Tay Zonday, Chocolate Rain and YouTube 1 hit wonders

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
In April, 2007, a young PhD studentuploaded a video performing their
original song to YouTube, and for acouple of months nothing happened.
Then all of a sudden after gainingpopularity on four chan, their views
took off, leaning into become a callingcard for the creator, resulting in
late night performances, super Bowlcommercials, and a career as a creator and

(00:22):
performer, but is being the subject of aviral video, all it's cracked up to be.
Welcome to Rewind Time.
This episode Tays on day.
Yo.
It's rewind time.
Welcome to episode 11 of RewindTime, a YouTube History podcast,

(00:45):
hosted by YouTuber, Lucy Liven.
Hello
and me, someone who has seen no YouTube.
My name is Max Lucy.
How are you going this week?
I honestly, you know what,it's not been my best week.
No, I've been, I've been going through it.
You say it as if you do not live with me.
Uh, and see me every day, but,uh, for the sake of the podcast

(01:07):
and for storytelling, yeah.
It's, you know, it's just been a week.
I haven't been feeling a hundred percent.
I've just been, just been busy.
You know, the, the trials of life.
Just kinda,
I mean, we had a week off recording,so I thought you'd be raring to go.
Well, for this episode, 11, well,
we had a week off recording, but itwas because of technical difficulties

(01:28):
more than an intentional week break.
I actually didn't record last week out ofrespect for the recently departed pope.
What?
Yeah.
Shout out to my boy.
I just felt I was not inthe right frame of mind.
Oh, so we put the smoke outthe window sort of thing,

(01:49):
you know, Vatican vibes and.
I didn't wanna do aYouTube history episode.
Mm. And it wasn't just because ourinternet was down, which made it
extremely difficult for us to, uh,watch the videos for this episode.
Maybe our ISP actually thoughtthat we shouldn't do an episode.
Hence that's why they disconnected ourinternet on a public holiday weekend.
Well, if they don't like thepodcast, they should rate us and

(02:11):
send us some feedback, you know?
But here we are anyway.
How are you feeling this week?
Are you feeling?
I'm refreshed.
I'm ready to go.
You're refreshed.
Yeah.
You've had,
you've had some time off.
You, you took some, I
took the, for our international listeners,we in Australia here have two weeks with

(02:31):
public holidays in both meaning that witha, like a savvy use of personal leave,
you can have like a 10 day stretch oftime off using three days of annual leave.
Mm. So I of course bookedthat in like January one.
You're smart.
I was like, I'm not, I got in beforeall my coworkers, of course, like
last week they were all like, oh,I wanna take the leave off as well.

(02:53):
And they probably all got it,but I was like, no, this is too
good an opportunity to pass up.
So I, yeah, I have not beenworking since earlier in April.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
Good for you.
You've not, it's notbeen the same for you.
I know.
No, I've been workingpretty much the whole time.
Which maybe may, maybe can, can, uh, youcan relate to the fact that I'm feeling a
little, a little worn down, but it's okay.

(03:15):
We persevere, you know, optimism.
The great, the greatuplifter question mark.
Anyway, what are we talkingabout in today's episode?
Well, you are like,we're gonna dot on day.
Yes.
And I did not know anythingabout what or who te on day was.

(03:35):
Yes.
And what was, and you asked me,you were like, make a guess.
And so I was like, sheis a female comedian.
Most of the people we've done sofar have been, they do comedy.
So I was like, comedian is a fair shout.
Mm. And I was like, TayTaytay Taylor Swift.
Right.
Taylor could be a girl's name.
Yeah.

(03:55):
So I could not be more wrong.
Well, I mean, yeah, no, so I mean,normally our next question is, do you
have any history with this person?
But obviously you do not as,you have just confessed that
you had no idea who this was.
Uh, for those of you who Dunno, TzenDay is not a woman and not a comedian.
I don't think they would call themselvesa comedian really, given what we know.

(04:17):
But we can, we can explain
that they're a musical channel.
They're a, yeah, they're a music creator.
Um, and that's also not his real name.
His real name is Adam.
Yeah, he's like a, it'slike a Frank Ocean Yeah's.
It's his stage name.
Its a stage name.
Mm-hmm.
Um, but my background with Teon Day,and I'm sure for many of you who may
not be super familiar with Tay, but youprobably are familiar with his viral

(04:42):
video, which we didn't name in theintro, but it is called Chocolate Rain.
So you've probably heard that before.
And that was my familiarity with Tay.
Uh, primarily chocolate rain.
You say?
Probably.
I have never heard chocolate, rain.
I thought it was crazy.
So the reason why I picked Tay for thisepisode was because a couple of weeks
ago we were talking about viral videosin the context of this podcast, and I

(05:06):
was like, yeah, like chocolate, rain.
And you showed no recognition.
Like you, you didn't have,you know, that look in your
eyes, but you knew what it was.
And I was kind of surprised, but Isuppose I shouldn't be because of the
premise of this podcast is that, thatyou don't know any of these YouTubers.
And I, I do know most of them, butI thought given that chocolate rain

(05:28):
kind of surpassed like YouTube cultureto become like a mainstream viral
meme, I thought you might know it,but you, you've never seen it before.
I just don't think I, atthe time this came out, had.
Either unsupervisedinternet access mm-hmm.
Or watched enough American TV to seethis site, like recycled secondhand.

(05:51):
Yeah.
Well, to be fair, I don'tthink I saw it at the time.
I think I became aware of Tay ondays through, like later on, through
other YouTubers referencing himbeing like, he's an iconic legend.
Uh, and you know, spoiler alertappearances on things like the
React Channel, which was quitepopular when I was in middle school,

(06:12):
which we will cover at some point.
The Fine brothers were coming for you.
Uh, but the, like, everyonekind of acknowledged like
chocolate rain or like Tzen Day.
So like OG YouTubers who obviouslywhen they kind of were YouTubers
were already in like their,typically like their early twenties.
Um, so creators like Mosh, um, they werelike, oh yeah, Tzen Day, chocolate, rain,

(06:33):
iconic viral video, popular internet meme.
Um, and at that point I thinkI would've still been in like.
Grade five.
I would've been like nine or 10.
So probably a little too young.
Similar to, you'd have, you know, unun uh, what's the word I'm looking for?
Unsupervised.
Yeah, yeah.
Internet access.
There we go.
So chocolate brain is technically, Iguess out the second TA on day video?

(06:56):
Yes, there was,
there's a few actually.
Oh, there were, I think it'sthe third one on the channel.
Okay.
So it's early in the day, butbefore chocolate, rain, there
is some original arrangements.
Yeah,
I you would call them.
Yeah.
You're a musical person.
I'm not a super musical person, but yeah.
There he does original music,but he also does arrangements.

(07:19):
So, um, I think the first one wewatched was called Canon in Z. Correct.
Um, which is a play on Parker Be's canon.
Yes.
So it's, that's an arrangement.
I was looking that up 'cause I was like,
you do know about, you knowwhat an arrangement is, it's a,
yeah, it's a familiar piece of music.
But if it was playing in therestaurant, I couldn't be like.
Yes, it was, uh, puck be's Cannon.

(07:40):
Oh, okay.
I I did recognize thatit was p be's Cannon.
I'm so smart.
Um, but yeah, so he,
he is a piano player.
Mm-hmm.
As we can tell fromthese videos, a musician.
Mm. Yeah.
And, you know, I'm not an expert onpiano, so to me sounds pretty good.
Would you agree?
Yeah, I think it's, it's great.
I think he is a great, uh, piano player.

(08:02):
Very, very competent, uh, piano player.
Has a little bit of flare,obviously performing on camera.
Um, when you were watching the firstvideo, which was Canon and z, I
didn't start with chocolate, rain.
I was really tempted to, to justgo straight in with chocolate rain.
But I was like, no, that's,that's not how we do things.
We like to start a little bit withthe, the genesis of the channel.
Um, did you have any other thoughts?

(08:22):
I feel like when I showed this to you, youwere like, what is this episode gonna be?
Because you kind of were thinking itwas just gonna be like a, a musician.
I was like, if it's justcovers, I don't really know.
What there is for us to discuss, becauseguys, I'm, I'm a, a cover hater because
you,

(08:42):
I'm more of a, you know, I'm anoriginalist, you know, I wanna listen to
the, this is the artist's intended workand I'm, you're just doing the cover.
I'm like, why?
What is this adding,
I'm not trying to out you here, butI do think this is like a, a view
you hold again, like across mediums.
You don't like fan fiction,you don't like covers.
Like, you, you are pro, and I don't thinkit's a bad thing that your pro original

(09:05):
work, but I think there is some, I, youknow, and we can, this is a safe space.
I disagree.
I think there is value to be had in coversand fan fiction and like, fan work, uh,
that can be transformative, that canallow people who, you know, maybe can't
sit down and write a full song to stillbe able to creatively express themselves
or like try new things, you know?

(09:28):
Do you.
I definitely think from a learningperspective, yeah, like if you are
a, an artist, you trace over existinggreat works because you believe that
it's a way that you can, you know,channel that original artist's intent.
And like, I think from a technical pointof view, obviously it makes sense to
do covers as practice, but it's like,you know, if I'm playing soccer and my

(09:51):
train is kicking a ball against a wall athousand times, it's not the thing that
I expect anyone else to wanna watch.
Interesting.
I don't think it's thesame thing, but let's,
and I don't wanna put covers in thesame box as fan fiction, which I
actively, uh, find really distasteful.
Wow.
I think I've expressed previouslywhat my beef is, but I don't think for

(10:11):
anyone that's new it's basically, uh,you are taking an existing author's
work and I think through basically.
Attempting to extend that work.
It's like, it is a, like an activeimpersonation that I whoa find and I just

(10:32):
don't even know why you would consume it.
Like I, I understand maybe's,I literally a thought exercise.
I've read fan fiction and enjoyed it.
I Yeah, I
know.
And you just can't, I mean,millions of people do.
Yeah, I know.
But to me, I would never readfan fiction to be honest.
Um, we know it's just even when an,an author dies and then someone else
like takes on the work that feels,I'm not sure how I feel about that.

(10:58):
Well that is all wonderful.
But Teon Day is not a fan fiction writer.
He is a original music creator.
And while you didn't really maybe haveany particular thoughts or feelings about
Canon and Z, which is an arrangementof Parker's canon, did you have any
thoughts or feelings when you watchedChocolate Rain for the first time?

(11:20):
Chocolate, rain.
Can you do your best?
Chocolate, rain,
chocolate, rain.
It's pretty good.
Yeah.
Cho.
No, I can't.
I don't think, I can't, I, my,my voice doesn't go that low.
Be honest.
I think it really doesbenefit from the base.
I'm surprised that it reached memestatus, like it has 140 million views.
Well, it's just, and it's, I think we sawsome of the reactions to it at the time.

(11:45):
It's almost like no one actuallywatched the full video or
listened to the lyrics at all.
To be fair for this episode, viewingchocolate rain was the first time I have
seen chocolate rain in its entirety.
But like, how do you come across it?
What other contexts did it even get put in
in?
Like, but people like clip itin's, it's the chocolate rain.
It's like the first minute is funny.

