August 18, 2025 • 40 mins
YouTuber J.J. McCullough discusses his path from TV pundit to 1M subscribers, independent vs. mainstream media, Canadian politics, anti-Americanism, Mark Carney, Pierre Poilievre, and the future of political commentary on YouTube with host Aaron Pete.
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J. J. McCullough (00:04):
I'm JJ McCullough.
I'm a professional YouTuber.
Prime Minister Carney, I think,ran on the most nakedly
anti-American platform You'vebuilt such a unique platform.
Aaron Pete (00:14):
Can you tell us those early nascent stages of
starting to find your own voice?
J. J. McCullough (00:19):
I didn't really grow up with YouTube in
the way that I think maybe somekids of your generation did.
Aaron Pete (00:24):
This was going to be the podcast year and this was
going to be the independentmedia year, but with all the
constraints, it seemed like theywere like let's just stick
status quo.
J. J. McCullough (00:31):
Obviously, Pierre has people in his caucus
and in his base that like Trumpand like America, and there is
no Canadian Joe Rogan right Likethere's just not a lot of
venues to have these kind ofinterviews when you see an issue
how do you go about figuringout the lens you want to bring
to it?
Aaron Pete (00:57):
JJ, thank you so much for being willing to join
us and come all the way out.
I'm so grateful to have youhere.
Would you mind first brieflyintroducing yourself?
J. J. McCullough (01:04):
Yeah, so I'm JJ McCullough.
I'm a professional YouTuber.
I've been doing it for about 10years.
I make videos about culture,countries, Canada.
Those are like my big three C's.
Aaron Pete (01:19):
Yeah, yeah.
So I'm curious you've builtsuch a unique platform.
Can you tell us those earlynascent stages of starting to
find your own voice?
J. J. McCullough (01:29):
Yeah, so before I got into YouTube, I was
sort of a TV pundit, apolitical commentator on
television.
I worked for CTV for many years.
I worked for Sun News, which isa network that your younger
viewers probably not even awareexisted.
But, yeah, it was thisshort-lived experiment and I was
a part of that, and the sunshut down very abruptly, you
(01:51):
know, because it was not makingany money.
They kind of had to pull theplug, and so I found myself very
abruptly out of work and I, youknow, I'm so I'm 41 and I
didn't really grow up withYouTube in the way that I think
maybe some kids of yourgeneration did, but I was kind
of dimly aware that this was aplatform that had some future.
(02:13):
So this was in 2015, and so Idecided to give it a shot.
I just went to the Best Buy andI bought a little camcorder and
I'm like maybe I can make myown videos in my own apartment
and just give this a try, andinitially it was very
experimental.
I wanted to see if I could makelike a video a week, and I was
able to do it, and then so,basically, I just kept doing
(02:34):
that for a very long time, andwhile I was doing that, you know
I had other gigs that I wasdoing on the side.
I was still doing a lot ofwriting, because that's my other
form of political commentarythat I've engaged in over the
years is writing for newspapersand magazines and things.
And so I was still doing that.
And you know, just kind ofgradually the channel grew.
I kept sticking to that weeklyschedule and the views sort of
(02:57):
gradually began to accumulate.
You know, I had a sort oflong-term view of what I was
doing.
I wasn't expecting immediatesuccess.
Long-term view of what I wasdoing.
I wasn't expecting immediatesuccess and I guess I didn't
need immediate success forfinancial reasons.
But yeah, I just kind ofendured.
And then a couple of years agoit became basically my full-time
job and I don't do anythingelse for money.
Now it's all YouTube and as wefilm this, I'm right on the
(03:21):
brink of hitting a million subs,or a million subscribers.
Yeah, 999,000.
Yeah, yeah.
So it's an awkward moment thatwe're taping this.
I'd love to be able to say Ijust passed a million subs.
But you know, presumablythat'll happen in the next
couple of days.
Aaron Pete (03:35):
Absolutely.
Can you take us back, evenmaybe before that?
What made you interested inpolitics and understanding world
events, Like I?
Really I was watching yourIsrael Hamas breakdown and kind
of what was going on and I justI really appreciated that it
wasn't kind of what we'rehearing from almost all
different kind of pundits.
(03:55):
It's there's normal positionsto take and you either adopt one
or the other.
You brought a really uniqueperspective to an important
issue and just helped usunderstand why and I just want
to go back to the very beginningwhat made you interested in
politics and then starting tofind your voice and share your
perspective?
J. J. McCullough (04:13):
Well, I remember when I was really young
I guess I didn't ever think Iwas going to be interested in
politics.
I came to politics in a kind oflike weird way because, like my
first sort of great love inlife has been like cartoons and
drawing cartoons.
I love to draw and initially Ithought I was going to be a
cartoonist and I was going to beinvolved in animation or making
video games or something likethat.
