July 3, 2020 • 49 mins
When your gamer handle is “MamaImDatMan,” you better mean business. As the reigning MVP of the NBA 2K League and its first individual player to sign an endorsement deal, Nidal “MamaImDatMan” Nasser has proven he deserves the moniker. Nidal joins Jensen to talk about the skills and training it takes to be WAY better than you at video games, how the 2K League travels just like their NBA counterparts, and why the community of eSports is growing in popularity. He also helps pick Jensen’s future online handle. Then, in a new installment of FANDEMIC, Jensen chats with YouTube pioneer Kassem G. to breakdown the current controversies and questionable content surrounding creators on YouTube and Twitch that's costing them millions. He also talks about how his own current podcast, Pajama Pants, reunited both the kids from The Sopranos…that has absolutely nothing to do with The Sopranos. All of this and more on a special internet heavy episode of The Sports Bubble. This episode and series supports FeedingAmerica.org. For more of The Sports Bubble, visit treefort.fm/the-sports-bubble
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to the Sports Bubble, a production of I Heart
Radio Entree Fork Media. My name is Jensen Carp and
I'm a sports fan. And when there's no athletic competition
on TV, well, you have to look to other outlets
to quench your thirst. And a byproduct of this loss
is my sudden engagement with the drama of online influencers
(00:23):
and streaming celebrities. I know it's just gross, but somehow
I've been sucked in. It's probably the boredom, whether it
was following the NBA two K tournament, rooting on CrOx
enthusiast Gavin Lux playing MLB the Show League, or somehow
falling down the mainstream rabbit hole of YouTube drama. I
am hooked. We're all gravitating towards our computers and phones
during the pandemic, and I'm just thankful I have good WiFi.
(00:45):
But can E sports and streaming actually maintain the attention
it's grabbed during this low and actual sports? Will we
all just live in that one Fred Savage movie The Wizard,
where he competes to win a video game and people
all over the world actually care about it. Or is
this just another fleeting online craze like MySpace or Jeeves
or Tila Tequila, and what the hell is going on
with these band YouTubers. This episode, we dive in head
(01:08):
first into a very shallow pool. First, I'll speak with
the incredibly impressive Nadal Mama. I'm that man Nasser, the
reigning m v P of the NBA two K League
and its first individual player to sign an endorsement deal.
We talk about why he's better than me at video games,
the community of e sports, and he helps me pick
a unique candle for my future online. Then, in a
new installment of Pandemic, I talked to early YouTube pioneer
(01:31):
Cassim g in hopes he can decipher the current controversies
and questionable content costing creators millions of dollars in revenue.
He also explains how he has a podcast with both
kids from the Sopranos that has nothing to do with
the Sopranos. It's an Internet focused episode discussing one of
the many outlets we've clung to during this very weird time.
It's time to spark up your modem in the sports bubble.
(02:00):
So I wanted to start off by asking you where
you've been during this crazy time, especially during quarantine and
with who. Um. So the last three months actually more
like four months, I've been in Portland around February, and um,
this is actually my first time being home. So I
currently in San Bralo, California for the last couple of days.
I'm going back to Portland tomorrow, quarantining for however long
(02:23):
than even a quarantine for, and then getting back into
finny things. Yeah. I guess that's the crazy part too.
Like I before I did research on the two K
League and talking to you, I would have never thought
you'd actually have to move to the city that you're
playing in. It's crazy. It's wild. Like when it all
came to Fruition and I got drafted to Portland, I
was shocked. I was like, I'm going to Portland. I'm
(02:43):
from California, so it was just like mine. I was like,
I was completely shocked. So um, But as you get
customs to Portland and like the different cities that everyone
goes to, it gets better as the time goes on. Sure,
and you can technically play your game online anywhere. You
could have stayed in California. But I think it's actually
kind of cool that the NBA two K League has
all the teams meet up in the city for which
(03:03):
they play in, just like they're on an NBA team,
and you guys all live together, right, Yeah, so we
live in apartments of two, so will be me and
my roommate, and there's three apartments. We all live basically
on top of each other, so the fourth floor fifth
forces for um see each other every day, which could
get annoying after a while, but yeah, it's all good.
And then you guys practice like in the morning. It's
the same thing as like an NBA team that was
(03:25):
put in like a hotel for a night. Yeah, I
mean we practice probably from eleven to five almost every day,
except like Sundays or game days, whatever the case may be.
So how much of your professional life changes because of quarantine,
Like what what actually differs during the pandemic. I would
say the biggest thing that differentiates throughout the whole season
is that we can't fly to New York. So flying
(03:45):
New York kind of gives you that two K League feeling,
where like, I'm in the league and this is my profession.
We fly every week, So we're flying from Portland to
New York every week to play a forty five to
fifty minute game in front of fans and stuff like that.
And that's really where we thrive is in part of
people entertaining while playing, and that's kind of where our
market is. So even though the teams are in each
of the cities for which you guys play with, the
(04:07):
games take place once a week in New York, once
a week, well multiple days throughout the week, but in
New York, so Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, but we all
come in at different times to go play that game.
That is pretty intense that they have. You moved to
the same city just to fly to New York, which
is not your hometown, and now you're living not in
your hometown, but if you want to see your family,
you have to go to your hometown exactly. And then
(04:27):
also on top of everything, just the flights, like we
we fly six hours, so imagine flying on Monday, we
have a game on Wednesday, we fly on Monday six
hour in New York. We fly back on Thursdays another
six hours back Portland. So it's kind of head every
single week. But you've got to get used to it.
I would have never thought that it's like you guys
play online, you would think you'd reap the benefits. Yeah,
not at all. Well, playing in person is more beneficial
(04:51):
than playing online because it's just like it's that intense
eye to I feeling compared to online where your comb
in your own house. Well, especially for you, who you
kind of trash talk, you're a little more animated than
the rest of the league. Let's get into how you
got into video games. When did it start? Um? It
started when I was probably in third fourth grade. I
asked my dad for PS two and he was all
about school, school, school, you know, as long as you
(05:13):
have this sort of g p A or whether it'd
be all get it for you. So I'm playing that GP.
I got to PS two and it was Love of
First Sight. From then I was playing Call of Duty, Madden,
all sports games. Um. I didn't get into two K
until two thousand and eleven. Two thousand and ten, Kobe
was on the cover. I was around public thirteen fourteen
and I got that three point five, I got the Xbox,
(05:33):
I got the game, and from there it was over.
So how did you know you were good? Like? Because
I feel like I was good at a couple of
games back in the NS days, but I didn't know
if I would compete nationally, Like how does it go
from just being a dude who got into k like
basketball in real life and now you're competitively in the top.
So funny story. I was just it was in high
school and all my friends would want to play, you know,
(05:55):
and my close friends knew how much I loved the game,
and they knew that through my whole life, I've always
played the GA and I was good at it, but
I never really played in front of them. So it
was the first time I played in front of them,
and I was knocking each person down twenty thirty five
and people are like, oh no, now we want to
start gambling because they thought that it was all flutes.
So these people threw about my school my close friends
just twenty bucks, thirty bucks, and every game wouldn't be close.
(06:17):
And I got to a certain point where I felt
like I'm not gonna play anymore because I know that
you know I'm gonna win. And there was one weekend
we went to Tahoe and we played for like seven
hundred dollars and I swept through everybody in Tahoe. It
was like five six people and they were all like stunned.
And at that point I was like, Okay, I know
I'm good at this, and I say I started playing
competitively online, dying and day out, met everybody in the
(06:39):
community and from there on. Yeah, and like your dad,
who had a bit of an issue even buying you
the Xbox, now you have to explain to him it's
what you want to do for a living, because I
know you went to like San Francisco State or something, right,
and this was the decision you were going to make. Yeah,
my dad was never really big on it. You know,
if I got a bad grade in school with the Xbox,
would be out of my room that night. Yeah, for
good reason, for a good reason. And at the time
(07:01):
I understand it, right. Yeah, So when it all came
together and I got drafted up on and it was
kind of like I told you so, like I knew
this is gonna happen, even though I really didn't. But
it was always kind of like a sixth sense. And
so now he loves that. He supports all time shows,
all his friends and all that good stuff. So it's awesome.
Well do you want to talk about that drafting? So
you are the reigning m v P of the NBA
two K League. We'll get into the history you've made
(07:23):
during this pandemic as well. But first, you were drafted
in the second round. What am I missing? Did you
get better? Did people underestimate you? I think it was
more underestimated me. So I came into the community and
I used to play a different mode than proem. So
the poem is the mode that we play in the
league build. That's what the mode is called retail version.
So I would play team up, which is a whole
different side of the game, and so many people knew me,
(07:45):
but people didn't really know me like this when I
came into community. Of course, you're gonna have dollters and
people that say, oh, he's not good enough, he's just
doing this, he's just doing that. And I wasn't playing
my original position, point guard when I came into that
mode where everyone had their eyes on and so I
was playing power forward small forward, just jumping around, just
trying to fit in BUI. The goal was to get
in and so it was crazy that when the combine
(08:06):
came around, I had to make a decision. It was
either I stuck with what got me here, which was
power forward small forward, or I went with my gut,
which was point guard, and I took that risk, and
I told myself, if I'm gonna gets the big stage,
if I'm gonna be who I am and have my
game attacking all that good stuff, I want to play
point guard. And that's that's who I've always been. I've
always liked to be a leader on and off the floor,
and so this is what I was destined to do.
(08:28):
And so I showed up in the combine dominated throughout.
And so since I played point guard instead of my
other positions, I felt like I kind of slipped about
the draft, and so I ended up on Portland's. And
what is explained to me the difference between retail and
what you play in the league. So if I buy
the game, which I did, and I played at home,
what is the difference is I'm looking at that the
one you do professionally, the one professionally. So on retail
(08:49):
you can get you my player to nine. It doesn't matter.
What is overall is you can go ahead and play um.
So the mechanics on retail, or the sliders are on
All Star, or I believe on retail, so it's easier
to make shots. It's easier to make passes, it's easier
to make retos. Everything is easier on the retailer version.
When you get into the league, the league build is
much harder to score, much harder to defend, much harder
(09:11):
to move, much harder to shoot. And all our players
are captured at ninety two overall. So instead of you
having all these moves that you would have in retailer,
you wouldn't. You'd have a set of moves because you're
ninety two and you have to differentiate yourself throughout the pack. Wow,
that's crazy. Where did you get this online handle? Mama,
I'm that man. So, you know, watching the Warriors and
all that good stuff. Living in Sancisco. Mark Jackson came
(09:32):
to our team. He was our head coach for a
year or two, whatever the case may be. And I
love Mark Jackson just the way he commentates and all
that good stuff. And he has so many cash phrases,
and one of them was, Mama, there goes then man
when it's a big time fourth quarter shot or big
time shots in general. And so I would always look
at that and just kind of click like, Mama, I'm
that man. And I've always loved like fourth quarter moments
like give me the ball, move on my way, and
(09:53):
let me do my thing. And so that's where I
kind of came into where that's what happened. Listen, that's
that's a big country usion by Mark Jackson and Golden State,
considering wasn't there long, okay quarantine During it, approximately one
point seven million new players flocked to NBA two K,
bringing the total players up to ten point three million.
Without sports in our lives. Clearly people got into PlayStation
(10:16):
and NBA two K in general. Did you expect so
many people to pick up a controller because sports was missing?
