Why did The Key of Awesome end?

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
In February, 2007, Barack Obamaannounced his candidacy for
the 2008 presidential election.
A few months later, an affectionatemusical tribute to Obama was uploaded
to YouTube quickly becoming anearly viral video and launching the
channel into prominence, the startof a decade of comedic videos with
both political and musical flavors.
Welcome to Rewind Time.
This episode The Key of Awesome slashBailey Productions slash Bailey Political.

(00:26):
Yeah, it's rewind time.
Me.
Welcome to episode 15 of RewindTime, a YouTube history podcast.
I'm here with YouTuber, Lucy Liven.
Hello,
and I am your other host, max, someonewho hasn't watched much YouTube at all.

(00:48):
Lucy, how are you going?
I'm actually really good.
I had a Okay.
I had a really great week.
Things have been going well.
Uh, not to sort of connect to thetheme of this episode or some layer
themes we'll be talking about,but I've just had a very good.
YouTube week, like as a YouTuber.
Yeah.
It's been a good week for me.
Uh,

(01:09):
it was the TikTok parodyweek of your YouTube career.
I just, I had, I had a couple of videosjust kind of end up being surprised.
Bangers.
Yep.
Um, and do, do well.
So I have some new subscribers andSunu eyes on the channel, um, and
some good opportunities coming my way.
So it's been, it's felt like avery rewarding week as we often

(01:30):
talk about with some of theYouTubers we cover on this podcast.
Not that I'm anywhere near kind of themagnitude of success of them, but you do.
It is like a very up and down type ofprofessionalism, you know what I mean?
Yeah.
Well, we have new subscribers.
Oh, yeah.
Post launching our socials, butalso maybe they found us through

(01:53):
the amazing discoverabilityon Spotify and Apple Podcast.
I'm, I'm sure that's how they found us.
Welcome
to our new listeners.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And I also wanted tosay thank you to Brian.
Shout out to,
Brian left
us a really nice review mm-hmm.
On the Apple US Podcast listing.
It was so nice.
We, I hadn't seen our reviews becauselike we, they kind of, the way we do it,

(02:16):
they sort of come through in differentchannels and whatnot, so we don't
get like notifications necessarily.
Well, very briefly, the, uh,the Apple Podcast ecosystem, the
reviews are segmented by country.
So there are like 250 different,uh, listings for your reviews.
So without manually checking them Yeah.
Or paying someone to do that for you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They do get lost in the weeds.

(02:37):
That's thing Spotify does do better.
Yeah.
I, I thought we didn't have any,um, apple reviews, but I was
just like, oh wait, hang on.
We have like six differentlistings on like Google when
you look up Rewind Time podcast.
And, uh, Brian left the lovely review.
Would you like to read Brian's review?
It just says Lucian Max are quicklybecoming one of the best parts of my week.
They cover old viral YouTubers andtalk about the content they make.

(02:59):
So glad I found this podcast.
Well, Brian, we're so gladthat you found us as well.
Thank you so much forleaving such a lovely review.
Um, and who knows if, if you areenjoying the podcast and you would like
to write a review, you may get readout on the, uh, start of the podcast.
So, positive or
negative?
Positive or negative.
Maybe we can read the Philipde Franco video comments.

(03:20):
No.
Um, okay.
This week we are covering, wait, how was
your week?
Oh, my week was, you know, it wasjust very, by the numbers, you know,
gonna work, editing the podcast.
Nothing to report really.
Well, you're doing a very great job.
Oh, thank you.
At both of those things.
So proud of you.

(03:41):
Keep it up.
Great moves.
Anyway, this week, the key of awesome.
Yes.
Barely productions, barely political.
It's giving, uh, when you,uh, escaping a somewhat.
Gray corporate background.
And so you change your name to notbe associated, uh, with your previous

(04:04):
morally Oh, indefensible actions.
Right.
It's like after you do like abig round of redundancies and
you're just like, I'm gonna, yeah.
You're like a payroll manager that stealsfrom the company and they, or like you're
a shie, like venture capitalor something like that.
Yeah.
Right, right, right.
Um, but
not that they are any of those things.
No, no,
no, no, no.
It's just they went through variouschannel renames and, you know, as, as we
know, renaming your channel on YouTubeis not something that you do lightly.

(04:26):
'cause you, you know,
yeah.
I mean, you know, it's branding, butit is important, like if your branding
isn't serving you and isn't aligned,then a rebrand is a good thing.
Of course.
But we start this podcast as we doeach week with me asking you what your
previous experience slash history was.
Mm-hmm.
With the key of awesome.

(04:48):
Did you watch the Key ofAwesome back in the day?
I, I did.
Um,
for your Sins.
I, I did watch The Key of Orum, but Idon't, I don't think I was subscribed.
It was like, I saw a couple of, like,I don't, I don't know exactly how I got
into it, but clearly like, as we'll coverthey had quite a few viral videos with,

(05:09):
you know, tens of millions of views.
So I think I got in through one ofthose and then probably went back
through the channel, had some favorites.
I believe I did download some ofthem to, to my iPod because it's the
classic iPod Nano,
the classic iPod nano.
Um.
You know, your mom turns andyou turn it off at night, so you
gotta have your entertainment.
Uh, I also think I, judging from the timeperiod of like the videos that I was most

(05:32):
familiar with, I believe I watched themin 2010, which would make me like 13.
Yeah.
Which I believe would probablybe a good target audience
for some of the, the humor.
Yeah.
Um, so I think I was like 13 andthen I wasn't really as familiar
with some of the later videos.
So I think, I think it was reallyjust that like 20, 20 10 era
that I was most familiar with.

(05:53):
So I, I had more than I rememberedthat I was familiar with.
There were a few where we clicked on themand I was like, I don't know what this is.
And then I immediately was like, you know,visions flooded my brain and I immediately
was like, it was like I had it awoke.
A sleeper agent within me that knew thelyrics to the Lady Gaga and Lord Gaga
parody, uh, and other things, which Ithink disturbed you as it always does

(06:14):
with, uh, our prep for these videos.
Yeah.
Well,
I had no idea what the key blossom was.
No, you did not.
I have never seen a key of awesome video.
Nope.
And I was pushed for a prediction mm-hmm.
About what they were, and I said, Ithought they would be like, pentatonics.
Okay.
Because I was like, you know,pentatonics was popular.

(06:36):
From what I understand.
They do like acapellacovers a popular songs.
Wait, so you don't even,
well, I mean, that is what Pentatonicsis, but you're not even like a hundred
percent sure what a Pentatonics does.
I only know
about Pentatonics because you.
At some point have like, beeninvolved, talked about pentatonics, or
expressed an opinion on Pentatonics.
Wow.
That sounds
very ominous.

(06:57):
I just, I can't even really rememberwhat you thought about that.
I think I
just, pentatonics are justlike, they, they tour over the
world, like really regularly.
So I think they would've comeup at some point in the, our
decade span relationship.
But also, I think your mom listensto like Pentatonics Christmas songs.
Wow, okay.
I'm pretty, they're like a fixture in likeChristmas, modern Christmas playlists.

(07:18):
Spotify, Christmas 2025 playlist.
Yes.
Literally.
Yeah.
Great.
Silver Bells covers.
You know Carol of the Bells banger?
Yeah.
Honestly, maybe Kia Wilson shouldhave done some Christmas songs.
They did.
And they would've got that.
Oh.
But I mean like,
oh, like ones
that could be played fora hundred years to come.

(07:39):
Who's to say they're not?
But anyways, you weren't, youweren't familiar with Keball?
No, I had no idea.
And you thought they were gonnabe like a serious musical channel?
Yeah.
I like maybe some of me,maybe part of me was hoping it
wouldn't be more parody music.
Um, but I did think thatthey would be doing covers.
There's, and it was like the keyof awesome that made me think it

(07:59):
was like, oh, it's, it's gonnabe like musically inclined.
Yeah.
But they're, you know,they're talking about keys, so
there's some musicality there.
Well, they are musical parodies.
Like
maybe they're going to shift the key Yeah.
When they do thesecovers, but I was wrong.
Yeah.
Well, not, yeah.
Yeah.
A bit.
Quite a bit.
Let's get into it.
Mm-hmm.
So this channel, it starts out asbarely political as we mentioned.

(08:23):
Mm-hmm.
And they released their firstmusic video, sorry, they
released their first video Yeah.
In the lead up to the Democratic primaryin the, for the 2008 US election.
Mm-hmm.
And the video is called,I Got a Crush On Obama.
Yep.
And it features a young, Iwould say, attractive woman.

(08:46):
Would you agree?
I would you like me tospeak on it as I am like.
So, yeah, she, she's hot.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like, and she's, and I'm not just sayingthat like, in like an objectifying way.
It's like she's styledas a, as a hot babe.
This is 2007.
This is when it's likehot babes on the internet.

(09:07):
Like cleavage and thumbnail is like peak.
Um, well actually I don't evenknow if it's peak in 2007.
It just kinda gets worse.
Not worse, but like we, we do evenmore cleavage and thumbnail for
like, the next couple of years.
Um, but yeah, she, she's definitelylike a babe, very styled in like, almost
like a sports Illustrated type of way.
And I'm saying that because in thevideo, um, she's like in various

(09:30):
states of undress with seeingher whole butt at certain points.
She wears a very, for the time,I would say minimal coverage.
Bikini.
Yeah.
It was, she's in a bikini.
Yeah.
She's in like a little crop top with apair of underwear that say Obama on them.
There's lots of different scenesof her, lots of different looks.
You could probably have an Obamagirl calendar from this video.

(09:54):
I would say.
I don't know.
I, it feels a bit like, I don't liketo, you know, describe it that way, but
like that is what it, that's what it is.
Yeah.
It's meant to be like, this girl issexy and she's talking about Obama.
Yes.
And it, and it
plays into the bit of the
video.
And like Obama at the time was mm-hmm.
On the up.
Yes.
He was of course running forDemocratic nomination, but at the

(10:16):
time was still senator, so maybe not.
As nationally prominent Yeah.
As he would come to be.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, but he, you know, as we, I thinkwe all agree Obama is a hot guy.
Obama has swag.
Yeah.
So this video, the crush on Obamais, uh, you know, a feeling that many
people obviously hadn't maybe putto words, but it, it cut through, it

(10:39):
became like a popular viral video.
Yeah.
It, this is something where it wouldbe, you know, in the, in the years where
you are emailing people links to things.
I can imagine sending an email with thisto someone being like, LOL Obama is hot.
And so is this girl Ahahaha.
Yeah.
And so the music video, verymuch two thousands style.

(11:01):
We have our Obama girl, as she had come tobe known, she's played by Amber Lee Inger,
shout out to Amber Lee
Inger, you Are a Star.
And she would be a feature on thechannel for a few years to come.
And the lyrics were, um, written by thefounder of this YouTube, uh, channel.

(11:22):
Mm-hmm.
His name is, let me pull it up here.
Ben Res. He was a, a 3-year-oldadvertising executive.
Oh.
That tracks, and Bailey Politicalwas a website at that point, but this
was their, the first YouTube video.
Mm-hmm.
And as I mentioned, itwas like a viral hit.
Obama himself would go on to be like.

(11:44):
Wow.
Or are we gonna, I'm not gonnado an Obama impression, but
he was, no, probably don't.
But he was like, he was like,wow, the internet is crazy.
Uh, it's just an example of,you know, what's to come.
So he was, he was right on that regard.
Mm-hmm.
But also I did think itwas quite funny later.
He was like, my daughters werereally upset by the video.
Well, can, do you have any of the lyricsthat you can share from the video?

(12:06):
Yeah, sure.
Because I think that willhelp illustrate like the tone.
Uh, it's basically like, you know, the,the story of the video is I was watching
the TV and suddenly this man comes onmy screen, he's announced his can to
see, wait a minute, he's kind of hot.
I think I have a crush on Obama.
And then it's her just kindof singing about, you know,
different.

(12:26):
I will play the chorusfor Oh, our listeners.
Yeah.
Okay.
You don't think it'll be claimed that'swhat you used about No, no, no, no, no.
Um, I'll just say like a lyric here.
So I put down my Kerry sign.
So reference to John Kerry, the other,one of the other candidates mm-hmm.
Knew I had to make you mine.
So black and sexy.
Yeah.
You are so fine.
'cause I got a crush on a Obama.

(12:47):
Right.
You know?
Yeah.
So I, I'm a bit, I don't reallythink there's anything nefarious
going on and it actually would'vereally helped his campaign.
Yes.
So it's kind of a bit rich to be like,my daughters were unhappy about this.
Well, they would'vebeen like really young.
Hey, they would've been like, yeah.
12 or something like that.
So Yeah.
I think
they were younger than that.
I
mean, yeah, it's like a bitdistressing to have people like

(13:09):
sexualize your dad if you're a child.
In a public way and then havethat be like public, but like
it's very sure sex negative view.
But I'm, maybe that's, these Obama
daughters should be
okay.
But I think actually now, if you ask themnow as adults, I think they would not
actually feel a type of way about it.
Yeah.
But if you're a child, you might,like, no one likes it when you know

(13:29):
you're a kid and you're like, nah,my parents, you know, whatever.
Um, 'cause to them, Obama's just dad.
Uh, but yeah, this did, did, did you,what did you think of this video?
Did you like it?
I did like it.
Me too.
I thought it was very competently made.
I even remarked to you, I waslike, wow, there's so many
different scenes in this video.
Like they've reallyput in a lot of effort.

(13:50):
Um, but it's still kindof low production value.
Oh, I also love the, she has allthese like custom Obama t-shirts and
some of them I'm like, I actuallythink that would hit a lot right now.
'cause it's sort of like y 2K styled.
It says like Obama girl in like a, acurly q like calligraphy style script.

(14:10):
So they actually sold those shirts.
I'm sure they did.
I knew it on eBay.
And they sh they sold her little shortsas well and one of the shirts went for
$1,000, which I actually think thatprobably worth quite a bit more now.
Yeah.
I, I would probably, I actually thinknow in 2025 wearing the Obama girl

(14:32):
T-shirt would be kind of a sleigh.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So really liked it.
Uh, kind of a bangerfor the first video and.
I don't know if we wanna call it now,but we kind of did discuss off, off mic.
Is, is the first video of thischannel potentially the best one?
I think shooting from the hip.

(14:52):
Yes.
And I think that you can see andeven layer on, uh, mark who's not
involved in this channel yet, but isthe main creative guy behind Kyiv.
Awesome.
Mm. Would say the trademark of ourchannel is a musical comedy and hot babes.
Uh, so the influence of this video,it really defines the rest of the

(15:15):
channel, even when they become abit more varied in their content.
Yeah.
Like the calling cards for this channel,whether it's key of or or barely
political, is you're gonna get sometopical jokes, but even if you don't find
it funny, the chicks are gonna be hot.
And
Yeah.
In this part of the internet that was,uh, enough to see them become one of

(15:37):
the most popular channels on YouTube.
Yeah.
It's, uh, it, they definitely dostay true to that branding through.
Um, yeah.
It, uh, sorry, I justfeel like it's a bit grim.
I will say I didn't quite realize atthe time when I was younger because the
Bailey political branding was there.
Yeah.
When I was watching them, the channelwas called Bailey Political, but then

(15:59):
the series is called Kiev Wilson.
It's a little confusing.
We'll explain it when we get toit, but, uh, I, I didn't quite
realize that the Bailey political,I thought it was always like.
Barely political.
Like, it's not really political, um,because it's not really about the
politics, it's more about comedy.
But as I was watching it now, I waslike, oh, it's called barely political.
Because they're barely dressed.