And then I kind of found myselfsort of seduced by political
(04:35):
cartoons, just because I thoughtthat they were just interesting
.
I liked the style.
And then, in order to sort ofunderstand what was going on in
political cartoons, I startedlearning more about politics in
order to become more literateand understand this kind of
cartoon that I was sort of drawnto and just kind of almost a
purely sort of aesthetic way.
And then this was when I wassort of in my final year of high
school, and then 9-11 happenedthat year when I was a senior in
(04:59):
high school, and then that justkind of seemed to really raise
the importance of politics in avery visible way.
And then I'm just kind of like,okay, maybe politics is the
most important thing, maybe it'snot the cartoons that matter so
much.
Maybe it's like politics issort of what really makes the
world go around, and I also justkind of felt stimulated by it,
like it felt like it was a realmof knowledge.
(05:21):
That was just very interestingto me, learning about all the
different governments of, youknow, canada and the different
provinces, and then thedifferent countries of the world
and their leaders, and howeverybody interacts with each
other and, and you know, and thedegree to which sort of
politics and political historysort of affects everything in
our, in our modern world, andthe degree to which that sort of
knowledge is taken for granted.
(05:42):
In order to be fully literate asa person, in order to
understand, you know, movies andliterature and all this other
kind of stuff, you have to havethis strong grounding and
political knowledge.
And I guess I've always beensomebody that's also just been
very drawn to the idea ofaccumulating knowledge,
accumulating facts and details.
And so, yeah, then I made adecision to sort of study
politics in college, which I did, and that's what I got my
(06:05):
degree in.
And then, yeah, when I was incollege, I was just, you know,
continued to be interested infollowing current events and
doing writing and all that sortof stuff.
And then eventually I decidedthat I wanted to be a
professional politicalcommentator.
I wanted to be somebody thatwrote and went on TV and I was
able to do that.
Aaron Pete (06:23):
So what was the experience of going down that
path?
Because I imagine you want tounderstand an issue.
You also want to add value tothe conversation that's taking
place and in a way that thatsparks other people's interest
and understanding of an issue.
So how did you start to developthat approach?
Because initially you're justreading and you're going, I'm
(06:45):
just taking in so much facts.
But, then to figure out whatyou're going to say about those
facts really, really matters,and it sounds like, with your
writing and with your ability tobe creative, you're taking
unique perspectives and I'm justcurious how did you end up kind
of developing that fundamentalunderstanding?
J. J. McCullough (07:00):
So I mean sometimes I think that one of
sort of the through lines thatI've had in my life when I've
been drawing or writing or goingon television or making YouTube
videos or doing interviews inthis sort of context, is I do
value sort of clarity ofcommunication.
I think that's why I was drawnto political cartoons as well,
(07:34):
because, you know, politicalcartoons use the language of
visual metaphor in order toexplain things they used to at
least.
These days there's not as manyof them, and the ones that exist
are much more sort of strideinto an ideological.
But at one time it's like, youknow, and people sort of rag on
this kind of stuff, but you know, at one time, like okay, you,
you represent the deficit aslike a big hole, and then
there's the donkey and theelephant and they're digging the
(07:55):
hole right.
It's like this kind of stuff isvery cheesy to some people, but
at the other hand, like it's avery effective way.
It's sort of communicating anabstract concept like the
deficit.
You can break it down, but whatis it equivalent to?
Okay, like a deficit is like ahole.
In a sense, You're diggingyourself into it.
Therefore, we can represent itvisually that way and it kind of
makes the concept moreaccessible to the reader.
(08:15):
And you know, that was somethingthat was compelling to me when
I looked at sort of politicalwriters that I liked.
It was those who did notpresume too much pre-existing
knowledge that were able to sortof break down the fundamentals
of the story in a way that wasnot condescending but was also
not inaccessible.
You know, I like that style ofwriting just in sort of terms of
like.
I like to read nonfiction booksthat are clearly written and
(08:40):
just kind of have a clear senseof like what is the gist of this
?
You know, sort of cut out allof the flowery sort of pompous
language and just kind of get tothe facts of the situation.
And that's kind of an attitudeI try to bring to my videos as
well.
You brought up theIsrael-Palestine video I made,
you know, a couple of years agoand I felt like there's already
so much people offering theirhot takes on that conflict one
(09:03):
way or another.
But you know, most people don'thave an interest in sort of
making videos or commentary onthat conflict.
That sort of takes the kind oflike the meta perspective.
And the meta perspective in myopinion, is not like what is the
entire history of this conflict?
You know, which plenty ofpeople made videos and essays on
.
(09:23):
But it's just like, why, of allthings in the world, why does
this conflict sort of fascinateus?
So why does it get people intothe streets in the way that so
many other conflicts around theworld don't?
Why do people get so emotionalabout it?
Why is there graffiti about it?
