's going on with Roland Martin
or what has been going on with Roland Martin.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
Well, well, Roland was a yarnalist that was on.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
He was on Urban one, and he was on CNN,
and he felt the need that he couldn't say what
he wanted to say the way he wanted to say it,
when he wanted to say it, how often he wanted
to say it, And so he struck out on his
own and created something called the Black Star Network, which
is a media platform, and he coupled that by using
(32:26):
YouTube as a distribution model to be able to get
his message again in people's pockets at all times. And
when he first started doing that, a lot of people, again,
as I said, are enamored with the bright lights of
being in mainstream media, right being you know, really really
powerful and being on CNN. It's like it's like an
(32:49):
artist being like, oh, I'm signed to deaf Jam right,
or I'm on Interscope. It's like I'm on CNN, I'm
on MSNBC, I'm on CBS ABC.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
It's like it's like the legacy that goes with that.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Of course, it sounds amazing and you love it and
you feel like you want to be part of that.
But in actuality those platforms are on the decline and
more people are watching what's on social media, you know,
in real time.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
It is an interesting stat ky san.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Knot at Mafia Thon and yesterday, uh, yesterday when he
had at the end of Mafia end of Mafia Thon,
he had Lebron James come on for that last segment
of Mafia Thon and he had a million concurrent viewers
watching him at that time, Like Jimmy Kimmel gets like
(33:37):
one point two million concurrent viewers. This is a young
black kid on the Internet that's having as many people
watch him as a major network site. And so when
Roland made that shift, people laughed at him and they
were like, ah, you know, that's like corny or that's
not the way. And then what happened is Roland's platform
(33:58):
started to grow. I think two things happened. Roland also
was helping during the election last year with Kamala Harris.
He had like win with black men and win with
black women, and he was, you know, really using his
platform to amplify our voices, and so his platform took off.
In fact, out of the one hundred, he's fluctuating a lot,
(34:21):
but out of the top one hundred podcasts that are
on YouTube, Roland Martin was the only one feature in
there that was doing news. Everything else might be Joe Budden,
or might be Shannon Sharp, you know, it might be
something funny.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
Again the things that were entertainment.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
But for a black media site and a black man
to have like true media because Roland doesn't hold back
in the way that he talks to him to be
in the top one hundred of YouTube's top podcasts for
months at a time speaks to what he's been able
to build. He has almost two million YouTube subscribers. I'm
really proud of him, and he's been the biggest advocate
(34:58):
and the biggest supporter of fan base from day one.
He's the only person that no matter what the situation is,
with us. He'll say add me as a collaborator to
that post. That's a big deal because he has like
a mill almost a million followers on Instagram and he
always gives us the opportunity to be on the platform.
And I know a lot of people that don't do
that and I don't, and I think everybody gets kind
(35:20):
of a little funny with their social media. They feel like,
you know how they feel about it. But Roland is
a true ally that really cares more about the message
than what it looks like.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
And I appreciate him for it.
Speaker 5 (35:32):
To your point, Isaac, when you are I get a
lot of people who pitched me and they're like, hey,
I want to come on your show because they think
just to just to your point, these networks have the
power when they are on a very sharp decline. And
if you just build your own community the same that
(35:54):
Roland as Roland did, you are the one that will
have the power.
Speaker 4 (35:59):
And so that's what I want to get people to understand.
Speaker 5 (36:02):
It's not the big networks, it's not you know, build
your own community, build your own ecosystem, and then you
will be able to make the decisions and decide who
comes on the stories that are told that's where the
real power is not what it's really just not with
these big networks anymore. Really is social media, and right
(36:26):
now it's social media. But the big thing is now
that social media is going to be government managed that
we have to figure out, we have to figure out
a different platform, which is one fan base and or
having your own platform outside of social media.
Speaker 6 (36:47):
To Misha, that's that's a perfect segue for the next
question that I wanted to ask. We spoke about the
launch strategy. The first conversation that you and I had
offline about fan basing about you know, do you have
a big celebrity come out and champion the side, or
you know, what's the best way to get the brand
and the name in front of people. And you spoke
(37:08):
to me about community versus celebrity, about the creator versus
the app and which one powers the other for potential
new users who might want to know, is it the
app that I'm on, is the content that I create?