(12:07):
And also him, the, the main funny thingabout chocolate rain, I think what
actually really propelled it to viralityis the caption, like subtitle, popup that
says I move away from the mic to breathe.
That is so funny.
Do you not find that funny?
Like.
I mean, it's, it's cringe, but not somuch that I would, no, it's not cringe.
I would mean it, it's

(12:27):
not cringe.
It's funny because it's like saying itand then he like repeatedly does it.
Uh, so it's sort of like a, from likea humor perspective, you know that
every time he breathes he's gonnado the little like b to the side.
So you, it's an, you know,you're anticipating it.
No, it's a great comedic device.
Not intentionally.

(12:48):
I look, I just think hisvoice is funny to people.
'cause it's it's very deep.
Yeah, it's extremely low.
Yeah.
And
deep.
Uh, and he is quiteserious in the singing.
And also it's an original composition,uh, called chocolate rain, which I,
you know what my main thing that I'mshocked about is obviously, like I
knew chocolate, rain and I like knewthe meme, but if you sit and listen

(13:09):
to it for like 30 seconds or longer,you know what chocolate rain is about.
It's quite clear from the lyrics andwe, in looking into it at the time.
People fought chocolate rain, like peopledidn't know what chocolate rain was about.
They're like, I can'ttell what it's about.
Uh,
people still don't know what it's about.
How can you not know what it's about?
I
mean, we watched, uh, a YouTubersreact from, was it 2014?

(13:33):
Yeah, 10 years ago.
So 20 year, 2013, something like that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I will
say the majority of YouTubers inthat video, some big names, the
only I, Shane Dawson was there.
You know, we see him every episode, uh,but other big ones, they fully were like,
I have no idea what this song is about.
There was a moment where Shay, Carl,who I'm sure we'll get to in time,

(13:55):
uh, looks like he's about to say.
It's actually a really deep message.
And if you think, and you go, yep, babe.
Yep.
And then he goes, I'm just playing guys.
I have no idea whatchocolate brain is about.
And I'm like, so close.
But I
think you can tell he's literally aboutto be like, the song is about racism,
which like spoilers, it's about racism.
Uh, it's extremely, explicitly,clearly about racism.

(14:15):
The lyrics are in thedescription of the YouTube video.
You can just see, well,they would've watched out.
They've just, the
whole thing right there for that videowhere you have lines like, um, let's go.
I'll pull just something out.
More than marching, more than passinglaw remake how we got to where we are.
History quickly crashing through yourveins, using you to fall back down again.

(14:38):
Uh, other things like the bell curveblames the baby DNA be test scores
are how much the parents make flippingcars in France the other night.
All these things, uh, whichare obviously like, yeah.
This has, uh, this is like in a,a history of like civil rights.
Yes.
Music in America.
Yes.
Also,

(14:58):
guys, Tay is black.
Yes.
I would say that isdefinitely a key element.
Obviously this is alsohis original composition.
Uh, a lyric I wanted to pull out waschocolate reign at the same crime has
a higher price to pay chocolate reign.
The judge and juryswear it's not the face.
So pretty, pretty transparently,pretty clearly about racism.

(15:19):
Obviously it's not, you know, there may besome references that people may not know.
There are some there that I'mlike, not, you know, a hundred
percent like across, but.
Yeah, chocolate rains aboutracism and prejudice and Yeah.
But over the heads, that meeting, uh,for our YouTube greats, which, you
know, it says a lot about the caliberof the intellectual movement on YouTube.

(15:43):
Yeah.
To be fair, the song, uh, did go, likegain popularity through four chan first.
So we're not really starting from,I would say potentially I don't
Well, okay.
No, like obviously it's an original song.
It takes a lot of courage to releasea, like, original creative work.

(16:05):
Um, I don't think anyone thinksthat chocolate rain is a, uh, a
particularly successful example of,um, you know, uh, society societal
commentary through popular music,
I think.
Okay.
It's not that it doesn't have meaning oranything like that, it's the case that

(16:25):
there are other elements at play that.
People are gonna take away from thesong, which is his voice and the
moving away from the mic to breathe.
Yeah.
And like the general like performanceand like demeanor oft Well also
like the, the centralmetaphor of chocolate rain is
Yeah.
Bad.
Like, sorry.
I, well it basically with all theYouTubers say is it brings to mind

(16:50):
some, for some people literal diarrhea.
Well, John Mayer actually did, uh,was it an interview with someone and
they were referencing chocolate rain,and John Mayer was making references
to it being about, uh, human feces.
Yeah.
So thank you John Mayer.
Um, but yeah, it, it's like a, anunfortunate but potentially understandable

(17:16):
takeaway that people are being, like,he's saying chocolate, rain, and Yeah.
It's, when you think of the visualof like, if you're visualizing what
chocolate rain looks like, eventhough that's not necessarily what.
Yeah.
Anyway.
Yeah, I mean, like Tay is not thefirst and won't be the last person
who releases something in complete,like sincerity online and it becomes

(17:37):
hugely popular, but ironically.
Mm-hmm.
And then you as the creator, you haveto lean, you either lean into the
popularity and be like, ha ha ha.
Yeah.
Either it was all a joke oryou just take it, you know,
you'd be good natured about it.
Yeah.
Or you can be super salty and be like,oh, people just don't get it, bro.
Yeah.
Like, like, you know, Tommy Wizoa famous non YouTube example.

(17:59):
Yeah.
Right.
Someone
who's now like, yeah.
He obviously celebrates people's,uh, affection for his film The
Room, which is like held as oneof the worst films of all time.
It's really bad that we seen.
Yeah.
But it's like enjoyably bad.
Yeah.
So it's probably not the actual worstfilm of all time, but he, like, this
isn't the worst film of all time.
But
he, but Tommy Zo doesn't acknowledgethat it's that he just thinks

(18:21):
that like people, like he justacknowledges that people love the film.
He won't engage with Chris in that.
It's like actually bad, which it is.
Whereas I would say going back to our,our bestie te, he, I think does lean
in and, uh, with, with good faith, likegoes on, you know, so the song goes
viral hard to track the exact numbers.

(18:42):
At the time in 2013, ithad about 70 million views.
So I think around the time ofhis popularity, it was probably
getting like tens, tens of millions.
And this is like early internet 2007.
I also think it's important to say hereleased song in April of 2007, but
it didn't like pick up until June.
So kind of lay, sitting there not reallygetting views for a couple of months.

(19:03):
And he said that it was like hewas working on it, it was like a
draft and he just like put it upto put it up, you know what I mean?
Like, just put it out there.
Why not?
Um, he'd been performing at openmics and he was like, oh, let me put
this up on my, on my YouTube channel.
Um, and then obviously it tookoff and who knows, maybe it wasn't
even in its final iteration.
Maybe he was working on a differentmetaphor other than chocolate, rain.

(19:24):
But
David, Mike thing makes a lot of sense.
'cause the, like the constantrepeat of chocolate rain, that's
is very much like slam poetry.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was thinking that too.
Stand up stuff.
Yeah.
Um, but yeah, no, so he goes viral mm-hmm.
And starts doing like the mainstream mediacircuit for viral YouTubers at the time.

(19:45):
Yeah.
Where everyone is like, this crazyvideo is going viral on YouTube.
Yeah.
And so we watched a fair amountof the media circuit at the time.
So he went on G four's attack of theshow, which we've spoken about previously.
Yeah.
A girl, Olivia Munn.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
And some other guy.

(20:05):
The other host.
Other The other host, yeah.
And Olivia
Mu um.
He went on, it was either CNN or CNN, bbc.
Mm-hmm.
Nbc, something like that.
And News Channel.
Um, where I think he mentioned later on,that was his first like TV interview and
they were doing like a live satellitecross, and he was like quite nervous.
Um, and it is a bit of an awkwardinterview, but like what live satellite

(20:27):
interview with like a non like mediaprofessional isn't a bit awkward.
Like, interviews with civiliansare always a bit right.
I mean, it's just like, until youhave to speak on camera, everyone's
like, well this, you know, if youput me in for a live cross for
a minute, I could easily do it.
Mm.
But when you actually do it, yes.

(20:48):
It is quite difficult.
It's
so awkward.
But I think he, you know,he's very good natured.
Everyone always asks him to, they're like,can you just give us a chocolate rain?
He always does it.
Um, he like when people areasking him what it's about, he
is like, yeah, it's about racism.
And they're like, wow.
I wouldn't have thought that.
Yeah.
I don't know.
And he's like, that's what it's about.
You can, it is a bit
like the, this type of media profile,it is a bit like you are a zoo animal.

(21:14):
Yeah.
'cause the hosts are like, youare a joke and we want you on for
content so we can make money off you.
Do you wanna do it?
Because it's not like he getspaid for these appearances.
Like, not that we know of.
No.
No.
There's no way.
Yeah, no.
He's like, I, he's like either, likeI, maybe he thinks that by being
on the shows he is, you know, doingsome public good for journalism,

(21:39):
you know, like letting people know.
But I think more likely he wasjust like, it's a good opportunity
to promote my YouTube channel.
He moved to LA at some point andhas a. Sort of wider career in doing
things like narration, voice acting.
So he was probably like,good to raise my profile.
I'll say yes to all of these invitations.
Well, I think when you get opportunitieslike this, and he has acknowledged this in

(22:01):
interview since it's like some people willwork their whole lives and never get this
type of widespread popularity or fame.
Um, and it, it's sort of like you justhave to run with it and capitalize off
it, or you cannot, but that doesn't,you know, but there's two pathways
and I think most people would choosein, in the same situation would be

(22:22):
like, I just have to go with it.
Even if that results in, you know,maybe some slightly awkward situations
or, um, elements of maybe slightembarrassment or misunderstanding.
I think there was one radio interviewwe listened to, which I felt was quite.
Uh, distasteful.
Like they were clearly, Ithink in a lot of them, ope
and Anthony show.
Yeah,
they were definitely, it feltlike they were laughing at him.

(22:45):
Um, and I think, you know, thereis an element of the virality of
this video in that Tay is a bitlike awkward in his performance or
a bit stiff, obviously, like themoving away from the mic to breathe
and he's like quite stiffly moving.
Um, and so I do think likepeople are inviting him on in
maybe not the greatest of faith.
Um, and not particularly with a kindness.

(23:06):
I do think the news interview,even though he felt like it was
awkward, it did feel good natured.
Um, so I think it does depend,but I think he's doing what most
people would do in that situation.
You have suddenly become extremely famous.
Everyone's like emailing the link toeach other and posting on MySpace,
like, what are you gonna do?
You know, especially if youhave aspirations of potentially
working in the music industry.

(23:28):
I think at this point he said thatthree of the four major ra uh, record
labels had gotten in touch with him to.
You know, sign, sign a dealwith him, which is pretty crazy.
Um, but I will say we know that Tayactually at this point was a PhD graduate.
So he was already No,he was a PhD student.
No, shaking your head.

(23:49):
He was completing his master's degree.
Are you sure?
Yeah.
Hmm.
Well, I, I got wrong.
He said he wanted
to do his PhD and become a universityprofessor, but the success of
this song changed that obviously.
And he instead went into entertainment.
Yeah.
If you had a viral video like Tay, wouldyou, would you say yes to the interviews

(24:12):
or would you just try and move on?
It depends if I had my current job,no, because I don't think you as the
interviewee gain anything comparedto the amount of value that's
extracted from you by the interviewer.
Mm. And I think that's common to.
All media guys, uh, if journaliststalk to you, you should say no.