I did, but I didn't. I feel like there's always
been a stigma where video games just kind of just
pushed the side, and the sports in general, especially at sports,
kind of pushed this side. So I never thought it
would give us a real chance. But I feel like
once we got on ESPN two, we're going on YouTube, Twitch,
(10:36):
all those platforms, and this was happening. Unfortunately, everyone had
nothing to do but watch us, and so when they
started to watch us, I feel like we've gained more
fans than we've gained the last two years. Um. I
feel like the league is growing and it's only out
from here. Yeah. And and during it, NBA stars competed
against each other. Did you get to watch the Players
League at all? I get to Well, I watched a
little bit of it, not too much because I was
(10:58):
focused on my season, But I did watch a little
bit of it. Could Devin Booker hang? He won the
whole tournament? Could he be an e sports bro? We
talked to Ronnie Took about it. He wasn't sure. What
do you think, man, To be honest, I think there's
no chance. I think just think he's too busy. Well, no,
I mean skills wise. Let's say let's say he let's
say the league doesn't come together. Everyone's nervous about what's
going on right now. Let's say he's not busy, he's
(11:19):
just sitting at home. Could he join the sports League?
He would have to show me before I give him
that pass. I can't just give him the past because
I've worked too hard to get that pass. I can't
call back. Yeah, you'd make it so as of right now,
in no way, no chance. But you were surprised. You
were surprised by how good he was. I was definitely surprised.
He played really well. Yeah, all right, you scored. I
have to get this straight because I tried to figure
it out by research. You scored seventies seven points against
(11:41):
the Bucks team in NBA two K in a league play.
I read that there's a controversy about this game because
they played kind of cheap. Back in my day, if
you played Street Fighter two and someone was Blanca and
just repeatedly kept doing the electricity move, that was like
cheap play. That's what I'm getting out of what the
Bucks did you in the fourth quarter. Yeah, So what
happened was the first quarter I scored thirty one, and
(12:01):
it was just and I'm Blinka and I I didn't
realize it, and by half my had like fifty and
I was like sixteen for seventeen and I was only
the only reason I even slowed down my pace in
the second quarter was just because I wanted to shoot
a perfect percentage of the whole game. And so my
teammates were like, no, no no, go for the record, go
for the record and the records. But like it's like
early eighties, right, the records eight four, the records eighty four,
and it was the first season and it was in
(12:23):
double overtime, so you know, he had much more time
in me, and so when that third quarter came, I
was like, Okay, I'm going for the record. And at
the end of the third I had like seventy points,
and going into the fourth the Bucks didn't break the record.
For whatever reason, I felt like it would have benefited
both of us. Not only do I get the record,
but the league grows because everyone's gonna get eyes that
I broke the record. But that's near here or there.
(12:45):
And we get into the full quarter and they hold
the ball for the whole four seconds when you get
the ball, and then when I get on offense, they
were putting all five guys on me not alignment to score.
So I tried. And I could have prolonged the game
and gave myself every opportunity, but I didn't want to
drain my teammate. Looking back on it, I kind of
wish I did pull along the game, but it was
the best three and it was the first game, so
(13:06):
I didn't want to lose the series. The win was
more important to me. Um, but yeah it was. It
was cheap played for sure. So explain to me why
you're better than me. Okay, so you you clearly know
when to shoot the ball in the game, you your
your release of the button. All of those things play
into it, right, Like what else can I chalk up
to you being this much better than me. My biggest
advice to people just trying to get into it and
get better at the game is mindset going into each
(13:28):
game out smarting your opponent. A lot of two K
is easy to master. And I say easy as in
the controls are right in front of you. I mean,
it's not rocket science. They're gonna give you exactly what
you can do. But the point is just to put
it together and outplay your opponent. So if he goes left,
I'm going right. If he's shading me right, I'm going left.
You know. If I'm going to paint, I'm pump taking
the first time, but the second time coming down, I'm
going straight up. Kind of playing my games throughout the
(13:50):
whole game. And that way people can't read what you're
gonna do. You're not predictable and you can go from there.
Do you ever jump on the retail just to screw
people over? Sometimes I get in the plug just to
play with people or just to dominate them, and they
send a message like you're not even that good? Or
who are you all that? Even though I'll be I'll
be front and center on the park like they have
like an advertisement right now. I'll be front and center
and they'll be like, oh, who are you not that? Yeah?
(14:11):
That's I love that all right. So you became the
first NBA two K player in the league to get
an endorsement, signing with Point three. Did you ever imagine
this could happen in college convincing your father this is
a job, and now you have an endorsement? No chance,
no chance? What is it? So tell people what point
three is? So point three is a sports clothing brand.
(14:32):
It's more for basketball, and so we have this technology
dry technology, and so it's on our shorts mainly. And
so what happens there is that if your hands get sweaty,
or your garden somebody that's sweaty, you don't wanna you
don't want to mess up with the ball in your hand.
For the most point, where does this real life basketball here?
Its not video games? And so the patent and technology
on the hip of the shorts allows you to swipe down.
(14:53):
It's kind of like some sort of a towel in
a sense. You can swipe down and release all that
swept in hand and get right back into game. So
for me, it's after those long competitive hours, you know,
sometimes my hands get a little bit moist or just
people's hands get moist throughout the day. And so they're
my new shorts. I wear them everywhere and anywhere. Um
And so that technology is awesome and as time goes on,
(15:15):
they're gonna be rolling out more and more and it's
only up. It's great man, all right. Question and this
is a new be kind of question. Can you sell
an endorsement for your player in the game, Like can
your player have a certain shirt on? Can they have
a certain shoe? Could you sign with Nike? But you
know what I mean, like are they ever thinking about
that stuff about your kind of like your avatar per
se within the two K league or on the version
(15:37):
I mean either one really, So right now we have
endorsement with Champion as a whole the whole league has
endorsement champions. The Champion has all their clothing when it
comes to the two K League. But outside of the
two K League, like my personal um endorsement, I wear
a point three almost everywhere I go, But in two
K weeks itself as champion got it very cool. So
(15:58):
obviously things have been easy, uh in this world, whether
it's the pandemic or the racial injustices that we're seeing.
I wanted to talk to you about how NBA two
K for some reason, NBA in general, but NBA two
K has a very strange pulse on society right like
even within kind of like the hype beast world. Whenever
something happens in NBA two K, it's front page. Maybe
(16:21):
Madden gets front cover, you know, oh who's on the
front cover whatever, But NBA two K had I remember
they had signs that said, you know, wash your hands
things during the pandemic that they added in the game.
On top of that, players recently were given the chance
to wear Black Lives Matter shirts and there was a
protest set up in the playground. Why does it seem
that this game has their ear to the street or
(16:43):
finger on the pulse or whatever it is more than
other video games. I think it's because it's global. I
think that our audience ranges from the United States, China,
everywhere in between. Um and also our community is really different.
You know, sometimes you'll get the part of the community
that's toxic and you don't want to be a part
of it, and you kind of want to stay away
from it. But then the other part, like you said,
(17:04):
when it comes to the Black Lives Matter movement or
and all that good stuff, you want to be a
part of it. You're you're proud to be a part
of it, and you want to get involved. So it's
it's just weird blacking too. Good is a good job
at attacking what's in front of us and attacking what's
going on in the world and always addressing just like
when Kobe unfortunately passed, it was automatically r I P. Kobe.
They put up, paid their condoles, is all that good stuff,
(17:25):
and that makes you appreciate the game more than they
can actually imagine. Absolutely. With sports slowly returning, there's a
rumor going around that a lot of the leagues are
going to use video game noise in the television broadcast.
And then there's some people saying that even in the stadium,
you're gonna hear like NBA two K kind of style yelling,
and that's how you're gonna get sort of the energy
(17:45):
of the crowd. You are always around that when you're
at least not in front of people in New York City?
Is this going to make people excited? Do you get
excited when you're playing and you hear fake applause when
there's a big play or a big moment, the crowd
in your ears saying my heads it It actually gets
you Ajnaline pumping a little bit. And it's weird because
you'd be like using a lot of a lot of
players in the league turn it off, turning the audience.
(18:07):
All the crowd moise off because they want to focus
in on the game. But for me, I leave it
on just for the shot clock. And when I started
to get going, like when I was scoring seventy seven,
the crowd would not stop cheering in my ear. And
so at that point it's kind of just like I
gotta keep going. This feeling is like I gotta keep going.
So um, hopefully, hopefully it comes out to where we
wanted to be and when the NBA picks backup will
(18:28):
be awesome. Who do you Who do you play with?
If you're on retail, you know, on quick Match, I'll
play with the Warriors, uh of course. But if I'm
playing you're talking about problem or just in quick matches.
So I mean, if it's not you, if you're not
playing as yourself. Oh, if I'm not playing myself, it
just it ranges. It actually matters what team my opponent picks.
I usually let them pick first because I'll give them
the advance like they picked the Bucks. I can't pick
(18:49):
the Warriors without Steph Clay and all those guys. But
if Stephen Clay only getting on picking the Warriors every time?
All right, all right, I need to handle. Okay, no
one knows the game of NBA two k better than you.
I have never picked my own handle. You have arguably
the best, maybe in video game history. You are that
he hate me of NBA two k uh. So I
wanted to throw some possibilities at you. You help me
(19:11):
choose from these, uh four possibles. Let's do it, all right? First,
your handle is a nod to the Bay Area. Clearly,
people have to know Mark Jackson was the coach, and
he announces and he's a warrior kind of at heart.
I want to stay in the region. I want to
give a nod to the sitcom full house, and I
want my name to be cut it out, big letters,
see ut it out? Okay, all right. That's the first one.
(19:34):
Not great, Okay, second one. I wanted to reflect that
I'm a forty year old man playing this game that's
mostly reserved for teens in early twenties. I want my
name to be I am a narc Okaya. That one
might that one might be controversial. Just imagine me walking
through the playground, but above me, it says, I am
a nark. Okay. I want people to start playing against me,
(19:57):
and I want them to assume that I'm bad. I
want them to a lower expectation so that even if
I score two in a game, they're like, wow, he
was better than I thought. So I thought about the
name James Dolan, the owner of the Knicks. That's an
interesting one. Are you from New York? I mean no,
but I'm I'm a Knicks. I mean we're all Knicks
fans in a sense that we like have to watch
what's going on, like you have to see. I mean
(20:18):
I was gonna say his band name, but I don't
even know his band name. All right, Okay, so James
Dolan cut it out and I'm an arm all right.
Last one to play on one of my favorite NBA stars, Right,
it's just off his name from the New York New
Orleans Pelicans. I want to be jew Holiday instead of
Drew Holiday. Okay, that's a good one. Jew Holiday. That
(20:39):
kind of speaks to yourself. Yes, it gives your perspective
of who you like. Well, you said you're a Knicks fan.
The Clippers die hard, but I'm a Knicks fan in
the same way that I like watch Jerry Springer as
a kid, like you can't look away. Yeah, okay, so
the only well, the only problem is that Drews and
the Pelicans, right, and so you kind of like be like, okay,
(21:01):
you know, Pelicans fan. But the name you speak to yourself,
I think the most important thing in the game. Take it,
speak to yourself. So I like cut it out, because
cut it out. It's like just a basketball, Like just
cut it out, Like just stop it so you can
take it. It's like, you can't guard me, You're not
better than me. There's a lot of things there that
I like about it. But the jew Holiday speaks to yourself.