(16:20):
Yes.
Yeah.
Which is, yeah.
Anyway, bag out a Crow,Obama, Obama banger.
Um, so this kind of leads to aObama girl becoming a YouTube star.
Mm. And the website and the YouTubevideo, sorry, the YouTube channel based
on the website really leverages her.

(16:40):
Amber, I assume comes on as anemployee because she's their
video talent going forward.
They, like this woman was the mostimportant asset to their brand.
They were two most important asset.
No, I, yeah.
I was like, um, but yeah,she, so she, she's on mains.
She gets much like, um, Teon Dayand our other early virals, like

(17:03):
blah, blah, blah person,like chocolate rain guy.
Yeah.
She becomes Obama girl.
Yes.
And she's going on mainstream news.
She's going to like rallies andstuff, you know, she's like,
let's, let's get Obama girl there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
She's like an early, an earlyinfluencer, I would say.
They also are doing some NonabaGirl content on the YouTube channel.

(17:23):
They start doing sketch videos.
Mm-hmm.
They're doing so early, say 2008,they're doing a dark night spoof.
It's called Batman's Spoof Primary Night.
Very inventive titling there.
And it's like all of your us politicalfigures like Mitt Romney, he's Two-Face

(17:43):
'cause he's, you know, two-faced
about policies.
Yeah.
Ha ha Or
Rudy Giuliani is the Scarecrow.
'cause he is a scary guy with his brokenwindows policing and things like that.
Mm. Uh and a Obama girl isBat Woman 'cause we can dress
her up in Alex X costume.
Hillary is the Joker, which, youknow, um, is someone with a soft spot

(18:07):
for criticism of Hillary Clinton.
Maybe that's, there's a part ofme that thinks this chattel is,
uh, quite funny in that regard.
But yeah.
Uh, the sketch content around thistime, what did you think of it?
It's, it, it does feel likeit was sort of lightning in a
bottle for, got a crush in Obama.
And it, I don't wanna, I don'twanna be like they drink their own

(18:30):
Kool-Aid, but I think there is abit of a thing where they're like.
Like Obama girl, we made Obama girl.
And everyone thinks that's funny.
So therefore everything we do is funny.
Like we're funny.
But it's like, no Obama girl is funnybecause it's like the combo of Amber,
who I also just wanna say is like avery charismatic, like actress and she
really like hamms it up and plays thebit really well and she continues to act

(18:52):
and like be in, uh, ki also more barelypolitical content for like years to come.
Um, not just as Obama girl,but like that it's like the
combo of all of these things.
It's like that's, that's the magic saucethat makes that first video really good.
Whereas like them just like riffing anddoing political jokes is like, not for me.

(19:12):
I don't think it's very funny.
Um, obviously I was a child when theselike political happenings were going on,
so maybe I'm like missing some stuff.
I'm trying to be charitable here.
Um,
I don't think
it's not,
I think we both can agreeit's not especially funny.
I think it's like, it's like observationalcomedy kind of like, it's very like, yeah.

(19:35):
I would say beyond that, andthis is something we, I think see
throughout the channel, it's morethe, it's just comedy by association.
So it's literally like we aregoing to have Hillary as the joker.
And that is what we think isfunny 'cause wow, isn't it XD
that Hillary Clinton is the joker.

(19:56):
But
it's also like, I think you have toremember that it's like the early period
where they're like, they PhotoshopHillary into the Joker makeup and
like, this is like early internetlike, like Photoshop and stuff is still
like kind of relatively new, new interms of do, do you know what I mean?
Yeah.
Like, it's like people beinglike, oh my God, that's so funny.
'cause it's like you'venever seen that image before.

(20:18):
Whereas like now, you know, we canlike AI generate these sort of images
and it's like, it's not that rare.
So I guess like at the time theseare quite like high effort type.
I don't know.
Like, I think at the time, and this goesfor a lot of viral videos, not just these,
but there was like a sense of just like,this exists and this existing is funny.

(20:39):
Yeah.
Do you know what I mean?
Rather than it being like,does this need to exist?
Or like this existence.
Yeah.
Does that, I don't knowif that makes sense.
I think
that is a very charitable interpretation.
You know what I mean?
I love to be charitableon this, uh, podcast.
My, I just think like,
there some of these premises, you,you, we watched it thinking maybe we
would get something funny out of it.

(21:01):
Like, uh, Obama Girl Kills OsamaBin Laden, but the actual content of
the video was something where there,there just, there aren't enough like
intelligent gags or setup to the comedy.
It's so much just relies on, isn't this.
Crazy.
And it's like, well, no,not like, not really.

(21:22):
Maybe we are irony poisoned.
No, but like, okay,
as someone who's completed level oneof improv, uh, improv comedy training,
whatever, um, it's like improv wherethey, they start the idea and then they
kind of cut it off before they get tolike, the absurdism stuff that starts
to, it's like they, they don't get toto play with it enough to make it funny.

(21:43):
Like, it would be funny ifObama girl like, okay, Obama
girl kills Osama Bin Laden.
There's maybe a funny premise there, butrather than like taking it to the most
extreme and the most funny of like, maybethen she starts killing other people.
Or like, Obama girl is like atransformer and has like guns inside
her, like hands or whatever, likesomething, do you know what I mean?

(22:04):
Like something taking it further.
They're just like, no.
Like she shoots someone in thebackground and it's like funny.
'cause like that's, it, it they don'treally push the comedy, I don't think.
Mm-hmm.
I don't think they really need to though.
Because they had,
yeah.
The person that e we say all this, butthe person that e named the hottest girl
on the web, I'm talking about Obama girl.

(22:25):
Mm. So, you know, they hadthe X factor and it was Amber.
A super hot girl.
Yeah.
She is so slay.
Like she does Wait, what'sher, what was her background?
We like looked it up.
She won, she went to
FITI believe
she went to FIT.
No, no, no.
But she, sorry.
Obviously.
Yes.
That's her, her educational background.
Oh, she has a
pageantry background.
She, she has a pageant background.
She Miss NYC, miss New Jersey.

(22:47):
Yeah.
Um,
so she's been like, professionally hot,
Howard Stern, Ms. Howard tv.
Okay.
Swimsuit.
Pageants.
Like, yeah.
Where's the, did she win like a Hooters?
Was she like the hottest Hooters,
Hooters, Hooters thing?
Okay.
Let me have a look for you.
I'm okay.
Obviously, if you're watching onYouTube, like, we'll have a visual.
She was
Hooters, miss Manhattan.

(23:07):
Okay.
So what I'm trying to say is this womanis so beautiful and she's professionally
hot in a way that many people agree.
It's like, everyoneagrees this woman is hot.
Yeah.
Especially,
you know, on YouTubethousand YouTube at the time.
Mm-hmm.
Like, mainstream media hadn'treally co-opted it at this point.
Mm. So the celebrity hotties, theywere being gate kept from YouTube.

(23:29):
So this girl, you know, lookslike a supermodel by comparison.
She's really gorgeous.
Shout out to Amber.
I think you're so slay.
Anyway, she's so talented.
We, I wanna touch on political sexscandals, which is a original, sorry.
That Involuntary
groan.
An original song, comedy song about,uh, basically, uh, the, the trope

(23:50):
that, um, Republicans, uh, they,they're so obsessed with banning,
uh, people from, you know, being gay.
Uh, it's actually because they're gaythemselves, which is, uh, uh, uh, yeah.
A line of, a line of comedy that, um,I still think gets some play today.
But yeah, we don't even need to,it's very, obviously it's very tired.

(24:12):
Yeah.
Especially homophobic.
Yeah.
In a way.
Yeah.
Um.
You know
Yeah.
Sort of relies on the, the premisebeing that actually being gay is bad.
Like, or funny.
Or funny.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which is
silly.
It sort of discredits the idea that peoplecan be, um, homophobic just out of their
own like, like moral prejudice, failings.

(24:34):
Yeah, exactly.
Evil.
But it's like
they're not actually homophobic.
Like I, that that trope sucks.
Yeah.
Like, I mean, I know it, I know it exists.
I'm not saying that like there'snever been a gay person who like, you
know, feels internalized homophobiaand like projects that outwards and
like, I know it still happens, butplaying it as like a comedy trope.
Um, yeah.

(24:54):
But it does introduce us to Mark Douglas.
Mm-hmm.
Who is the main creativebehind the key of Awesome.
He's the guy we'll betalking about mostly.
And he's also a
person who seemingly takes a creativestewardship of the channel mm-hmm.
Uh, throughout the rest of its,um, sort of history essentially.
Mm. Um, and he is, I would say at firstglance, quite a bit older than many

(25:20):
of the YouTubers we've been covering.
And it's something hemakes fun of himself Yes.
For um, that's why I feel
Okay saying it.
Yeah.
'cause he references it quite a lot.
Yeah.
I would pitch his agein this early videos.
He would be in his thirties, I imagine.
Yeah.
Which, when we are like, watchingvideos from like the Smosh guys,
Ryan Heger, who are teenagers atthis time, it's like, okay, there's

(25:42):
like a, a significant difference.
In like life experience,um, humor, vibe, yeah.
References.
. Mark appears in this video and yeah,it's just important to note in terms
of the channel's history, he is hired,uh, presumably by Ben and he speaks
about in his, his draw life actually,how he was really actually super

(26:05):
keen to work for barely political.
'cause he was like,these guys are so cool.
Yeah.
He was working in, he was like doingcomedy in New York, like trying to make
it as a comedian, saw barely politicaland was like, oh, this is my dream job.
Like I wanna work for them so bad.
Yeah.
And then he did, which isactually very sweet and wholesome.
Um,
it's interesting to have, um, like a, achannel from sort of the early YouTuber

(26:27):
days be taken over by like the secondwave of, of employees like so quickly.
Mm. Much like we had, um, mosh takenover by the rest of the Oh, defy Media,
the rest of the, uh, all the crew.
Yeah.
By the crew basically.
And admittedly the both Moshboys are back on Mosh now.
Yeah.
But there was a time where it wasreally driven by people who grew

(26:48):
up idolizing the original creators.
It's
a very early example and I think one ofthe rare examples we've seen, especially
so early on, to see it run by like ateam and like run like a business when
so many YouTube channels are kind of runas like personal projects or passions.
Yeah.
And then like become businessesway later down the line.
It's like 2008 and they're alreadyrunning it like with a, a team of staff.

(27:10):
Um, which again, they work on thewebsite and then obviously the YouTube I
think then later became more of a focusbecause of monetization and whatnot.
It's probably more profitable than running
ads on your website.
But Yeah.
I wanna talk about, 'cause you mentionedthe business, the bit on the corporate
background of barely political slash thekey of Awesome in that Ben, he is someone

(27:32):
naturally with, uh, a business background.
Mm-hmm.
So I imagine the companywas quite corporate minded.
It is acquired quite early in 2007actually by the next new networks, which
was one of the sort of originators ofthe, the multi-channel network mm-hmm.
Formula, which will, uh, become a bigpart of YouTube in the next few years.

(27:56):
Mm-hmm.
And you might not haveheard of Next New Networks.
Fair enough.
Actually it's acquired by YouTubethemselves, uh, in around 2011, I believe.
And it is now known as theYouTube next Lab and audience
development group within Google.
And it led to Ben being an executiveat YouTube for about a decade.

(28:20):
He's the head
of comedy.
Yeah.
Head of, he was like head of unscripted,head of comedy, had various roles, and
he only left the company a few years ago.
And he is now like a content executiveand seems to consult on like very sort
of rich people's companies in variousstuff that I can divulge from LinkedIn.

(28:40):
Cool.
But yeah, he really, um, in termsof people who got the bag from
early YouTube, probably one of themost successful, uh, bag grabs.
Yeah, true.
Uh, parachuting into like a big role atone of the biggest companies in the world.
That's very cool.
Some other things of note in thisbarely political era is that we get.
Obama girl at YouTube live,which is an event that we have

(29:00):
covered from various perspectives.
Should we,
I don't know if we can find, ifwe can find a copy of like, the
YouTube live broadcast that wouldbe so good as an episode, I feel,
'cause it only happened the one time.
Never Again, as we learn in theCharlie of the Unicorn episode,
I mean, we could always just watchevery single YouTube live vlog
and we then have a, a picture toput together of the whole event.

(29:22):
But for now, let's talkabout Obama girls' presence.
Okay.
There is some actual footage of KatyPerry who we knew performed, but I
don't think we have seen yet in a video.
Um, and she actually, shelooked kind of sleigh like I,
I'm, I'm an early, I, I was a Katy Catt.
I feel she probably killed thisperformance when I was a child,
which is when this YouTube livewas, um, when I was like 14.

(29:45):
I probably was like sleigh.
Um, also they interview some of the peopleat YouTube live, including Will I am So
you have Obama girl interviewing WillI am about his favorite YouTube videos.
Favorite YouTube video.
And what was his favorite YouTube video?
It was like,
it's, it's actually quite funny.
A Charlie Brown
Kwanza.
Yes.
So it's called a Charlie Brown Kwanza Most

(30:06):
Offensive video.
And he seems like he's likeso serious when he says like,
this is my favorite video.
Because I think that therewas a sense that this was
like, basically what it is is.
Um, the, the Snoopy cartoon.
Yeah.
And they dub it with, uh,what I'll describe as, uh, an

(30:27):
African American sensibility.
Uh, and, uh, where I am is like, yeah,this is like my most favorite video.
Like, I love this, but it's after like,some pressure where Obama girl's fully
like, you must have a favorite video.
And he's like, yeah, butI don't wanna say it.
Um,
he's like, I can't say, I can't say.
And then he is just like a CharlieBrown Kwanza, which I'm like, okay, it's

(30:50):
fine that this is your favorite video.
It's his problematic fveit seems from the video.
So we'll have to watch that.
Um, put that on our, ourwatch list, our playlist.
Um, b yeah.
RAP, YouTube Live.
Shout out to Obama girl.
Shout out to, um, TeonDay, who is Oh yeah.
Present in this video.
Mm-hmm.
One of several appearances on theKey of Awesome, which he describes

(31:12):
as his favorite channel on YouTube.
Me when, uh, someone from a channelask me what my favorite channel is
and I just say their channel, well,
I mean, actually that will becomplimentary, but I did think, I
was like, wow, it's interesting.
This is his favorite channel.
'cause it is at this point,overwhelmingly, uh, a
cleavage focused channel.

(31:34):
And I didn't get that he was,uh, that much of a horny guy,
but maybe we misjudged him.
I, I mean, you know, he'sgot that smooth voice.
He's got that, he's got that swag.
He's got the Yeah.
Fair
enough.
He's, he's kind of a chat.
He kind of gives like YouTubeChad in this interview.
He's very like, I really enjoy,I can't do it, the voice.
I don't have the, the rangeto do the sison devo voice.

(31:56):
But he definitely seems, heseems to be having a good time
hanging out with Obama girl.
I would also have a goodtime I got to hang out.
I would hang out with Obama girl, also
have a good time if I got tohang out with her Bama girl.
Um, but in this era mm-hmm.
There, and as I mentioned, um, the earlyexample of a multi-channel network,
uh, it comes into play here becausethe barely political channel begins

(32:21):
to syndicate other content that was,uh, signed to the next news network.
Mm. And that includes the Gregory Brothersand their series Auto-Tune The News Schmo.
Yoho.
Yeah.
I don't know what that means, but Yes.
Um, but it does mean that the channelnow becomes sort of a whole bunch of.