(24:36):
Um, the only people who have a, likea vested interest in doing things
like this is uh, like corporationsessentially, or other lobbyist groups
because they have the resources to tryand influence public discourse around,
uh, whatever the media is talking about.
So, no, I wouldn't, if I wasa grad student though and
had the time, maybe I would.

(24:56):
Maybe I would say yes.
Wow.
I think I would get very tired though.
'cause you do oneinterview, you do them all.
And I think Tay himself, when we watchedhim give interviews, he's a bit like
I'm being asked the questions thatI've been asked over and over again.
Yeah.
Because everyone's justlike, oh, you're just funny.
Chocolate rain guy.
Yeah.
Why do you move awayfrom the mic to breathe?
You know what, what'schocolate rain about?

(25:18):
Yeah, of course.
It's only gonna be the same questions'cause it's like a human interest, like
little thing at the end of the, you know.
The program just tobrighten everyone's day up.
Yeah.
But for him it's his like entire week.
So yeah, a hundred percent.
I think, I don't know.
I feel like you're like, no one hasanything to gain by going on the news.
I'm like, what if you had a business idea?
What if you obviously are tryingto make your name in media?

(25:39):
What if you were a singer?
Yeah.
If you a business
idea.
Back to corporation.
Yeah.
Okay.
Anyway.
Um, but yeah, so chocolate rain stillsomething that I think in like the
canon of YouTube viral videos justbecause at this point YouTube was so
small comparatively to where it is now.
It's like when their videowas viral, everyone knew it.

(26:02):
And there's not really more of thosevideos just because how YouTube
is now so fractured in terms ofeveryone watching different niches.
Yeah.
Um, so Tay is someone who still like youand other people on YouTube at the time,
and people who like joined later, butknow the references of earlier stuff.
Mm-hmm.
Like he will be.

(26:24):
Like iconic basically forthe rest of YouTube history.
Yeah.
Even though we watch the rest of hischannel's history and there's nothing
that really is anywhere near as successfulor well known as chocolate rain.
Yeah.
I wouldn't say it's like a one hitwonder situation because it's okay for
our visual listeners, max is making eyesat me and the camera, but it, it's more

(26:47):
so, but I think when you're a one hitwonder, it's like you do the one thing
and then you kinda like just disappear.
Like the person whosings my neck, my back.
Bro Tay is literal thedefinition of a one hit wonder.
No.
Okay.
He
did.
Um, like we have watched the restof the stuff and I think we are
instantly top 1% Tay consumers because
it's nothing else.

(27:08):
Cuts hundred 40 millionviews on chocolate rain.
But then he still gets like five, 6million views and consistently gets
like millions of views on a lot of hiscontent for the next like 10 years.
So yeah, I kind of am like,it's not really one hit wonder.
Um, but I also wanna say chocolate rainis often mentioned in the same sentence
as like dramatic chipmunk and Nu Manuma.

(27:29):
Do you know what eitherof those things are?
No.
That is crazy to me.
You don't know dramatic chipmunk.
You don't know with the No,
no,
no.
Not a single.
And I did show you, I ended upshowing you Nu Manuma 'cause I did
do a quick analysis of the Nu Manumaguys channel and decided that we will
not be doing an episode on, on them.

(27:50):
Um, but you.
You don't know Newman Nova?
Nope.
But you know the song.
Yeah.
That's
a famous song.
Yeah, but you don't know Newman Guy.
No.
You
don't know the Dance.
No.
Crazy Work.
Crazy work.
Anyway, I guess that'swhy this podcast exists.
But he is often mentioned withthose other things, but those
two things I couldn't tell you.

(28:12):
Anything else about the channelthat did dramatic Chipmunk?
I can't really tell youanything else about the Nu Guy.
Teon Day has gone on to do stuffand I guess it's in the internet
space, so it's more visible to me.
Did you know about anything before wewatched the videos for this episode?
Besides Chocolate Rain?
I knew about his like channel andthat he was like well respected

(28:33):
within the YouTube community.
You, you went on the creator.
Did any
of his other videos or songs?
Well, a lot of them are covers.
Yeah.
So like, you don't remember?
Look, I was not like ataste on day subscriber.
I
What's giving one hit one?
No, no.
Look.
And the next thing I wanna talk about is.
You know, maybe I'll let the listenersand the viewers decide, uh, whether

(28:54):
he's a one-hit wonder or not.
But from my perspective, this is avery one-hit wondery thing to do.
He releases with diet, sorry, with Dr.Pepper, uh, cherry chocolate Rain, this
rocked, which is a, a revisit of his,his one hit, uh, except he obviously
changes the song, uh, to refer toCherry Chocolate Rain as Dr. Pepper.

(29:17):
We're releasing a cherry chocolate flavor.
So there's an ad where he is inlike a, it's like a hip hop video.
He's doing the chocolate rain line.
He's got like a rapper in the video aswell, like doing hip hop, uh, ad libs
for him doing some like rap interlude.
Um, and I think that like sellingout your, your one hit is an

(29:41):
iconic, one hit wonder move to make.
Um, what do you think?
I, he, he has actually talked aboutit since and been like, yeah, I have
some like groundwork for doing this.
'cause like Michael Jacksondid a Super Bowl commercial
and I'm like, well, yeah, yeah.
Michael Jackson did doa Super Bowl commercial.

(30:02):
Um, I, I think it's afunny, he's right though.
Like big stars do sell outtheir hits all the time.
The thing is they usuallyhave multiple to, to sell out.
Um, but he's got a point.
Uh, look, I would take the coin.
If I had one viral video.
'cause ultimately, like what else ischocolate rain going to do for you other
than like, have a giant company like Dr.
Pepper do a Super Bowlcommercial or whatever for you.

(30:24):
Like,
he's like, Michael Jackson did this.
I'm like, bro, Michael Jacksonmade money from his music.
You are not like, go ahead.
And actually the Dr. Pepper bag, we
don't know exactly how much.
Uh, I, I did read that in interviews.
People had asked Tay to try andestimate how much money he made from
chocolate brain and he does not,uh, answer, which is fair enough.
Um, I would say probably quite a solidamount based on my rough calculations.

(30:49):
I, I, it's hard to say because it probablydidn't make him any money initially
because of the YouTube partner program.
I don't know if he would've been a partof that in like the initial release
or the initial blowing up of hischannel, which was from this video.
Um, but yeah, I think it's sleigh alsoyou didn't mention, but in the cherry
chocolate, rain music video, there are alot of like women in bikinis, like dancing

(31:10):
on him as he just kind of like sits there.
Sort of like stoically,which I do think add that is
hip.
That's like a hip hop video though.
Yeah.
It's why,
uh, also we had to Google, um, for, andI'm sure for American listeners or maybe
even European listeners, but for where Dr.
Pepper is like super accessible.
Mm-hmm.
I had to check that 'cause Iwas like, they're like, oh,

(31:30):
it's cherry chocolate flavor.
And I'm like, but isn'tDr. Pepper cherry flavored?
Which send us down a bit of a rabbithole in terms of like what Dr. Pepper is,
which is like, it's like cola, but not,do you, did you end up figuring it out?
No, they just like,
because I don't like Dr. Peppertastes like cherry flavor.
Dr. Pepper is part of a, a groupof sodas known as pepper sodas.

(31:52):
Yeah.
It's actually crazy that your likegovernment food administration
in the US is so, they're like,soda is such a core part of the,
the American dietary experience.
But we have to say that it's the category.
Yeah.
Category of here are the different groups.
Soda and
so what's the other sodas?
Like a lemon.
I probably like cola, cola lemon, but,
but is not Okay.
White
monster.

(32:12):
I don't know if that's a soda.
Wait, is Monster carbonated or is it flat?
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, it's definitely carbonated.
No, it's not carbonated.
Oh, it's
in a can.
Yeah, but, uh, I don't know thatlook clearly we are not, I would
say we're not acquainted enough withprocessed drinks, but that is not true.
I love me a little processed drink.
I love a kombucha.

(32:33):
I love me a little, a little diet.
It's okay.
You can be classist.
I'm not trying to be, you
are drinking Monster Energy.
No.
My favorite thing aboutyou're working class.
No.
My favorite thing about Monster Energyis my main association with Monster
Energy is that video where the woman islike, bottoms up and the devil laughs.
Do you know what that video is?
I've never heard of it.
It's fine.
Maybe we should do a wrap up,like a, a wrap up episode of a

(32:54):
bunch of viral videos because theymight not be enough for their own.
Yeah.
So
Monster Energy, the, you know, themain ingredient is carbonated water.
Wow.
Shout out bubbly.
So.
The B bubble monster.
There you go.
There you go.
But, and then
it's like 50 chemicals, butcarbonated Yummy number.
Monster is carbonated chemicals.
White Monster is the girly one.

(33:15):
The girly pop coatedfrom what I understand.
They literally, there's
the pink Monster.
Oh
there's Pink Monster, but White Monster.
Yeah, you're right.
Is the Curly, it's like Arctic.
From what I understand.
The
history is they were literally, theydid some sort of brand piece where
they were like, the monster girls havebeen asking for something, zero sugar.
That keeps the monster like Kick.

(33:36):
And we've released White Monster.
Damn.
Yeah.
That's crazy.
I love branding.
Thank you Don Draper.
Um, but so all the Say I, Dr.Pepper, is it cherry flavored?
I would say yes.
Cherry is part of the flavor.
And then it's like spice.
It's like cherry root beer or something.
That's probably the best I can approximateit as someone who has tried it and

(33:59):
every time they sip it they go, Ugh.
Uh.
'cause I don't like artificialcherry flavor, like Marino cherry.
You love that flavor though.
Dr. Pepper is delicious.
It's like probably the best soft drink.
Admittedly.
I, I think the diet ones that I've hadrecently tasted a bit weird, but when
I looked online, everyone's like, oh,diet Dr. Pepper goes off really quickly.

(34:21):
And in Australia, Dr.Pepper is not very popular.
Yeah.
So you have to get
it from like a store that'simported it and you don't know
how long it's like in there for.
Yeah, pretty much.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We don't have the fresh Dr. Pepper.
So, uh, please email rewind timepod@gmail.com if you can organize
a Dr. Pepper hookup for Max.
But, uh,
so besides Cherry chocolate rain,um, Tay does sort of use the viral

(34:47):
virality from chocolate Rain to do abunch of appearances in advertising
around the late two thousands.
Mm-hmm.
Um, the one I want to talk about.
Most prominently is this SuperBowl ad that he did, which includes
Beyonce to kick the ad off.

(35:08):
Um, he's only in it for like four seconds,but he, and he just swings in and says
Chocolate, rain, and then swings out.
Yeah.
Um, but it also has Nu Manuma in it.
Yeah.
Gary.
But do you think Beyonceknows who t on day is?
No.

(35:29):
Really?
You don't think she approved the ad?
I, I think well do I think Beyonce if Iasked her Now, do you know who t on day?
I don't think she would know.
I think she would just say yespolitely, but I don't think she would.
No, I don't think now, but yeah.
Through history,
uh, maybe.

(35:50):
I'm not sure.
That's a tough, tough call.
I'm gonna go, you
think?
Yes.
No.
Yes.
Yes.
I think you think
Beyonce knows?
I think she knew.
I think she watched the ad and signed offand saw the guy and was like, who is that?
And they were like, that's a YouTuber.
His name's Teon Day.
And she was like, okay, tick.