It kind of gives you one of your favorite players
if he is hopefully yeah, and you can go from there.
(21:22):
So I would go from one of those two. I'm
an arc it's not okay. It it might speak most
to my actual personality, but yes, I agree with you,
it's probably too much. Well, dude, thank you for talking
to me. I'm excited to see you to take over
the league in a sense that I can't watch real
basketball yet. So i'm i'm, i'm, I've listened. I've watched
(21:42):
more NBA two Kids than I've ever watched. I'm happy
to be there and happy to have spoken to you.
I appreciate it, man, Thank you so much for having
me after this. In our latest pandemic installment, I check
in with Cass MG, comedian and co host of Pajama
Pants podcast to hear all about the drama happening with
the biggest twitch gamers and stars on YouTube right now.
(22:04):
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committed to serving communities and people facing hunger in America,
and their greatest need is donations and support of local
(22:26):
food banks. This podcast is committed to donating a portion
of the proceeds from the show to Feeding America, and
we hope that you can join us in this effort
to find out how you can help. But Feeding America
dot org backslash covid nineteen. Now here's my pandemic chat
(22:47):
with cass MG from to accept Press one. Cassim, I
feel like you are a bit of a translated for
me in this case, if that's okay. I feel like
a very old in this situation, very unhip narc trying
to figure out the drama that is twitch and YouTube
(23:08):
in the past few weeks. Yeah. Look, I take no
joy in being this translator. I'm gonna be thirty seven
this year, so um, I'm doing this purely just to
help another old man out. Thank you. Um. I feel
like we've got to look out for each other, but
I don't take any pride knowing what I know and
what I'm about to share. Well, your grandfather, then that's fine.
W When did you start with your own YouTube channel?
(23:29):
You were part of the early adopters. Yeah, I was early.
I started in like two thousand and seven, and you know,
I was like twenty three at the time. So YouTube
is a very different places, you know, not a lot
of people on it, and it was kind of I'd say,
it was easier to make a name for yourself back then.
And um, essentially could be you know, partly my fault
(23:50):
of why why all these people are on there now
and all the drama and and the logan and Jake
Paul's of the world, could could be my doing that
I think about it. Here's the thing, like, in my opinion,
I remember the early rush of YouTubers, right, so I
remember a handful of you guys, and I remember sort
of being told that people like Hannah Heart you were
(24:13):
the actual talented ones. It was like almost like someone
had sort of like siphon and I had to figure
out which ones were good. And then I saw you
when I worked at Josh. You did the famous Norm
McDonald pregame interview which should go into the Recording Hall
of Fame where Norm McDonald shows up to interview YouTubers
with you guys, and you understood the joke. Jenny Slate
(24:34):
understood the joke. But that made me a cassum Gee
fan immediately. Oh well, I appreciate that, you know, it was, um,
you know, and I appreciate all the kind words you said.
I think getting to the point where I was able
to work with Norm and like Norm was so great
that day as well as the day I'll never forget
because we were all told to dress up. Norm shows
up in sweatpants and like, I think it was like
(24:56):
a U C L A sweatshirt and a six sneakers
on and uh, he didn't give a fuck. And I
thought it was so great. And to have somebody at
his caliber roasting YouTubers people that I knew was such
a joy. I don't know why. Um, you know, people
would would ask me if I was offended or I
was like no, what a what a what a true
(25:18):
honor it was to have a legend like Norm McDonald
um saying the names of people that were famous on
the internet but nowhere else. I think that was it
was a real treat. Well, you know, I say this
to to move forward in a sense that I put
you in sort of the upper echelon, able to decipher
what's going on. What has happened to YouTube and streaming
(25:40):
since those early days, since those pioneering days, just explained
to me how we've gotten stupider. Yeah. Um, well, it's
a great question, and it's one I you know, I
try and think about. And it seems to me that
it seemed so easy to do what we did. And
I'm not saying it was hard hard work. It was.
(26:00):
It was a lot of hard work. But I think
when people saw because let's face it, on early YouTube,
there was it wasn't necessarily quality that rose to the top.
It was consistency. And if you were consistent, people, um
were attached and they developed a sort of relationship with
people on YouTube, and that's what allowed people to rise.
(26:20):
And I think people that were savvy were able to
see that and it was one of those things where
you go, oh, I could do that. And so you
had this influx of thousands and thousands of people who
saw how much money people were making on YouTube and
decided they would do it for themselves. And with that
influx comes a lot of talented people, and then it
(26:43):
comes there comes some untalented people, and um, you're gonna
get the good with the bad. But that's what happened.
There was a huge surge of people now doing what
you know, we thought we were kind of just like
screwing around with the daily vlogging and sketches on YouTube
(27:04):
and just talking to camera. Now there's all these different
types of formats, and you also saw a development of
like live streaming become a huge part of this too,
and sites like Twitch, which we're taking advantage of an
area of the market that YouTube wasn't paying attention to,
which was people going live. In the moment, talking to
(27:24):
a chat and online engagement is everything. If you talk
to your viewers, and as a viewer, you're being talked
to by somebody that you you enjoy, that makes everything different.
It's it's it's a different relationship you have than if
you were, UM watching Breaking Bad and you know, I
love Brian Cranston, but I don't get to talk to
Brian Cranston in a chat while I'm watching Brian Cranston.
(27:47):
And I think people um develop a much stronger connection
to the personalities that they watched. And so it's like
YouTube and Twitch and since mixer have have have come
and gone, but that's been a big um. That's just
been what happens when everyone decides to do what a
few people did, you know ten twelve years ago. So
(28:10):
I wanted to get you on the show because without
sports it has been difficult to follow something drama filled.
I mean, normally i'd be watching the NBA Finals, I'd
be trying to figure out these inside stories. I'd I'd
be rooting for my team, whatever it is. And so
much of the world has taken that energy and focused
it in on what's going on on YouTube and twitch
(28:32):
and really cancel culture in general. But boy, has YouTube
and streaming been really front and center for it. And
I wanted to start by talking about Doctor Disrespect, which
is a name I didn't even know until last week
when I'm just searching for anything on the internet to follow.
Can you explain to me how uh this is what
(28:52):
I think I just saw him two weeks ago. This
is like if Joe Dirt won an Oscar. It's like,
this is like if Ali G was actually an incredible rapper.
This dude's in character. He's doing sort of like this
mullet and mustache vibe thing going on, kind of like
an ol Uncerta NASCAR look. But he's also very good
at video gaming and streaming it on Twitch. So so
(29:15):
tell me about him and then why we hate him? Yes? So, um, look,
so Dr Disrespect is uh you know, if you've signed
on to the internet within the last couple of weeks,
you were created with with a very menacing face. And
this is a guy who has a mullet, um very
you know, Nolan Ryan esque, reflective sunglasses, a headset, and um,
(29:39):
no one knows who he is. I have friends asking
me and you know, again, a man my age, I
actually know who he is, and I'm I'm not proud
of it, but I will do my best to explain.
Thank you. Dr Disrespect is a Twitch streaming personality. He's
actually among what I consider to be one of the
higher tier quality content creators on the site. He is
(30:02):
a very interesting mix of persona a character with um
a skill in playing video games. Oftentimes on Twitch you
have people that are just a persona or personality and
then they just talked to their audience, and then you
have people that are just kind of skill based. UM.
In my opinion, that would be somebody like a Shroud
(30:23):
who was very good at the game. Maybe on the
personality side, not as vibrant, but still attracts a viewership
because people want to see how people play games at
a high level. He's the Kauhi Leonard of of of Twitch. Yes,
um baseball right and uh so so. Dr Disrespect is
a perfect mix of a high quality game player with
(30:46):
an incredible persona with an incredible production value to kind
of tie it all together. And he's been doing it
for the last five or six years, and he's amassed
millions of followers on the site. At four point four million.
He is repped by CIA. He has a two a
large two year deal with Twitch Mountain Dew sponsorship, supposedly
(31:07):
the largest ever by an individual gaming personality, Monstrous for
the platform, even for the business of Twitch. He is
a a big earner. Yes, he's so big um that
he can anytime he streams, you know, he's automatically uh
at the top of the topless of streamers, and and
and he can move audiences and and there's been a
(31:29):
lot of talk about him getting haid money to potentially
move off site. And that's what streamers like Shroud and Ninja,
the Fortnite player who Drake ended up kind of promoting
and he ended up blowing up. But these guys have
such a power to move audience. It's now I should
probably tell people how much these guys make, just so
(31:52):
you can kind of see why it's important and why
people care. I mean, on Twitch, there are four ways
to make money. There's donations, so your viewers that are
watching can directly donate money to you. That money is
just it comes in the form of, like, hey, this
person donated, here's a message they said in hopes that
doctor disrespect or somebody says it on their stream, so
(32:13):
you get that sort of acknowledgement. It's a tip, absolutely,
it's a tip. The other form is through subscriptions. Subscriptions
are kind of where you get the bulk of it. Now,
every month, somebody can subscribe to your Twitch channel and
at the very minimum, it's five dollars a month, and
it goes up to a month. Somebody like doctor Disrespect
(32:34):
has around fifty thou Twitch subscribers, so that times at
least five. And then you have ad revenue through Twitch.
So advertisers pay Twitch to advertise thirty second pre roll
ads or whatever, and then they share that revenue with
the creators. And then you also have sponsorships. These guys
will get paid money from the developers and the video
(32:54):
game companies to play their games per hour, and that
per hour can be anywhere from a thousand dollars to
ten thousand dollars just to play a game. So on
the on the high end, like somebody like a Ninja
could make potentially half a million dollars a month or more, right,
and somebody like Doctor Disrespect probably makes somewhere between a
(33:17):
hundred two hundred thousand dollars a month. That's why when
Mixer poached Ninja and Shroud, these deals were worth up
to thirty million dollars for like a three year deal,
because these guys had to be incentivized to move and
completely take their audience with them. Otherwise they're doing just
fine where they're at. So that's important to keep in
(33:38):
mind because to get someone off of Twitch that is
that caliber, that is that high on the tier would
cost a lot of money. Normally, losing that audience, losing
that base, losing that ability would cost a lot of money.
So when Doctor Disrespect a toxic gamer personality that is
kind of what he's known for, being over the top
and rambunctious and kind of almost making fun of troll
(34:00):
culture a bit from what I've seen. So when he
gets probably permanently banned from Twitch out of nowhere, out
of nowhere, people who went to go watch him, noticed
that his account was taken off the site. He is
he is reporting and telling people he doesn't know why.
That's the drama. I was brought into that a guy
could lose millions and millions of dollars overnight and not
(34:21):
know why. Right, So there's not a lot of clarity,
there's just a lot of speculation. Now, Doctor Disrespect in
the past was suspended from Twitch because he was live
streaming at E three and happened to walk into a
public bathroom, which is a no, no, we don't stream
pp and uh. They banned him for I think, um
(34:42):
a couple of weeks. There was also a personal moment
for him before that where he was kind of caught
um cheating on his spouse with a viewer, and that
turned into a thing where he took a leave of
absence and then ended up coming back bigger than ever.
His audiences, they are so into the fact that he
(35:05):
plays into the this actual persona that when the real
guy his name's guy being, when the real guy does
things that fit into the persona, it only like amplifies
in snowballs his viewership. So when he came back from
the accusations of cheating on his wife. His viewership had
like doubled the first week, and then when he came
back from the Twitch band from uh uh Streaming PP,
(35:28):
he came back even stronger. So now the reason this
is different is it's supposedly a permanent band. There's no
reasons why Twitch has banned people in the past before
UM permanently without telling them exactly why. They'll just refer
to their terms of service and their guidelines. Is being violated.