(32:42):
Various video styles thrown together.
You have Obama girl stuff, you have comedysketches, you have Auto-Tune the news.
There is
so much content.
Yeah.
Until like 2009, 2010, there's likehundreds and hundreds of videos.
We were like scrolling through, um,in prep for this episode and I was
like, oh my God, there's so much.

(33:03):
Yeah.
I think you didn't have any knowledgeof this part of the channel when
we started this watch through.
Okay.
When we were picking who to dofor this week's episode, I was
like, because we talked about itin the Annoying Orange episode.
Yeah.
Our last episode.
I was like, oh.
It was like the key of awesome.
And I was like, oh, weshould do the key of Awesome.
That's like music videos, music parodies.
I remember those.
Yeah.
And then I forgot that they were barelypolitical and had like this entire like

(33:27):
first era that had no like, but didyou even know about Obama girl before
watching this?
I didn't.
Yeah.
So you, you would've had no idea.
No, I probably never even knewthat they had this, this era
because you just knew of Kiev.
Awesome.
They
address it later on, but because oflike another viral hit that they have,
they kind of gain this entirely newaudience and they're sort of, I don't

(33:48):
wanna say not held hostage to, butthey're kind of like, I guess at the
whim of that audience a little bit orfeeling like they're dictated to, which
is a really interesting discussion.
We'll get into it later, but Iwould've been part of that wave of
their audience, of all these newpeople discovering the channel through
their, uh, music video parodies.
And so I had no real knowledgeof their political era.

(34:10):
Mm. Beginnings.
Before we get into the key ofAwesome talk about the presence
of Obama girl at E three Slay,which, uh, I believe has stopped.
I don't think it, I think itgot canceled like two years ago.
I like, can you
say you believe it as if we're notlike so obsessed with E three and
Key Three and Summer Games Fest.

(34:30):
Jeff Keeley.
Yeah.
Sorry.
But E three is the, the, it'snot affiliated with Key three.
No.
So I think Key Three actually killed Ethree for those, for anyone listening.
Yeah.
It was like we're so in the weed,E three is or was the main consumer
and like trade convention forvideo games that was held annually.

(34:50):
Mm-hmm.
And it is where the console manufacturersand developers would reveal their
games that were forthcoming.
E
three Electronic Entertainment Expo.
Yeah, sure.
E three.
That's why it's called that I assume.
Yeah, why not?
Yeah, it's just the gaming expo.
I remember my dream when I was younger,I was like, I wanna go to E three when
I was like a 16-year-old when I thoughtI would be a games journalist, sleigh.

(35:14):
Um, and then I realized that theinternet is misogynistic and I
didn't wanna do that anymore.
Um, but so she goes to E three and it'svery sleigh and like obviously E three,
very famous for their booth babes,but this time she's got a microphone.
She is definitely booth babe coded.
She's
E three booth babe coded.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, but she has a mic andshe does a few videos.

(35:37):
The one that I wanted to talkabout first is, uh, just who
is the hottest girl in gaming?
The Vox Pop video.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Where she's going around the conventionfloor and just asking humble nerds
who the hottest girl in gaming is.
And so you're like, okay.
And of course, she also asksto be fair, some cosplay.
She also asks, uh, a voiceactress who says herself, which

(35:59):
I thought was quite funny.
Mm-hmm.
Um,
but the crazy thing about this videois like the second interview out
of nowhere, it's, uh, a celebrity.
Do you remember who it was?
Jason
Sudeikis.
Ted Lasso.
Ted Lasso, yeah.
Yeah.
Um, oh, that's gonna be a fun to edit.
But yeah, Jason Sudeikis is just at Ethree and doing Obama Girl interviews,

(36:22):
and he says The hottest girl in gamingis Miss Pacman, which is one of the
funnier responses that people give.
Very funny, because, uh, it's followedby a lot of very serious nerds
saying like, like, LA Croft, likeLa Croft, faith from Mirror's Edge.
Chung Lee ch Shoot Samis.
Someone says Zelda, which, mm. Someonesays Peach and Daisy Questionable.

(36:44):
Uh, and then one Memer says, uh,the big sister from Bios Shock two.
Uh, which like the playable character,but it's a FPS so you like, dunno what
they look like, which, you know, funny.
Do you play as the bigsister in buy shop too?
I believe so, yeah.
Really?
I thought it was like an enemy.
And you play as like a guy.
No, no, no, no, no.
You are, you are the big sister.

(37:04):
I'm pretty sure.
No way.
But it's like a big spooky thing
because then there's a littlesister who's like creepy child.
You have weapon, youhave the little thing.
Oh, I don't know.
Or are you inside a suit?
That is the suit.
Anyway, sorry, this is so off track andlike not at all what this episode's about.
Oh, maybe I think you're inside suit.
Play a suit.
Maybe
You playing a big daddy.

(37:24):
A big daddy.
Yeah, daddy.
Anyway, so there's E three and then Ifeel, I also wanna talk about one of the
videos that they also make at E three.
And I actually kind of think this era ofcontent and kind of the political content
they do early on is quite charming.
Where they're like clearly sending outlike three people from their team with

(37:45):
a couple of cameras and some mics andthey're just like, go make a video.
Yeah.
As you are like at this convention.
And they do it at politicalconvent, uh, conventions too, or
like rallies and things like that.
But they, they decide to makethis like Super Mario video, super
Mario Girl protest.
Yeah.
And you liked, we both liked thisvideo, but I think you also, you
were, this was okay, you were kind ofslumped in your seat at this point.

(38:08):
After post Obama girl, we were kindof clicking through some of the
sort of unfunny political content.
The thing is,
it's like you watchObama girl once, right?
And you're like, wow, this girl is hot.
Okay, that's enough for one video.
But when you just have the same.
Like trope of a Obama girl in a revealingtop and or bottoms over and over again.

(38:31):
It's
not enough for you.
Well, it's, you're an intellectual.
Well, it's
just, it's just like, I, I get it.
Like she's hot.
Yeah.
But like
Right.
You've been stimulated visually, butyou wish to be stimulated mentally.
Exactly.
Exactly.
There's not
a lot of that happening.
And maybe if it was, like, at the time,it's the cadence of release where I get
to watch one hot Obama girl video a month.
I'd be like, I'd miss it.
And the, the absence would, youknow, grow my fondness for her.

(38:53):
But just back to back to back, it was,it was giving nothing but Super Mario,
uh, the protest video, the premises thatare, there are Italian guys that are
at E three protesting the anti Italianstereotypes that Mario, uh, yeah.
Showcases.
Um, and the video goes on to basically bea recreation of the video game Donkey Kong

(39:18):
and the two Italians who are protestingbecome increasingly like Mario and Luigi.
Yeah.
It, it, I should say this is not DougMark in like a fake mustache being
like, why is everybody making fun of us?
But like, he is doing likebutter bing, butter boom.
Yeah.
Like a gaba, like they're doingst. Italian stereotypes being
like, this is so offensive.

(39:39):
We're not like this when they're likeliterally in like a fake Italian mustache.
Yeah.
So I think the bit.
He's actually quite funny.
Yeah.
Um, it's, it's a bit differentto kind of anything they normally
do in like, it's about Mario, um,
classic.
It's low hanging fruit, likedoing the Italian American
voice and making fun of them.
Italians, I mean, uh, naturally,like a very well worn comedic area.

(40:03):
But, but you know what keeps giving,
I, I prefer that to some of the otherlike tropes of like, you know, women
being vapid or doing misogynistic bits.
Yeah.
Which we'll, we'll go up to.
Um, so I prefer that.
I mean, if you're Italian, lemmeknow if you feel differently.
Um, but they do this and they're like, andthen someone's in like a monkey suit and

(40:23):
like they're climbing up a fire escape.
It's like, it's kind of funny.
Like it's, it's, it, it's, youknow, why is because it's absurd.
Yeah.
And they actually like pushthe joke like quite far.
Yeah.
They get someone in a monkey suitlike they're fully doing the whole
bit rather than just being like,isn't it funny that we're Italian E
three, like a clearly some sort ofcreative spark there because there's
another actually funny video, whichis a Obama girl plays we tennis and

(40:48):
this is like, so, okay, so we Tennis,if you're aware, it's a game where
knees, which are like the avatars fromthe Nintendo we going forward system.
Yeah.
Uh.
You play as a me and your two V two,it's doubles and you play tennis
using the, the we motion control.
You guys know what we Tennis
is?
Yeah.
Yeah.

(41:08):
Some of people were, some of ouryounger, some of our youngness
if your Jen rise up.
But how they do it is they green screenObama girl onto the WE Tennis, uh, court.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And she is playing doubles with ame of Obama and then her opponents

(41:29):
are Hillary and Bill Clinton andit's Obama girl doing bits with
people impersonating the Clintons.
Yeah.
And it's just like so absurd.
Again.
It's so silly.
Yeah.
I, 'cause
everyone's a me but Obama girlis still just normal Obama
girl, but on a green screen.
But she's doing
like me running animations.
Yeah.
Yeah.

(41:50):
And it's like Hillary and Bill like,and also I just, I just find it
funny when people do Bill Clintonimpersonation and they just like
make him like evil and ny reference that
he's a sex pest.
Yeah.
'cause like he is, he's, um, andso yeah, this one did tickle me.
Um, and I made a note to say thatlike, yeah, I like this video.
Yeah.
I also was laughing.
I just thought it was really funnywhen like just the mees come on

(42:12):
and they're, I mean, I just loveme character creator generally.
Yeah.
Do you enjoy.
Did you ever make a make a cursed?
Me?
Um, my player character was cursed,but I didn't spend a lot of time.
Oh, well you could alsojust, I just downloaded me.
Oh, no.
I spent, spent
hours making like a really, I, Ithink I made like a Michael Jackson,
me, I made one called Bummy.

(42:33):
Yeah.
Bummy,
which looked like a bum.
You make, you make the me's eyebrows goup, so it creates like a butt cleavage.
So it would just look like a, a butt.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm actually really creative andreally smart in a way that maybe
people don't realize I was a visionary.
Yeah.
I just downloaded them.
'cause people like you would uploadthem so I could just fill my me channel
with like the most like, crazy mecreations without having to do any work.

(42:58):
I actually
love me.
It's actually such a fun
time.
Uh, but anyway, uh, that's wherethose are kind of the highlights.
But I will say this is in like hundredsof videos that we thought were like,
not, not that we watched all of them,but like of the ones we watched, these,
these were the two that were good.
And I think it maybe says somethingthat they were kind of like outside
of the bell curve of their normal,you know, far, these were not

(43:22):
like the normal videos they made.
Well, as I
remember, no real skin shown in the video.
Hmm.
So kind of off trend.
Hmm.
But
I want to segue into the transition ofthe channel from being barely political to
eventually barely production because the.

(43:42):
Political nature of the channeland naturally, was it really
that political at this point?
Who's to say?
But, well,
they were doing barely digital.
I think we didn't, that's why theywere doing the, they had bailey
political.com, but then they alsohad barely digital.com, which is just
like a viral, like pop culturey type.
So many layers
to this
that, so many layers to this empire.
But, um,
all
lost the time.

(44:02):
That's, that's, that's why theywere doing the E three stuff.
'cause that came under Bailey Digital.
Okay.
But then barely digitalkind of disappears later.
That's why we didn't mention it.
Yep.
But like contextually, that's why,
um, who cares?
We the key of awesome series.
Mm.
So we have the first key of awesome video.
Um, I'm not sure, I believeit was called Kia of Awesome

(44:23):
at the time, but they may be.
I'm not sure if the series cameafter they later came after later,
or this was intended as a one-off.
But it's called Heavy Metal Cats
is just,
it's um,
it's fine.
It's okay.
The joke is just like, you like cat video.
Like women love cat videos.
I'll tell you what

(44:43):
the, the description obsessedwith lol cats and cheeseburgers.
This video is for you.
And that's what I mean bythe comedy on this channel.
Just being association based.
I
can have cheeseburger
where they're like, thisis a, a meme or something.
People find funny.
What if we combined it with this otherthing, whether it's intellectual property
or another joke or another character.

(45:03):
Look, the people know we putthese two things together.
Isn't that funny?
I mean.
What's the, what's the word forthe, like they're doing like
contrasting stuff, like lull cats.
Mm. But also heavy metal.
Those things don't go together.
Ha ha.

(45:23):
Look, it's fine.
The video's fine.
I, I, we, you did not like it.
I'm sorry.
Not trying to call you out.
You didn't like it.
I remember you werelike, oh my God, kill me.
And I was like, this doesn't bodewell for the rest of this, this
watch through of the content.
Um, I think it's fine.
Like I think it speaks to whatthe internet was at the time.
Like the idea of being like aperson who likes cat videos was
like kind of like an emerging

(45:43):
Yeah.
Meme.
If you're on the normie internet.
Yeah.
That is a thing that's in
hate.
That's where the money,that's where the money is.
You know what?
So just a sidebar.
It's actually very endearing when youspeak to people now in 2025 and they're
still like stuck in like normal internet.
Yeah.
Like coworkers on teams will send youlike funny cat gif and it's like, whoa.

(46:07):
Like what is going on here?
Like what, what's yourhomepage like Yahoo.
Like how are you still usingthese frames of reference?
I remember when I was in, uh,a previous like corporate role.
I just started, I feel like I became likeified and I just started sending, 'cause

(46:27):
I would have like my own jokes like that.
I was like, this is actuallylike contemporary and funny.
But I was like, it's not gonna work.
So I just started like sharing, like wedid it like gifts from like the office
in teams and everyone was like, ha ha ha.
Like, you're so funny.
And I was like, I'm gonna, I'm
gonna
die
here.
Can
you briefly talk about the, the, theweekly wrap up meme that you sent?
That I do now?

(46:48):
No, the one that you sent of the sucking.
Okay.
So, alright.
When I started my current corporate jobthat I'm in part-time, so I do YouTube
part-time, content creation, part-time.
And then I also work my corporate job.
Um, I, I, I mostly work remote andI'd only met my team members a few

(47:11):
times, but we went on like a teamlike retreat and I got really, you
know, connected with my coworkers.
I'd spent quite a bit of time with them.
This was really early on and I waslike, great, um, I don't have to really
pretend to not be myself anymore.
Or like,
you, you were masking.
I were like, I'm gonnastart to like the mask.
I'm gonna go mask off.
I'm gonna let the mask slip.
Um, or at least I was like, oh,like they know my personality now.

(47:32):
Like they know me, like we vibe witheach other so I can like send, so I
send a weekly wrap up email, just, youknow, doing a handover of like projects
or just like, you know, here's what'shappening, what's on the, what's on the
board for next week, that kind of thing.
And, um, so I decided.
And I, I, I send like a, ajoke or like a, a, a meme.
Um, and I, I decided that I wouldsend like, rather than sending like

(47:57):
a meme that I think is like neutral,like everyone can think is funny,
like a, a general audience's meme.
I sent one that was,um, like a POV camera.
Why are you laughing?
That's so me.
I sent one that was like a POV camera oflike a of a, that my brother had sent to
me who, my brother is like younger thanme, so it's, he likes like crazy, like

(48:21):
Jen Alpha type, like absurdist shit.
So I sent this meme of a, a kitten suckingon like a, a, a tet like a bottle, right?
And the, the camera is like a360 camera inside the bottle.
So it's like, it's like the cat.
I don't, it's so hard to, I can't doit impress, but it's like the cat's
being like, and it's like going aroundthe bottle and you are inside the

(48:45):
bottle as the cat like suckles you.
And I sent it to my coworkers
being like,
ha ha.
And they didn't, they didn'tsay anything about it.
And then like later on when I saw themagain in person, 'cause we like, we
work remote, they were all like, girl,when you said that, that was so crazy.
Anyway, um, that was like a year ago.