(36:12):
Sure.
And I, I, I, I'm not sure.
Well, I mean, look, votein the comments below.
I'm not sure.
But it, it is pretty swagto be in an ad with Beyonce.
That's a nice thing tohave in your resume.
Um, yeah.
Quite a few ads he does around that time.
He, he's
also in a Weezer music video.
Yeah.
Which means
it's the second time in like two weeks.
We've spoken about Weezer,

(36:32):
we haven't talked about on the pod.
We forgot really in the Fred episode.
Everyone we're so sorry.
This is an official correction.
In the Fred episode of Rewind time,we neglected to mention that Fred did
a collaboration video with Weezer.
It's fine.
No one cared about Fred anyway.
That's more like, noone cares about Weezer.
No, I'm sorry.

(36:53):
That's mean as like an internet.
I just is.
Does Weezer do?
What do Weezer do?
Weezer are, what Do Weezer do?
Like a pop?
No, what's the song now?
They're like, just
what's the song?
What's the Weezer song?
Probably Buddy Holly.
What's the song like?
Nah.
Is it that one?
Um,
is it in Syn Star?
It's like,

(37:16):
it's not ringing any bells.
Well, yeah,
you don't listen to music, so it wouldn't
Nu Manuma is more famousto me than Weezer.
Anyway, it's
just interesting that around the earlyYouTube time, someone, whether it was a
member of Weer or one of their, you know,the record label they were signed to,
were like, you guys gotta get YouTubers.
You

(37:36):
gotta do the internet.
Yeah.
I, they're not wrong.
Like we will see later on, especiallywith, you know, I think we've already
kind of seen it, but with some of themore like later era YouTubers, um, you
definitely start to see a lot more likemainstream collaborators and people
trying to like hop on the YouTube train.
So I think, I think they just got ona bit early, so it kind of was almost

(37:57):
just like, it was like only Weezer.
What, it's
just for me, I, I would sayaround that time, Weezer is
already like a legacy band.
They've gotten rid of most of theoriginal lineup and they're everyone,
all the fans are like, we like thestuff from the nineties more than now.
And the fans of YouTubers likeFred are literal children.

(38:18):
That's why it's so funny to mebecause it's like I get from the
marketing perspective where you'relike, we should, you know, what's
something that will get us views?
And it's like, okay,cool, it'll get you views.
But will every single one of thoseviewers be like, who are they?
Kind of, yeah.
So it's like, what is it, ACHI?
It's like, you know, running an ad tosomeone who's not your target audience.
It's like, what, what ultimatelyare we achieving here?

(38:40):
Which is why I thinkit's kind of charming.
It's like Weezer and Carl's Duna,Portobello Mushroom Burgers.
They're the number one collaborators.
No, it gives,
when celebs go on hot ones and they'relike, Sean, my kid loves hot ones.
I've never watched it, butmy kids tell me it's so good.
It's giving that, it's like when you

(39:01):
meet a famous person and you're like,my girlfriend loves your movies.
Yeah.
It's like, not you, not you.
And it's like we still askfor a photo or something.
Yeah.
It, it gives that vibe.
But anyway, back to our King Adam.
Yeah.
Look, chocolate, rain,
I would say the final like chocolatereign specific, non retrospective.
'cause there was a lot of those later on.

(39:22):
But in, uh, 2010.
Tay is in a, a musical sketch,like a, it's like a variety song.
Mm. Which is performed at anautism benefits concert, and
the song is performed by StephenColbert and Steve Corll mm-hmm.
With John Stewart there as well.
Crazy.

(39:42):
Uh, and Tay comes in and doeschocolate rain, which at this point
is actually like several years old.
Yeah.
So it's, it's very stale.
Well,
humor.
So, and, and the song also, the songis about Sully, the airline pilot.
Yeah.
Who like saved all the people but not
Sully the movie.
Not Sully the movie.
Not Tom Hanks actual SullyActual Sully from like,
around the time when it happened, or like,wasn't even, it was like a year on Look

(40:06):
back then you could do stuff, you could domemes that were like a year old and people
would be like, ha ha, it's pretty fresh.
Ha ha.
Yeah.
So Tay is performing at thisbenefit for people with autism,
uh, and that invite makes a lotof sense because Tay is autistic.
That's something that he hasbeen vocal about publicly.
Yeah.
I think he's been like a public advocateon his, uh, like social media platforms

(40:31):
in kind of amplifying, uh, like awarenessaround like autism and things like that.
So does definitely make sensefor him to be involved in this
as like a charity endeavor.
Yeah, and I think that is probably itfor chocolate rain in the two thousands.
We get, we're in 2010 now, so we shouldturn our mind to the other things that

(40:52):
Tay has done in his YouTube career since.
Mm-hmm.
Um.
He does sort of a mix of original musicand covers for the next few years.
There is the song Internet Dream, whichI recall you being quite a fan of.
I was not as interested in it, butbroadly it is about, uh, the internet

(41:15):
is addictive, which, you know, it is.
Yeah.
Another, another correct take from Tay.
Exactly.
He said, racism is real andthe Internet's addictive.
And I said, you are right, king.
Uh, yeah, this one was good.
And it's like another original piece.
He's still making original music and Ithink that's, uh, you know, impressive.

(41:35):
I, I think it's a lot morework than doing just covers.
Yeah.
And I think it's cool.
He's, he's, I don't know if he's tryingto replicate the success of chocolate
rain, um, but obviously continuing to dowhat has been successful for you so far.
With a little twist on it.
That makes sense.

(41:55):
I think it's like the song is technicallybetter, which actually ironically
like reduces its mean potential fu itdoesn't go off like chocolate rein.
Yeah, I see
what you mean.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Um, because it's
easier to remember Chocolaterain because he says it exactly
like that, like 40 times.
Yeah.
Whereas Internet Dream kind ofhas a bit more of a traditional

(42:18):
like song cadence Yeah.
Where it's, you know, kind of changesand whatever throughout the, he does
a cover of, uh, you'rea mean one, Mr. Grinch.
Mm-hmm.
Which actually quite suitshis vocal reign, especially
probably the most memorablecover to me for positive reasons.
That is,
yeah.
He does, he does a lot of coversand starts to take, I guess,

(42:43):
requests from commenters being like,oh my gosh, you should do this.
Like, this would be funny.
This would be cool.
I. I think my, and not like round it outor anything like that, but I do think
that Tay has the best use of his voice.
It just from like a singing perspective isdoing like a musical theater style songs.

(43:04):
Because I do think having a bassvoice for that, because he does
a lot of pop covers as well.
But obviously like there's not alot of like bass singing in pop.
It's not really, I think
that's part of the appeal though,because people are like, what's it gonna
sound like in this, you know, register.
Yeah.
Lower.
That's, that's it.
But like, I think, I think it moreso it just like highlights that.

(43:26):
'cause I think when people are focusingon the fact that it's like he has a deep
voice, obviously it's very impressive.
But I'm like, yeah, but he has like adeep voice that is quite, quite nice.
And when he, I, I think oftentimeswhen he is doing covers,
they're a bit tongue in cheek.
He's making them a bit likestiff and awkward on purpose.
Whereas in something like theURA mean one, Mr. Grin cover,
he's not playing that up in that.

(43:46):
He's covering it very like.
S seriously, or like genuinely.
Um, and he does do a couple of,uh, covers from Miz and he also
does one from the Hunchback ofNotre Dame, which is Hellfire.
And we didn't watch it because Ididn't wanna spoil you because you've
not seen the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
And I was like, you should experiencethis as intended, like in the

(44:07):
original context for the first time.
But Hellfire is like a slay songand I bet, like I'll listen to
it after the ep, but I'm sureTay would do an amazing cover.
I think he's like quite a beautiful,um, like musical theater voice.
Yeah.
The deep voice comes in handy because,uh, I get the impression that he starts

(44:28):
doing voiceover work at this point.
Mm-hmm.
Specifically ad reads and the like.
'cause he posts one of them forOld Spice on his main channel.
Um, oh,
this isn't like an actual ad read.
He did.
It's like a joke.
Is it
an ad for Old Spice though?
No, but you know the Old Spice meme.
I know, but it's like popular at the time.
I
feel like.
And it maybe wasn't disclosed.

(44:48):
I feel like this was an ad.
Really?
Yeah.
I don't think it was.
I think it's pretty, we've seen a lotof creators so far in the pod where
they've done sponsored work, which isn'tclearly disclosed because early YouTube,
there were not like such strict like,rules around disclosure or it wasn't
being monitored as heavily or as, uh,you know, stringently as it is now.

(45:12):
I don't think this was sponsored.
I think this was just him.
I think this was like comments of peoplebeing like, the Old Spice thing is funny.
You have a deep voice, youknow, do the Old Spice meme.
Yeah.
I guess he could use it for his reel.
Yeah, a hundred percent.
I think, I think it's crazy that,
you would do an ad read and not get paid.

(45:33):
But, uh, it's, I mean, it's a meme.
I'll tell you it's meme.
I tell how it got, um,over a million views.
Wow.
So maybe he did get some money from that.
Look, I am the first person to be like,I think this is an ad. I don't think
this was an ad. I think he, old Spicewas such a popular meme at the time, and
it was like big on YouTube as well, likepeople watching the commercial YouTube.

(45:55):
I remember watching them andbeing like, it's funny, watching
different Old Spice parody videos.
I think he's just jumping in on the,the trend and we see him doing that
as well with covers and other things.
Where Tay is trying to, like manyother creators, this is not me being
like, it's weird that he does this.
Literally everyone does this.
Um, I do this.
Any creator who is trying tomaintain relevancy and bring in a

(46:17):
new audience, um, will, you know.
It involve themselves in trends.
That's like literally how media works.
Um, but he does hop on trends, Ithink to pretty good varying levels
of success because people will findthe video and be like, oh my God, it's
the chocolate rain guy doing black.
And it's That's smart.
It's good.
Original music, Teon Day, we are at thevideo that I would say is the number

(46:44):
one, the peak of Teon day's power.
I am inclined to agree.
This video goes so hard.
It's so crazy.
I'll set
the scene for you guys.
Wait, we should say, at this point, he'sdoing a mix of covers, like short videos,
like the Old Spice one and original music,but for a while you can see the original
music is not coming in as frequently.

(47:05):
Um, but then this, this banger appears
so like I. You know, you come home fromschool and your parents, there're at
the dining table and they're cryingand you're like, guys, what's going on?
And your father looks at you andhe's like, son, I've lost my job.

(47:29):
And you're like, what?
And he's like, this subprimemortgage crisis has caused
the American economy to crash.
And as a result, we are in aglobal financial crisis and my
company has laid us all off.
And you go, that's crazy.
And so you go to the computerand you go to youtube.com
and you search Mama Economy.

(47:52):
The economy explained, featuringLindsay Sterling, and you hit play.
And Teon Day explains the full stateof the US economy to you while having
backing violin from Lindsay Sterling.
Yeah.
You would you say thatsummarizes the situation?
Yeah, I would say it exactlylike that in those words.

(48:15):
Hundred percent.
Yeah.
So this video is in response to the GFC.
Tay is delivering some very dense lyrics.
I wouldn't say it's a rap, it'smore just like he's crunching a lot
of syllables into each line song.
You know what it reminds
me of?
Um, some of the stuff from BoBurnham's inside, like the Okay.