The rumors are and I don't know how, you know,
(35:51):
people that actually know what's going on are the people
on the inside that work at Twitch. Everyone else is
just assuming. There are some rumors that Spotify wants to
open up their own UM live streaming site. There's talk
that maybe Doctor Disrespect was trying to recruit other streamers
to go off platform to another site. I don't know
how valid that is, but Spotify has been making deals
(36:14):
with people like Joe Rogan in the podcast world, so
it would make sense that they would try and cover
the live streaming side of this as well and gaming UM.
There's also just it could be some rumors about charity.
There's a lot of times these guys do charity streams
where they raise money for charities. A couple of times
I've heard that, um, there's been some back end money
(36:35):
that's been kept, or um, not all the money was donated,
as kind of kind of that gray area there. No
one knows. At this point, his entire subreddit is going crazy.
No one seems to be upset in any way. They
just want to know when he's coming back. Yeah, so
I looked into it a little. Those are the rumors
that I saw as well. But then also, you know,
(36:56):
not at all saying this is what it is. But
Twitch also has started a new kind of attack on streamers,
much like the rest of the world who was facing
sexual assault and predator accusations in their industries. So that
is something that they have been acting on recently for streamers,
and so people are thinking that's also another possibility for
this banning. Yeah, the timing that that once once they
(37:19):
kind of um came out with there we're going to
be we have a no tolerance policy when it comes
to sexual assault. It was like the day after the
doctor disrespect thing happened. So to make the sports related,
I mean, the reason why I'm so connected to it
is this is like if out of nowhere, just Kyrie
Irving couldn't play in the NBA anymore, and they were like,
you go play in the D League or c BA
(37:39):
or whatever, but you have nothing to do with the
place that you make millions in. And we're not going
to tell you why that is a And maybe it's
for a good reason, maybe it's not. Whatever it is,
but what a crazy turn of events for a dude
who was making more than a living, was making a
fortune playing video games in a mullet wig. Absolutely, I
mean that's going to be the worst part is that
he's got to be in this way the whole time,
(38:01):
so maybe he takes his time to take it off
and scratch his head. Uh. You know, this is uh
one of those things where when you you put all
your eggs in a basket, and you know, in this case,
Twitches owned by Amazon, it's it's a company, and these
companies can change the rules of the game at any moment.
Same thing with YouTube, same thing with you know, caffeine
(38:22):
and all these other places. They are all owned by UM,
an investment group, and they at the end of the day,
only care about money and they don't care about the
um livelihood of people that use their site for their
own personal game. Let's get into YouTube for a little bit,
so I would call it you're graduating class. I would say,
(38:44):
the group of people who all came up together. You
were involved in maker studios, and you knew all these people.
These were your peers at the time. The Internet and
YouTube in the early days. You know, the Wild West
comparison is cliche and stupid. You heard it all the time,
but comedy was lowbrow for YouTube when it first started.
(39:05):
The nation seems to be changing, and a lot of
the names who came up UH in those early days
are now facing criticism for the videos they posted early
in their careers, the ones that have hit mainstream that
I've been following again with no baseball to follow. Jenna
Marble's as a name I knew sort of from from
your groups back in the day. She was one of
(39:27):
the other people who UH was sort of claimed to
be better than her medium. She was, you know, kind
of smarter and funnier by a lot of people's gauges.
She removes herself off YouTube after past videos go under
fire for racist comments UH and and homophobic stuff. And
then Shane Dawson, one of the premier names not only
(39:47):
on YouTube from its start, but now a massive millionaire,
apologizes for past racist jokes, blackface, pedophilia jokes, gets called
out by Will Smith's family for making a Will Smith
Joe his YouTube channel. Similar to Dr Disrespect. They have
demonetized Shane Dawson's YouTube channel, meaning he can't make money
(40:07):
from any of the videos he posts. And that also
loops in a guy named Jeffrey Starr, who I unfortunately
know about, who is a guy who was a makeup empire,
so much of an empire. I while researching, I figured
out he has a fourteen point six million dollar house.
These people have made tons of money off YouTube and
they all have to basically run away as a group,
(40:29):
it appears, because all their comedy is now under fire
from from that early beginning they went through. What do
you know as someone who was involved in that growth,
You know, I think you touched on it there. I
think growth is important. There are as you said, it
was pretty low brow and um, you had a lot
of people that were doing comedy online that we're also
(40:51):
cutting their teeth online. But it was very visible. Like
when I started in comedy, I spent about eighteen months
doing stand up and us trying to do stand up
and I was bad at it, and you kind of
have to be bad at it. But luckily, when you're
doing stand up, it's in a club, hopefully it's not
in a major city, and you're just kind of bombing
in front of a few people. The unfortunate thing with
(41:14):
YouTube is that timing is everything, and you had a
lot of these people who were cutting their teeth, but
they were very visible in front of their entire audience.
And so instead of finding out what jokes didn't work
or um worked and work shopping them privately, all that
stuff was out in the open, and there was a
lot I mean, specifically, I think from Shane Dawson. He
(41:37):
really experimented if I'm going to use that word, you know,
even back then though I don't think any of us
were really okay with the fact that he was using
black face. There's not a lot of people from that
era I think that did he um. He had a
character named Sane that uh and again I'm sorry I
know all this, but uh, you know, when I when
(41:59):
I saw that character, I remember Martin Lawrence's show Martin
and he had a character named Sanine and I was
just like, well, it seemed like Shane really borrowed heavily
from that character. Um, with one big difference, with one
big difference that he he was African American, and um,
Shane didn't seem to make that connection and was kind
of just thought everything was fair game. Comedy is comedy.
(42:23):
Don't tell me what I can and can't do. And
he did it a lot. And um, there's a lot
of stuff that has come out in regards to sort
of like his conversations and you know with underage sort
of like inappropriate underage stuff was which is also there's
a there's a video of him, you know, gesturing like
(42:45):
he's gratifying himself to like a poster of Willow Smith.
And that's the thing that kind of, um that got
the Smiths involved. Jaden, you don't want Jaden, you don't want. Yeah,
you don't want a top tier a list Hollywood family
coming after you. And um and and for a gross clip,
I mean he's having his books removed from the shelves
of Target because of it. He is makeup is being
(43:05):
pulled off of shelves. How how much money do people
like Shane Dawson, Jenna Marble's, what do they lose? These
people are all millionaires. We should not feel that bad.
These people are making millions and millions of dollars a
year and YouTube demonetizing Shane's channels, and it's not a
(43:25):
permanent demonetization. It's it's a temporary thing and he will
be back. And these sort of things honestly end up
working in the favor because like you and other people
that just log on the Twitter one day, all of
a sudden see a face of somebody who've never heard of,
and then there's a million articles describing what this person
has done. And eventually people will start to forget what
(43:47):
they've done, but they'll remember the name in the face.
And then these people just carry on, I mean, for
your for your for YouTube and streaming and all these things.
It seems like this is content part part of part
of the process of knowing someone and learning about them
and growing up with them is also seeing their huge fails.
And you know, not not to defend Jenna Marble's and
Shane Dawson, because I never thought i'd even say that sentence,
(44:07):
but I will say that both had apologized before. Both
both had come clean about what they had done in
the past and said it's shameful and etcetera. And and uh,
you know they're paying for it now and and and
and you know it seems like for a good reason. Um,
but it is a very slippery slope and a strange
time in America. And it does seem like streaming and
YouTube is is taking a lot of the brunt um
(44:28):
look and I and I'm totally with it. I think
we're going in the right direction. Um. I think we
need to be able to allow people to grow and
understand that what was maybe okay then, um is not
okay now and we should. You know, Jenna took a
big step and removed herself from YouTube now, Okay, that's
(44:49):
that's great. Nobody asked her to do that. She kind
of took the initiative to do that. She also has
a very big I mean I would say most of
her presence, not most, but she has a big presence
on twitch U. She also live streams, and there's no
talk about her leaving Twitch. It's kind of just on YouTube.
So there's there's progress made. She I think dealt would
(45:10):
be apology a little bit better with Shane's. It seems
like there's a lot of I used to be that guy.
I'm not that guy. Can't even look at that guy anymore.
There was less ownership over him, and he seemed to
be distancing himself from himself. But he's gone through this
several times and he will be back and it's up
(45:30):
to people to decide whether they watch him or not.
You guys get to decide with who you click on
and who you watch, and UM, for a lot of you,
it's your kids now, And UM, what's good is that
now you know the type of content that potentially your
kids have access to. Because we used to think YouTube
was just okay and whatever was on YouTube was okay.
But now we know there's a lot of stuff on
YouTube that's not all right, and they have a whole
(45:52):
section of it just four kids now. And if you're
a parent, when we were young, he used to have uh,
you know, parental controls on your TV and you didn't
have access to certain things that were rated a certain way.
Should be the same way with YouTube. You should have
complete transparency with what your kids are watching on YouTube
because there's a lot of stuff agreed out there that
(46:12):
shouldn't be watching. Well, I'm just happy we didn't get
into make Upgate. I'm proud that we didn't have enough time.
I am too. I can't. There's there's some stuff that
I can read through, like the Twitch drama, but when
it comes to other things like um beauty gurus and
stuff like that, I I can't do it. Well. I
wanted to at least get a pitch in there for
your podcast called Pajama Pants Only, because you you have
(46:33):
all things you've done. You have reunited Robert Iller and
Jamie Lynds Szigler from The Sopranos to do a podcast
with you. And by the way, it has nothing to
do with the Sopranos. It is just hang out lifestyle
talk podcast that just coincidentally has the two kids from
the most iconic television show of all time. What is
your connection to the children of the Sopranos, Um, Yeah,
(46:56):
thanks so much for the plug. Me and Robert we
we met, uh, I don't know, six seven years ago.
We shot a pilot together and um we got to
be fast friends. And you know he I met Jamie
through Robert. UM. I take pride in the fact that
there's uh, it's it's not a Sopranos rewatch podcasts. There
are three or four other rewatch podcasts which are all good,
(47:19):
but to be honest, none of us have watched the
entire series. Though for us to talk about the Sopranos
would be, um, it wouldn't be authentic. And I think
what's good is that when it comes up, they talk
about their experience. But we all it was just three
people talking about their lives, I think, which is um
the best part. But uh yes, if you're looking for
(47:39):
a Sopranos podcast, even though we have Meadow and a
j soprano, probably not the best podcast for you to
Roberts like this mysterious cloak of a human being. He
didn't want to act anymore. He's like this enigma of
a human who's just all we know is he loves slipknot.
It is a great It is a great personality to
have out in public. So I'm happy that you're digging deeper.
(48:00):
I appreciate it. Thanks so much well, cass MG. Everybody
go check out pajama Pants and also let's let's let's
both loosen up on checking out YouTube and twitch trauma. Yeah,
we should also take a break. Thank's Caliday. Thanks than
(48:20):
The Sports Bubble is produced and distributed by tree Fort Media.
The show was executive produced by Kelly Garner, Lisa Ammerman,
Matthew Coogler, and me Jensen Cart. Tom Monahan is our
senior audio engineer and sound supervisor, with production and editing
by Jasper Leak additional production help from Tim Shower, June Rosen,
and Hayley Mandelberg. Our theme music is composed by Spilkis.