(49:06):
So clearly not a, not a fireable offense.
Um, but I've definitely, I feel, Ifeel like I've struck the balance
of more general audience memes.
I, I now send more like.
I send the weird ones.
Okay.
I don't send videos oflike, cats suckling a teeth
anymore.
Yeah.
You, you learn where theboundary is and you are.
I didn't even get in trouble though.

(49:27):
Like, no one, no one, no,
of course.
No, no, no.
You know?
No, you're not.
They just were
like, God, you're so
strange.
Yeah.
I mean, you've gotta be pretty sillyto get yourself in strife over the
sending of a meme to your coworkers.
Like, come on.
Yeah.
It's more just you send it.
It's not funny.
That's the psychic damage.
Yeah.
It was like crickets.
It was the equivalent of likedoing a bit, uh, and everyone just

(49:48):
sitting there and no one laughed.
Just make fun
of the girl who put herself out there.
Creative.
Exactly.
Um,
anyway, so thanks
for letting me share thatanecdote that you prompted.
I just think the, the cats, that'ssomething that's actually funny.
Um, unlike, um, Twilight Sucks, whichis the third key of awesome video.
Um, oh,
I thought this one was kind of good.
Oh, wow.

(50:09):
Okay.
I, okay.
I will say I do think sometimes,and this may just be my personality.
Yeah, please feel free to step in.
I do think sometimes I just getworn down by the content, so when
something is like not bad, I kindof like respond more positive.
Yeah.
We both have that though.
We're like so worn down.
It's like you're being tortured and thensomeone's like, it's like you're really

(50:30):
hungry and then someone offers you like astale piece of bread and you're like, yum.
That's actually food insteadof like, I don't know, paper.
I do think it makes sensethough 'cause um, we, it.
To review the creatoraccording to their own scale.
Like barometer of quality.
Yeah.
Key.
Otherwise it's like we would just belike, well every video is bad 'cause
it's not, um, Dick in a box, you know?

(50:52):
Right.
Yeah.
And that wouldn't be very helpful.
No, I, I, I think, I think you haveto meet creators where they're at
in terms of, and like I have anunderstanding of who these videos are
for like, and so I do appreciate this.
The Twilight video was good.
They do like some black and whiteand it's actually probably more funny
because no Serrato only came outlike a couple of months ago here.

(51:12):
Mm-hmm.
So it's like that I know, like I wasthinking it was funny 'cause it kind
of was reminiscent of like the nosferra stuff that we've seen recently.
You know, like the, you must bolt on it.
Yeah.
Um, so I was kind of had that in mymind, which made it funnier, um, which
isn't what they were actually doing, butthey do like some black and white bits.
Uh, it's like black and white Draculatrying to compete with Edward Cullen.
He's like, I can never do this.

(51:33):
I'm like, that's funny.
What did you think?
You think of the joke about how, becauseNos Ferrato is a not as sexy as Edward.
He can only have relationshipswith, um, overweight emo girls.
I didn't think that was very funny.
Overweight, uh, actress, uh, straddlingmark in character as nos ferrato.

(51:54):
I didn't think that was funny.
Yes.
There, I think I made a noise.
Like, ooh, there is a, an undercurrent of,um, how do we say this, juxtaposing the.
Focus on cleavage and women's bodies in asexual way against, uh, like their, like

(52:17):
the slut shaming perspective of some ofthese videos or like the sex negativity.
So
I was trying to put, we were tryingto put this into words last night
and kind of discuss it, but we,we decided to save it for the pod.
So what's weird is that you could arguethat the Obama girl, like video has like
a, like, it, you could be like, thisis misogynistic, but it actually, okay.

(52:42):
Obama girl in a bubble in isolationis not really misogynistic.
Like yes.
Is part of the joke that thiswoman is like, hot and she's
like, sexualizing Obama.
But I would argue in a bubble.
Okay.
As like a, I'm, I'm a sexpositive, uh, feminism girly.
I'm like, it's, it's funny becauseshe is like, she's expressing her
sexuality and she's like, sexualizinga man, which is not something

(53:05):
that's like as commonly done.
And Obama is hot.
Like, it, it's all positive.
Like none of it is like shaming, but
it's, I don't think she'sexhibiting her sexuality.
I think there, it's stillmale gazy, but a ma Yeah.
There's a 3-year-old advertising executivefor portraying the most male gaze.
There's betrayal of women's sexuality.
There's maybe like a
campiness to this thatI could imagine this.

(53:26):
At potential being somethingthat could play on snl, that's
us.
Like bringing 20 years of context.
Yes.
There's
bring 20, 20, 25 perspective into it.
Because if you did this now on SNL,like something like that of being like,
I'm a sexy woman, and I'm like reallyinto like Bernie Sanders or whatever.
Right?
Yeah.
It, you would get that.
That's like the, the bit, I don't know,there's like, there's like a, a space

(53:48):
there where I'm like, you can, I don'tknow if I can necessarily be like this
misogynistic, but as you kind of goon through the Ki Wilson, especially
as we kind of talk about some of theones in that kind of the height of
the Ki Wilson when they're getting themost views, there is definitely, yeah.
A sense of like, these are women who aresexually desirable and they're like, we

(54:09):
can objectify them, but as soon as theyexpress their own agency, whereas they
decide to be like slutty, that's like,like there's a lot of like calling people
like sluts and whores in like Yeah.
In sex shaming.
And I'm like, well that's kind ofstupid because you guys are like
trying to be like, they're so hotand we wanna have sex with 'em and
have them do sexual things to us.
But as soon as they'relike, I like having sex.

(54:32):
They're like, these girls are whores.
Well,
it's also the parody and Mark himselfadmits this later where he is like, I, I
actually feel like an old guy just hatingon what kids like, because majority of
the parody content, it actually functionsas a criticism of the original performer.
Yes.
And that's why, and that's whereI don't think the parodies are.

(54:55):
This, this is where I feel they veer intostuff where I'm like, this isn't funny
to just be like, you know, Katy Perryhas her boobs out and she's a whore.
Yeah.
It's like, that's not funny.
Or like,
lady Gaga is a hermaphrodite.
Isn't she crazy?
Yeah.
Isn't she like weird?
Yeah.
And like, who wouldlike find her sexually?
Like, do you know?
Or like, she's being really sexual.
That's really weird.
And I'm like, but you are the oneputting your actresses in like

(55:18):
tiny little costumes and bikinis.
Exactly.
And using them in the thumbnail.
So like, you can't really, you'retrying to have your cake and eat it too.
And it does feel unfair.
Yeah.
Um, and yeah, it's a very, like, alsolike using, and like, I don't wanna
get ahead of it, but like we're,when we're making fun of men as well,
like often referring to them withhaving like female, like qualities.
Like they sing like a girl.
Yes.

(55:38):
Things like that.
It's very, um, well also it's weird fromcoming from a channel that seemed to like
Champion Obama, I think that's a very
like, millennial male likeperspective that you could reconcile
and people still like Yeah.
Not that this is a group that,you know, whether the size of it
and how it's portrayed is, youknow, it's up to you to decide.

(56:00):
But like, people beinglike Bernie Bros. Yeah.
When there was criticism of people whosupport Bernie Sanders but are like,
you know, misogynists or whatever else.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like, people are not likeexactly one perspective.
No,
but I just think it is kind of, it giveslike, not to, not to summon the name
of, uh, she who must not be named, butlike, it gives like JK rolling stuff

(56:21):
where I'm like, you're making, like youhave a background in making content.
That is like progressive.
Mm.
But you can't like be progressiveabout other things or like, like
go back and watch your own videostype vibe Or like do, like who,
what do you even, anyway, sorry.
Which, which specific videowere we talking about?
We
were talking about the,um, third key of Awesome.

(56:43):
The one with nos Ferra two.
Yeah.
So they, oh yeah.
So we, um, so it's, sorry,we'll close this off.
Yeah.
Before we, we go on.
But it's more, I'm coming to this from theperspective of watching all these videos
where you have like these key of awesomevideos and they're sandwiched between
like slop, like fat kids running topless.
Yes.
Which I clicked maybe being like, maybeit's ironic, maybe it's click bait.

(57:05):
No, but no, it like a compilation Yeah.
Videos of footage from home videos andmovies and TV of fat children running.
Yeah.
It's gross.
Which is, it's like, so like, likethat is probably maybe the new
loaf for slot that we've coveredon this podcast series so far.

(57:27):
Yeah.
Well, they're profiting off andI assume that's what they did.
They're literally just taking videosfrom across the web and like gifs Yeah.
Putting 'em into a compilation.
And that video had like 150,000 views.
Yeah.
Something like that.
And so that's.
It, I'd be guessing that's aboutlike a grand or something like
that in YouTube ad revenue Yeah.
That they got just from making funof like fat children, so, yikes.

(57:47):
Very uncool.
Um, and yeah, we'll, we'll talk,we'll touch on it as we kind of go
through, but I guess that's just anoverarching statement in terms of
something that I probably when I was13 or 14 and I was like, you know,
watching these videos and being like,wow, they're edgy and it's like, it's
funny to, to make fun of these people.
'cause like, I'm not, it's notreally like punching up, but like,

(58:10):
they are famous people so, you know,celebrities, you're famous person.
Yeah.
You are open to criticism.
Is that criticism like misogynistic?
Yes.
But like as a, as a 13-year-old,I didn't have the nuance for that.
I just was like, it's funnybecause it's like inappropriate
or it's funny because it's edgy.
Yeah.
Whereas rewatching them kind offor like the first time as an
adult, I was like, yeah, yikes.

(58:30):
This is so like Yeah.
Bad.
Anyway, so Key ofAwesome is super popular.
Mm-hmm.
And I'm influences thechannel going forward.
Mm-hmm.
And there's also a thingcalled the Digi Tour in 2011.
Mm. And there's a few ofthese in subsequent years.
Yeah.
But it's basically a, a tourfor live stream slash YouTube

(58:53):
slash internet content creators.
Mm-hmm.
To, uh, go throughout theUS They did 27 dates and.
The key of Awesome.
Were one of the, the featured artists.
Mm-hmm.
And they were there alongsidepeople like Dave Days
mm-hmm.
The
Gregory Brothers.
Mm-hmm.
David Choi.
Yep.
To Storm Mystery Guitar Man.
Mm-hmm.

(59:14):
And Nicky, sorry, Ricky Elli.
Sure.
So, you know some of those names.
I know the Gregory Brothers and Dave Days.
I know
the names, but I, I wasn't reallya fan of any of those people.
I probably only knew the key of awesome.
Uh, it also meant they wouldappear at the first VidCon mm-hmm.
And perform, uh, which meant that wegot to see, uh, Hank Green in this

(59:36):
watch through, which was quite nice.
Besties back.
And
I know that previously thischannel had been supportive of
the, uh, is it Project of Awesome?
Yes.
Yes.
So they, they were key of awesome.
We see them interacting withlots of other YouTube OGs.
They seem quite respectedin the community.
The YouTube community pre like2012, was quite tight knit.

(59:59):
Yes.
Like, there were only, there werekind of like a few channels who
were like really big and they wouldoften do collaborations and yeah.
That
is a Project four.
Awesome.
Project four.
Awesome.
There you go.
Is the Green Brothers initiative.
But, um, yeah, I think basicallyif you are at that first
VidCon, you are a YouTube og.
Yeah.
Right.
A hundred percent.
It's like a historic, yeah.
Yeah.
Um, but yeah.
So back to, uh, the Key of awesomeseries, uh, I wanted to cover basically.

(01:00:27):
The, I would say the main, the mainparody series within Key of Awesome.
Yeah.
And those are Justin Bieber?
Mm-hmm.
Lady Gaga.
Mm-hmm.
Katie Perry.
Mm-hmm.
And then we'll touch on someof our outlier favorites.
Yes.
So Justin Bieber, I would say that this isour, our favorite of these parody series.

(01:00:50):
Would you agree?
Uh, yes.
And would you like to saywhy we think they're good?
I
think so.
Putting aside some of the subjectmatter of these parodies, which are
either are like Justin Bieber isannoying, Justin Bieber is a lesbian.
Justin Bieber sounds like a little girl.
Justin girl Justin Bieberis like a sex pest.

(01:01:11):
Like all that stuff.
As we've said, the criticism of the artistin these parodies is, is not very funny.
Um, especially 'cause like, it's notlike they're parroting Chris Brown.
They're not parroting, they'renot par parodying artists that are
really warrant a lot of criticism.
It's like they're just parroting popularartists and just shitting on them

(01:01:32):
for basically being popular and also
for these initial ones.
This artist is a child?
Yes.
Yeah, he's a, they get a child actor toplay Justin Bieber, this child actor.
Um, and I should pull up his name,but he is, uh, he's so charismatic.
Yeah, exactly.
Basically he's so silly.
We like this becausehe is a very cool kid.
Yeah.
And really gives his whole, uh,Justin Sie into like a doing be suit.

(01:01:56):
Yeah.
Um, but what did you thinkof the Bieber parodies?
Um, I think there's some hits and misses.
I think, and we've sort of coveredthis, but whenever they lean into some
more of the absurd elements, um, theone that I liked was the, the Baby
parody, which is the Bieber Feverone where he is sort of like a cult

(01:02:18):
leader.
A cult leader.
Um, and I remember watching that onewhen I was a kid and I was also like,
oh, this is kind of embarrassing.
I was like a, I was like an Auntie JustinBieber girl, which was really cringe.
Really?
Yeah.
Why?
Um, just in my, I was just inmy like knot, like the other
girls type of beat, which is So
you didn't think he was hot?

(01:02:38):
No.
Were you anti or pro one direction?
Um, I was like ambivalentto one direction.
'cause by that point I was like 16, soI was like, okay, I don't really get it.
But I wasn't like, they suck.
Um, I'm trying to think of theother culture clashes of that time.
Mm. There's no actually JB Iss kind ofunique in that way, that you have like

(01:02:59):
grown men being like, I hate this child.
Yeah.
So I think I was trying to.
I was like, I'm differentthan the other girls.
I'm not, I'm the same.
I just like different things.
Like it's not cool to just dislike,but I, but I did find it, like
I, I did feel a bit like, whyare we all obsessed with him?
He's not that attractive as, asa, as a child who is like younger

(01:03:20):
than him slash the same age as him.
Yeah.
Um, so, but I remember watching theBeaver Fever video and thinking that
one was funny as someone who didn't likeJustin Bieber because there is, like,
as, as a child from the Bieber era,I did feel a bit of like the, I feel
like people are being mind controlled.
Like, I don't get it.
I just didn't get it.
Yeah.
I didn't connect.
Um, so I thought it was funny and it, the,the thing that I like more about this one,

(01:03:44):
and I'm not saying like the whole thingis good, it feels less like we're spending
time talking about like things we don'tlike about Justin Bieber and being like,
yeah, he's like bewitched many people andit's more making fun of like the fandom
and like the mania around it, which Ithink is maybe a better, a better angle
or is like, there's more to play with.
There's more for it to be funny.