(48:39):
Do you not think like, no.
Do you all entrepreneurborn known June 64?
I don't.
It's kind of like that.
No.
Uh, okay.
Yeah.
No, but cool.
It's good that you feel that way.
No, because it's like, he's not exactlylike singing, but he's not rapping.
It's like spoken word to music.
Yeah.

(49:00):
It's cool.
I think that I would say.
Maybe it was intentional.
It doesn't feel like, um, thelyrics are really on the beat here.
I don't think by Burnham would do that.
'cause it does result in a veryconfusing, you don't get caught up
in the musicality.
It's about the message.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, the message is, I, I would say it'svery broadly critical of the US economic

(49:24):
system swag and how it's obviously veryunequal in the distribution of wealth.
True.
Uh, and why people in the financialcrisis, you have people that are already
very wealthy, continue to make money,but people who, you know, work for a
living, they bear all of the risk, buthave none of the reward from the system.

(49:49):
So, like, you know, all of these thingsthat I know we would, we would never
talk about politics on this podcast.
Nope.
So, you know, I'll let you guys figureout whether Tay is a. I've got the
right perspective on this sort of thing,
but I mean I think we wrote a noteas you were watching it, which
was like, just spinning facts.

(50:10):
Uh,
I did say spinning facts.
Yeah.
I still don't really like from a musicalperspective, I would never listen to this.
Um,
no, but it's slaves.
Yeah, of course it goes really hard.
Um, and I do think that it is prettyswag that at this point, quite early in
his career online, he does make his likequite a, quite a, I don't wanna say like

(50:35):
not harsh, but like he very much likedraws a line and is like, this is my
perspective on certain political issues.
And I think it's prettycool of him to do that.
I think it's also odd, maybe the chocolaterange odd just have Lindsay Sterling
in the background playing the violin.
I wanna
get to Lindsay Sterling, but aboutthe explicitness, I feel like him
going through what is chocolate reign?

(50:57):
Even about like doing your like ballad on.
Institutional racism and having peoplebe like, this song is about diarrhea.
Mm. Probably
would.
He was like, okay, there's gonnabe, no one's gonna have any doubt
about what this one's about.
Yeah.
Uh, true.
And like, go off.
Yeah.
It's a, it's, it's kind of, I wasgonna say it's a banger, Amelia.

(51:19):
I can't really remember whatthe song sounds like, but
the message I do remember.
So,
Lindsay Sterling.
Yes.
So do
you know who this is?
I feel like we've watched herin something else already.
Ooh.
I think she might have beenfeatured in something else.
I can't remember off thetop of my head though.
But
she's the violin girl, right?
Well, I think we willcover her on the pod.

(51:40):
Okay.
She's a YouTuber.
But you can say, youcan tell us who she is.
She's a violin YouTuber.
Yeah.
Is that the whole extent of her channel?
Um, well.
I don't, I'm not extremelyversed on Lindsay Sterling.
I don't want you to spoil yourself.
I would say another factor that I rememberoff the top of my head, and I don't

(52:00):
know, I'm not saying this in any typeof positive or negative association, is
I believe she's like famously Mormon.
Okay.
Question mark.
Or religious.
Okay.
She's an electronic violinist.
She does swag and she doesdancing while she does the violin.
Okay.
And she performs at concerts andlike fully has toured like the world.

(52:20):
So she's a musical YouTuber?
Yeah.
Okay.
You don't seem to havemuch positive energy.
I don't.
When we discuss this, I
don't know what to tell you.
Can you
gimme a one line on why you,you're getting bad vibes or what?
You know, it's like without spoiling
it's like, I don't, Idon't know what it is.
It's like when you have somethingin your brain being like.

(52:43):
Remember, but I don't remember.
So you get a bad feeling.
Okay.
But I leave it of that,but I dunno if that's
fair.
I'm not saying like we, we shouldbe like, oh, I just, I I have
a sense, I dunno what it is.
I feel like something happened, but maybeit didn't and I'm thinking of someone
else, so I don't wanna accidentallyattribute it to Lindsay Sterling.
I will say in this te video, we getthe first glimpse at his computer set

(53:08):
up, and him and I have a, a similarinterest in ergonomic keyboards and mice.
And I can't say that for anyof the other YouTubers so far.
Mm-hmm.
I saw he had a Microsoftsculpt, which is very good.
Mass market, ergonomic keyboard.
Mm-hmm.
Um, if you're not familiarwith an ergonomic keyboard,

(53:28):
it's like a No, come on.
You don't have to, it's akeyboard that may, it means you
maintain like a, a neutral wrist.
When you're typing.
So if you have a job where you, youknow, if you're a spreadsheet warrior
and you're doing a lot of desk work, it'sgood to not put stress on your wrists.
So Tay not putting stresson his wrists good for him.
So is that the primary thing youthink that you and Tay have in common?

(53:49):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think that's the extentof the similarities.
Certainly nothing more to read into
No, you, you didn't like ex, youknow, say something like, wow, he
talks No, no, no, I did not.
Uh, okay.
So we continue to bedoing covers all right.
Into the 2010s.
These are still getting millions of views.

(54:12):
Uh, I don't think they're very good.
I will use an example.
He does a cover of somebodythat I used to know, you know?
Yep.
Australian icon.
Uh, but he changes theinstrumentation to be a epic Broadway.
Style
the way you just said that is so,

(54:32):
and uh, I would say that the originalinstrumentation, uh, has actually a
lot of, um, sort of synergy with the,like, the, the lyrics of that song.
Okay.
But you understand
it's not about it, it's it'sbabe, it's giving Marvel.
What if it's giving Ahan the universe?
It's, yeah.
It's like what if it bad,but if it was a dif no.

(54:53):
What if the music andthe lyrics had nothing?
No, nothing.
What common, if it was different, whatwould it sound like if it was different?
And you know, you are saying this,I I ain't got news for you bucko so
many YouTubers, like there are YouTubechannels where their entire thing is
like, what if this was a jazz song?
What if this was a 1920s full song?
And that's like their entire channel.

(55:15):
But wait until you get to Pentatonics.
They're gonna be like, what if this didn'thave instruments but just had voices?
You're gonna be like, it's different.
It's like, yeah, that's the, I don't know.
This is, okay.
Sorry.
This is given just the,
I thought this was a, a particularly
so
egregious example, I think now
is probably a good time to talk about thefact that Tay has, does at some point,
kind of come out and address that while,okay, his channel is a music channel.

(55:41):
He has become famous forobviously doing a song.
And so to an extent you're kind of like,okay, that's like what I do is I do songs.
And the reason why Chocolate Rainbecame popular is 'cause it was
a song, but it was like funny.
And he has a deep voice that's likethe two, like tenets of chocolate,
rain, deep voice and like anelement of like comedy or funniness.

(56:02):
Not through him I guess, tryingto be funny, but just like,
you know, the vibe, right?
That's why people thought it was funny.
Um, so he's trying to.
Replicate that, but he does, uh,he does express on his channel, I
dunno exactly what video it's in,but he basically is like, it is not
sustainable for me to try and uploadwith the frequency that you kind of

(56:23):
now need to upload as YouTube goes on.
Right?
It becomes more saturated.
In order to be competitive in theYouTube market, you need to be
making content more frequently.
I know we have had some like disagreementsabout like the algorithm changing and how
much that actually impacts channels, butI do think if you start out with content
that is maybe more popular in the, let'sjust say like the meta of YouTube and then

(56:45):
at this point I think we're in like 2013, 20 14, 20 15, the meta of YouTube is
like daily vloggers and he specificallytalks about the fact that there are people
who upload daily and he's like, I can'tupload an original composition daily.
It is like not perceivablefor me to do that.
So how do I make morecontent is I do covers.

(57:06):
So that is like the best wayfor him to do his channel.
And I would also say.
In order for him to fuelhis creative pursuits.
And we see this with lots of otherYouTubers in order for them to make videos
that they feel passionate about, right.
In order for Ryan Heger to make onevideo where he does stop motion,
that takes him like six days to shootand involves like a crew of people.
You have to make your bangers,you have to make cover content.

(57:27):
I think it's, and I get that youmight be like, but it doesn't like
contribute to anything or dah, dah, dah.
But I'm like, no, PE people enjoy it.
It's, it's, it's harmless.
It's a three minute video
that's like, yeah, my whole thing.
And I'm like, get the bag.
And my whole thing when the YouTubeis like, I'm forced to do this.
I'm like, you are notforced to do anything.

(57:48):
You don't have to upload all the time.
If your videos are good and youupload less frequently, if the videos
are good people, we'll watch them.
Yeah.
But I think you are asking someoneto like, it's like this is your job
and someone's like, in order for youto keep your job, you have to change.
Like we're gonna changeyour job description.

(58:09):
And you're gonna have to worktwice the hours you did before
to keep the same level of pay.
And you might be like,oh, that's not right.
Like, no, no job is like that.
But that's what YouTube is like.
I'm not saying now you are not likeentitled to have a job as a YouTuber.
It's a creative pursuit.
And like obviously that's verydifferent to, you know, your

(58:29):
quote unquote regular jobs.
Getting to be a creator islike a privileged position.
But yes, if you have been a YouTuberfor 10 years and that's been your
source of income and now suddenlyyou're having, well it's like
being a business owner, right?
It's not it, it's not reliableand it can just change on a dime.
YouTube could come out tomorrow and belike, we are gonna slash like create
this cut of the ad revenue down tolike even less than what it already is.

(58:52):
And then everyone would have to scrambleand figure out what they were gonna do.
So, I don't know.
I feel like we're gettingmaybe a bit more negative.
I just think it's
the first or last of the YouTubers willcover from the early YouTube era that.
After doing YouTube for severalyears says, I'm burnt out.
I feel a lack of creativity.
I wanna do other thingspotentially with YouTube.

(59:14):
Right?
Well, they say they wanna do otherthings, but then they are still feel
beholden by the fact that they're like,I can't just, and we saw it in our last
episode about Venetian Princess, exceptthat I would say it's kind of different
'cause she just acknowledges like,I realize that as I go forward doing
this, I will like not get as many views.
And she like, they make peace with it.
You either say you're gonna change and youdo, or you say you're gonna change and you

(59:37):
don't, or you don't change and you eithermake your peace with it or you don't.
Do you know what I mean?
Like it's kind of, that is thecombination of things you can do.
Tay at this point is like, I think,I think it's actually more gracious
and realistic than I think some, howsome others creators talk about it.
Where they talk about it in a senseof like entitlement or like with
a sense of, um, resentment towardstheir audience that they've built.

(01:00:00):
I don't think Tay.
Is really expressing that in, no, inhis sentiment, he's just being like,
I understand what people want from me.
I can't deliver that, like to thelevel that I need to in order to, you
know, be competitive on the platform.
So I need to thinkabout doing other stuff.
I also think just looking at hisfrequency of upload, I do get the

(01:00:21):
sense that he had other, um, youknow, sources of income on the go.
Well, we don't know for sure.
Exactly.
Um, but to my understanding,he does voice work.
So both, like in animation video games,he, he voices a character in Happy
Wheels, which, do you know what that is?
Nope.