Which one makes the other one cool? Because you know
that we are collectively Probably and I say probably because
(37:29):
people like the nitpick and use semantics against ramsen I
all the time. The coolest people in the history of
a planet Earth, I think can help determine what's cool
with regard to everything food, fashion, music, culture all over
the world, this generation of Black Americans. So with regards
to fan base, is it the creators that come to
(37:52):
that app, the community that you build, or the app
itself that creates the cool factor?
Speaker 2 (38:00):
It's it's the people. It's a community. Like it's not
even celebrities. Celebrities don't build apps, communities do.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
People do. The users are what power these platforms.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
The celebrities benefit from large groups of people being gathered
in one place, or they have the ability to move
community where they are, but there still has to be
something for the community to do once they get there.
So again I talk about this all the time. It's
like any platform, like you know, you can have I
can have the biggest celebrity in the world come on
fan base, but once that celebrity has to go shoot
(38:32):
a movie, play a game, uh you know, film a
TV show, go on tour, there has to be something
for the community there to do, and that's interact with
each other. That's like, you know, talk to each other,
share share content, and create and be a part of
each other's lives and that's the part that's really really important.
(38:54):
So yeah, community is the biggest part about around what's
going on with social media.
Speaker 3 (38:59):
What I what I know for what we do in
fan base.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
I was just having a conversation with one of our
team members today and I was talking about a couple
of new features that I wanted to bring to the platform,
and he's like, I've never no one's ever done that before.
And I'm like, bro, that's what I keep saying, is
like we have all the ideas. He's like, no one's
ever did that. He's like, Yo, we need to add
that fast. I was like, yeah, we need get money fast.
(39:24):
We need to We need somebody to We need somebody
to drop a hundred million on us, because they could.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
You could not catch us. You cannot beat us.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Because the things that are in our heads, the ideas
that we have, the way that we innovate it. Money
is the big is the big equalizer in all of
these things. Something that I said that I talked about
on one of one of one of the shows that
I I've done before is that you think about uh
(39:51):
turning point USA, right, they were getting ninety five million
dollars a year in donations just to operate.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
Imagine somebody give me.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
Imagine I might have given you, guys ninety five million
dollars a year just to push a message, just.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
One particular message.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
I just want you to say that these people are
bothering us and they're taking our jobs away, and I'm
gonna give you ninety five million dollars a year.
Speaker 3 (40:14):
Just to do that.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
And so you can talk to young people, old people
and create festivals and events and all those kinds of things.
I'm not even talking about doing that. I'm just saying
to build the infrastructure of building community. That's why we
have to recognize, especially Black culture, our power to elevate
and lift and build up platforms, because that's what really
where the money comes from. It's the community first, most
(40:35):
of the people get over there. Then everybody else is
the celebrity is going to follow behind that. Everything It's
a bottoms up approach. It's always been a bottoms up approach.
That's why we focus on algorithm, and we focus on retention,
and we focus on building something that people are on
twenty four hours of the day, seven days a week,
and then everything else falls to the place for the
funding for you know, building a platform like fan base,
(40:57):
it costs a lot of money, which is why we
do these raises, which we like, I say, we want
to scale the app and continue to do so. But
that's the community aspect is the most important part.
Speaker 3 (41:04):
For sure.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
I've heard this conversation before, obviously in the prior conversations
that we've had, that it's the people that are kind
of the engine behind the culture behind the early adoption
of this product versus that product, et cetera. And you know,
(41:28):
when you first introduced it as a concept, in my mind,
I started like thinking and looking back in hindsight and
I'm like, man, that's actually true. And it's funny because
I went to school for marketing. My undergrad is in marketing,
and so having it framed through the lens of black culture,
you get to see it.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
It's plan as day.
Speaker 1 (41:46):
Of course, they didn't teach me about black culture at
Arizona State University in the undergrad program, but it certainly
did follow all the rules of marketing and the result
was undeniable. But I think that there's something else here. First,
you touched on it earlier in the conversation, Isaac, and
(42:06):
I think I want to start with you Tamisha, because
I think you might have some interesting insight into this
as far as you know, people being early adopters, people
being the engine of the culture in a manner of speaking,
Discuss the ways that people can use a platform that
(42:27):
is not subjected to the FCC and not subjected to
the tentacles, if you will, from Project twenty twenty five.