(48:42):
If you've enjoyed what you've heard, please subscribe, rate us
and review us on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to podcasts, and please visit Feeding
America dot org if you're able to make a donation,
Any amount makes a difference, and you can learn more
about other ways you can help on their website. For
more information on the Sports Bubble, links to the socials,
and for show transcripts for our hearing impaired listeners, go
(49:04):
to tree Fort dot fm. Be safe and be Well.
The Sports Bubble is a production of I Heart Radio
and tree Fort Media. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to the Sports Bubble, a production of I Heart
Radio Entree Fork Media. My name is Jensen Carp and
I'm a sports fan. And when there's no athletic competition
on TV, well, you have to look to other outlets
to quench your thirst. And a byproduct of this loss
is my sudden engagement with the drama of online influencers
(00:23):
and streaming celebrities. I know it's just gross, but somehow
I've been sucked in. It's probably the boredom, whether it
was following the NBA two K tournament, rooting on CrOx
enthusiast Gavin Lux playing MLB the Show League, or somehow
falling down the mainstream rabbit hole of YouTube drama. I
am hooked. We're all gravitating towards our computers and phones
during the pandemic, and I'm just thankful I have good WiFi.
(00:45):
But can E sports and streaming actually maintain the attention
it's grabbed during this low and actual sports? Will we
all just live in that one Fred Savage movie The Wizard,
where he competes to win a video game and people
all over the world actually care about it. Or is
this just another fleeting online craze like MySpace or Jeeves
or Tila Tequila, and what the hell is going on
with these band YouTubers. This episode, we dive in head
(01:08):
first into a very shallow pool. First, I'll speak with
the incredibly impressive Nadal Mama. I'm that man Nasser, the
reigning m v P of the NBA two K League
and its first individual player to sign an endorsement deal.
We talk about why he's better than me at video games,
the community of e sports, and he helps me pick
a unique candle for my future online. Then, in a
new installment of Pandemic, I talked to early YouTube pioneer
(01:31):
Cassim g in hopes he can decipher the current controversies
and questionable content costing creators millions of dollars in revenue.
He also explains how he has a podcast with both
kids from the Sopranos that has nothing to do with
the Sopranos. It's an Internet focused episode discussing one of
the many outlets we've clung to during this very weird time.
It's time to spark up your modem in the sports bubble.
(02:00):
So I wanted to start off by asking you where
you've been during this crazy time, especially during quarantine and
with who. Um. So the last three months actually more
like four months, I've been in Portland around February, and um,
this is actually my first time being home. So I
currently in San Bralo, California for the last couple of days.
I'm going back to Portland tomorrow, quarantining for however long
(02:23):
than even a quarantine for, and then getting back into
finny things. Yeah. I guess that's the crazy part too.
Like I before I did research on the two K
League and talking to you, I would have never thought
you'd actually have to move to the city that you're
playing in. It's crazy. It's wild. Like when it all
came to Fruition and I got drafted to Portland, I
was shocked. I was like, I'm going to Portland. I'm
(02:43):
from California, so it was just like mine. I was like,
I was completely shocked. So um, But as you get
customs to Portland and like the different cities that everyone
goes to, it gets better as the time goes on. Sure,
and you can technically play your game online anywhere. You
could have stayed in California. But I think it's actually
kind of cool that the NBA two K League has
all the teams meet up in the city for which
(03:03):
they play in, just like they're on an NBA team,
and you guys all live together, right, Yeah, so we
live in apartments of two, so will be me and
my roommate, and there's three apartments. We all live basically
on top of each other, so the fourth floor fifth
forces for um see each other every day, which could
get annoying after a while, but yeah, it's all good.
And then you guys practice like in the morning. It's
the same thing as like an NBA team that was
(03:25):
put in like a hotel for a night. Yeah, I
mean we practice probably from eleven to five almost every day,
except like Sundays or game days, whatever the case may be.
So how much of your professional life changes because of quarantine,
Like what what actually differs during the pandemic. I would
say the biggest thing that differentiates throughout the whole season
is that we can't fly to New York. So flying
(03:45):
New York kind of gives you that two K League feeling,
where like, I'm in the league and this is my profession.
We fly every week, So we're flying from Portland to
New York every week to play a forty five to
fifty minute game in front of fans and stuff like that.
And that's really where we thrive is in part of
people entertaining while playing, and that's kind of where our
market is. So even though the teams are in each
of the cities for which you guys play with, the
(04:07):
games take place once a week in New York, once
a week, well multiple days throughout the week, but in
New York, so Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, but we all
come in at different times to go play that game.
That is pretty intense that they have. You moved to
the same city just to fly to New York, which
is not your hometown, and now you're living not in
your hometown, but if you want to see your family,
you have to go to your hometown exactly. And then
(04:27):
also on top of everything, just the flights, like we
we fly six hours, so imagine flying on Monday, we
have a game on Wednesday, we fly on Monday six
hour in New York. We fly back on Thursdays another
six hours back Portland. So it's kind of head every
single week. But you've got to get used to it.
I would have never thought that it's like you guys
play online, you would think you'd reap the benefits. Yeah,
not at all. Well, playing in person is more beneficial
(04:51):
than playing online because it's just like it's that intense
eye to I feeling compared to online where your comb
in your own house. Well, especially for you, who you
kind of trash talk, you're a little more animated than
the rest of the league. Let's get into how you
got into video games. When did it start? Um? It
started when I was probably in third fourth grade. I
asked my dad for PS two and he was all
about school, school, school, you know, as long as you
(05:13):
have this sort of g p A or whether it'd
be all get it for you. So I'm playing that GP.
I got to PS two and it was Love of
First Sight. From then I was playing Call of Duty, Madden,
all sports games. Um. I didn't get into two K
until two thousand and eleven. Two thousand and ten, Kobe
was on the cover. I was around public thirteen fourteen
and I got that three point five, I got the Xbox,
(05:33):
I got the game, and from there it was over.
So how did you know you were good? Like? Because
I feel like I was good at a couple of
games back in the NS days, but I didn't know
if I would compete nationally, Like how does it go
from just being a dude who got into k like
basketball in real life and now you're competitively in the top.
So funny story. I was just it was in high
school and all my friends would want to play, you know,
(05:55):
and my close friends knew how much I loved the game,
and they knew that through my whole life, I've always
played the GA and I was good at it, but
I never really played in front of them. So it
was the first time I played in front of them,
and I was knocking each person down twenty thirty five
and people are like, oh no, now we want to
start gambling because they thought that it was all flutes.
So these people threw about my school my close friends
just twenty bucks, thirty bucks, and every game wouldn't be close.
(06:17):
And I got to a certain point where I felt
like I'm not gonna play anymore because I know that
you know I'm gonna win. And there was one weekend
we went to Tahoe and we played for like seven
hundred dollars and I swept through everybody in Tahoe. It
was like five six people and they were all like stunned.
And at that point I was like, Okay, I know
I'm good at this, and I say I started playing
competitively online, dying and day out, met everybody in the
(06:39):
community and from there on. Yeah, and like your dad,
who had a bit of an issue even buying you
the Xbox, now you have to explain to him it's
what you want to do for a living, because I
know you went to like San Francisco State or something, right,
and this was the decision you were going to make. Yeah,
my dad was never really big on it. You know,
if I got a bad grade in school with the Xbox,
would be out of my room that night. Yeah, for
good reason, for a good reason. And at the time
(07:01):
I understand it, right. Yeah, So when it all came
together and I got drafted up on and it was
kind of like I told you so, like I knew
this is gonna happen, even though I really didn't. But
it was always kind of like a sixth sense. And
so now he loves that. He supports all time shows,
all his friends and all that good stuff. So it's awesome.
Well do you want to talk about that drafting? So
you are the reigning m v P of the NBA
two K League. We'll get into the history you've made
(07:23):
during this pandemic as well. But first, you were drafted
in the second round. What am I missing? Did you
get better? Did people underestimate you? I think it was
more underestimated me. So I came into the community and
I used to play a different mode than proem. So
the poem is the mode that we play in the
league build. That's what the mode is called retail version.
So I would play team up, which is a whole
different side of the game, and so many people knew me,
(07:45):
but people didn't really know me like this when I
came into community. Of course, you're gonna have dollters and
people that say, oh, he's not good enough, he's just
doing this, he's just doing that. And I wasn't playing
my original position, point guard when I came into that
mode where everyone had their eyes on and so I
was playing power forward small forward, just jumping around, just
trying to fit in BUI. The goal was to get
in and so it was crazy that when the combine
(08:06):
came around, I had to make a decision. It was
either I stuck with what got me here, which was
power forward small forward, or I went with my gut,
which was point guard, and I took that risk, and
I told myself, if I'm gonna gets the big stage,
if I'm gonna be who I am and have my
game attacking all that good stuff, I want to play
point guard. And that's that's who I've always been. I've
always liked to be a leader on and off the floor,
and so this is what I was destined to do.
(08:28):
And so I showed up in the combine dominated throughout.
And so since I played point guard instead of my
other positions, I felt like I kind of slipped about
the draft, and so I ended up on Portland's. And
what is explained to me the difference between retail and
what you play in the league. So if I buy
the game, which I did, and I played at home,
what is the difference is I'm looking at that the
one you do professionally, the one professionally. So on retail
(08:49):
you can get you my player to nine. It doesn't matter.
What is overall is you can go ahead and play um.
So the mechanics on retail, or the sliders are on
All Star, or I believe on retail, so it's easier
to make shots. It's easier to make passes, it's easier
to make retos. Everything is easier on the retailer version.
When you get into the league, the league build is
much harder to score, much harder to defend, much harder
(09:11):
to move, much harder to shoot. And all our players
are captured at ninety two overall. So instead of you
having all these moves that you would have in retailer,
you wouldn't. You'd have a set of moves because you're
ninety two and you have to differentiate yourself throughout the pack. Wow,
that's crazy. Where did you get this online handle? Mama,
I'm that man. So, you know, watching the Warriors and
all that good stuff. Living in Sancisco. Mark Jackson came
(09:32):
to our team. He was our head coach for a
year or two, whatever the case may be. And I
love Mark Jackson just the way he commentates and all
that good stuff. And he has so many cash phrases,
and one of them was, Mama, there goes then man
when it's a big time fourth quarter shot or big
time shots in general. And so I would always look
at that and just kind of click like, Mama, I'm
that man. And I've always loved like fourth quarter moments
like give me the ball, move on my way, and
(09:53):
let me do my thing. And so that's where I
kind of came into where that's what happened. Listen, that's
that's a big country usion by Mark Jackson and Golden State,
considering wasn't there long, okay quarantine During it, approximately one
point seven million new players flocked to NBA two K,
bringing the total players up to ten point three million.
Without sports in our lives. Clearly people got into PlayStation
(10:16):
and NBA two K in general. Did you expect so
many people to pick up a controller because sports was missing?