(01:00:41):
Okay.
We will definitely getto that at some point.
Um, and then also like commercial stuff.
So I think if you, and I think he doestalk about the fact that having the
calling card of being the chocolaterain guy who famously has a very deep
voice, um, is obviously like a niceasset to have, but he does also speak
in his videos about experiencing, um,and I think he, this is pretty publicly

(01:01:04):
online, but he speaks about likeexperiencing financial insecurity that
like, and I can see from his uploadsand the type of content he uploads.
He's not like a, a weekly, youknow, putting out a weekly video.
Like a lifestyle YouTuberor doing vlogs or whatever.
He's uploading more sporadically.
And depending on the cover or thesong, I think he would maybe have

(01:01:27):
varying levels of monetization.
Um, it, it would depend.
You can make money doing covers,just depends on whether or not
they claim the instrumental.
Like you can kind of rollthe dice on that one.
But yeah, I think, I think the typeof content he makes, he, he then
talks about like, he wants to maybedo some gaming stuff that he's
like, but gaming doesn't reallymake sense to do it on this channel.

(01:01:47):
And I kind of am like,yeah, no, he does start
a Twitch account around this point.
Yes he does and startsstreaming games and whatnot.
YouTube
retirement home,
not calling Twitch, theYouTube retirement home.
I think just for a lot of YouTubers,Twitch does provide this very tempting
alternative where you can take youraudience, who you know, your core
audience, who love you for who you are,and just get along with your personality

(01:02:10):
and just take them over to Twitch.
Where you don't have todo any, well, okay, sorry.
A
platform where they can give you moneydirectly in form of subscriptions.
Well, I was, which you can now do
on YouTube.
I, yeah, you can do that on YouTube.
But I was gonna say more so the factthat I think, and I don't want to
say this 'cause I obviously know thatTwitch streamers do do some level of

(01:02:30):
prep, but you can make, you know, sixhours of content or more in a day.
Um, and you don't have to like editor prepare a concept for a video or
write a script or anything like that.
He doesn't stream anymore, I don't think.
Um, or at least not consistently
tough.
He has 44,000 sort of, I'm not sure.
They're called like Twitch followers.

(01:02:51):
Mm-hmm.
So the channel reachedsome level of success.
Um, I'm not too sure if he has beenstreaming recently, only because,
from what I can tell, he played alot of tribes, which is not a game
that is very popular at the moment.
A swag that he was like,I wanna play this game.
Yeah.
So I don't know if he'sbeen active there recently.
He wasn't doing Fortnite?

(01:03:11):
No, no, no, no, no, no.
Uh, he's not doing the,the Fortnite dance.
Oh, the chocolate.
They're doing the chocolaterain, uh, emote in Fortnite.
Can you imagine that
doing the, well, it would just be likemoving away from the market debris.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That would actually be pretty cool.
Um, okay.
So.
Late, sort of 2010s sort of vibe.
Uh, there is a returnto some original music.

(01:03:35):
Yeah.
Uh, there is a, a song called Rage Clown.
Um, and it sort of serves as like amusical expression of the frustration
that he has been feeling with makingcontent and how he feels that YouTube
is now sort of like outrage focused.
Uh, and so it's likea way for him to Yeah.

(01:03:58):
Package up his, you know,criticism of YouTube at this time.
I think he, is this like a fresh new take?
No, but I do, I think he's right.
Yeah.
Kind of like to be funny though.
I do feel it is Old manyells at Sky type of vibe.

(01:04:19):
Outrage, content.
Like rage Bait is like atale's old as time, right?
Like.
What are, what are they called?
What's the Daily Mail called?
A tabloid.
Thank you.
Tabloids have existed for years.
Right?
And that is like rage baby kind of stuff.
So, but I, I do think a lot of YouTuberswho are quite present in like early

(01:04:40):
days on the platform do feel a typeof, like, YouTube used to be like
really rewarding, creative and likeRyan Heger as well was like, they were
like, we used to be really rewarded forhaving like original creative ideas.
And now it's like the Paul Brothers andthey're like setting like cars on fire
and like that shouldn't be rewarded.
And it's like, yeah,you are probably right.

(01:05:02):
But people do wanna see a carset on fire, unfortunately.
It's just like, this isbroader than YouTube.
It's like with people being like,music was better when I was a kid.
Like I do feel overwhelmingly nostalgia.
I. Colors, these people's perception,and of course they're like the
best time of YouTube was whenI was the most popular creator.

(01:05:26):
I don't think they'renecessarily, well, okay.
Some of them are kind of sayingthat I don't think Adam or Tay is
in this particular case, but I dothink it's also just a case of a
platform grows, it reaches saturation.
Then you start to see more ofthat like bell curve of like, you
know, different kinds of content,different like intellectual
levels of content or whatever.
You're gonna see more slop, right?

(01:05:48):
There was no Baby Shark in 2007.
There's no Coco Melon in 2007,but there's Coco Melon now.
But this is my thing.
This is where I think YouTube isdifferent to traditional media, right?
If I was making a TV show in2005 and my TV show, you know,
I was making lost, right?
I'm Damon Lindelof and I'm doinga lot of work making an original

(01:06:10):
scripted sci-fi mystery show.
And someone comes along and goes,I have a new season of American
Idol, and we just throw 10 peopleon and I, I make slop for 40 hours.
Mm-hmm.
And the network is like, well,we only have 24 hours of channel
of, you know, airtime a day.
I have to cut something.
So I'm getting rid of Lost.
And Damon's like, oh, I've lost my job.

(01:06:32):
That's sucks.
I've lost it because of slop.
But YouTube, there's no,there's no bandwidth limit.
Everyone can upload as much as they like.
And in terms of view time,the platform has grown so much
since it launched 20 years ago.
I would say that outrage content,I don't think it takes away from
the other content on the platform.

(01:06:53):
I just think there's a differentaudience that wants that stuff.
And maybe it's bigger than your originalaudience, but if people liked your
videos to begin with, mm, chances arethey'll still like it if you continue
to make them of a high quality.
I
don't entirely disagree, but I do thinkthere is an attention economy and.
Like, yes.
Obviously people who still, like,you know, those old school creative

(01:07:16):
videos before will still like themnow, but you are competing against
the algorithm to be seen against, forexample, a burning car and like, or
something that's really outrageous.
Like even stuff like David Dorich,like you, like we've seen a
bit of David Doric together andwe'll save our kind of thoughts.
'cause I'm sure, we'll definitely.
I'll give you one
line.
No.
David Doric.

(01:07:39):
No.
A great YouTuber.
No.
No.
Okay.
But that's the thing is my man
so much, so much YouTube,sorry, two lines.
Okay.
Whereas most of YouTube needs an editor.
It's excessive.
My man David, all killer.
Okay.
I think.
What the, you are actually so diabolicalfor saying that, but it's like the

(01:08:00):
Mr Beatification of YouTube, right?
Is like what people are talking about.
You are competing against peoplewho are spending like heaps of money
on doing like really outrageousthings, you know, compared to the
humble, you know, piano player.
Right?
That's, that's the point.
And yes, I, I, I'm not like,I don't have endless sympathy
because ultimately like that is thereality of what the platform is.

(01:08:20):
And you can either play the game or youcan not, but like complaining about the
game, there is kind of a point whereit's like, okay, what does this achieve?
But I do think he has a point about,there is a level where like platforms
can potentially do things to like negatethis, but they don't have an interest in
doing that because it makes them money.
Um, so I think that's.

(01:08:42):
That's fair.
I will say also at this pointwe didn't mention, but he has
reached a million subscribers.
This is in around, do youknow what year it was?
2017. 2017. So over the course of10 years, uh, Tay slowly made his
way to a million subscribers, whichI think is actually quite wholesome
that it was like a long haul.
I think a lot of YouTubers, they kindof accelerate and peak quite quickly

(01:09:02):
and then slowly, you know, taper off.
But I think it seems like hesteadily made his way to a million.
So congratulations to Tay.
I think it's a big achievement.
His
1 million video is quite differentto everyone we watched so far.
Yes.
I think it's worth mentioning'cause he basically is like saying
that he feels quite awkward withwhen it comes to achieving things,
which I kind of can relate to.

(01:09:24):
'cause it's sort of like, what do you do?
Like it happens and then you're kindof just like, okay, feel empty inside.
Maybe that's something I shouldunpack outside of this episode.
But
I think culturally it'ssomething that is, um.
I think, and to generalize, Ithink that it seems that Americans

(01:09:46):
are much more comfortable withbeing like self-congratulatory.
Oh yeah.
They don't really have tallpoppy as much culturally.
Yeah.
Whereas I
think in, certainly in Australia.
Australia and the uk.
Yeah.
And parts of like Western Europe, itwould be, people would be like, if you

(01:10:08):
are too self-promotional, they would belike, that is arrogant and also cringe.
Yeah.
So people value modesty Ithink to a larger degree.
And so I think that we wereboth like actually, yeah.
TAs thing where he's like, I don'treally like, I hit a million subscribers,
but you know, sort of a number.

(01:10:29):
And I'm not really sure how tosort of, you know, everyone makes
a video on this, but you know, Idon't really have a lot to say.
We were both like, yeah.
Agreed.
Sure.
Fair enough.
But I think it sounds,
sounds true.
I do think you know that.
I think it's nice to try and make aneffort to, you know, celebrate milestones.
But anyway, I think, I think it's quitewholesome and I do think it does speak to

(01:10:52):
his, in linking in with our conversationwith things like Ray Klan and stuff.
Tay, I think what I find quite admirableabout him as a creator is he kind
of knows that he could do a lot ofthings to become more popular and
more relevant and like get more views.
But he basically is like, Idon't wanna do that because I

(01:11:13):
don't see a lot of value in it.
Which is funny because youare kind of being like, well,
why is he doing these covers?
I don't feel like they add a lotof value, but it's like clearly,
like that's something where he'slike, I can put my own spin on it.
Like, I think it's fun.
I like, and he also expressesthat he likes performing a lot.
Like he enjoys the act ofsinging and performing, which
I can definitely resonate with.
But I do think it's, I don'tknow, I, I think it's nice

(01:11:36):
that he basically is just like.
Yeah, I could do all of thesethings, but like, I don't think
they're good, so I won't do it.
And do you not think that's kind of,that's kind of you code, like I, like
I mentioned American Idolbefore, a whole show based on
just watching people do covers.
So I'm not saying that like
No, but covers are unpopular generally.
I know
people appreciate covers.

(01:11:57):
I just, from my perspective, I just don'tsee why I'd listen to a cover versus a
new song that I haven't heard before.
But I think in terms of our conversationwe're having before where, you know, often
we hear YouTube is complaining that theyhave to keep on doing the same old thing.
He basically is like, I knowthat I could do these things,

(01:12:18):
but I don't want to do them.
And so I'm fine with that basically.
And I think that's kind of nice'cause some people are like, I know
I could do these things but I don'twanna do them and I'm mad about it.
Like
I'm annoyed that these arethe things I have to do.
And may, maybe he's on some level,but I think he's mostly like.
Uh, not resigned, but basically it'sjust like, yeah, I will not be doing

(01:12:41):
X, Y, Z to, you know, revive mychannel's glory days or to further
propel myself into YouTube success.
He doesn't think that that'ssomething he wants to pursue.
So I think that's kind of Swack.
He's pretty chill.
He's chill.
He does step into the, uh, thePewDiePie, the T series, sort of

(01:13:04):
what would you ra subscriber race?
What did they call that at the time?
Or it was just p it was the T series.
It was like subscriber battle.
Yeah.
Yeah.
T series.
The T series and PewDiePieSubscriber Battle to become
the most subscribed YouTuber.
Although technically, obviouslyPew Pie is an individual person.
Tser is, uh, a corporation that was,
yeah, he, he makes a, a, just a songcalled PewDiePie, and it's very funny.