Discuss the capacity of people to organize to you know,
I'm not sure what your thoughts are on the boycotts
that have taken place, particularly with respect to Target, but
discuss how people can take their power back using a
(42:52):
site like fan Base.
Speaker 5 (42:56):
The second part to Isaac's story from earlier regarding Jimmy Kimmel,
when I said he's going to get fired and then
he was fired. The second part to that was, I said,
the only way he's going to get back on air.
The only way is if the people demand that he
(43:20):
gets back on air. And what I mean by that,
obviously is the boycotts and things like that. So in
terms of social that all happened via social media. Yeah, people,
you know, the word got out via social media that
this is what we're doing, and then people showed receipts
(43:41):
that they canceled their subscriptions. That is incredibly important and
very powerful because people want to be a part of
the cool thing. The cool thing to do was to
yay power to the people. That was the cool thing
to do, and it gave us the results that that
(44:04):
we wanted.
Speaker 4 (44:05):
That has to be applied to.
Speaker 5 (44:09):
Anything that we want, and social media plays a critical
role in that.
Speaker 4 (44:13):
Social media is the engine to that.
Speaker 5 (44:16):
So one of the things that people were concerned about
with the Jimmy Kimmel boycott was their favorite show.
Speaker 4 (44:24):
What was it? Reasonable? Reasonable?
Speaker 3 (44:26):
Reasonable doubt?
Speaker 5 (44:27):
I think that elementary, Yeah, and ab elementary people were
concerned that they were taking away from black creators. And
what I want to encourage people to understand that the
power of a dollar is just that, it's what that's
(44:48):
what makes people move. So when you removed the dollar
from their pockets, it won't take long for them to move.
Your show will be back on air in no time.
Everybody will be back and there's old cycle and no time.
But you have to sacrifice. People have to sacrifice, and
it has to be a mass migration of that. Everybody
(45:14):
pulling their dollars out of these companies, and that happens
via social media, information travels fast, and that's what we need.
That's why fan base is so important because there is
no suppression of information, there is no demonetizing, there is
no misinformation. The information is going to be right there
(45:36):
for you. So that's the world. That's why it's so important.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
And Isaac, I want you to add something here too,
because you mentioned this earlier shadow banning based on the
way fan base is built, and you can correct me
if I'm wrong, but my understanding that shadow banning isn't
even a thing on fan base and it could not
be a thing. And so if people wanted to organized
on fan base, they don't run into the limitations of
(46:04):
the more the older social media sites, the Twitters and whatnot.
Speaker 3 (46:08):
Am Am, I correct, and.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
Yeah you are. I add something to what to me?
She said the part of her story because it was
a couple of things. When as soon as as soon
as Jimmy Kimmel got fired, I canceled my Disney Plus subscription.
I saw that, and that was on maybe like a
Thursday or a Friday, I can't remember. I can't remember
what day it was. It was a Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
somewhere along that. But that Monday morning, I had a
(46:32):
conversation with one of my friends and we were talking
about how his you know, everybody was canceling their subscriptions
and I was like, they were like, Disney's lost four
billion dollars in revenue. And he's like, that's nothing, man,
that don't mean anything. That's not going to make any
difference in what they're going on. And I was like,
but I was like, that's four billion dollars in like
four days. What happens thirty days from now, sixty days
(46:53):
from now?
Speaker 3 (46:54):
Right? And Jimmy Kimmel was back on the air that
day and I sent it to him.
Speaker 2 (46:57):
As soon as he was back on the air, I
sent it to him and he was like, that really happened?
Like and I was like absolutely, Like the people care
about these all these This country is a capitalist society
is run all money, right, and and that that changes
the way that everybody behaves. And so it's proof that
(47:17):
when people stand up and stop and fight back in
the way with their pockets, it works. Something else is
that it's funny how art is not imitating.
Speaker 3 (47:29):
Life in this instance.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
I heard a creator say, whenever there's these movies about
a great catastrophe or a great you know, h issue
that plagues humanity. Right Like in Star Wars, it was
like Darth Vader in the Empire. There was the resistance.