(01:04:05):
Um, they do some good bits wherehe, you know, they change the
lyrics to baby where he's like.
The, he does like a demon voiceat one point, and he's like,
the streets will flow red withthe blood of the non-believers.
And it's like, that's kind of funny.
It, it's a better bit, I think.
Yeah.
They also commit, so to give you anidea of how long they have this guy
play Baby, sorry, Justin be before it'sfrom the original first album rollout

(01:04:28):
to He's doing like, what do you mean?
Like adult contemporary people?
Yeah.
They get the same
actor to do Bieber the whole time.
Also in this one in the Bieber Feverwhen he's wearing like a crazy wig.
It's like a bob.
And it's really funny.
That's kind of like what Bieber'shair was like though, right?
Yeah, I know.
But
like, but it's funny.
Yeah.
It's like we're taking elementsthat are like, I think you
can make fun of the hair.
It's like, it's not really like,you know, the hair is a choice.

(01:04:51):
That's always the thing.
You can make fun of someone's choices.
The hair was a choice.
I mean, he was a child.
Okay.
So I'm not sure how muchof the choice was his, but
ah, but like, I'd rather thando that than say make fun of him
being like short or something.
Like something that he can't control.
Yeah.
Like he, he fixes the hair later.
Um, and the hair is like so iconic.
It, it, it's funny.
Um, and also the fringe, the reasonhis fringe is because he's covering

(01:05:13):
like a 6, 6 6 on his forehead.
Mm.
Which is also like, these are bits whereI'm like, this is, this seems harmless.
Like maybe something, you know,if I was Justin Biber, I would
maybe not feel offended by that.
Yep.
That's a joke.
These videos are enormously popular.
Yeah.
They have
tens of millions, 50
million I'd say for these big ones.
Mm-hmm.
Um, and so naturally, as we'veseen with other YouTube creators.

(01:05:39):
The success of this means moreparodies, uh, are to follow.
And we,
well, it's kicked off by the mostsuccessful one, or it's sort of like
launched by the Kesher TikTok parody.
I do feel like we have tomention it 'cause it's the most
viewed video on their channel.
Yeah.
Um, it's called Glitter Glitter Puke.
I'll find
it for you.
Um, TikTok parody.
Yeah.
TikTok, Kesha parody, glitterpuke Key of Awesome with a

(01:06:01):
dollar sign like Kesha, uh, 13.
Yeah.
184 million views.
So this was
the 13th music video parody They did,and it got, yeah, a hundred million
views and they spoke about it later on.
Um, mark, not Doug, mark spoke aboutit being like, this took our channel
to like a new level of like notoriety.
We got so many more subscribers andso many more people and so we, you

(01:06:24):
wanna ride that wave, but then themore you ride the wave, and I do think
this is an interesting conversationwhen it comes to YouTube, but like the
more you ride the wave, what you areknown for, what you're most popular
for, it's such a hard balance betweenriding the wave and taking advantage
of, you know, the gift of virality.
But then you also sort of become, you,you, you, a prison of your own design,
because then anytime you veer away fromwhat people have subscribed to you for,

(01:06:47):
um, they're like, we don't want this.
Do more of the other thing.
So then they kind of are stuck and kindof put onto a hamster wheel of creating
music video parodies, and not, I want the
old Fred.
I want the old Fred.
Um, so I, I do think that's interestingbecause as we kind of said before,
mark kind of reflected on almost beinglike, I didn't wanna make parodies.
I actually created the key ofAwesome to make like original music.

(01:07:07):
Yeah.
Like a mu original musicvideo, video parodies.
Clearly very much inspired bylike the Lonely Island and other
kind of creators of that niche.
But then, you know, a hundredmillion views, that's like a million
dollars revenue on that video.
Like if not more.
Um, something like that.
It would be a crazy amount of adrevenue, especially pre apocalypse.
It would be so much money.
So of course you're going to, you know,keep, keep doing your money maker.

(01:07:31):
There was that keyboard.
Awesome.
And I, forgive me, I can'tremember what the title was, but
there was, it was literally likeexactly like, oh, winter Girls.
Winter Time girls.
Yeah.
Winter Winter Girls.
Exactly.
Like the Lonely Island.
Yeah.
Style.
Yeah.
I remember watching that onewith Justin Must, sorry, with
Justin Timberlake, wintertime
girls.
She's free, they, they Crip
the whole lonely Island aesthetic.
It's fully Exactly.
It's like a, yeah.

(01:07:52):
It's very much like you cansee it's exactly meant to be
a lonely island from Timber.
Yeah.
A lonely island.
Justin Timberlake, uh, kind of.
Rip.
Um, which is, it's, it's all right.
It's probably one of the betteroriginal pieces of music from my memory.
Maybe there's somenostalgia goggles on there.
'cause I watched it when I was like 14.
Thought it was kind of funny.
Yeah.
Um, but yes, the parodiesare their big players.

(01:08:13):
They've got Justin Bieber,the De Kesha one's really big.
We didn't like the Kesh one very much.
It is that, as we said before, theassociation of just like, Kesha is drunk.
What if Kesh, she was an alcoholic?
What if she was an alcoholic interand her family having intervention,
there is a slight subversion in that.
Like, she's like, oh, I'm actually justcontractually obligated to play this
character by my like, record label.
I'm actually completely fine.
Like, family stopped trying tohave an intervention with me.

(01:08:35):
I'm just trying to do my job.
But again, the, the joke is justher like vomiting and like, it's
just like kind of gross out humor.
Um, and like being like she's a whore.
Yeah.
Again, the classic guys, thisvideo doesn't feel funny enough.
What if we called her a whore?
This one especially, I think,and it's the same to a lesser
extent with the other parodies.

(01:08:55):
A key part of the success I thinkis they so, um, precisely crib
the sound of the original song.
Yes.
So that if you listen to them back toback, or if we take the understanding
of the YouTube algorithm of the timeyou watch the TikTok song and then
this is your autoplay recommendation.
Yeah.
It's like you could justlisten to both songs.

(01:09:15):
It's literally
like the exact instrumental Exactly.
From the song.
It's not like, I think we'vetalked about in previous episodes,
like Princess Princess Yeah.
Where she's sort of doing like soundalikes where they're not really the same.
It's like this is the song.
And they talk about that as well,being a big part of their early success
where they were just like, we realizedthat the sound alikes obviously more
creative and like fun, but peoplejust wanted it to be the exact thing

(01:09:37):
and we just tweaked the lyrics.
Yeah.
And
Mark talks about later how theypay for like professional, like
sounds, uh, engineers, theyhave professional vocalists.
Like they, they put quite a bit ofmoney into producing these and you
can tell so they sound as much.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And you can see in some of the laterones, especially as well, the people they
have like singing the songs are literallylike, they could be people doing,

(01:09:58):
you know, demos for the same artists.
Yeah.
'cause they are based in NewYork, so they have quite, quite
the access to talented people.
Um, so yeah, the Kesh one's not very good.
They do lots of other keshe ones.
They tend to get the same actorsand actresses coming back to
play like the same pop star.
Mm-hmm.
Which is pretty smart.
Um,
you wanna talk about Gaga?
Yeah.
So I, this was the first onewe were watching where I was

(01:10:20):
like, oh, I've seen this.
This was the earliestone I think I'd seen.
Mm-hmm.
Um, the Lady Gaga and Lord Gaga parody.
Yes.
I think this one's actually kind of funny.
It's lower budget and it's
a,
it's
of bad romance.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
Cool.
Um, and the, okay, I wanna saysomething here, and this is not an
attack on you, but you, you don't watchmusic videos very often, if at all.

(01:10:41):
I don't.
In my enjoyment of music, Idon't seek out or have a way
to easily watch music videos.
Okay.
I love watching music videos.
Crazy.
I'm a big, well, 'cause I, 'causeI'm a K-pop fan and so music videos
are like such a big part of K-popand I'm like a musical theater kid.
It's like the whole package,the artistry is a spectacle.
I really enjoy all of that.
So I will say, I feel that you maybe don'tget quite the same amount of enjoyment

(01:11:06):
or like, kind of the, oh my gosh.
Like that's a, that's a take onthat because you actually don't
always know the original musicvideo that they're like spoofing.
Would you, would you say that's fair?
Because I feel like at times you werekind of like, why are they doing this?
And I'm like, because that'swhat the music video was like.
And so, but even
so shouldn't it work as astandalone piece of media?
But if you are No, but it's a parody.

(01:11:26):
It's a spoof.
But
a parody isn't just recreatingwhat the original is.
Well,
no, but it's like, okay.
And I
know the songs, you know,isn't what's the point?
Yeah.
But okay.
But I get what you're saying.
But if you're
watching like a TikTok, right?
Where someone's being like, this iswhat it's like going into X retailer.
Right.
If you've never been to that retailer,it's it, I'm not saying it's not

(01:11:47):
funny, but it's not gonna be as funnyas like, you know, you having a, a
referential a, a reference point forthat experience being like, oh, it's
funny because they are like that.
Like this person is doing anaccurate, like a riff on a real thing.
No.
No, I think you are correct.
Yeah.
Okay.
There, there's an elementthat I am missing.
Okay.
But I, I still think that I, theseparody videos, I could enjoy them

(01:12:10):
without having seen the originalbecause Yeah, there's still all of that.
Like, it should be really enjoyedas an original piece of work if it
stands up to that level of quality.
I, I would say, and I think I'm, I'mgonna give them more credit here than
I think you may be able to, but I thinkthere is something to the way that they
like really do a good job of like, it'snot like shop for short remaking, but

(01:12:33):
recreating the scenes from the parody.
Like they have a really great likeprops or like craft team who even
in the lower budget one, the LadyGaga one's like quite low budget.
Like it's a good recreation oflike what that music video is like
they're shooting in a white room.
Like they're getting thecolor correction, right.
Like I think all of that
from a production standpoint.
Yeah.
These guys are a lot better thantheir parodies we have seen.

(01:12:54):
Yeah.
They
have a team of people rather thanone person trying to do everything.
So Of course like naturally.
But I think that does, that's a bigcontributor to their success because
if you come from watching the musicvideo on YouTube, which is where
people are coming from to then watchingthis, it's like the same thing.
Yeah.
It is funny though to think that you haveto, they spend all this money and do all
this work to produce a video, but just byvirtue of it depends what is successful.

(01:13:18):
I, Justine films herselfdoing those parodies and gets
also a hundred million views.
Well, I know, I think they were more
prolifically successful as parody.
Yeah.
More they were more consistently popular.
Yes.
Okay.
Alright.
I think you, and you speak tothis better than me in terms of
like the big parody YouTubers.
Yeah.
It's these guys and who's that?

(01:13:39):
Bart
Baker?
Yeah, Bart Baker.
Right.
Who I don't know about, but yeah,they talk about him in their later
videos as their other parody YouTuber.
Yeah.
So they're, they're the big,the big guys on campus when it
comes to parody music videos.
So I, I just wanna say that I thinkthey, they do a lot of like recreations
and sometimes it's like, it's almostcomedic in that they're doing like a
crafty version of it because they can'tactually have someone like drive off the

(01:14:02):
cliff in a car or something like that.
So they have like Barbies in a carand it's like that kind of stuff.
I'm like, I, I think it deserves Sure.
Something I remember as a teenager,I was like in a middle, I was 13, but
I was like, it's funny because that'swhat the music video's like Yeah.
Association, which is what they're tryingto association Comedy Association got.
But like, they do it to a standardthat I think is sufficient that

(01:14:24):
I think other creators can't doand that does set them apart.
I did touch on before, but, uh, a sourceof the comedy here is, um, lady Gaga.
Is she a ma uh, hermaphrodite.
Wow, this is gay.
She's not wearing many clothes.
Um, I think she's so
weird.
A lot of the comedy, and this is notexclusive to keyboard, but all of
the Lady Gaga Paris is what we'vewatched, which is crazy that we've

(01:14:44):
seen like multiple different versionsand more to come and more to come.
Um, they all just focus on thefact that she's like weird.
It's
the same, like five verytired jokes, I think.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
They're just like, she's weird.
Yeah.
She's, she's a freaky And maybe someone
will take a fresh angle on it.
That will be cool.
Um,
I mean from the Lady Gaga parody,they go random stuff, random stuff.

(01:15:06):
And I'm like it, to be fair to theoutsider coming into Bad Romance, I love
Lady Gaga, but like when you watch TheBad Romance video and they just do all
the different shots of like random things.
Yeah.
And like that are very arty, justsinging random stuff, random stuff.
I'm like, that's kind of funny.
It's true.
That is what it's like
following on from, uh, Gaga, anotherqueen of pop, uh, Katy Perry.

(01:15:27):
Oh, Katy Perry.
Truly a victim to parody culture.
Um, like, um, we start diva down,
uh, the California Girls parody.
This I think was a tough watch.
I'm familiar with this one.
I had this one on my iPod
that, okay.
So the video perspective, like youmentioned, they do a really good job of
recreating the California girls video.

(01:15:48):
Yeah.
The whipped
cream bra.
Yeah.
If you guys
don't remember, it's likecupcake sort of aesthetic,
but it's like they're in clouds.
Candyland Candyland.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And she's wearing like a blue wig.
It's very, a very iconicaesthetic, I would say.
Yes.
Um, their interpretation, the parodyangle of this is that, uh, the
song is called California Girls Andnaturally Katie's version is about

(01:16:13):
the, the merits of California Girls.
Yeah.
They love
the sun.
They go by the beach.
Like it's, it's west coast living.
I mean, it is just likeWest Coast represent.
Now put your hands up, like the BeachBoys are sort of the, the, the people,
the California boys that popularized,uh, this uh, style of song, I would say.
Uh, yeah.
And Katie is just ina, a tradition of that.

(01:16:33):
Yeah.
And maybe Kia Awesome is as well,but their perspective is that, um,
California girls, they do things likethey only have sex with rich people.
They don't work.
They're like, they have cosmetic surgery.
They're lampooning
like LA girls.
Yes.
Is basically the joke.
Um, I believe, yeah.
Spray tan, silicone boobs.

(01:16:53):
They're indestructible.
Boring, boring, boring, boring.
Boring is a, a lyric.
Yep.
Um, again, absolutelydevastated to report that at 13.
I was like, this is edgy.
Wow.
Um, and
funny, okay, but like, I don't think,again, it was something that I think I
quickly abandoned and outgrew and beinglike, it's actually not very funny to just

(01:17:13):
be like, women have vapid, um, whores.
How many times have wesaid whore in this video?
I feel like if you clip this outtacontext, that is now I just have a
soundbite of me saying Women of a whores.
Awesome.
Um, but uh, yeah, there'sjust a lot of like, yeah.
And then it's like Snoop Dogg is.
They're getting the Snoop Doggbit, which is him being like, I
wanna have sex with a lot of women.

(01:17:36):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
It's very, it's not very tasteful.
Um, again, just being like,Katy Perry has big boobs.
Sure.
Like observational comedy, I guess.
Like, it's not, it's not good.
I think I was just impressed.
I was like, wow, that's what theset of California girls looks like.
It looks the same.
Mm-hmm.
But
it's funny because they'renot singing about fun stuff.

(01:17:57):
They're singing about getting tummy tuck.
Ha ha ha.
Yeah.
Um, these, and as I've said,these videos are very popular.
Yeah.
Um, so they, they continue doingthese Katy Perry, uh, parodies.
Mm-hmm.
Up until, and I thought this was quiteendearing, they're doing parodies
of Chain to the Rhythm, which islike, by all regards, and same as

(01:18:20):
Bon Appetit, these are songs thatare considered flops for Katy Perry.
Yeah.
Um, yet these guys, I think were solocked into Katy Perry parody parodying.
They had the Katy Perry girl.
Yeah.
They're like, we can't let her go.
They were
like, oh no, this is gonna likeblow up because we are gonna like
ride off the success of these songs.
But from like, my understanding is that.