I did, but I didn't. I feel like there's always
been a stigma where video games just kind of just
pushed the side, and the sports in general, especially at sports,
kind of pushed this side. So I never thought it
would give us a real chance. But I feel like
once we got on ESPN two, we're going on YouTube, Twitch,
(10:36):
all those platforms, and this was happening. Unfortunately, everyone had
nothing to do but watch us, and so when they
started to watch us, I feel like we've gained more
fans than we've gained the last two years. Um. I
feel like the league is growing and it's only out
from here. Yeah. And and during it, NBA stars competed
against each other. Did you get to watch the Players
League at all? I get to Well, I watched a
little bit of it, not too much because I was
(10:58):
focused on my season, But I did watch a little
bit of it. Could Devin Booker hang? He won the
whole tournament? Could he be an e sports bro? We
talked to Ronnie Took about it. He wasn't sure. What
do you think, man, To be honest, I think there's
no chance. I think just think he's too busy. Well, no,
I mean skills wise. Let's say let's say he let's
say the league doesn't come together. Everyone's nervous about what's
going on right now. Let's say he's not busy, he's
(11:19):
just sitting at home. Could he join the sports League?
He would have to show me before I give him
that pass. I can't just give him the past because
I've worked too hard to get that pass. I can't
call back. Yeah, you'd make it so as of right now,
in no way, no chance. But you were surprised. You
were surprised by how good he was. I was definitely surprised.
He played really well. Yeah, all right, you scored. I
have to get this straight because I tried to figure
it out by research. You scored seventies seven points against
(11:41):
the Bucks team in NBA two K in a league play.
I read that there's a controversy about this game because
they played kind of cheap. Back in my day, if
you played Street Fighter two and someone was Blanca and
just repeatedly kept doing the electricity move, that was like
cheap play. That's what I'm getting out of what the
Bucks did you in the fourth quarter. Yeah, So what
happened was the first quarter I scored thirty one, and
(12:01):
it was just and I'm Blinka and I I didn't
realize it, and by half my had like fifty and
I was like sixteen for seventeen and I was only
the only reason I even slowed down my pace in
the second quarter was just because I wanted to shoot
a perfect percentage of the whole game. And so my
teammates were like, no, no no, go for the record, go
for the record and the records. But like it's like
early eighties, right, the records eight four, the records eighty four,
and it was the first season and it was in
(12:23):
double overtime, so you know, he had much more time
in me, and so when that third quarter came, I
was like, Okay, I'm going for the record. And at
the end of the third I had like seventy points,
and going into the fourth the Bucks didn't break the record.
For whatever reason, I felt like it would have benefited
both of us. Not only do I get the record,
but the league grows because everyone's gonna get eyes that
I broke the record. But that's near here or there.
(12:45):
And we get into the full quarter and they hold
the ball for the whole four seconds when you get
the ball, and then when I get on offense, they
were putting all five guys on me not alignment to score.
So I tried. And I could have prolonged the game
and gave myself every opportunity, but I didn't want to
drain my teammate. Looking back on it, I kind of
wish I did pull along the game, but it was
the best three and it was the first game, so
(13:06):
I didn't want to lose the series. The win was
more important to me. Um, but yeah it was. It
was cheap played for sure. So explain to me why
you're better than me. Okay, so you you clearly know
when to shoot the ball in the game, you your
your release of the button. All of those things play
into it, right, Like what else can I chalk up
to you being this much better than me. My biggest
advice to people just trying to get into it and
get better at the game is mindset going into each
(13:28):
game out smarting your opponent. A lot of two K
is easy to master. And I say easy as in
the controls are right in front of you. I mean,
it's not rocket science. They're gonna give you exactly what
you can do. But the point is just to put
it together and outplay your opponent. So if he goes left,
I'm going right. If he's shading me right, I'm going left.
You know. If I'm going to paint, I'm pump taking
the first time, but the second time coming down, I'm
going straight up. Kind of playing my games throughout the
(13:50):
whole game. And that way people can't read what you're
gonna do. You're not predictable and you can go from there.
Do you ever jump on the retail just to screw
people over? Sometimes I get in the plug just to
play with people or just to dominate them, and they
send a message like you're not even that good? Or
who are you all that? Even though I'll be I'll
be front and center on the park like they have
like an advertisement right now. I'll be front and center
and they'll be like, oh, who are you not that? Yeah?
(14:11):
That's I love that all right. So you became the
first NBA two K player in the league to get
an endorsement, signing with Point three. Did you ever imagine
this could happen in college convincing your father this is
a job, and now you have an endorsement? No chance,
no chance? What is it? So tell people what point
three is? So point three is a sports clothing brand.
(14:32):
It's more for basketball, and so we have this technology
dry technology, and so it's on our shorts mainly. And
so what happens there is that if your hands get sweaty,
or your garden somebody that's sweaty, you don't wanna you
don't want to mess up with the ball in your hand.
For the most point, where does this real life basketball here?
Its not video games? And so the patent and technology
on the hip of the shorts allows you to swipe down.
(14:53):
It's kind of like some sort of a towel in
a sense. You can swipe down and release all that
swept in hand and get right back into game. So
for me, it's after those long competitive hours, you know,
sometimes my hands get a little bit moist or just
people's hands get moist throughout the day. And so they're
my new shorts. I wear them everywhere and anywhere. Um
And so that technology is awesome and as time goes on,
(15:15):
they're gonna be rolling out more and more and it's
only up. It's great man, all right. Question and this
is a new be kind of question. Can you sell
an endorsement for your player in the game, Like can
your player have a certain shirt on? Can they have
a certain shoe? Could you sign with Nike? But you
know what I mean, like are they ever thinking about
that stuff about your kind of like your avatar per
se within the two K league or on the version
(15:37):
I mean either one really, So right now we have
endorsement with Champion as a whole the whole league has
endorsement champions. The Champion has all their clothing when it
comes to the two K League. But outside of the
two K League, like my personal um endorsement, I wear
a point three almost everywhere I go, But in two
K weeks itself as champion got it very cool. So
(15:58):
obviously things have been easy, uh in this world, whether
it's the pandemic or the racial injustices that we're seeing.
I wanted to talk to you about how NBA two
K for some reason, NBA in general, but NBA two
K has a very strange pulse on society right like
even within kind of like the hype beast world. Whenever
something happens in NBA two K, it's front page. Maybe
(16:21):
Madden gets front cover, you know, oh who's on the
front cover whatever, But NBA two K had I remember
they had signs that said, you know, wash your hands
things during the pandemic that they added in the game.
On top of that, players recently were given the chance
to wear Black Lives Matter shirts and there was a
protest set up in the playground. Why does it seem
that this game has their ear to the street or
(16:43):
finger on the pulse or whatever it is more than
other video games. I think it's because it's global. I
think that our audience ranges from the United States, China,
everywhere in between. Um and also our community is really different.
You know, sometimes you'll get the part of the community
that's toxic and you don't want to be a part
of it, and you kind of want to stay away
from it. But then the other part, like you said,
(17:04):
when it comes to the Black Lives Matter movement or
and all that good stuff, you want to be a
part of it. You're you're proud to be a part
of it, and you want to get involved. So it's
it's just weird blacking too. Good is a good job
at attacking what's in front of us and attacking what's
going on in the world and always addressing just like
when Kobe unfortunately passed, it was automatically r I P. Kobe.
They put up, paid their condoles, is all that good stuff,
(17:25):
and that makes you appreciate the game more than they
can actually imagine. Absolutely. With sports slowly returning, there's a
rumor going around that a lot of the leagues are
going to use video game noise in the television broadcast.
And then there's some people saying that even in the stadium,
you're gonna hear like NBA two K kind of style yelling,
and that's how you're gonna get sort of the energy
(17:45):
of the crowd. You are always around that when you're
at least not in front of people in New York City?
Is this going to make people excited? Do you get
excited when you're playing and you hear fake applause when
there's a big play or a big moment, the crowd
in your ears saying my heads it It actually gets
you Ajnaline pumping a little bit. And it's weird because
you'd be like using a lot of a lot of
players in the league turn it off, turning the audience.
(18:07):
All the crowd moise off because they want to focus
in on the game. But for me, I leave it
on just for the shot clock. And when I started
to get going, like when I was scoring seventy seven,
the crowd would not stop cheering in my ear. And
so at that point it's kind of just like I
gotta keep going. This feeling is like I gotta keep going.
So um, hopefully, hopefully it comes out to where we
wanted to be and when the NBA picks backup will
(18:28):
be awesome. Who do you Who do you play with?
If you're on retail, you know, on quick Match, I'll
play with the Warriors, uh of course. But if I'm
playing you're talking about problem or just in quick matches.
So I mean, if it's not you, if you're not
playing as yourself. Oh, if I'm not playing myself, it
just it ranges. It actually matters what team my opponent picks.
I usually let them pick first because I'll give them
the advance like they picked the Bucks. I can't pick
(18:49):
the Warriors without Steph Clay and all those guys. But
if Stephen Clay only getting on picking the Warriors every time?
All right, all right, I need to handle. Okay, no
one knows the game of NBA two k better than you.
I have never picked my own handle. You have arguably
the best, maybe in video game history. You are that
he hate me of NBA two k uh. So I
wanted to throw some possibilities at you. You help me
(19:11):
choose from these, uh four possibles. Let's do it, all right? First,
your handle is a nod to the Bay Area. Clearly,
people have to know Mark Jackson was the coach, and
he announces and he's a warrior kind of at heart.
I want to stay in the region. I want to
give a nod to the sitcom full house, and I
want my name to be cut it out, big letters,
see ut it out? Okay, all right. That's the first one.
(19:34):
Not great, Okay, second one. I wanted to reflect that
I'm a forty year old man playing this game that's
mostly reserved for teens in early twenties. I want my
name to be I am a narc Okaya. That one
might that one might be controversial. Just imagine me walking
through the playground, but above me, it says, I am
a nark. Okay. I want people to start playing against me,
(19:57):
and I want them to assume that I'm bad. I
want them to a lower expectation so that even if
I score two in a game, they're like, wow, he
was better than I thought. So I thought about the
name James Dolan, the owner of the Knicks. That's an
interesting one. Are you from New York? I mean no,
but I'm I'm a Knicks. I mean we're all Knicks
fans in a sense that we like have to watch
what's going on, like you have to see. I mean
(20:18):
I was gonna say his band name, but I don't
even know his band name. All right, Okay, so James
Dolan cut it out and I'm an arm all right.
Last one to play on one of my favorite NBA stars, Right,
it's just off his name from the New York New
Orleans Pelicans. I want to be jew Holiday instead of
Drew Holiday. Okay, that's a good one. Jew Holiday. That
(20:39):
kind of speaks to yourself. Yes, it gives your perspective
of who you like. Well, you said you're a Knicks fan.
The Clippers die hard, but I'm a Knicks fan in
the same way that I like watch Jerry Springer as
a kid, like you can't look away. Yeah, okay, so
the only well, the only problem is that Drews and
the Pelicans, right, and so you kind of like be like, okay,
(21:01):
you know, Pelicans fan. But the name you speak to yourself,
I think the most important thing in the game. Take it,
speak to yourself. So I like cut it out, because
cut it out. It's like just a basketball, Like just
cut it out, Like just stop it so you can
take it. It's like, you can't guard me, You're not
better than me. There's a lot of things there that
I like about it. But the jew Holiday speaks to yourself.
It kind of gives you one of your favorite players
if he is hopefully yeah, and you can go from there.
(21:22):
So I would go from one of those two. I'm
an arc it's not okay. It it might speak most
to my actual personality, but yes, I agree with you,
it's probably too much. Well, dude, thank you for talking
to me. I'm excited to see you to take over
the league in a sense that I can't watch real
basketball yet. So i'm i'm, i'm, I've listened. I've watched
(21:42):
more NBA two Kids than I've ever watched. I'm happy
to be there and happy to have spoken to you.