(01:13:26):
It's mostly about pie.
Is it very funny.
I think it's charming.
I think.
Okay.
You have to at some point just be like.
Is this like a banger thateveryone is gonna agree is funny?
Like maybe not, but I genuinelybelieve that he uploads it being
like, I think this is funny.
Like he thinks it's clever.
And so that's endearing.

(01:13:48):
And that's what I'm saying.
It's like he, he doesn'tupload super frequently, but he
understands that you have to upload.
But I think when he does upload, it'sbecause he's been struck by inspirational,
being like, this is a fun idea.
I'm gonna hop on this trend.
And like I have, I'm struckwith inspiration to write
a little song about pie.
So you know what, yeah, itte on day probably one of the

(01:14:10):
few YouTubers we have covered.
And not that it's like, you know, youget like a special section, uh, in the
rewind time hall of fame, but it's like,I do think Tay is one of the few people
who is like, largely without controversy,everyone seems to like Tays on day.
Next minute someone's gonna be like,remember this thing that happened?
And I'll be like, Nope.
But.

(01:14:31):
Would you not agree?
He's like, largely, there's no partof it where you're just like, oh no,
we're not having like a Well, okay.
Admittedly, as we say, we'renot having a suddenly promoting
Bitcoin on the channel moment.
But technically on his, uh, Twitter,he does talk a lot about NFTs.
Mm-hmm.
Which is
not technically part of YouTube, but
YouTube, yeah.
I wouldn't, I wouldn't go that far.

(01:14:52):
I just think
especially given,
I will say
yeah, some of the new videos.
But
I will say his interest inNFTs does seem largely like
he likes the tech.
No.
It's like he is solely promoting NFTsthat are like to support and like,
obviously I'm, I'm not an NFT fanand I'm largely skeptical about them,

(01:15:13):
but these are from a few years ago,back in like the start of NFTs being
a thing and he's mostly being like,they're ones that are created by like.
Uh, like women's artistcollectives and things like that.
I'm, I'm not saying that like I, I don't
wanna open the can of worm.
The can of worms.
It's not really on main channel.
Let's,
let's, no, no.
Sorry.

(01:15:34):
Let's,
let's, should we, we don't, no,let's, let's just shut the door on it.
Let's do, uh, te T Legacy.
Mm-hmm.
And I wanna talk about his cameo.
Okay.
Maybe I'll do it now before legacy.
So guys, yeah.
Let's so about
cameo t is, which ironically we'relike, let's not talk about his Twitter
'cause it's not a YouTube channel.
His cameos also not onhis YouTube channel.

(01:15:54):
So like cameo,
if you don't know service ware, youpay normally sort of micro celebrities,
but I guess anyone can join.
You pay people money and theynormally do a video message for you.
So classic example is Lucy lovesBelow Deck, so I'm gonna get.
My favorite Bravo below deck starto send her a birthday message.

(01:16:17):
And I'm gonna pay probablylike 200 bucks for 50 seconds.
You're gonna get Isha to
be like Luc, I hope youhave an amazing birthday.
Sorry, I can't do a Kiwi accentat all, but yeah, that's the vibe.
Yeah, right?
Yeah.
Uh, so there's a bunch of old YouTuberson cameo because millennials that are
cashed up and nostalgic for 2000 YouTube.
So Tay is on there.

(01:16:38):
Uh, and I was looking at what Taywas doing in modern day and I came
across, uh, like this Reddit threadwhere someone was like, I had the most
amazing cameo from TA for my husbandwho really liked chocolate rain.
And I paid Tay to do like a one minutevideo on, you know, for on cameo.

(01:16:59):
And he did a five minute full video swag.
So cool.
And I was like, okay.
So I went to his cameo.
And he has like a 4.9 outta five rating.
So iconic.
And everyone's like, this islike the best cameo I've gotten.
Like he put so much effort into this.
Yeah.
And I'm like, you know, personallywouldn't pay for a cameo, but
if I was, it'd be great forthe person to put, you know, I

(01:17:22):
have had thoughts a few times aboutpaying for cameos from people that like,
they, they kind of like don't love, butlike, just kind of like a little bit,
or like they know of a troll cameo.
Yeah.
I think troll cameos.
Yeah.
Isn't mean-spirited.
I don't know.
It's like the, the celebrity,I just think it's like.
Okay.
It, it's like you have been watching a TVshow and I get you a cameo of like someone

(01:17:46):
from that show who's like a peripheralcharacter, but it isn't, it kind,
it's a gift where you get moreout of it than I the receiver do.
So it does feel like a troll.
Yeah,
true.
I obviously, I wouldn't get that as likethe only gift for someone, but like,
like if I get you an Aussie brosquad cameo for your birthday
because it's like, Idon't really want that.

(01:18:07):
No, but I would find it really funny.
But what
if I was like, that cost me $200.
I feel like that adds to the comedy.
No, I think also the funny thingis when you do a cameo, but you
feed them like misinformation.
So you have to be like,
oh, the Nigel Farage one where he's like
up the Yeah, yeah.
It's like a political message that he,he's not quite aware of doing, doing.

(01:18:30):
He
endorses, uh, a certain Irishindependence military group.
Yeah.
And for you, if you don't know,sorry for the, um, just in case.
But Nigel Farra is like a, a politician.
He is a, he was the pioneer of Brexit.
Yeah.
Great guy.
The movement.
So, you know, maybe he hassympathy for Irish independence.

(01:18:51):
Okay.
But, so if I consider he wasa pro Brexit, but it would be
like, if I got you a cameo fromNigel Farage and like wishing
you luck on an endeavor to likesomething that you're not doing.
Like that's fun.
I don't know, maybe again, once again,I feel like I'm just outing that I have
a completely broken sense of humor.
Honestly,
if I got a Farage camera,I would find it very funny,
Anyway, so Tasone Day apparentlydoes excellent cameos.

(01:19:14):
We did, I feel like we did consider buyingone for the podcast, but we're not really.
We're still so early into the podcast.
Uh, you know, just to be transparentwith all of the listeners, we, this
podcast currently makes us obviously $0.
In fact, negative dollars.
It's cash
negative.
Yeah, it's cash negative.
We're in the red, we're inthe user acquisition phase.
We're in the red, you know.
Um,
yeah, we're doing seeding uh, funding.

(01:19:35):
We're doing random funding.
Uh, that's, we
should have acceptedthe funding last night.
Oh yeah.
We went out for dinner
last night and our friend was sayingto us, um, our friend works in tech.
I think that's just a book.
Yeah.
He works in tech and he is connectedwith some tech individuals and was
like, if you guys ever need fundingfor something, and I was like,
I was like, don't needfunding for anything.
But now
as we're sitting here, this media

(01:19:55):
company, we need
funding.
And our pitch to them wouldbe like, they'll be like, what
do you need the money for?
And we're like, so we can buy cameosfrom, oh, for our podcast to promote it.
Doing, doing cameos to YouTubers andthen putting an ad spend behind it and
running them as ads for our podcast.
What if we got like, no, are you,actually, this is a good idea.
Getting TAs on day to be like.

(01:20:17):
Listen to Rewind time.
The YouTube podcast.
I think normally you just
ask them to do an interview and thenyou just say, can you do a plug?
No, but you, that's what radio shows do.
No, they don't pay themWell, but that's cheeky.
They're being cheeky.
You gotta pay.
You gotta pay.
We support artists.
Oh yeah.
Could we get like a cameo from small?
Alright, discuss it.
Sorry.
Off the pod.
Let's So Tay, legacy of Tay.

(01:20:39):
I think that honestly looking at fullspectrum of content and obviously
chocolate, rain being the one that hasendured the longest, this is not sort of a
creator that I'd be popping at the top ofthe list of people we've covered so far.
In terms of like iconic, just given,I think that I would say Tay does

(01:21:05):
fit the bill as a one hit wonderand I think people know chocolate
rain more than they know him.
But I think I have a positive perception.
Of his channel as a whole.
Like I didn't really vibe with thecontent, like it's not something
that I would ever really watch.

(01:21:25):
But certainly from the interviews wewatched with him, uh, from like the
approach he takes to YouTube and howhe has like basically developed as
a creator over the 20 years, like I,yeah, have a pretty positive impression.
Uh, and I think he's a pretty cool guy.
Okay.
And your favorite video is Mama Economy?

(01:21:47):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Same for me.
I think it's also my favorite video,I think, and the reason why I picked
Tay as a subject for this episode wasbecause I think it's interesting to
cover someone who, we've covered a lotof people who've had, I would say, like
viral videos, but I think maybe Tayhas been like the most viral, right?

(01:22:07):
Probably the most viral videoin terms of like the way it
spreads through the mainstream
iPhone.
Bill video.
Yeah, pretty viral.
A lot of mainstream pickup Wikipediaarticle caused a phone provider
to change their billing practices.
Okay.
Alright.
So no, you are not really?
No, no Chocolate
brain's definitely up there,but maybe not like the most

(01:22:30):
Mm.
Okay.
I would say it's just that, it'san interesting, I think a lot of
these creators that have had viralvideos, okay, let's put it this way.
A lot of the creators we've covered whohave had viral moments and have been
able to kind of take that success andrun with it, I think have been able
to, or have wanted to surf the YouTubewave and kind of move and evolve.

(01:22:55):
Like obviously Smosh was twocreators and now it's like
basically a media empire, right?
Like they're willing to like gowith that and kind of change and do
content to work with the algorithm.
Whereas I feel like Tase on dayis quite interesting in that he
kind of does do that to an extent.
And then kind of it's just like,you know what I'm gonna kind of.
Do something else.
Yeah.
Um, and how he still managed toleverage that viral success into

(01:23:19):
obviously an aligned career.
Like he's famous for his voice.
He's a voice actor, I wouldsay predominantly is kind
of his, his main thing.
I assume that's from his LinkedIn.
Okay.
I'm just sort citing the LinkedIn.
Um, I don't know.
I just thought it was like aninteresting and different approach,
especially someone who was likelooking at becoming an academic.
I think a lot of the other creators,uh, were earlier on in their, like

(01:23:43):
lives or in their careers and maybedidn't know what they wanted to do yet.
And YouTube kind of informed that.
Whereas this is someone who waslike, I fully was gonna be an
academic and do this stuff, and thenthis kind of like happened to him.
Um, do you know what I mean?
I mean, as,
as we know from the YouTubers react tochocolate, rain, his academic background
certainly puts him at a, a higher levelof insight and analysis than our people.

(01:24:06):
You guys should
watch that clip.
It's actually like quite painful.
It in the, we lick in the
description because Tay is like, so like.
Being so thoughtful with his answer andlike answering all the questions, whereas
the other people were like, it's rainingdookie, and you're like, Jesus Christ.
So te if anything does, uh, is anintellectual YouTuber and I think

(01:24:26):
could have, you know, I would goto a lecture hosted by Te Onde.
I feel like he's got stuff to say.
Yeah,
yeah.
Well we were, I was saying aprime creator for a podcast.
Yeah.
I was like, can't believe hedoesn't have a podcast yet.
I was amazing radio voice.
Yeah.
Insightful dude.
I was, when I, I didn't know wherethe channel was going, but I was

(01:24:48):
like, oh, there's gonna be a podcast.
Yeah.
But no, no, not a podcast.
But, so we,
he should launch one in
saying that TAs and Dave, if you wouldlike to come on our podcast, you are so
invited and we would definitely do that.
Uh, and with that.
That's, that's the maintopic of our episode.
Max, what are yousubscribing to this week?
Mm, what am I subscribing to?