You know, I was walking aroundmy neighborhood this morning and
you know people have likestickers on lampposts and stuff.
It's like, what is it aboutthat?
And in that video, hopefully, Ibroke it down right, Not in a
(09:44):
way that was like overlyopinionated, but just sort of
saying like look, this is aconflict that fascinates and
obsesses us.
It has some very clearlyidentifiable factions that are
interested in it and thosefactions are, in turn,
interested in it for particularreasons that you know relate to,
you know, history and cultureand identity and all these sort
of complex topics.
So sometimes I think thatthat's kind of thing is what we
(10:08):
need the most of.
People get on my case becausethey wish I would make more
opinionated videos.
They're like well, JJ, just tellus what you think, and it's
like I have no problem sharingmy opinions on things, but I try
to ask myself, like what isneeded?
What do people need?
What kind of media do peopleneed?
What kind of media do youngpeople especially need from
somebody who's a bit older likeme and has this platform, has
(10:29):
this ability to reach a largeaudience, and I believe pretty
strongly that what they need istools to help them make them
more culturally literate so thatthey can navigate a world that
is so dense and complex ininformation and does take for
granted a lot of pre-existingknowledge, that is so dense and
complex in information and doestake for granted a lot of
pre-existing knowledge.
Hopefully I can help presentsome of that knowledge in an
easy, digestible, objective waythat can make them feel a little
(10:51):
bit more equipped to navigatethis complex world.
Aaron Pete (10:53):
That's exactly what I was so interested in
interviewing you about isbecause your ability to look at
a problem like that and then saywhat do people need, and have
that creative element of likeokay, what's missing from the
conversation in a Canadian or aU like?
We're not there and yet we'refascinated by a conflict going
on thousands and thousands ofkilometers away from us.
(11:14):
What's public that?
That is a unique characteristicI feel like you have.
Where does that creativity comefrom?
When you see an issue, how doyou go about figuring out the
lens you want to bring to?
J. J. McCullough (11:25):
it.
I guess it depends on the issue.
I mean, I do like to try tocome at it from the perspective
of like, like what I said before, like cultural literacy.
Like cultural literacy isbasically like a concept that,
like I said before, like inorder to sort of navigate our
complex world, there isknowledge that is taken for
granted, right.
It's like you kind of need thelittle, you know, the cheat
(11:47):
guide, the Coles notes, whateverthey used to call it right,
just the kind of thing to sortof bring you up to speed so that
you can sort of, at the veryleast, kind of like fake your
way through a conversation on itor read an article in the
newspaper and not be completelysort of caught off guard about
what's being talked about.
And so I do a lot of my videos.
I try to come at it from thatperspective.
Like I think, like I have akind of vision in my, in my mind
(12:09):
.
It's like, if I think of mytypical viewer, or even it's
maybe it's not my typical viewer, but somebody that I'm still
making my content in mind thiskind of like platonic ideal of a
certain kind of viewer that I'mmaking it for it's, like you
know, probably a younger guy whowants to know stuff about the
world but is maybe a littleintimidated by it and is tired
of only getting information fromvery opinionated, very biased
(12:32):
sources but, you know, stillwants to be able to navigate and
not be sort of seen as an idiotand not feel ignorant and
helpless.
And so it's just kind of likewell, here's all the knowledge
that the rest of us have already, here's the knowledge that we
take for granted that aneducated, literate person should
have.
And then can I present thosebits of sort of taken for
(12:54):
granted knowledge in a waythat's sort of accessible and
easily digestible, because it'sclearly explained and is
animated by a sense of conveyingwhat matters and leaving out
what doesn't, and I think that'ssomething that a lot of people
miss.
In the same way, like, sort oflike, if I'm drawing a picture
of somebody, if I'm drawing likea cartoon of you, a caricature
of you, right, I don't need todraw every single line of your
(13:15):
face in order to capture thelikeness.
Like, there's a few sort of keythings like your eyes and the
way your facial features areproportioned and your hair and
this kind of stuff, right, likeyou just get the few basic lines
down and you have a likenessright.
It's the same with when you'reconveying information there's a
lot that you have to leave aside, there's a lot that just
doesn't matter.
It might sort of feelflattering to you as a writer or
(13:37):
creator to include so muchdetail, in the same way that an
artist might believe he's made abetter picture if he draws
every single eyelash.
But I tend to not think that.
I think that knowing what toleave behind, knowing what to
focus on, that is the essence ofeffective, useful communication
.
Aaron Pete (13:52):
One of my beliefs is that we are right now a really
immature society and that we'restruggling with complex ideas,
and I think we're starting withindividuals like yourself and
the growth of independent media.
We're starting to be able tohave more complicated
conversations and to understandboth the facts but different
perspectives that are relevantwhen we're understanding an
(14:13):
issue.
But we still like.