In every movie, there's always the resistance, and everybody loves
that part of the movie. Everybody's part of the resistance.
But when it's happening in real life in America right now,
(47:53):
you just sitting here looking at like you're not part
of the resistance, like like you not, Like you love
the resistance and Terminator, you love other resistance of Star Wars,
but when it comes to resisting in real life, you're like, uh,
what we're doing, Like I don't know what we should do,
and so we're going to There's going to have to
be a resistance, a level of set like where things
get shut down.
Speaker 3 (48:13):
It's like if.
Speaker 2 (48:14):
Everybody I saw, I saw, I saw, I saw a
white creator today, a white middle aged man said that
people in America need to shut down the same way
we did in COVID. Stop going to work, stop buying everything,
just stop everything. And he said, man, they would they
would clear Trump up so quick, they would turn on
him so fast.
Speaker 3 (48:31):
All these corporations would be like bro.
Speaker 2 (48:33):
Yet messing it up now, cause now you people off
to a point that they're like, man, we're not going
to do nothing until he's gone. We ain't doing nothing
until this man is a bat of here. And so
that's the resistance, and the resistance is resisting spending your
money in these places and these companies count on they
count on the fractured community.
Speaker 3 (48:53):
I'm not being able to do that.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
The organization of the fear of an urgency of being
in COVID for us to separate and not be around
each other is what created that vacuum of not spending
any money. But it also opened up everything that happened
with George Floyd in that same period of time, and
that message was made clear that we are none of
(49:16):
this is going on.
Speaker 3 (49:16):
We're going to stand for that.
Speaker 2 (49:18):
So we don't need we don't need George Floyd's or
pandemics to do the same thing. And when we realize
that that we don't need a pandemic or we don't
need another black man getting murdered to just stop spending
our money as a country and stand up for what's
right to make change. And when that happens, that's going
to change everything. When when it came to fan base
(49:40):
and content suppression that I didn't build a platform like
that because advertising is not at the focal point of
what we do. We become profitable as the creators become profitable.
So it's not in our best interest to suppress content
because that limits the abount of people that see your content,
which creates the ability for people to have subscribe as
(50:00):
well as followers and make revenue. So it's a different
approach to building a community.
Speaker 6 (50:09):
It blows my mind the solidarity that the oppressors have
and the splintering that those who are being oppressed have,
Like they you see Baptist pastors finding a way to
wrap their arms around someone who's been convicted of Do
we even need to name all of the things because
they have a single thing that they've agreed on, so
(50:31):
they forgive all the things that are that they're opposite
with us. We agree on almost everything, but we'll nitpick
each other to death on the little things that we
don't agree on and will splinter in twenty five different directions.
It's a crazy thing to witness, and like you said,
hopefully we don't need another pandemic or another George Floyd
to give us some solidarity. As to Misha, we did
(50:54):
not intend to monopolize you guys entire evening.
Speaker 3 (50:58):
We're very very imp We're very very proud.
Speaker 6 (51:01):
You guys got some soldiers over here that are that
are ready for the call whenever we do need to,
you know, mount up at dawn.
Speaker 3 (51:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (51:09):
But with with regards to what's next for people who
want to follow you, who want to keep up with you,
who want to know what you're doing, uh social media projects.
You know, we got something pretty big coming up that
you want to share with the people. So let us
know how we can participate. Man, things that we can
do to to not just keep up with you, but
to support you.
Speaker 2 (51:29):
Well as always, I'll say, you know, download fan base,
create a profile, especially creators that are on TikTok, my
girt your content over because I don't know what's going
to happen with TikTok, you know, with this new algorithm change,
I don't know if there will be a new app.
There'll be there either there either be a new app
that you have to download or the algorithm will change
it in a way that's going to affect the way
that you need your content. And then investing and I
(51:53):
don't think we really even understand. I was having a
conversation with a friend of mine that didn't understand why
we don't understand investing, like why why would we why
would we go play parlays or get on gambling sites
or buy lottery tickets but not.
Speaker 3 (52:11):
Invest in that way.
Speaker 2 (52:13):
And I say, well, one, you know, black wealth is
not built on we don't have a foundation of wealth.