(01:18:42):
These like singles basically floppedand kind of led us to where Katie is
now, where she's considered a big joke.
Well, I mean, did Bon Appetitflop or did people just like
say they just liked Duck Bed?
Bon Appetit still has like,like a billion streams.
Yeah.
Like, uh, that video, the BonAppetit one, they did still got
like 40 something million views.
Yeah.
So, so it still did well.

(01:19:02):
But I guess maybe they were alsothe only people doing a Bon Appetit
parody 'cause no one else was.
And also even then, they're stillbeing like, she's a washed up pop star.
Like, that's like, the bit is like,oh, she's trying really hard me.
And I'm like, okay.
Yeah.
Um, it's very, it's not,it's not funny to me
to sort of take us out on a, apositive note for the Key of Awesome.

(01:19:26):
In terms of the, the keyof Awesome video series.
Um, I do wanna talk aboutthe Glee key of Awesome.
Which, uh, uh, one
Shining moment I had this one on my iPod.
I had this one on my iPod,and I, I loved this one.
I actually thought this was good.
And you know what?
Thanks to me, clearly I wasn'tcompletely broken as a 13-year-old,

(01:19:46):
because I think this still holds up.
It's still funny probably fordifferent reasons or with like extra
layers of like irony poisoning thatwe've gained over like a decade.
Yeah.
Since this video's been released.
So it's
just called Glee Feet.
Michael Jackson, the Key of Awesome 29.
And then Super Bowl,
super Bowl parody.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't understand what the Super Bowl, I

(01:20:07):
think it's just SEO.
Yeah, who knows?
It came out in 2010.
If any of you guys understand whatthe link is, please let us know.
But because,
well, Michael Jackson died inlike 2000, about 2010, I believe.
20. I feel like it was.
Oh, okay.
Well maybe, yeah.
Okay.
Basically the premises of the is MichaelJackson is in heaven with Johnny Cash.

(01:20:27):
Yes.
And he's looking down, and, sorry,they're watching TV and Glee is coming
on, and obviously Glee does like episodesthat are all about like one artist.
So he's watching like the MichaelJackson episode of Glee, and he's
basically like, what is this?
And then they have the key ball and likecast members each playing Glee characters.

(01:20:47):
Yeah.
It's
a parody of Glee.
It's a Glee parody.
But it's also my, oh, actually no, sorry.
We laughed really early on in thisvideo because I don't, it's like
they're getting a Michael Jackson,like per professional impersonator.
I mean, dime a dozen, so yeah.
Yeah, probably.
Yeah.
But he comes in and they havehim edited in heaven, like in
the green screen in like the sky.
But he comes in and hejust does the like, oops.

(01:21:09):
And they like speed it up of him doinglike the moonwalk and like flipping.
Funny,
I mean, much like, uh,Italian American, uh, comedy.
I think that we just have a soft spotfor Michael Jackson, uh, based comedy.
I, there's something about tojoin, like, it's funny every time.

(01:21:30):
I mean, yeah.
I, I just, for me it's like, wow,you have this man who is done like
these horrifically evil things.
An incredibly complicated figure.
But he also, in the era that they'reparroting, which is late, Michael
looks so weird that has these suchdistinct mannerisms he does in the
face of like these horrific things.
And it's just, that is, that'sactual absurdist comedy, you know?

(01:21:53):
That's why Yeah, it is.
Like, that is why it's funny.
Yeah.
Yeah, it is.
Um, also, can I just say sort ofbriefly off topic, but you were
trying to, you were looking upsomething related to Michael Jackson.
You found something on like Redditof someone being like, I don't
get why Michael Jackson is funny,or, I don't know why people like
Michael Jackson, blah, blah, blah.
I was like, some rant on Reddit posting.
Yeah.
And then the top comment was,was someone saying Shamon?

(01:22:13):
Yeah.
That's like basically me.
Yeah.
Like, yeah, like obviouslyso much happening there.
A lot that I don't really wannatouch on, but equally just like,
he, he, you know, he, he banger.
Still funny, unfortunately Funny.
And also Paring
of Glee is something that isquite funny 'cause Glee itself

(01:22:34):
now has been so Para para deed.
We've had like a Glee revival and meme erawith like all the Matthew Morrison memes.
Yeah.
Um, and Mark is in this likecrazy wig to play Mr. Shoe.
And it's funny 'cause he does play apretty good Mr Shoe 'cause he plays like
a sort of like an elder millennial Yes.

(01:22:54):
Type who's like hangingout with LIC children.
Yeah.
Which is really funny.
Um, they, they have people playingKurt, they hire a girl to play Mercedes.
Um, it's, it's, oh, Obama girlplays, uh, Amber plays, uh, Rachel.
So it's all like, it's like funny andself-referential to them a little bit.

(01:23:16):
Making fun of Glee is funny.
'cause glee is like also absurd.
I think it all just kind of works.
'cause like everything that they'retalking about in this video is
already like, so heightened and silly.
Like, it's like you don't reallyhave to do a lot to take it
any further to make it funny.
Um, they do like a Michael Jackson medley.
Uh, Kurt is gay, which is funny.

(01:23:37):
Yeah.
I think overall thumbs up from us, right?
This is probably, is this ourfavorite key of awesome video?
Mm. Yes.
I think it was the one I enjoyed the most.
And you had two laughs,which is probably the record
grim.
Um, okay.
So Key of Awesome.
It does continue untilthe end of the channel.

(01:23:58):
Mm-hmm.
Uh, there's some 129 episodesin the Key of Awesome series.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, but we get moving throughfrom our sort of Kia Blossom
heyday in the early 2010s.
The videos up until the end still dowell view wise, but there's a sort of
distinct, uh, shift in the channel.

(01:24:21):
Around 2015, they, um, renamed theChannel Bailey production mm-hmm.
At that point from Bailey Political.
So they, they sort of move away fromthe, uh, political elements or ties Yeah.
To that legacy brand, which they
haven't really been doing a lot of anyway.
And at
some point they do rename thechannel to what it is now, which
is just the key of Awesome.

(01:24:42):
Which I think makes sense because that's
the main, that's like the onlycontent they're uploading.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Naming your channel after yourproduction company is, uh, a very.
I think it makes sense when smallbrain, at this point they were like,
we're running all these differenttypes of like shows or series, but
then really they clearly just decidedto hone on the key of awesome.
And then it's like, let'sjust change the channel.
Aim to that.

(01:25:02):
Yeah.
Um, from this time, like I'll,I'll throw out some key of awesome.
Um, they do gang them style, which getsover a hundred million views, but it's
uh, it's Kim Jon un style, uh, whichis, we didn't in quite poor taste.
Yeah.
We didn't
like this one.
Yeah.
It
was
kind of mean to our Koreanbrother and sisters.

(01:25:23):
I, I as a K-pop fan in like the early2010s, like I, if anyone else is
listening, I was quite into shiny and Iwas around for like, the debut of Exo.
So that kind of dates where I sortof sit in terms of K-pop fandom.
Um, it was kind of cool seeing Gangnamstyle become so popular 'cause like all
these people being introduced to K-Popand getting into K-Pop for the first time.

(01:25:47):
Um, and it was a really big culturalmoment for like the Korean cultural wave.
Um, so just being like, but whatif it was North Korea is a bit,
isn't isn't it crazy bro, howthe Koreans are like this?
Yeah.
Also feels quite racist at times.
Um, yeah.
Um, I mean do, do we feel preciousabout protecting Kim Jong-Un?

(01:26:11):
Like No.
No.
It's more just, I feel like it's quite.
Insensitive to, okay.
Sorry.
We're not being like, wow,this should be like banned.
We're not being like sensitive.
No, it's not like, it's more like ifyou're gonna like make, take these
risks with like comedy, like thepayoff needs to be worth it, right?
Mm-hmm.
Like if you're going to joke aboutlike taboo topics, if it's not

(01:26:35):
funny, then you seem like a dick.
As opposed to like, if you're JerrySeinfeld and your airplane joke
doesn't land, then everyone's like, oh,just, you know, you swinging a miss.
Yeah.
Um, but here it's like you take like,uh, a moment of like South Korean
cultural ascendancy, like theirbiggest moment of World Promise.
Yeah.
They're being
recognized.
Everyone's celebrating Si he'sbecoming like a global like star.

(01:26:55):
Yeah.
And you immediately tie it to like themost contentious, uh, like Korean domestic
and international political issue andlike the most controversial Korean figure
nationally, or sorry, internationally.
Yeah.
There were a lot of Gangnam starparodies at the time and I've seen a lot
of them and there are other ones thatmore successfully parody gang of style

(01:27:20):
and just being like, because Gang ofStyle itself is a really crazy video.
Yeah.
Like there's a lothappening in that video.
And so you can do lots of funny things.
You can, if you really want to, youcan just be self-referential about
like what's happening on the screenand like changing the lyrics to that.
Not that that's like super funny,but like that is another way of doing
the parody, which is not like beingoffensive or like doing something

(01:27:43):
that I think is ultimately Yeah, it's.
It's a bit of a swing and amiss, unfortunately for me.
Um, but clearly no oneelse seemed to think so.
'cause it got a hundred millionviews, which to be fair gang
style had like a billion views.
Yeah.
So like, you know, but yeah, I thinkactually we haven't talked about 'em
yet on the pod, but I was, uh, a bigfollower of Eat Your Kimchi, Simon

(01:28:04):
and Martina, and they did a gangstyle parod and that was really big.
And it was
Simon and Martina didmusic video parodies.
They did one for Gangnam style, which wasfunny because they lived in Seoul so they
could like go to some of the locations.
I did
not know this.
Okay.
But I'm pretty sure they did one.
And it was, I remember thinking that, butlike that one was more playful and because
they were across like K-Pop and that waslike their space, it was more Has any of

(01:28:26):
our faves not subjected themselvesto a music video parody?
I don't think I've done one.
I don't think Neil Riga did one.
Hmm.
Chad.
Um, anyway, yeah.
Bad blood parody.
Uh, I just wanna bring up out ofinterest because, um, our first,
uh, Leonard Dunham appearance in therewind time universe, I'm something

(01:28:49):
of a, a Leonard Dunham scholar, soit's the topic I can speak to Uhhuh.
And they really like a, you know, withmany of the keyboard and jokes they
pull from the most bottom of the barrel,mid whi tier criticism of her, where
they're like, you know, she's fat andshe always shows she's always naked
in a show and her tattoos are bad.

(01:29:09):
Uh, and what I will also say aboutthis music video parody, I thought.
The, again, the production value of thispretty high, lots of green screen, uh,
c ging to replicate the bad blood musicvideo, which is also extremely CGI heavy.
Um, I was like, maybe like, 'cause Istarted out with like doing a joke that,
uh, Selena Gomez looks significantlyyounger than Taylor Swift, which like, to
be fair in the bad music video she does.

(01:29:31):
And I'm like, that's kindof like an okay joke.
I'm not saying it's funny, butI'm like, this is all right.
Um, because they then have Selena gobeing played by like a child, which is
like, again, not funny, but I'm like, Ithink at this point having watched like
tens of these videos, I was like, thebar is just like, don't be offensive.
Like don't be like disparaging towardswomen for something they can't control.
Um, but it's okay because then theyjust go on to not only do the Leonard

(01:29:54):
Dunham joke, but they make jokesabout Taylor Swift being too skinny.
Yeah.
Having no ass and
having
no ass Leonard Dunham.
Too much ass, too much ass.
Taylor Swift not enough.
Exactly.
Too flat.
And she needs to gainsome, some muscle mass.
Like they make jokes about that, youknow, when she's like in the body scanner
in the bad blood music video and they'relike, she needs to gain like muscle.
Otherwise she won't be able to be likea good like girly pop soldier thing.
And I'm just like, can you not, like,can you make jokes about something else?

(01:30:18):
Like it, it's so, there'sso much you can do.
There's also, and we like, there'snaturally things about the bad blood
music video that are themselves soeasily subjected to parody like the
association with Kendrick Lamar,Paul's surprise winner, Kendrick

(01:30:38):
Lamar on this like girly pop anthem.
Yeah, like the fake friendship.
Yes.
Circle that Taylor cultivated,the girl power, the white
feminism girl power stuff.
Yeah.
You
can make fun of all of those things andlike lampoon that and quite successfully.
So, um, they kind of briefly touch onthe girl power bit, but they, they decide
to forego that in favor of just makingfun of people being skinny or hot or not

(01:31:00):
hot or too like fat or like whatever.
Yeah.
And it's just like,
I just feel like they're reallylike, they're kind of phoning it
in at this point and I think theyadmit to it as much like later.
Like he, he describes thathe doesn't like doing them.
So I do feel like maybe he's just like,we know what plays well with our audience.
Like let's just phone it in and do that.
Yeah.
We get the sense that he, I I don'tknow if this is his actual opinion.

(01:31:24):
Well I guess it is.
Yeah.
Hard to say.
'cause obviously there's a team workingon these videos, but you know, with other
CRAs where it's just them, we kind ofget an insight into like, this is their
actual like opinion or these are, theseare their thoughts about something.
Whereas with this, I'm actually notsure if he really feels that way.
Mark.
I mean, who's like themain creative person?
It doesn't really matter.

(01:31:44):
It doesn't really matter.
He still makes it.
Yeah, he put it out.
He still does it, but I think heexpresses some regret about it.
And I think that actually, you know,if we're being charitable, I think that
deserves something in that He seems tobe like, I don't know if I like that.
That's what we like.
I didn't like that thiswas our bread and butter.
I didn't like that.
That's what we did.
I wanted to just do, he wantedto do more heavy metal cats.
He wanted to do more wintertimegirls, but he was stuck doing.

(01:32:06):
Bad blood parody, you know?
So I, I didn't know if youhad to do it like that.
Oh wait, actually can I talkabout one more Ki Wilson?
Yeah, of course.
Uh, the Monster parody.
Oh, okay.
Uh, the Monster parody Kanye West Monster.
Yeah.
Which is Nick m you'rea Kanye West Scholar.
Rick Ross and, uh, Nicki Mina.
Would you say you're a Kanye West Scholar?
I am familiar with his works upuntil a certain recent point.

(01:32:31):
Yeah.
Yes.
Uh, but yeah, this is a good example ofone of the things the channel gets away
with quite a bit, which is having theMuppets as in Kermit and co having those
characters, or Sesame Street Muppets.
Yeah, Jim, it's Elmo and yeah, Jim HensonMuppets appear in these videos doing
the exact Muppet voice and depiction,but they must have some legal advice

(01:32:55):
where they're like, you can use theseMuppets and it's parody, so you are fine.
Um, but I was shocked they wereallowed to get away with this, in
this video in particular, it's thecookie monster who has a rap verse.
Yeah.
But
I thought that was kindof, actually kind of,
well, I mean, like, we are predisposedto like The Muppets 'cause we are,
it's not like a parody where you'relike, well that's not Lady Gaga.