Donald trump has always been aperson that's interested me
because I have so many peoplewho are much older than me go
like he's just a terrible like.
One person I know was like Ihope it rains on his birthday
yeah and I was just like that.
This person has too much controlover your life if you care
about how his birthday goes likethis is just.
This is a crazy thing to hearfrom a grown adult when I would
(14:36):
imagine a 13 year old might havethat type of opinion of like
screw that person.
I want my friend to have a badbirthday.
Like that seems, but we've.
We've had such a relaxedsociety for so long because we
haven't experienced thechallenges of great famine like
um, like the great depression,or a war like world war two,
where we really knew who thechief villain was and we were
(14:59):
able to understand that, that wewe haven't had maybe as strong
an understanding of challenginginstitutions while also being
able to understand that that wehaven't had maybe as strong an
understanding of challenginginstitutions while also being
able to trust institutions.
Because right now it seems likethere's a whole group of people
who have no faith ininstitutions, there's a whole
group of people who only trustinstitutions.
That we haven't had acomplicated understanding of
much of these issues.
(15:20):
And I'm wondering how doesindependent media kind of factor
into that from your perspective?
Because I hear one side beinglike these people aren't doing
fact checking, they're not beingas professional, and we know
that.
We know that people like JoeRogan aren't fact checking their
guests, but then, at the sametime, we also do need to just be
able to hear from individualslike the president of Iran and
understand what they're saying,even if you don't believe it,
(15:48):
even if you think they're lyingthroughout.
We need to be able to have that.
So I'm just as we watch likecorporate media start to fade
away.
What is the role of independentmedia, from your perspective,
in addressing a lot of thesecomplex political issues?
J. J. McCullough (15:55):
Well, I mean, I think it has to be more than
just giving hot takes based onsomebody else's reporting, right
?
I mean, that's something that Ifind very exhausting is that
there are a lot of these sort ofopinion, you know, pundits,
podcasters, influencers, who arevery ignorant, and they're sort
of almost wear their ignoranceon their sleeve.
It's like, oh, that's, isn'tthat charming, doesn't that make
(16:16):
me seem like a relatableeveryman?
But then all of their takes arejust informed by reporting that
someone else is doing, right.
So none of these people areactually doing on the ground
reporting, none of them aregoing to these conflict zones or
gathering facts or going to theWhite House press briefings or
whatever.
They're not informed by apursuit of truth, they're just
sort of informed by making asort of content that's very
(16:37):
dopaminergic, that's very sortof satisfying because it's
entertaining, right, it playsinto our desire to see sort of
entertaining media that has someaspect of conflict, that has
compelling characters,compelling personalities and
that sort of thing.
And I think that independentmedia has to be aware of that
temptation to produce stuff thatjust only delights the audience
(17:00):
in that very sort ofsuperficial way, and I think
that we have to be much moreappreciative of the many, many
things that you know corporatemedia or mainstream media or
whatever you want to call itprovides, which is that they are
still doing the vast, vast,vast majority of the hard news
reporting.
That is, like you know, thekind of the essence, the
(17:23):
mother's milk of punditry andall the rest of it.
You can't have one without theother.
And yet in independent medianow, you just see nothing but
scorn and derision heaped uponthe mainstream medias if they
offer nothing of redeeming, useor value at all.
And I just see no sign thatalternative media people are
interested in actually replacingthat which is best about the
(17:48):
mainstream press.
They only sort of conceptualizemainstream press based on this
kind of like narrow criteria ofideological bias.
So it's like because themainstream media is biased in
this way, or because you knowtheir editorial page has an ax
to grind, or because they don'tsort of present every story
perfectly in line with how Iwould like the facts of that
(18:09):
story to be reported.
Therefore they're justcompletely useless and we should
toss them out altogether.
And I'm just getting reallysort of tired of seeing that
narrative perpetuated, becausethen I think what happens and I
think a lot about young peopleespecially is.
I think that young people aresort of fed a very steady diet
of mainstream media sucks.
Mainstream media sucks, don'tlisten to it, don't care, it's
(18:29):
biased, it's terrible, blah,blah, blah, blah, blah.
And then so, as a result, youngpeople think that they're being
informed by just listening to afew like dopey podcasts and you
know, youtube channels andstuff like that, and I think
that that just leads to, I don'tknow, an increasingly sort of
ignorant society, you know, inwhich we're just not literate on
(18:49):
the things that that mattermost, and so, as a result, our
ability to sort of conceptualizeour place in the world and deal
with the challenges that facethe world whether it's problems
in the Middle East or, you know,covid, or things to do with the
economy or whatever, like,they're all just informed by
just like ignorant, halfinformed opinions based on
nothing other than, you know,the entertainment value of the
(19:14):
of the shows and things thatwe're watching.