So investing is something that is that's been taught in
the white community for hundreds of years because they're handing
over stocks and property and all the and the behavior
and the and the information about doing so, and to
(52:33):
the point that that's how you create billion, billion dollar
you know, families and stuff like that. But here's the
thing that that also makes black people so powerful.
Speaker 3 (52:44):
So genius.
Speaker 2 (52:44):
And I'll use Jay Z as an example in this
one instance that he is the first person in his
life he went from poverty to being a billionaire in
one generation, something that takes families years and years to
get to. He did it in one generation based office
culture and move very very quickly. And if we realize
(53:05):
the power of investing in ourselves and even added that component,
we could compound our wealth along with our talent in ways.
That's why I say owning part of fan base. Anybody
that's watching this investing fan base, go to start engine,
dot com slash fan base and invest. The minimum is
three hundred ninety nine dollars. This isn't a GoFundMe or kickstarter.
This is actually equity in the platform that allows you
(53:27):
to own a piece. And as fan based scales and grows,
your investment grows with the growth of the app. And
that's something that you can control. So if you have
one hundred thousand followers, a million followers, five million followers,
do the same thing that you were doing Instagram and TikTok,
but own a piece of the company and then watch
how that value increases on the back end. Because a
(53:47):
lot of white creators are doing this. You don't know
that a lot of these white creators are taking equity
in some of these startups and investing in these startups,
and then on the back end they're making ten, fifteen,
twenty million dollars, thirty million dollars just by increasing the
value you have a platform.
Speaker 3 (54:00):
So do that.
Speaker 2 (54:02):
Those are the two things, Like I said, download fan base,
invest in fan base, follow me on fan base, my
social media is at isaac case three. But I would
much prefer everybody follow me on fan base and that's
that's where you can find me.
Speaker 5 (54:17):
To Misha, yeah, and I would say, you know, speaking directly,
my name is Tamisha Harris on all platforms, so including
fan Base, speaking directly to creators and consumers of information,
I would say, I know that it feels scary to
(54:37):
leave your platform.
Speaker 4 (54:39):
Don't leave your platform.
Speaker 5 (54:40):
Slowly migrate over to fan base, because you don't want
to be caught, even as a business person or as
a creator, you don't want to be caught in a
situation where you your voice has been silenced and your
fans or your followers don't know where else to find you,
and now you just go into this dark hole. Start
(55:01):
migrating over to fan base, Start building your community there,
because when the tiktoks and the igs when when they
when when the administration begins silencing our culture, just as
they're doing now in real life in front of us,
you want to already have established yourself on a safe platform.
Speaker 4 (55:28):
So that's what I want to say. Go ahead and
migrate over.
Speaker 5 (55:32):
Start encouraging your followers to go over and build your
community where you're safe, build your community where you were
loved and where you're where our stories are going to
be told accurately.
Speaker 1 (55:48):
I want to make sure that I let folks know
that you can also find me on all platforms and
fan base at Ramsey's Jah.
Speaker 6 (56:01):
And I am Q Award on fan base to me
s I just followed you on both, Isaac, I've been
following you on social media since social media existed, I think, so, yeah, same,
I'm on your heels.
Speaker 1 (56:11):
Brother, thank you. I've been following you on Facebook since
since I got on Facebook. That would have been probably
two thousand and eight something like that, so wow, yeah,
it's been a long time. I also want to let
folks know you can follow Civic Cipher on all platforms
and on fan base as well, where we are active
(56:33):
and we share content, data driven content, and we will
continue to do so. So with that in mind, thank
you both very much for your time. I'd love to
have a conversation with you in the future about black
entrepreneurship because I think that this gives some insight into
what is possible, and you have left very large metaphorical
footprints on this path toward fiscal independence, showing people what
(56:57):
it looks like to create generational wealth and uh, like
I said, showing people what's possible. And so that's the
conversation that I'm anxious to have with you at some
point in the future. So spare us a little bit
of time over here on our show, and uh, you know,
obviously when the time is right, we'll make it a priority.
All right, Absolutely, we'll talk soon. And that's going to
(57:19):
do it for us on Civic Ciper. We'll see you
next week.
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