(01:33:17):
You're literally like,
I feel so brain watered forbeing like, was this good?
'cause it's like, well,no, but like, but is it.
Is that a funnier creative conceptthan just taking the music video?
Exactly.
And then just changing lyrics to belike, okay, monster is a song with like
multiple different verses and featuresfrom different artists and the song
is about Monster and being a monster.
So what if we got Cookie Monster likepoints for some type of creative,

(01:33:41):
like outside of the extremelylimited view of many of the parodies?
Yeah.
We're taking it to, it's more, again,taking it to an absurdist thing where
Cookie Monster is like also doingmisogynistic like lyrics, which is
immediately like, that is kind of inthe, I mean you can correct me if I'm
wrong, but like obviously this songis kind of like talking about like,

(01:34:02):
you know,
it's a rap song by Kanye Westin a certain era of his career.
So Cookie was just being like,
me get bitches.
And I'm like, okay,
well that's, I think anotherexample of how sort of lowbrow
and well unsophisticated thetakes are on these parodies.
'cause I don't think like relegatinghip hop to just being about bitches

(01:34:22):
and hoes is, I should clarify.
I don't think that, no, exactly.
Sorry.
So that's what the perspectiveof the video kind of is,
but yeah.
But I guess like gettingCookie wants to do that.
Is that funny?
They're like, wow,
Kanye West is egotistical.
It's like, yes.
Well, okay.
News at seven.
Yeah.
Alright.
But D, do Cookie Monster referringto his penis as a feather duster?

(01:34:45):
Yeah.
I mean like, sure.
Parroting the Muppetsis kind of interesting.
I
feel like I am kind ofjust searching to be like.
Is this, maybe I'm doing this inservice for like 14-year-old Lucy who
saw this and was like, it's funny tosee the Cookie monster in a rap video.
Yeah.
'cause I'm a child and I'maware of Sesame Street.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I was, I was following the GoodFridays, uh, release of music

(01:35:08):
leading up to the 2010 Kanye album.
My beautiful dark, twisted fantasy.
And uh, so I didn'treally feel the same way.
Um, but it was, I was quite an odd child.
So yeah.
More on that later.
But, uh, I did wanna just shout out, thisis kind of an interesting coincidence.
They did a key awesome about howBreaking Bad Should end in 2013.

(01:35:30):
And they naturally had actors in this,like they do many of their videos.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, or aspiring actors at the time'cause they're, you know, having
to appear in Key Boston videos.
But the, the actress, Beth Hoytplayed the character of Skylar
White in this parody video.
And then she was then cast and had arole in the Breaking Bad prequel series.

(01:35:54):
Better Call Saul.
She plays Kim's mother.
For those of you that haveseen the show in seasons five
and six of Better Call Saul.
And I just thought that was like, it'snot that she plays the exact character,
she's obviously parodying Yeah.
But the, the through line now where, and.
YouTube parodies are not what they were,but if you star in the YouTube parody of

(01:36:16):
a piece of media and then a later castto literally be in that piece of media,
I think it also speaks to the factthat they do talk about that they do
cast like aspiring actors and peoplein the industry and pay them fairly.
Um, which, yeah.
Uh, are we sort of wrapping up interms of series on the channel?
Because I,

(01:36:37):
I was going to talk about the, uh, afew bits and bobs like, uh, a Friend's
Weezer, uh, and then get onto Legacy.
So is there somethingyou want to talk about?
I wanted to shout out because I think,as I said earlier, I think I really was
only conscious of the channel in kind oftheir heyday, peak popularity of parodies.

(01:36:57):
I think I watched, like I watched alot of the earlier Kiev awesome videos
and that, like, that 2010 period waskind of the only period I was familiar
with, which Amelia, they did pumpout a bunch of videos in that period.
But I did actually realize as we werewatching through some of these videos
that I was familiar with anotherseries they did, which is called the
YouTube complaints, and I wanna shoutit out because it's again, different.

(01:37:19):
They're trying differentthings on this channel.
As you said, they dida breaking bad parody.
They start doing parodies thatare like, not music parodies.
They start doing like skits, like again,they're trying to do like a bit of
an SNL doing, they're doing sketches,
uh, in the belly political days.
Yeah.
But then they stop for a period and thenthey kind of like bring them back also.
Sorry.
They, they do like political ones andthen they doing the music videos and
then they feel like they start doinglike more pop culture, like sketches

(01:37:42):
it, it kind of comes back, I would say.
And they start doing more of them like,you know, if blank was X or like, what
if, like how Game of Thrones should end
But YouTube complaints becomes kindof like their version of YouTube
Rewind that they do annually.
Um, and I, as someone who's a bigYouTube user, thought this video was
quite charming, nostalgic, um, it's alsoexecuted quite well and that it's like,

(01:38:05):
you know, a YouTube office and thenpeople are coming into YouTube to complain
about certain features of the website,of the functionality of the community.
Um, and they're just acknowledging,I would say, like YouTube
specific like community trends.
Yeah.
And I think it's done quite well.
And I remember watchingquite a few of these
did you, I mean, I, I got some
Jenna Marbles cameo in one.

(01:38:26):
Yeah.
You
know,
so as someone who's not as familiar withlike, like I was on YouTube, like probably
like every day, um, like YouTube as apart of my kind of daily media routine.
Maybe not so much for you.
No.
Did you enjoy these videos?
Did you get anything out of these videos?
It was a good time capsule ofcommunity bugs and complaints around
YouTube at the time, and as peoplewho do a YouTube history podcast,

(01:38:48):
it was useful for me as someonewho wasn't on YouTube at this time.
Really?
So,
yeah.
Okay.
I, I had definitely had more of that.
Like, oh, I remember when this was likea copy pasta meme that people did in the
comments or like, oh, I remember whenthey made everyone swap to Google Plus.
And like, that whole thingwas like really weird.
Um, so yeah, I think thesewere guys, I actually

(01:39:09):
liked the Google Plus thing.
You should have to use yourreal name to comment on things.
Yeah.
That's my hot take.
But anyway, so I
liked, I liked this, um, little seriesand I want to shout it out because
I think it shows that they would,this was a series where they're not
necessarily, the, the focus in the comedyis not just on making fun of women.
Yeah.
For their appearances.

(01:39:30):
Yeah.
So good, good job.
Thumbs up guys.
They, they have the capability.
They just choose not to, orperhaps hell hostage by the end.
All right.
Their subscriber base
guys, as we have spokenabout in our videos on.
Creators like Fred.
Mm.
It seems that aroundthe late two thousands

(01:39:50):
Mm.
Someone in either the band Weezer ortheir management was so set on having
Weezer collaborate with YouTubersbecause once again, we have a Weezer
video feature, not once, not twice,three times as far as I can tell.
Mm-hmm.
Initially on the Key of Awesome,they run a, like a fan submission

(01:40:13):
competition where the winner getsto appear in a We of Music video.
And in this nomination video we seea bunch of other famous YouTubers,
most notably written link who goon to win this prize and appear,
I imagine in a Weezer music video.
Mm. But also we get to see,uh, Garfunkel and Oats.

(01:40:35):
Yeah.
Which is a comedy duo thatyou are familiar with.
Mm-hmm.
Um, they're two girly popswho do musical comedy.
Yep.
Uh, and you know, subject on thisepisode, I think they're probably
a bit more successful at it inour view than the key of Awesome.
Would you say
They make original musical comedy that'sbeen commercially successful and is funny
and their TV show is also really good.

(01:40:55):
Yeah.
So shout out, uh, Ghan cla notes.
Uh, we then also get thevideo of River's Cuomo.
Being like, congrats forwinning and his Oh, the
announcement video forwho wins the competition.
Yeah.
He seems like very unenthused.
So,
no, the funny part is that it's generic.
So they say they're likedoing the whole thing.

(01:41:15):
Yeah.
They've got the team, they're doingthis like fake award show set up.
They're showing all of the nominees,the top people, and they're like,
and the winners are Rhett and Link.
Yeah.
And they have a video from Renton Linkaccepting they we're going, thank you so
much for letting us win the competition.
We're so excited.
Renton Link will obviously cover themat some point, and then they go, and
here's River's Cuomo, and you think it'sgonna be Congratulations, rent and Link.
We loved your video.
Taco Bell.

(01:41:36):
Drive through, like whatever.
Yeah.
But it just goes like, would you liketo do an impression of River's Cuomos?
Congrats Ken, what you have in our video?
Keep up the awesomeness.
Yeah.
It's like not actually, it, it, it'sa video submission that could be about
anyone who won, which is really funny.
Yeah.
He, he, he does not give a shit.
And I was like, well that's the endof, you know, Weezer on the channel.

(01:41:58):
But no, 'cause there is a song thatMark does for, I believe it's uh,
like an anniversary or some othermilestone with his wife It his wife year
wedding anniversary.
Yeah.
With his wife Anastasia.
Anastasia.
So the song's just called Anastasia Feet.
Weezer and it's Mark doing an originalsong dedicated to his wife with a Weezer

(01:42:20):
and Rivers Cuomo there doing backingvocals, playing the instrumental and.
I mean like clearly there's some affinitythere between Mark and the Weezer guys
'cause they came out to do this for him.
Uh, and kind of endearing us to Mark.
'cause like he is clearly a wife guy.
He loves his wife.

(01:42:41):
Um, we haven't really mentioned her,but she does make like semi-regular
appearances on the channel.
Yeah.
And she actually does, I didn't thinkwe realized it at the time, but in a lot
of the earlier videos she does a lot ofthe female vocals for the parody songs.
So she is a singer.
She goes with 'em on tour.
So like they as a duo kind of, and withtheir band, um, and team go on the tour
and she's like the female voice ratherthan having like, you know, all of their

(01:43:04):
actresses come who also don't sing.
So she like, they do thelive performances together.
Um, and they are still together,
swag
and have kids I think and are happy.
And I think that's really wholesome.
And it's like, again, kind of interestingthat he has this sort of like, okay,
he, he characters that he plays.
'cause he's often playing like malecharacters in all of these sketches.

(01:43:25):
He plays like very seedy, likesex pesty type like characters.
But then him in real life, hejust really likes his wife.
Let's get down to the finalyears of this channel.
Mm-hmm.
So we are still running parodiesup through the 2010s into say.
The, the 20 fifteens or so, andnotably, the cadence starts to

(01:43:50):
decrease in terms of video output.
Um, they start continuing the key ofawesome series, but rather than each
video being like a, a dedicated musicvideo, oh, they do acapella series
in 2017.
This is important.
In 2017, mark does an announcementvideo basically being like, I have
bought the key of awesome channel.
Like I'm now the owner of the Key of Vumchannel, not our multichannel network.

(01:44:13):
Mm-hmm.
And so there is no now no longera big business behind us that
is like funding our videos.
I am like running outta thewhole thing Outta my own pocket.
Yeah.
Out of his own pocket.
So he is bought it back or it'snot really entirely made clear No.
What's exactly happened, but um, sohe's, they launch a Patreon being like,
you know, and I think it's actuallya quite a good Patreon launch video
where he's like, you'll still geteverything that you have before, but

(01:44:35):
you need to understand that previouslywe had budget that was part of like a
big company and they owned a bunch ofother channels and other things as well.
So we just, you know, had our setbudget that we knew we could use.
Whereas now it's like verydependent on like the performance
of videos and things like that.
So, you know, if you want us tocontinue making videos the same way we
have been, we would really appreciateyour Patreon support and we'll do

(01:44:55):
Yeah.
Other, other stuff.
I do think this is like, the MoshBoys would do something much like
this later on and I think it sort ofhad a similar, um, demise and I'm not
sure we can even point to an exampleof a. Like m large production focus
channel switching to a, I know one.

(01:45:15):
Oh, what is it?
A dropout.
Oh, okay.
Do you know what dropout is?
No, actually, uh, not a shoutout.
My brother's boyfriend islike subscribed to them.
He pay for the, like, membership.
Oh, it's like Netflix.
Yeah.
Um, but it's, and they make it work.
Yeah.
It's been, been working for years.
Oh.
Um, it's actually usedto be college humor.
What did you not
TI swear I told about this.
Didn't know about
this.
Um, so it's, yeah, they do, theyhave multiple like, uh, series

(01:45:39):
formats that are almost likegame shows or things like that.
Um, and they have like a full subscriptionmodel that's like, very successful.
Wow.
And that's what the try guys havemodeled their recent thing after.
And then watcher, which I kindof explained to you off camera,
tried to do that as well.
Yeah.
And to varying levels of success.
Okay.
But, but, uh, dropout is the mostsuccessful version of this pay

(01:46:01):
walled thing because they uploadclips and like first episodes to
their YouTube channel and TikTok.
So there's lots of clips of it.
There's plenty of the content there.
But if you actually wanna watch the fullepisode, then you have to subscribe.
And I think it's like 50 bucks a year.
Okay.
So it's not, it's not really Wow.
Good for them.
Yeah.
Very successful.
Um, okay.
So yeah, as you mentioned, mark launchesa Patreon and the channel content, it

(01:46:24):
actually switches up a bit and theystart doing a series called song Rants.
Mm. Where it's them doing like commentary,commentary on new music releases.
Mm-hmm.
And other pop culture stuff.
We've seen other people try andsegue their, like scripted channels
into commentary unsuccessfully,but these song rants are actually
getting like 500,000 views.

(01:46:46):
Yeah.
At this point where the most successfulparodies we're getting like 50, 60,
70, 80, a hundred million views.
Um, their parodies are now gettingaround like 1.5 to 3 million,
somewhere along that range.
It kind of depends on what it is.
Yeah.
If
it pops off they'regetting like 6 million.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So getting half a mil views on whatis an extremely low production value,

(01:47:08):
uh, uh, series where they're justputting people in front of a green
screen and doing like commentary.
Yeah.
It's a smart move.
It's, it's smart.
Um, also, I think, so they do song,sorry, song rants and then they do, uh,
versions of the song parodies, which arenot like the fully produced music video.
They just do, like, they'll have themusic video playing in the corner

(01:47:29):
and then they're just changingup the lyrics and doing like,
you
know, a cover, like live sort of.
Um, but also I noticed wehaven't brought this up.
Reggae shark.
Oh, okay.
You wanna talk about Reggae Shark?
We don't have
to.
I think we should justrandomly acknowledge that
Reggae Shark was sort of like
a YouTube read sort of initiative.

(01:47:49):
YouTube was investing in original content.
Uh, mark was involved in, uh,producing, uh, videos based on
the character of Reggae Shark.
Which is a cartoon of a shark who isuh, like a stereotypical Rastafarian.
Yeah.
He has dreadlocks and babe trendand yeah, I, I liked reggae shark.

(01:48:10):
There's about half an hour of reggaeshark content and I only watched
the first like three minute video.
'cause I can see how the joke doesn'treally have legs to go beyond that.
Sharks don't have legs, you know,
so
I was, yeah, funny.
Uh, I, I kind of was like, Idon't mind reggae shark, you
know, I kind of liked that video.
What did you think of Reggae Shark?
It's worst Heads on the tin, reggae shark.

(01:48:31):
I just wanted to bring it up becauseit's, they are trying, they're throwing
some, we're kind of back in that era whereyou're throwing things against the wall
to try and adapt to like the new, thelandscape of YouTube to try and see what,
what is gonna financially sustain you.
Balancing the what is financially viableand like what is creatively fulfilling.
Yeah.
Um, which is an unfortunate cycle thatI think many YouTubers get trapped in.

(01:48:54):
So this is in 2017, they make theannouncement, uh, mark is the owner
of Key of Awesome Reggae Shark.
Different versions of song contentthat isn't just the fully blown,
fully produced music video parodies.
And then it's 2018.
Yes.
We get on the channel the last keyof Awesome that is the title of the

(01:49:17):
video and it kicks off with Mark.
He says that he'll be taking anindefinite break from YouTube.
Um, the video is also the, thethumbnail is sub captioned.
Uh, why I left Buzzfeed, and whenwe started this series and saw it as
the most recent video, I just assumedthat Mark somehow joined Buzzfeed.