Aaron Pete (19:16):
The other piece I wanted to get your understanding
on, because I feel like I'mtrying my best to walk this line
and I imagine you've had tocross this as well is audience
capture, and one of thechallenges I see now is I don't
want to avoid toughconversations, and so I'm having
more tough conversations, likeI had Candice Malcolm on from
True North Media and we had areally good debate on Indian
(19:41):
residential school denialism andwhat that means and what her
book is about.
And now I'm getting pushbackfrom a lot of listeners saying
I'm platforming too many rightwing people and but I don't want
to just hear one side of thestory, and so I'm trying to make
sure I walk that line and getan understanding of issues,
while not picking one side orthe other, but trying to go
(20:01):
where I don't understandsomething.
J. J. McCullough (20:03):
And you feel like you're more informed now of
like what animates somebodylike Candace Owens or not.
Aaron Pete (20:09):
Candace Owens, candace Malcolm yes, I do, and I
think what it showed me was atleast there was good faith of
her asking, like I've neverlived on a reserve Can you tell
me about what's going on there?
I've never been in a chief andcouncil meeting Like there was a
willingness to receiveinformation and she was honest.
(20:29):
That, like this, isn'tsomething I'm like immersed in,
but her point was well taken.
And again, I've interviewedmultiple chiefs who feel very
uncomfortable, admitting thefact that Tecumloops has not
removed bodies, They've notshown bones of children, and so
that's not to say that they haveto.
But you made a really bold claimand now people are asking for
the evidence and it's making youuncomfortable.
So we have to have acomplicated conversation, and
(20:51):
the reason that I was willing toparticipate in that was because
my fear is that individualslike Dallas Brody are starting
to be animated by the fact thatthere's not evidence and there's
a growing group of people whoare like I'm sick and tired of
hearing about First Nationsissues and I'm alive to the fact
that that group can grow andour time of reconciliation can
come to a close if we're notresponsible with having people
(21:13):
respect and understand theissues we're facing, and so
that's why I was willing toengage with that.
But I'm just mindful of tryingto figure out how I don't get
captured by one side or theother side of the argument and
I'm just curious how you digestthat.
I'm sure there's issues where,as you said, some of your
audience wants you to take aposition or say something.
J. J. McCullough (21:30):
How do you navigate that?
It's hard, I mean.
I guess on some level you haveto be willing to make sacrifices
, right, and, you know, animatedby a desire to bring useful
(21:56):
information to the audience, notjust entertaining.
Dopamine hits all the time,right.
But you know at the same time,right, it's like it's in the
same way, what sells better.
You know Coca-Cola, or you knownutritious, you know health
drinks or whatever, right, likepeople want what they want, and
that's fine.
You kind of have to resignyourself to.
You might never be assuccessful as the most
(22:17):
entertaining product out there,right, and that's fine.
But it's a challenge though,because I think the problem is
that sometimes people try towalk that line a little too
delicately and then they wind upproducing something that has no
audience at all, because itstarts to feel, you know, kind
of overly timid and overlycalculated and overly sort of
(22:39):
moderated and that kind of stuff.
And because you know, like Iguess, one thing that I say a
lot is, I try to be objective inmy content, right, I am biased,
as anybody is, in the sensethat I have opinions and I have
preferences and all of that, andI could, I have the capacity to
make very biased contentbecause I'm clever enough to
know how to do such a thing.
But at the same time, I like tothink that because I have
(23:00):
biases, because I have strongopinions, I also have the
capacity to put to knowingly putthose biases aside and try to
create content that is objective, to knowingly put those biases
aside and try to create contentthat is objective.
And I think that that's a verychallenging thing, because
biased people can often like, ifyou're biased because you're
sort of biased in a clever way,as opposed to being biased like
unknowingly because you're justignorant, but if you're biased
in a clever way, you have a sortof sense where it's like I have
(23:22):
a sort of propagandistic kindof power.
I can mold my impressionableaudience to think like I think
right of power.
I can mold my impressionableaudience to think like I think
right.
And I think it requires a lotof humility to turn off that
side of your brain to sort ofsay like I'm going to choose not
to use those powers that I haveand I'm instead going to try to
serve some larger goal that isbigger than just the ideological
objective or the partisanobjective that I might like to
(23:43):
see, which is to believe thatthere is some sort of net
positive to be gained from apublic that is just more
informed and just has a greatercommand of facts.
And you know, it doesn't evenhave to sort of put your own
ideological goals asidecompletely, because if you
believe that your position hasthe facts on your side, then why
not just present the facts asthey are right?
(24:04):
Like I have my feelings on theIsrael-Palestine thing, but I
also have a sort of sense thatyou know the facts of the
conflict, in terms of theconflict as it manifests in a
sort of like cultural way in21st century Canada, not in the
you know the war zone itself.
Like if you just kind ofdescribe those situations, you
know people can decide forthemselves what side is they
(24:24):
find is more persuasive.