(01:25:11):
It's a big one.
Ha.
I have a lot of enthusiasmfor what I'm subscribing to.
I am subscribing to the Pit,which is a TV show on HBO Max.
Uh, it's a hospital drama.
It's 15 episodes each representingone hour of a day shift at the

(01:25:33):
Pittsburgh Emergency Hospital.
And I'm a bit late to the party onthis one 'cause it's been airing
over the last three months or so.
And I initially, I'm like never, I'venever watched a hospital drama, so
I'm a bit too young, I think for ERand Grey's Anatomy and all that stuff.
So I was like, Ugh, thisseems like Boomer tv.

(01:25:55):
And so I didn't watch.
And I began it last week and thefirst episode you were there and I
was a bit like, oh, this seems a bit,uh, a bit telly rather than showy.
It's a bit, isn't it toughto be a doctor type stuff?
It's like
soapy.
Yeah.
And I was not convinced, but basicallyas soon as they actually start treating

(01:26:20):
patients, the show is so addictive and theflow of each, you following each of your
main doctors as they jump between patientsin the emergency room and it's so densely
written because it's like basically,um, transpiring in real time as you're

(01:26:41):
watching the episodes and you see the plotdevelop over the course of this single
shift, I was like really quite blown away.
And I think that.
In terms of like series of television,I was thinking of what, you know, recent
shows that I would put at this level.
And I, I basically think it's probablylike the best debut season since

(01:27:05):
probably season one of the Bear,um, which is pretty high praise.
So yeah, if you like hospital shows,if you like, sort of workplace dramas,
I definitely recommend the pit.
Hmm.
You didn't watch the pit,you didn't seem interested.
I, I am someone who doesn't, uh, likemedical content 'cause it makes me

(01:27:28):
quite squeamish any type of gore.
Um, if you also don't like seeing, forexample, a simulated degloving injury
in the first episode of a TV show, thenI would advise you to avoid the pit.
Lots of needles and like, obviouslyall regular, regular medical stuff.
I know people love Grey's Anatomyand like er and like all those other.

(01:27:52):
Uh, yeah.
It's just not for me.
But I couldn't even like get throughthe first episode of Criminal
Minds, which is not a medical show.
It's a show where it's about criminals,but they, he puncture a woman in
her face and it was just like, oh.
Had to go.
And they're like, theydo fingernail clipping.
Can't do.
It's actually
crazy that Grey's Anatomy.
It's literally, it's like Dr. Gray, right?

(01:28:14):
Yeah.
Meredith Gray.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The title is like a pun on her body.
Uh,
like Gray's Anatomy.
I think it's, well, no, isn't it, becausethat's like a famous medical like book.
Yeah.
Like a textbook?
No,
but it's like a, it'slike a double meaning
y Yeah.
Yeah.
I guess
almost like, you know, like Bonesand they're like the girl in Bones.
I'm pretty sure her name is Bones.

(01:28:36):
Yep.
It's like House.
Yeah.
Like, yeah.
It's, it's almost like thename is the person and that's
why the lead doctor in the pit is Dr.
Anthony Pitt.
Wait, no it's not.
Yeah.
I was like, no, it's not,isn't it like the Pittsburgh?
Yeah.
Okay.
Right.
Okay.
From, remember there?
I was like, what
tv?
The shows just used tobe the name of the guy.
I,
yeah.
You have been watching thepit in the background while

(01:28:56):
I've been working all week.
Um, which is, it's more like I just, Ican't turn around in case I'm gonna be
like, there's, it's, it's so frequent.
I would say the, yeah, they'rein a, they're in an er.
Yeah.
Obviously they're in er, but it'slike every time I turn around
there's like someone with like agaffing wound and I'm like, Ugh.
Like I'm, 'cause I'm trying to likeget up to get roof on my water bottle.
So it's been a spooky, spooky time.

(01:29:19):
Uh, it's great.
Thank you for, thank you for that.
What are you subscribing to?
I am subscribing to reformer Pilates.
Wow.
I've been trying it out and I think it's.
Kind of fun.
I like that it kind of gamifiesexercise because while I have been
going to the gym somewhat consistentlyfor the last couple of years, I do

(01:29:44):
it because I know it's good for me.
Not 'cause I particularly thinkit's fun, which I think is a lot of
people with some types of exercise.
Um, but reform, Pilates, it's kind of,you know, you're, it feels like you are
doing, I, I guess it's like why peoplelike, you know, trampoline exercise.
It feels kind of like a game.
You just
explain what the reformer is.
One is,
it's, uh, like a medievaltorture device, but Okay.

(01:30:05):
It's not helpful.
Okay.
It's like a, a flat bed, whichI mean, they use a lot of it.
It's how, well, how wouldyou describe a, a performer?
Okay, so it's, it's got a, there's two
rails.
There's two rails and there's,and there's a carriage.
There's flat surface.
No, sorry, didn't youjust ask me to explain it?
So there's two rails.
There is a flat surface on topthat moves back on runners.

(01:30:29):
And it's attached to fivesprings and the springs represent
basically the resistance mm-hmm.
Of the carriage and reformerPilates involves you.
And there's also loops,
there's also elastic loops.
Oh, yeah,
yeah.
Okay.
Anyway, you, you get on the carriage,uh, and you can do various exercises

(01:30:49):
using the resistance of the springs.
So if they're, you know, lowerbody ones, you might be pushing
the carriage or yourself away from.
The base of the reformer.
Mm-hmm.
If the upper body ones, you have theloops as you mentioned, and you can be
doing uh, resistance exercises with those.
Yeah, and I've been doing it for thelast few weeks and it's pretty fun and

(01:31:14):
it can be quite challenging at timesand does make your body quite sore,
but it's like a nice full body workout.
Like if you're going to a class that'snot upper or lower body specific, you
are pretty much getting like a nicefull body workout, um, in the course
of 45 minutes instructed by usuallysome slay diva who like plays a mix of
music and there's like dimmed delightsand it's all glowy and stuff like that.

(01:31:37):
It's kind of, it's kind of fun.
Yeah.
It's like in and out and you're done.
Why is it
so hard to book a reformer class?
It's 'cause it's verypopular at the moment.
Um, I will say that, that's my, my
do we know why?
Um, I think it's like, there was thattime Miley Ty performed and everyone
was like, wow, she's so buffed.
And they were like, it's'cause she does reformer.
Like a lot of peoplelike Pilates arms, not
Gracie Abrams.

(01:31:58):
Probably that as well.
Okay.
It's like every major celebrity,they're just like, it's not
weightlifting or their diet or whatever.
They're like, it's 'cause they do Pilates.
So I prefer reformerPilates to map Pilates.
Mat Pilates is a lot harderand there's less like a gear.
So it feels less fun.
It's like more challenging.
You can stop me if we spokeabout this before, but have we
mentioned the founder of Pilates?

(01:32:21):
You
love
to talk about John
Pilates.
Guys.
Do you know Pilates was just madeby a guy called John Pilates.
I was reading yesterday that it's,he, it was invented in prison
for like inmates.
Yeah.
And that's what they're like exercise.
They're like, that's why it'shard and it's like a full body
workout and it's trying to workout all the different muscles.
Is this fake news?
I don't know.
I saw on TikTok, so maybe.
Oh no.
But it was like all in the comments.

(01:32:42):
They were like, it's prison.
Yeah.
And I was like, everyone was talkingabout prison and Pilates is for prison.
I don't know anything about.
John Pilates besides hisname, but, but you did
come to your first reformer Pilatesclass with me the other day.
And what'd you think?
Oh, sorry.
I came to the Introductionto Reformer class.
Yeah.
'cause Lucy wanted me tocome and I wanted to try it.
And of course I get in there and becausethere's such demand for Pilates classes,

(01:33:04):
the instructor's like, so guys, it'sthe introduction to Pilates class.
Whose first time is it at Pilates?
I'm like, yeah, me the only personreally to put their hand up.
And I'm in the class likedoing these movements and
they're like, this is tricky.
Meanwhile, there's people smurfing inmy introduction to Pilates class and
doing like everything, like perfect form.

(01:33:26):
Yeah.
And I'm like, yeah, you wouldbe, because clearly this is
not your first time at Pilates.
Well, I mean, there was the, 'causeI'm not a pro by any means yet.
I'm still like getting acrossa lot of the movements.
But I, I'm used to like, now when theysay the equipment and they give the
instructions, I like know what I'm doing.
But um, there was someonenext to me and she was like.
Fully.
I was like, she's like a Pilates pro.

(01:33:47):
And every time, so Pilatesinstructors usually have like the
one thing they want you to do.
They're like, this is level one.
And they're like, and these are thethings you can add on to like make it more
difficult or to make it more challenging.
Or when you are ready to, you know,you know, now include the arms.
You should hold your arms out.
So it's like more of a balance aspect.
The girl next to me is fullydoing like the hardest thing
every single time, like whatever.
And when you go to other Pilates classes,we were just in the beginner one.

(01:34:08):
But in other classes, normally they giveyou spring options to make it trickier.
But they did not in this,in this beginner session.
Yeah.
But, but did you like it?
Um, did I like it?
I would say that I akin to other exercise,sorry, like other classes with some degree

(01:34:28):
of weightlifting at that gym, they arefocused towards vanity muscles that I
think female trainers are interested in.
And by that I mean we dida lot of lower body and.
Uh, glute focused liftsand ab a lot of abs.

(01:34:50):
A lot of abs.
Yeah.
Uh, and I was like, I don't really, Idon't, it, it was, look, it was really
fun to do the movements and everything,but I was like, I would have a very
interesting physique, like exclusivelytargeted my glutes, hamstrings, and abs.
Uh, and we did some tricepsand stuff as well, but Yeah.

(01:35:10):
Yeah.
I was like, I would definitelyhave the Pilates arms.
Uh, a big butt and toned legs cake top.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You'd be a cake pack.
Oh.
And I'd also
be able to wear crock tops.
'cause I would have,
you already can
six pack abs.
I would love if you wore crop tops.
And that will be what willhappen on the next episode.
You'll be wearing acrop top, maybe or not.
Okay.
We'll see.
You'll have to tune in to find out.

(01:35:32):
Uh, yeah.
But that is this episode of rewind time.
Uh, if you want to leave a commentabout Tay or a suggestion about
other YouTubers we should cover fromthis era, please do that on YouTube.
Otherwise, you can send us anemail at rewind time pod@gmail.com.

(01:35:53):
Mm-hmm.
Lucy, do you got anythingcoming up this week?
We will be launching our shortform social media accounts,
both on Instagram and TikTok.
We'll be sharing some clips from episodes.
So if you want to share some of thosewith your friends and family, if you've
been trying to convince em to listento rewind time and you haven't quite

(01:36:13):
gotten there yet, then I think these,these clips may either get them over
the line or push them further away.
But either way, there'll be someclips, uh, to, to be shared.
Being a child and being like,dad, look, these, these podcasters
they're talking
about YouTube from
when
you were a kid.
I don't know about that, but, uh, yeah,if you don't follow us on those platforms

(01:36:35):
and that's something that interestsyou, then you can check that out.
But otherwise, we'll be back next week.
Thanks for watching.

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