(01:49:40):
You kept asking me as we were watching.
I didn't quite pick up on it.
You were like, so whendoes he move to Buzzfeed?
And like, so what washis capacity of Buzzfeed?
And I was like, I don't, I don't know.
And I'm
aware of the why I'm leaving Buzzfeedtrope, but I just didn't think that
like, it would be worthy of gettingin your like, serious, I'm leaving
YouTube video title, but it was there.
But no, he, he never actually, obviouslywas, has nothing to do with Buzzfeed.

(01:50:02):
No, it's just a joke.
It's
just a joke.
Uh, during this video, one ofhis puppets, they're like, you
can't quit YouTube on a low.
And so they then launch into a fullmusical number, which, uh, sort of
summarizes the history of the channel,talks about why they're retiring.
Uh, what did you thinkof the last kid blossom?

(01:50:23):
'cause I, I, personally, itreally endeared me to Mark,
I also was very endeared.
It's a, it's a return to theoriginal, like music that he has
said that he loves creating the most.
Like it's his favorite thing to do.
Yeah.
Um, and it also, yeah, it feels reflectivein a way that I think we appreciate

(01:50:43):
when a lot of our YouTubes do the,um, you know, we've talked on this.
Podcast several times about the,um, where I've been videos, the, you
know, I'm leaving YouTube videos,the, I'm coming back to YouTube videos
and oftentimes they are very like
self-indulgent.
I don't Yeah, I was gonna say, I don'treally wanna say there's just one boomer
where Mark, mark mocks millennialsfor doing this cycle of, um,

(01:51:06):
it's so tough to make content.
And there's two thingsI take from that one.
I'm like, I agree with you, mark,but also second, does that mean
that Mark is actually Gen X?
Yeah.
He makes some joke aboutlike, millennials complaining.
Yeah.
And so I was like, how old are you now?
Are you not a millennial?
I don't think he is actually.
Um, I think he's on theyounger side of Gen X.
Um, but I do think there's somethingabout this where he, he very matter

(01:51:30):
of fact talks about, he's like,I've been on the content wheel.
It's very stressful.
I am on like so many prescriptionmedications to just like, manage my
stress of like being a business ownerand like being in this loop of like
chasing virality and like being dependenton like an algorithm, which I don't
control to run a business and like fundall of these people who work with me.

(01:51:52):
Um, and I think there's something inthat and not, he's not like complaining
about it as much as he's just beinglike, this is what it is to do this
and I just don't wanna do it anymore.
Like, I just wanna get off the treadmill.
Um, I wanna get off the hamster wheel.
And I think that's actually like a very.
It takes like courage and he, he's notcoming in there being like, he's still,

(01:52:12):
he's like, he's made the decision.
He's already at peace with it.
I don't know.
I think it's very, I think key for
me is he doesn't showcase sortof the resent resentfulness Yeah.
That a lot of creators have whenthey're not doing the numbers that
they may have done previously.
And they are almost acting as if theyare not at part to blame for this.

(01:52:34):
Like, there's no woe is me.
I think, and I've, I've said somethingto this tune before, so forgive me
if I am repeating myself 'cause Ilove to be verbose and uh, chat.
But I think there is something to, I, Ihave empathy for creators who experience
great success and then like can't adapttheir content or their content just
isn't their audience that they've built.

(01:52:56):
Um, you know, on one very specifictype of content is like, it's a real
like challenge that not everyonecan overcome to pivot that audience
into like a new type of content thatdoes work for the new algorithm.
But there is a point of me where I'm justlike, well, you are a creator and this
is your career and it's a, a privilege tohave this career and to have the success

(01:53:16):
that you may have had up to this point.
And if you would like to keep doingit, it's sort of like, it's in the.
It's kind of in the contract of the jobis that you, you have to be able to, as
a creator to monetize that creativity inthe way where you are self-publishing.
You're not like an actor trying to getroles in movies and things like that.
You're self-publishing on a platform.
You do need to be able to have the skillto pivot and not be resentful about it.

(01:53:38):
Yeah.
You can't be like, this is so unfair.
Woe is me.
Um, you can either choose to keep ridingthe wave and like get on it and learn
how to make content for the new audience.
Or you can just, you, youdon't have to do this.
No one's making you stay in this job.
Even though I, I do also have empathythat it's very difficult for people who,
like, are, you know, are Ryan Gers andnow Mosh as they have probably never had

(01:54:01):
a traditional job ever in their lives.
So this is like all they know.
Um, but I think I do find it reallyadmirable that Mark is basically
like, yeah, I'm just gonna likego do something else for a bit.
Yeah.
And I may come back and Imay not, uh, spoiler it.
He has not come back.
No.
The key of
Austin channel has not been activesince talking, not talking comments,

(01:54:24):
not talking community posts.
Yeah.
Other uploads.
Uh, mark himself has a social mediathat he is, I would describe as, uh,
not, uh, the most active in termsof he has a link in bio, which, uh,
stems from political events in 2020.
Yeah.
So, so not that online, but

(01:54:46):
yeah, he's not posted in like ayear or two or something like that.
I don't think, um, anyway, sorryfor my like random side tangent.
Re creator, no creator iss.
I just feel, no, I'm so sorry.
I feel a type of way when people arelike very, like, yeah, there's a certain
level where I'm just like, oh my God,no one's making you do, like, especially
for people who are really successful.
Well it just never sort of acknowledgesthe fact that your audience

(01:55:09):
overwhelmingly, these are people who haveto work a traditional job for a living.
Mm-hmm.
And when you present thatas like an unthinkable
alternative for your life Yeah.
It's like very insensitive to them.
And it's not to say that you can't likeexpress your frustrations with like,
what is your career or like challengesthat you come across, but you need to

(01:55:31):
understand that that's not relatable tothe millions of people who watch you and
who watch the ads on your channel thatallow you to be able to do what you do.
So I think there is a, there is an elementwhere like Mark is kind of like a gr it's
like a graceful exit, I would say, wherehe's being very grateful and being like,
I'm so lucky that I've been able to do allof this, but like, it's not sustainable

(01:55:52):
and I don't wanna do it anymore.
Yeah.
And he's, and he's basically being like,go back and rewatch all the videos 'cause
I still get to make money off them.
And yeah,
he does allow each of the crewmembers to do like a sort of a wrap of
their cv, which I thought was quite.
Uh, supportive.
'cause naturally these guys, theirjob is the key of awesome and
their key of awesome is, is ending.

(01:56:13):
So they need to find new ones.
Uh, so it's cool to get tolike acknowledge the people
working behind the scenes.
He
does that anytime there's likea more, a meta video that's like
him speaking outside of like, youknow, not actually as a character.
He always seems to be really championingthe crew and we didn't watch many of them,
but there are lots of behind the scenesvideos where I think he, he would get

(01:56:35):
to be showing them at work and shining.
I show you this
key, they act the key of awesomecredits everyone in their
descriptions, which is not somethingthat some of the channels do.
And actually in all their videos,
sorry.
Yeah, they do in each of the videos.
And I also started noticing, and I thoughtthis is different in it, even some of
the earlier videos, they are like fullybeing like, this is Amber's YouTube

(01:56:55):
channel and her Twitter and her Instagram.
Like they are fully linking Yep.
Out to their team.
Um, and I think that's, yeah, they showa real support and love for creatives.
And I think that is also a thing wherehe, maybe it was a real driving force
for him continuing to run the channeland to run parodies because they get
to pay actors, songwriters, musicians,vocalists to do, to do, like, they get

(01:57:18):
to do paid work while they're maybe, youknow, working on their own creative work.
Um, and so when the money was no longercoming in from the video, he like, he
was like, well, I can't even offer to.
Pay these people.
So what am I, what am I doing it for?
So yeah.
But it wouldn't be the key of awesomesong without, uh, a problematic, uh,

(01:57:39):
tangent around, uh, gender relations.
Because there is an extensive segmentwhere the crew sing Thank you to Mark
for basically not being a sex pest.
Uh, which I would say issort of the bare minimum.
And it does feel weirdlyself-congratulatory to have your

(01:58:01):
employees say, wow, it's so good thatyou didn't molest us in entertainment.
Especially when, and they acknowledgingthe video, they're like, wow.
Like a linchpin of our channel washaving hot girls be in the videos.
Yeah.
That he's like, but I didn't, I didn't
do anything bad to any of them.
Yeah.
It feels kind of weird.
I will say, I do wonder if it's just maybemaking fun of the fact that because of

(01:58:22):
the nature of the videos and the successthat like, you know, brought all the
views in, they have to credit the cleavagethumbnails that I think, and maybe I
feel like this too, people who maybearen't like, don't know him personally
or whatever, would kind of assume he'ssort of like a skeevy guy and that maybe
was his online reputation because he'sthe guy who owns the channel where it's

(01:58:44):
essentially like YouTube are hot cosplay,baddies type of, do you know what I mean?
Like if your channel is, everyvideo is, you're getting girls in
who have like big hos to like Yeah.
Right.
Show their bodies.
Doth protest too much.
Like yeah, bringing this up inthis context makes me think you
are more likely to be suspicious.

(01:59:05):
Yeah.
I, I think
it's like we don't, but, but I, maybethat was his, maybe that was his,
uh, his reputation on the internet.
'cause he does say in the commentsof the video, like he does go
back and just be like, thank youall full of love and support.
Like, I really appreciate allof you, all of the kindness
in these comments waters away.
Any like hurtful thing that's ever beensaid about me that's like ever happened
on the channel, which to me implies,and he does kind of brief reference

(01:59:27):
it, that people did not like him or hewas, you know, a target of potentially
people being like, he's creepy.
Which is a fair assumptionto make based on the channel.
I mean, you know, you tried to have yourcake and eat it too with the content.
Uh, but that's what happens whenyou, uh, spend a lot of your content
sexualizing women and being misogynistic.

(01:59:48):
That
is so swag.
And, uh, with that, let's just wrap up
legacy of the Key of War for me.
I have no Ill will I like, basically,I think Mark comes off pretty
well by the end of this series.
Mm. And it seems that the keyof Awesome were influential.

(02:00:09):
They're on the ground floor of a lot ofbig YouTube trends and they, Obama girl
video is legitimately, I think quitefunny and a piece of pop culture history.
Ironically, mark not involved in that one.
Uh, yeah.
Uh, but.
Like naturally, like them being acquiredand their network going to YouTube.
There's a lot of influence from that.
But from a content perspective, um, yeah,it left me a pretty cold to be honest.

(02:00:34):
He, he, like, there's over, I believea thousand videos on this channel.
Yeah.
And watching 99% of themwould be a very unfun time.
How did you feel?
Yeah, I, I had like, obviously abit of nostalgia goggles as I do for
many channels that we cover on thispodcast where I, I, you know, I have

(02:00:54):
memories of, you know, giggling withmy friends about music video parodies
being like, wow, that's so crazy.
'cause it's more explicitthan the actual music video.
Ha ha ha.
Um, but yeah, seeing it againas an adult woman, I'm like,
yep, this is aged pretty poorly.
Probably was never really very goodto begin with, if I'm being honest.

(02:01:17):
Um, we've already said a lot about whatwe think of the comedy stylings here.
Um, but I will say I think there isa real nice precedent and a highlight
in that I think it, it paid a lot ofcreative people to do something and to
support them in their livelihoods as theypursued greater things like going on to
be in Better Call Soul for two seasons.

(02:01:39):
Yeah.
Or going on to do like, Ithink Amber Obama Girl is now.
That's gonna be my subscribe.
So
Oh, oh, oh, oh, yes, yes, yes.
Okay.
Yeah.
But she's gone on to like,have a career in media.
I think she's been like a TV announceror a host, which makes sense.
Yep.
Um, 'cause she does lots of boxpop stuff for them for a while.
Um, so I think it served as a great,that channel did damage in the content.

(02:02:03):
It did, but the money it made, Ithink went to a good cause, which was
paying working creatives in New YorkCity to make it in the big smoke.
The big apple.
The big apple.
Hey, I'm walking here.
Hey, I'm walking here.
How you doing boy?
What are you subscribing to this week?
Ooh.
Can you go first?
'cause I don't, yes.
I'm subscribing to Amber Edinger,also known as Obama Girl's Instagram

(02:02:29):
because if you go through it, sheis now a mother and doing other fun
stuff, raising a family in New York.
But she will make memes and theiroriginal memes as far as I can tell.
And I'll just describe one for you guys.
It's her baby flying through the air.
I'll ask Superman.

(02:02:50):
Uh, with his eyes closed and the captionsjust when mommy hits you with the side
laying booby in the bed, the AC on.
Cool.
And the water lights for bedtime ambiance.
And I'm like, wow.
Yeah, that actually would be goaded.
Like, yeah, I wish I was that baby.
And I just haven't seen anyoneuse their, their children in
memes that are like good before.

(02:03:10):
So like, Obama girl was funny.
Obama girl still is funny.
Yeah.
If you're into niche, motherhood,memes and other things.
Uh, Chuck Or a follow
I think so many like, people whogo on to make content about their
children is always like, it's,it's, it's very much the same.
Like, yes, my baby's firstdate like a hundred percent.
Yeah.
And, uh, not a
convo to have it two hoursand five minutes though.

(02:03:31):
The ethics of children in content.
No,
no.
But I think it's funny to just do bitsabout your kids, uh, like breastfeeding.
Yeah.
It's like swag.
You're so right for that queen.
A hundred percent.
Yeah.
Take that agency back over those boobies.
Obama.
Girl.
Do you have a subscription?
Uh, it's all right
if you have none.
Coffee
Kofi.
Okay.

(02:03:52):
Yeah.
A little cappuccino
swag.
Um, okay, that is it forepisode 15 of rewind time.
Thank you for bearing with us fortwo hours of barely political.
We, I did not think this wasgonna be a two hour long.
Um, I know.
And we, there's that stuff we didn'teven cover, but let's not get into it.
I know.

(02:04:12):
Um, we will be back next week withanother episode of Rewind time.
Please like a video, leave a comment or a.What are the other engagement mechanisms?
Oh,
um, if you prefer for any reason.
Um, the video, did we say this last week?
The video's now on Spotify, so ifyou prefer to, well get a reminder.
Yes, do.

(02:04:32):
If you prefer to watch yourvideo content on Spotify, you're,
you're zoomer and you like
a video podcast like Lucy.
Yeah, but I watch mine on YouTube.
Yeah.
Because I'm like the true, oh, well maybe
Alpha's a video PO maybe knows Alpha.
Anyway, alpha videopodcast on Spotify point
is you can now watch the videoversion of this podcast both on
YouTube, but also on Spotify.
Um, and if you would like to get ashout out, like our King Brian at

(02:04:55):
the start of this video, please doleave a review and rate the podcast.
It is one of the best ways that youcan support us in terms of getting
it out there because we are noticingthat some of the comments and
reviews we're getting from people arepeople who don't know either of us.
Like they haven't come in throughour social media or, or knowing us.
They've come in because theyhave found the podcast and

(02:05:16):
are like, wow, this is niche.
Which it is, and are really enjoying it.
So, um, we hope to find moreof, uh, more of those people.
The, the rewinds as you started.
Yes.
Calling them the
rewinds.
Anyway, the rewinds, uh,let's leave it at that.
Thank you for listening andwe'll see you next week.
Bye.
Bye Ducky, you awesome.

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