You know, I don't try to leadpeople to one conclusion, but
you know, I think that when youpresent the facts objectively
maybe one side does look moresympathetic to the other.
But you know, people might thatmight just be my own biases
talking and when I present thefacts objectively some people
might reach a differentconclusion than I did.
But yeah, you just you kind ofhave to, I suppose, just have
(24:47):
faith that.
You know, I don't know.
Objectivity is important andobjectivity requires a bit of
humility, and it's just.
It's strange to me that peopleare so insecure that they can't
just tell the truth.
Right, and that's the otherthing I do try to strive for.
As well as long withobjectivity is, like you know,
(25:09):
just be truthful.
Don't leave important things offto the side because, like, if
you can handle knowing thosethings and they don't sort of
steer you into a differentdirection, then clearly your
audience is probably matureenough to handle the complicated
facts that are uncomfortable.
You know, you gave a goodexample right where you're
talking about you.
You know the, the indigenousresidential schools and that I'm
(25:31):
sure it's an issue that youfeel strongly about and a lot of
people in your community do aswell, and it's like, but you can
handle that.
There's nuance to it, right,like it's not, it's not a
completely simple topic.
There are complicated anduncomfortable details about that
, uh, on the side of ofindigenous rights activists, and
I think that they have to beable to own up to those and not
(25:51):
just try to hide them or massagethem or get overly indignant
and offended at people likeCandace Malcolm who bring them
up.
Aaron Pete (25:57):
Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
Just out of curiosity and thisis the last one on just YouTube
and independent media, I'm justcurious what is the thing you
enjoy most about a YouTubechannel?
Because a lot of people see thevideo and they watch it.
They don't realize the workthat goes into the description
and the thumbnail and how youpromote it and all of those
things.
What do you enjoy most aboutsome of those behind the scenes
(26:20):
efforts?
J. J. McCullough (26:20):
That's a good question.
I've been doing it so long andit is starting to feel like a
little, a little stressfulsometimes Cause it.
I mean it is, it's my job, andso it feels like like work.
It's something I get out of bedin the morning and it's like,
ok, I got to spend all day doingthis, so I mean it's the best
job I've ever had.
But at the same time, you know,work is work.
So I like writing the best.
(26:40):
I like coming up with ideas.
That's probably like the mostsatisfying part is like when I
feel like I have an idea.
And then there's this sort oflike initial phase where, like,
the idea is very stimulating.
I like that I can do drawingsfor my videos.
I mean that's a way I can stillenjoy this.
One part of my life that hasotherwise been kind of cast by
the wayside is I can doillustrations for my own videos,
and that can be a lot of fun.
(27:01):
Yeah, yeah, and I still likewriting.
I mean like that's why YouTubehas been such a good job for me,
because it combines many, manyjust different lifelong passions
.
Right, like I like to learn, Ilike to write.
I like to do visual kind ofstuff.
Right, I like to be on camera, Ilike to make content that other
(27:21):
people can enjoy and consume.
So it's it's really like if anda lot of other YouTubers like my
YouTuber buddies they havetalented music.
I have no talent at music, but alot of YouTubers do have a sort
of a hidden skill at makingsongs or or you're composing
music and all that and so likethat's something that they get
to exercise as well.
So it's the sheer sort ofmultimedia dimension of it,
(27:45):
cause I do it all myself andactually a lot of YouTubers have
, like this cast of thousandsthat helps them edit the video,
that does the music and does thegraphics and all that.
But I do it all myself and andI actually find it strange that
some people would not want to doit all themselves, right, I
mean, it's obviously very timeconsuming and, like I said, it
becomes a bit of a slogsometimes.
(28:07):
But, on the other hand, like Iwould never want to give up all
of these kind of stimulating andsort of creative and visual and
kind of hands on aspects ofmaking something, as opposed to
just doing like one very smallpart, which I do think would
become pretty soul crushingafter a while.
Aaron Pete (28:24):
Right, we had an election recently.
What are your big takeawaysfrom the 2025 election?
J. J. McCullough (28:30):
That's a good question.
There's a lot of things to takeaway from it.
I guess I mean one thing isthat I mean anti-Americanism is
still, I think, sort of thedefault position of many
Canadians.
It's a very powerful, veryanimating force in contemporary
Canadian culture and politics,particularly among older
(28:51):
Canadians, and that is, I think,one of the biggest differences
between American politicalculture and Canadian political
culture, is just how strong asort of like progressive boomer
anti-Americanism is as a sort offorce in Canadian politics.
And Prime Minister Carney, Ithink, ran on the most nakedly
anti-American platform that Ihave witnessed in my lifetime.