I appreciate it, man, Thank you so much for having
me after this. In our latest pandemic installment, I check
in with Cass MG, comedian and co host of Pajama
Pants podcast to hear all about the drama happening with
the biggest twitch gamers and stars on YouTube right now.
(22:04):
Feeding America is working tirelessly to ensure our most vulnerable populations,
like students who are out of school, the elderly individuals
whose jobs are impacted, and low income families continue to
have access to food and other needed resources during the
COVID nineteen pandemic. The Feeding America Food Bank Network is
committed to serving communities and people facing hunger in America,
and their greatest need is donations and support of local
(22:26):
food banks. This podcast is committed to donating a portion
of the proceeds from the show to Feeding America, and
we hope that you can join us in this effort
to find out how you can help. But Feeding America
dot org backslash covid nineteen. Now here's my pandemic chat
(22:47):
with cass MG from to accept Press one. Cassim, I
feel like you are a bit of a translated for
me in this case, if that's okay. I feel like
a very old in this situation, very unhip narc trying
to figure out the drama that is twitch and YouTube
(23:08):
in the past few weeks. Yeah. Look, I take no
joy in being this translator. I'm gonna be thirty seven
this year, so um, I'm doing this purely just to
help another old man out. Thank you. Um. I feel
like we've got to look out for each other, but
I don't take any pride knowing what I know and
what I'm about to share. Well, your grandfather, then that's fine.
W When did you start with your own YouTube channel?
(23:29):
You were part of the early adopters. Yeah, I was early.
I started in like two thousand and seven, and you know,
I was like twenty three at the time. So YouTube
is a very different places, you know, not a lot
of people on it, and it was kind of I'd say,
it was easier to make a name for yourself back then.
And um, essentially could be you know, partly my fault
(23:50):
of why why all these people are on there now
and all the drama and and the logan and Jake
Paul's of the world, could could be my doing that
I think about it. Here's the thing, like, in my opinion,
I remember the early rush of YouTubers, right, so I
remember a handful of you guys, and I remember sort
of being told that people like Hannah Heart you were
(24:13):
the actual talented ones. It was like almost like someone
had sort of like siphon and I had to figure
out which ones were good. And then I saw you
when I worked at Josh. You did the famous Norm
McDonald pregame interview which should go into the Recording Hall
of Fame where Norm McDonald shows up to interview YouTubers
with you guys, and you understood the joke. Jenny Slate
(24:34):
understood the joke. But that made me a cassum Gee
fan immediately. Oh well, I appreciate that, you know, it was, um,
you know, and I appreciate all the kind words you said.
I think getting to the point where I was able
to work with Norm and like Norm was so great
that day as well as the day I'll never forget
because we were all told to dress up. Norm shows
up in sweatpants and like, I think it was like
(24:56):
a U C L A sweatshirt and a six sneakers
on and uh, he didn't give a fuck. And I
thought it was so great. And to have somebody at
his caliber roasting YouTubers people that I knew was such
a joy. I don't know why. Um, you know, people
would would ask me if I was offended or I
was like no, what a what a what a true
(25:18):
honor it was to have a legend like Norm McDonald
um saying the names of people that were famous on
the internet but nowhere else. I think that was it
was a real treat. Well, you know, I say this
to to move forward in a sense that I put
you in sort of the upper echelon, able to decipher
what's going on. What has happened to YouTube and streaming
(25:40):
since those early days, since those pioneering days, just explained
to me how we've gotten stupider. Yeah. Um, well, it's
a great question, and it's one I you know, I
try and think about. And it seems to me that
it seemed so easy to do what we did. And
I'm not saying it was hard hard work. It was.
(26:00):
It was a lot of hard work. But I think
when people saw because let's face it, on early YouTube,
there was it wasn't necessarily quality that rose to the top.
It was consistency. And if you were consistent, people, um
were attached and they developed a sort of relationship with
people on YouTube, and that's what allowed people to rise.
(26:20):
And I think people that were savvy were able to
see that and it was one of those things where
you go, oh, I could do that. And so you
had this influx of thousands and thousands of people who
saw how much money people were making on YouTube and
decided they would do it for themselves. And with that
influx comes a lot of talented people, and then it
(26:43):
comes there comes some untalented people, and um, you're gonna
get the good with the bad. But that's what happened.
There was a huge surge of people now doing what
you know, we thought we were kind of just like
screwing around with the daily vlogging and sketches on YouTube
(27:04):
and just talking to camera. Now there's all these different
types of formats, and you also saw a development of
like live streaming become a huge part of this too,
and sites like Twitch, which we're taking advantage of an
area of the market that YouTube wasn't paying attention to,
which was people going live. In the moment, talking to
(27:24):
a chat and online engagement is everything. If you talk
to your viewers, and as a viewer, you're being talked
to by somebody that you you enjoy, that makes everything different.
It's it's it's a different relationship you have than if
you were, UM watching Breaking Bad and you know, I
love Brian Cranston, but I don't get to talk to
Brian Cranston in a chat while I'm watching Brian Cranston.
(27:47):
And I think people um develop a much stronger connection
to the personalities that they watched. And so it's like
YouTube and Twitch and since mixer have have have come
and gone, but that's been a big um. That's just
been what happens when everyone decides to do what a
few people did, you know ten twelve years ago. So
(28:10):
I wanted to get you on the show because without
sports it has been difficult to follow something drama filled.
I mean, normally i'd be watching the NBA Finals, I'd
be trying to figure out these inside stories. I'd I'd
be rooting for my team, whatever it is. And so
much of the world has taken that energy and focused
it in on what's going on on YouTube and twitch
(28:32):
and really cancel culture in general. But boy, has YouTube
and streaming been really front and center for it. And
I wanted to start by talking about Doctor Disrespect, which
is a name I didn't even know until last week
when I'm just searching for anything on the internet to follow.
Can you explain to me how uh this is what
(28:52):
I think I just saw him two weeks ago. This
is like if Joe Dirt won an Oscar. It's like,
this is like if Ali G was actually an incredible rapper.
This dude's in character. He's doing sort of like this
mullet and mustache vibe thing going on, kind of like
an ol Uncerta NASCAR look. But he's also very good
at video gaming and streaming it on Twitch. So so
(29:15):
tell me about him and then why we hate him? Yes? So, um, look,
so Dr Disrespect is uh you know, if you've signed
on to the internet within the last couple of weeks,
you were created with with a very menacing face. And
this is a guy who has a mullet, um very
you know, Nolan Ryan esque, reflective sunglasses, a headset, and um,
(29:39):
no one knows who he is. I have friends asking
me and you know, again, a man my age, I
actually know who he is, and I'm I'm not proud
of it, but I will do my best to explain.
Thank you. Dr Disrespect is a Twitch streaming personality. He's
actually among what I consider to be one of the
higher tier quality content creators on the site. He is
(30:02):
a very interesting mix of persona a character with um
a skill in playing video games. Oftentimes on Twitch you
have people that are just a persona or personality and
then they just talked to their audience, and then you
have people that are just kind of skill based. UM.
In my opinion, that would be somebody like a Shroud
(30:23):
who was very good at the game. Maybe on the
personality side, not as vibrant, but still attracts a viewership
because people want to see how people play games at
a high level. He's the Kauhi Leonard of of of Twitch. Yes,
um baseball right and uh so so. Dr Disrespect is
a perfect mix of a high quality game player with
(30:46):
an incredible persona with an incredible production value to kind
of tie it all together. And he's been doing it
for the last five or six years, and he's amassed
millions of followers on the site. At four point four million.
He is repped by CIA. He has a two a
large two year deal with Twitch Mountain Dew sponsorship, supposedly
(31:07):
the largest ever by an individual gaming personality, Monstrous for
the platform, even for the business of Twitch. He is
a a big earner. Yes, he's so big um that
he can anytime he streams, you know, he's automatically uh
at the top of the topless of streamers, and and
and he can move audiences and and there's been a
(31:29):
lot of talk about him getting haid money to potentially
move off site. And that's what streamers like Shroud and Ninja,
the Fortnite player who Drake ended up kind of promoting
and he ended up blowing up. But these guys have
such a power to move audience. It's now I should
probably tell people how much these guys make, just so
(31:52):
you can kind of see why it's important and why
people care. I mean, on Twitch, there are four ways
to make money. There's donations, so your viewers that are
watching can directly donate money to you. That money is
just it comes in the form of, like, hey, this
person donated, here's a message they said in hopes that
doctor disrespect or somebody says it on their stream, so
(32:13):
you get that sort of acknowledgement. It's a tip, absolutely,
it's a tip. The other form is through subscriptions. Subscriptions
are kind of where you get the bulk of it. Now,
every month, somebody can subscribe to your Twitch channel and
at the very minimum, it's five dollars a month, and
it goes up to a month. Somebody like doctor Disrespect
(32:34):
has around fifty thou Twitch subscribers, so that times at
least five. And then you have ad revenue through Twitch.
So advertisers pay Twitch to advertise thirty second pre roll
ads or whatever, and then they share that revenue with
the creators. And then you also have sponsorships. These guys
will get paid money from the developers and the video
(32:54):
game companies to play their games per hour, and that
per hour can be anywhere from a thousand dollars to
ten thousand dollars just to play a game. So on
the on the high end, like somebody like a Ninja
could make potentially half a million dollars a month or more, right,
and somebody like Doctor Disrespect probably makes somewhere between a
(33:17):
hundred two hundred thousand dollars a month. That's why when
Mixer poached Ninja and Shroud, these deals were worth up
to thirty million dollars for like a three year deal,
because these guys had to be incentivized to move and
completely take their audience with them. Otherwise they're doing just
fine where they're at. So that's important to keep in
(33:38):
mind because to get someone off of Twitch that is
that caliber, that is that high on the tier would
cost a lot of money. Normally, losing that audience, losing
that base, losing that ability would cost a lot of money.
So when Doctor Disrespect a toxic gamer personality that is
kind of what he's known for, being over the top
and rambunctious and kind of almost making fun of troll
(34:00):
culture a bit from what I've seen. So when he
gets probably permanently banned from Twitch out of nowhere, out
of nowhere, people who went to go watch him, noticed
that his account was taken off the site. He is
he is reporting and telling people he doesn't know why.
That's the drama. I was brought into that a guy
could lose millions and millions of dollars overnight and not
(34:21):
know why. Right, So there's not a lot of clarity,
there's just a lot of speculation. Now, Doctor Disrespect in
the past was suspended from Twitch because he was live
streaming at E three and happened to walk into a
public bathroom, which is a no, no, we don't stream
pp and uh. They banned him for I think, um
(34:42):
a couple of weeks. There was also a personal moment
for him before that where he was kind of caught
um cheating on his spouse with a viewer, and that
turned into a thing where he took a leave of
absence and then ended up coming back bigger than ever.
His audiences, they are so into the fact that he
(35:05):
plays into the this actual persona that when the real
guy his name's guy being, when the real guy does
things that fit into the persona, it only like amplifies
in snowballs his viewership. So when he came back from
the accusations of cheating on his wife. His viewership had
like doubled the first week, and then when he came
back from the Twitch band from uh uh Streaming PP,
(35:28):
he came back even stronger. So now the reason this
is different is it's supposedly a permanent band. There's no
reasons why Twitch has banned people in the past before
UM permanently without telling them exactly why. They'll just refer
to their terms of service and their guidelines. Is being violated.