(29:15):
And again, like you know to beobjective about this, obviously
it's because Donald Trump isterrible and belligerent and you
know all the rest of it, butit's also because Donald Trump
personifies like an anxiety thatpre-exists in Canadian culture
and Canadian society is thatthere are a lot of you know,
(29:37):
especially older progressivevoters, voters who traditionally
vote liberal, who do kind ofhate and fear America and
liberal governments.
I think Prime Minister Trudeauwas good in the sense that he
chose not to kind of likeactivate that anxiety.
I mean, perhaps you could arguethere wasn't really any reason
(29:57):
for him to do it because Trumpbehaved differently in the first
term than he has in the secondterm, but Carney was in many
ways given the perfect foil inorder to activate this kind of
like latent anxiety and passionand sense of patriotism that
exists in sort of like themiddle aged, middle class of
this country and get them tovote.
And so he, you know, was ableto activate that and rise to
(30:19):
where he is now.
And Pierre Polyev, as the headof the conservatives, which is
the more sort of pro-Americanfaction of this country, head of
the conservatives, which is themore sort of pro-American
faction of this country.
Obviously, Pierre has people inhis caucus and in his base that
like Trump and like America andso being anti-American in a way
that's probably necessary didnot come naturally to him, and I
think that that was really, inmany ways, the big sort of story
(30:41):
of the election.
It was not an election aboutpolicy, it was an election about
fear, and fear of the other andfear of this force, the US,
that Canada has always gainedits sort of sense of identity in
opposition to and yeah, as longas sort of Trump is on the
(31:02):
scene and as long as Trump ishas these sort of mad ideas of,
you know, tariffs and traderelationships.
As long as Trump has these sortof mad ideas of tariffs and
trade relationships, as long ashe continues to have that kind
of stuff, I think that theLiberal Party seems like it's
going to be in a pretty goodposition, because the hope on
Pierre's side was that theLiberal Party had become so
unpopular that Trump's stuff wasgoing to take a sort of second
(31:27):
you know spot to.
You know dealing with theeconomy and all the rest of it,
and that was clearly not thecase.
Even a man as popular as PierrePolyev, the most popular and
successful conservative leaderin like 30 years, wasn't enough
right.
The appeal to anti-Americanism,the fear of America, the fear
of American conquest andtakeover and like grotesque
(31:48):
Republican style politics comingto Canada, that is ultimately a
much, much stronger force thananything else.
Aaron Pete (31:54):
Interesting.
The piece that I had a hugecriticism on in regards to the
election was the length of theelection period.
36 days is not a lot of timefor people to get educated on a
new leader, on understanding allof these dynamics.
Two platforms came out like 10days before the election day.
I wasn't a fan of that.
But then we also saw a stepback from independent media and
(32:16):
I had made a prediction in 2025,in January, that this was going
to be the podcast year and thiswas going to be the independent
media year that we were goingto see, because in BC I had the
opportunity to interview DavidEby and all of the other
provincial leaders and they hadreally stepped into that world
and I thought we were going tosee the same federally, but with
all the constraints, it seemedlike they were like let's just
(32:38):
stick status quo, let's hold toour guns, and I noticed you had
made comments about that.
Can you just reflect on theimportance of hearing from our
politicians in different waysduring the election?
J. J. McCullough (32:47):
Yeah, can you just reflect on the importance
of hearing from our politiciansin different ways during the
election?
Yeah, I mean, I had had thiswhole sort of dream worked out
where it's like I was going toget Pierre and I was going to
get Jagmeet and I was going toget maybe even Prime Minister
Carney himself go on my show,and like I had a whole set set
up and like I really thought Iwas going to be able to do that
because I had a goodrelationship with Pierre.
I'd had him on my channel oncebefore, a much shorter interview
(33:08):
, but I thought we could do asubstantial sort of sit down
Because, again, like we all sortof consume the same
conventional wisdom.
After Trump got back in right,it was like, oh, it's because he
went on Joe Rogan and the MilkBoys and all these other things,
and like clearly the world haschanged and new media is where
it's at and any politician thatdoesn't, you know, go on 100
podcasts is going to be left inthe dust.
Right, it's such a direct lineto the voters.
(33:28):
But Canadian politics is justdifferent.
Like Canadian politics is justincredibly risk averse.
Like the hierarchies that runthe Canadian political parties
are terrified of being in anysituation where everything is
not 100% under their control.
So it's like Pierre did acouple of interviews and so did
Carney and maybe even Jagmeetdid.
I didn't really notice it.
So it's like Pierre did acouple of interviews and so did
Carney and maybe even Jagmeetdid.
(33:49):
I didn't really notice it, butit's like if they did, it was
like with the safest of safe,most partisan or most like
innocuous, politically ignorantpeople possible, because the
last thing they wanted was anydifficult conversations, any
difficult questions, anythingthat was get them off their
talking points for even onesecond right.
And that just was verydepressing to me, because
(34:14):
Canadian politics alreadysuffers from.