The rumors are and I don't know how, you know,
(35:51):
people that actually know what's going on are the people
on the inside that work at Twitch. Everyone else is
just assuming. There are some rumors that Spotify wants to
open up their own UM live streaming site. There's talk
that maybe Doctor Disrespect was trying to recruit other streamers
to go off platform to another site. I don't know
how valid that is, but Spotify has been making deals
(36:14):
with people like Joe Rogan in the podcast world, so
it would make sense that they would try and cover
the live streaming side of this as well and gaming UM.
There's also just it could be some rumors about charity.
There's a lot of times these guys do charity streams
where they raise money for charities. A couple of times
I've heard that, um, there's been some back end money
(36:35):
that's been kept, or um, not all the money was donated,
as kind of kind of that gray area there. No
one knows. At this point, his entire subreddit is going crazy.
No one seems to be upset in any way. They
just want to know when he's coming back. Yeah, so
I looked into it a little. Those are the rumors
that I saw as well. But then also, you know,
(36:56):
not at all saying this is what it is. But
Twitch also has started a new kind of attack on streamers,
much like the rest of the world who was facing
sexual assault and predator accusations in their industries. So that
is something that they have been acting on recently for streamers,
and so people are thinking that's also another possibility for
this banning. Yeah, the timing that that once once they
(37:19):
kind of um came out with there we're going to
be we have a no tolerance policy when it comes
to sexual assault. It was like the day after the
doctor disrespect thing happened. So to make the sports related,
I mean, the reason why I'm so connected to it
is this is like if out of nowhere, just Kyrie
Irving couldn't play in the NBA anymore, and they were like,
you go play in the D League or c BA
(37:39):
or whatever, but you have nothing to do with the
place that you make millions in. And we're not going
to tell you why that is a And maybe it's
for a good reason, maybe it's not. Whatever it is,
but what a crazy turn of events for a dude
who was making more than a living, was making a
fortune playing video games in a mullet wig. Absolutely, I
mean that's going to be the worst part is that
he's got to be in this way the whole time,
(38:01):
so maybe he takes his time to take it off
and scratch his head. Uh. You know, this is uh
one of those things where when you you put all
your eggs in a basket, and you know, in this case,
Twitches owned by Amazon, it's it's a company, and these
companies can change the rules of the game at any moment.
Same thing with YouTube, same thing with you know, caffeine
(38:22):
and all these other places. They are all owned by UM,
an investment group, and they at the end of the day,
only care about money and they don't care about the
um livelihood of people that use their site for their
own personal game. Let's get into YouTube for a little bit,
so I would call it you're graduating class. I would say,
(38:44):
the group of people who all came up together. You
were involved in maker studios, and you knew all these people.
These were your peers at the time. The Internet and
YouTube in the early days. You know, the Wild West
comparison is cliche and stupid. You heard it all the time,
but comedy was lowbrow for YouTube when it first started.
(39:05):
The nation seems to be changing, and a lot of
the names who came up UH in those early days
are now facing criticism for the videos they posted early
in their careers, the ones that have hit mainstream that
I've been following again with no baseball to follow. Jenna
Marble's as a name I knew sort of from from
your groups back in the day. She was one of
(39:27):
the other people who UH was sort of claimed to
be better than her medium. She was, you know, kind
of smarter and funnier by a lot of people's gauges.
She removes herself off YouTube after past videos go under
fire for racist comments UH and and homophobic stuff. And
then Shane Dawson, one of the premier names not only
(39:47):
on YouTube from its start, but now a massive millionaire,
apologizes for past racist jokes, blackface, pedophilia jokes, gets called
out by Will Smith's family for making a Will Smith
Joe his YouTube channel. Similar to Dr Disrespect. They have
demonetized Shane Dawson's YouTube channel, meaning he can't make money
(40:07):
from any of the videos he posts. And that also
loops in a guy named Jeffrey Starr, who I unfortunately
know about, who is a guy who was a makeup empire,
so much of an empire. I while researching, I figured
out he has a fourteen point six million dollar house.
These people have made tons of money off YouTube and
they all have to basically run away as a group,
(40:29):
it appears, because all their comedy is now under fire
from from that early beginning they went through. What do
you know as someone who was involved in that growth,
You know, I think you touched on it there. I
think growth is important. There are as you said, it
was pretty low brow and um, you had a lot
of people that were doing comedy online that we're also
(40:51):
cutting their teeth online. But it was very visible. Like
when I started in comedy, I spent about eighteen months
doing stand up and us trying to do stand up
and I was bad at it, and you kind of
have to be bad at it. But luckily, when you're
doing stand up, it's in a club, hopefully it's not
in a major city, and you're just kind of bombing
in front of a few people. The unfortunate thing with
(41:14):
YouTube is that timing is everything, and you had a
lot of these people who were cutting their teeth, but
they were very visible in front of their entire audience.
And so instead of finding out what jokes didn't work
or um worked and work shopping them privately, all that
stuff was out in the open, and there was a
lot I mean, specifically, I think from Shane Dawson. He
(41:37):
really experimented if I'm going to use that word, you know,
even back then though I don't think any of us
were really okay with the fact that he was using
black face. There's not a lot of people from that
era I think that did he um. He had a
character named Sane that uh and again I'm sorry I
know all this, but uh, you know, when I when
(41:59):
I saw that character, I remember Martin Lawrence's show Martin
and he had a character named Sanine and I was
just like, well, it seemed like Shane really borrowed heavily
from that character. Um, with one big difference, with one
big difference that he he was African American, and um,
Shane didn't seem to make that connection and was kind
of just thought everything was fair game. Comedy is comedy.
(42:23):
Don't tell me what I can and can't do. And
he did it a lot. And um, there's a lot
of stuff that has come out in regards to sort
of like his conversations and you know with underage sort
of like inappropriate underage stuff was which is also there's
a there's a video of him, you know, gesturing like
(42:45):
he's gratifying himself to like a poster of Willow Smith.
And that's the thing that kind of, um that got
the Smiths involved. Jaden, you don't want Jaden, you don't want. Yeah,
you don't want a top tier a list Hollywood family
coming after you. And um and and for a gross clip,
I mean he's having his books removed from the shelves
of Target because of it. He is makeup is being
(43:05):
pulled off of shelves. How how much money do people
like Shane Dawson, Jenna Marble's, what do they lose? These
people are all millionaires. We should not feel that bad.
These people are making millions and millions of dollars a
year and YouTube demonetizing Shane's channels, and it's not a
(43:25):
permanent demonetization. It's it's a temporary thing and he will
be back. And these sort of things honestly end up
working in the favor because like you and other people
that just log on the Twitter one day, all of
a sudden see a face of somebody who've never heard of,
and then there's a million articles describing what this person
has done. And eventually people will start to forget what
(43:47):
they've done, but they'll remember the name in the face.
And then these people just carry on, I mean, for
your for your for YouTube and streaming and all these things.
It seems like this is content part part of part
of the process of knowing someone and learning about them
and growing up with them is also seeing their huge fails.
And you know, not not to defend Jenna Marble's and
Shane Dawson, because I never thought i'd even say that sentence,
(44:07):
but I will say that both had apologized before. Both
both had come clean about what they had done in
the past and said it's shameful and etcetera. And and uh,
you know they're paying for it now and and and
and you know it seems like for a good reason. Um,
but it is a very slippery slope and a strange
time in America. And it does seem like streaming and
YouTube is is taking a lot of the brunt um
(44:28):
look and I and I'm totally with it. I think
we're going in the right direction. Um. I think we
need to be able to allow people to grow and
understand that what was maybe okay then, um is not
okay now and we should. You know, Jenna took a
big step and removed herself from YouTube now, Okay, that's
(44:49):
that's great. Nobody asked her to do that. She kind
of took the initiative to do that. She also has
a very big I mean I would say most of
her presence, not most, but she has a big presence
on twitch U. She also live streams, and there's no
talk about her leaving Twitch. It's kind of just on YouTube.
So there's there's progress made. She I think dealt would
(45:10):
be apology a little bit better with Shane's. It seems
like there's a lot of I used to be that guy.
I'm not that guy. Can't even look at that guy anymore.
There was less ownership over him, and he seemed to
be distancing himself from himself. But he's gone through this
several times and he will be back and it's up
(45:30):
to people to decide whether they watch him or not.
You guys get to decide with who you click on
and who you watch, and UM, for a lot of you,
it's your kids now, And UM, what's good is that
now you know the type of content that potentially your
kids have access to. Because we used to think YouTube
was just okay and whatever was on YouTube was okay.
But now we know there's a lot of stuff on
YouTube that's not all right, and they have a whole
(45:52):
section of it just four kids now. And if you're
a parent, when we were young, he used to have uh,
you know, parental controls on your TV and you didn't
have access to certain things that were rated a certain way.
Should be the same way with YouTube. You should have
complete transparency with what your kids are watching on YouTube
because there's a lot of stuff agreed out there that
(46:12):
shouldn't be watching. Well, I'm just happy we didn't get
into make Upgate. I'm proud that we didn't have enough time.
I am too. I can't. There's there's some stuff that
I can read through, like the Twitch drama, but when
it comes to other things like um beauty gurus and
stuff like that, I I can't do it. Well. I
wanted to at least get a pitch in there for
your podcast called Pajama Pants Only, because you you have
(46:33):
all things you've done. You have reunited Robert Iller and
Jamie Lynds Szigler from The Sopranos to do a podcast
with you. And by the way, it has nothing to
do with the Sopranos. It is just hang out lifestyle
talk podcast that just coincidentally has the two kids from
the most iconic television show of all time. What is
your connection to the children of the Sopranos, Um, Yeah,
(46:56):
thanks so much for the plug. Me and Robert we
we met, uh, I don't know, six seven years ago.
We shot a pilot together and um we got to
be fast friends. And you know he I met Jamie
through Robert. UM. I take pride in the fact that
there's uh, it's it's not a Sopranos rewatch podcasts. There
are three or four other rewatch podcasts which are all good,
(47:19):
but to be honest, none of us have watched the
entire series. Though for us to talk about the Sopranos
would be, um, it wouldn't be authentic. And I think
what's good is that when it comes up, they talk
about their experience. But we all it was just three
people talking about their lives, I think, which is um
the best part. But uh yes, if you're looking for
(47:39):
a Sopranos podcast, even though we have Meadow and a
j soprano, probably not the best podcast for you to
Roberts like this mysterious cloak of a human being. He
didn't want to act anymore. He's like this enigma of
a human who's just all we know is he loves slipknot.
It is a great It is a great personality to
have out in public. So I'm happy that you're digging deeper.
(48:00):
I appreciate it. Thanks so much well, cass MG. Everybody
go check out pajama Pants and also let's let's let's
both loosen up on checking out YouTube and twitch trauma. Yeah,
we should also take a break. Thank's Caliday. Thanks than
(48:20):
The Sports Bubble is produced and distributed by tree Fort Media.
The show was executive produced by Kelly Garner, Lisa Ammerman,
Matthew Coogler, and me Jensen Cart. Tom Monahan is our
senior audio engineer and sound supervisor, with production and editing
by Jasper Leak additional production help from Tim Shower, June Rosen,
and Hayley Mandelberg. Our theme music is composed by Spilkis.
(48:42):
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(49:04):
to tree Fort dot fm. Be safe and be Well.
The Sports Bubble is a production of I Heart Radio
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