I think and this is, I think, agrowing problem with Canadian
politics is that it just doesn'tseem relevant or coherent or
accessible to a lot of people, alot of young people especially.
They don't get a sense thatthese politicians are people
that kind of really understandtheir problems or understand the
country as it actually exists,that they're sort of off in
their little Ottawa bubble.
And I think that rougher, moreunscripted conversations with
(34:37):
people that are curious aboutthings that maybe the mainstream
sort of Canadian politicaldiscourse doesn't center on
enough would have been veryuseful and yet they chose not to
do that.
But you know, I mean what do Iknow?
I mean, you know both Pierreand Carney did as well as any
liberal or conservative leaderhave done in decades.
(34:58):
So maybe the Canadian peopledon't actually care that much
about this.
Maybe this is a fixation thatpeople like you and me, who
actually run these shows andwant to get you know things that
bathe ourselves in glory andattention Like.
I don't know, and that's alwayssomething that we have to think
about as well is to what extentare conversations about the
media being driven by the media,who are obviously not an
(35:19):
objective observer of media?
Aaron Pete (35:23):
you know trends and the cultural trends that the
media relates to, so I guess Iwould just bet that we're not
moving in the right direction interms of our spending, in terms
of our housing crisis in termsof our health care.
So it's clear, like to me I havea lot of confidence in both of
us that we are good faith actorsthat I was more like I wanted
those interviews just as much asI'm sure you did, but I would
(35:44):
have been more than happy if youhad have gotten it and I was
never heard from again and Ishut this whole thing down
because I knew that I likeconsuming interviews like the
one you were describing, and Isaw pierre pauliev go on candace
malcolm's show and I felt likethat was very like, I'm sure,
for her and his base.
That was very gratifying to me.
It was like of course you'regonna ask that question, of
course you're gonna ask thatquestion, like of course there's
(36:05):
not gonna be any deviation fromthe talking points that you
want to hear.
J. J. McCullough (36:10):
And so I was disappointed by that I will say,
though, as well, that there isalso a problem that there's just
not a lot in canada like shows,like there is no canadian uh
joe rogan, right, like there'sjust not a lot of uh uh like
venues to have these kind ofinterviews, which I think, is
that's why I thought I would besitting pretty, because, like,
(36:31):
I'm the most popular likeindependent canadian commentary
channel on youtube, right, andso I thought that you know, as
being the canada guy, that itwould be logical that they would
go on my show, but you know,clearly, they they didn't, and
there isn't.
There's just, there's just nota lot of sort of spaces, I guess
, from like a purely sort ofstrategic perspective.
Like they didn't go just on JoeRogan just because Joe Rogan is
(36:53):
, like you know, unvarnished andan everyman who asks the
questions that the average Joewants to hear.
It's also because you know hehas a huge audience where you
can take it for granted thatmillions of people will watch,
and a lot of these sort ofsmaller YouTube channels or what
, or even me, right Like it'syou can't necessarily take it
for granted that that would getmore eyeballs than just, you
(37:14):
know posting something onTwitter or Instagram or
something, right.
Aaron Pete (37:17):
Right.
Can you tell people how theycan follow along with your work?
J. J. McCullough (37:21):
Uh yeah, if you just type JJ McCullough into
YouTube or because I'm such abig shot now you can just type
in JJ Canada and it'll usuallypop up McCullough into YouTube.
Or because I'm such a big shotnow, you can just type in JJ
Canada and it'll usually pop upMcCullough is hard to spell, so
if people just type JJ Canada,they'll probably see me on
YouTube.
Aaron Pete (37:35):
Perfect, and what can they expect in the coming
months?
J. J. McCullough (37:37):
In the coming months I don't know.
I'm actually because I'm nowjust passing a million
subscribers and I've been doingit for 10 years I'm starting to
just kind of like think a littlebit more about the kind of
videos I want to make.
Do I want to keep making aweekly video?
Like I tend to make like aweekly 20 minute video, and I've
been doing that for a long time.
But now I'm starting to get alittle jealous of these creators
(37:58):
that take a little bit moretime but make much longer videos
.
You know, it might take threeweeks to make like an hour long
video, and so in the coming yearI'm thinking a lot about that
right, like I have someambitious ideas of videos I want
to make that are like an houror maybe even two hours, and
just really get deep into atopic that I care a lot about,
(38:18):
which is often cultural history.
That's the kind of stuff I likethe most.
Maybe some like political kindof explainer sort of things,
some contentious topics.
Maybe I'll do like I did withthe Israel-Palestine thing, I
don't know, but I'm definitely.
I'm trying to motivate myselfto be a little bit more
experimental and creative,because when you've been doing
anything for 10 years.
It's easy to get sort ofstagnant and complacent, and you
(38:41):
see that a lot on YouTube.
There's channels that have beengoing on for a very long time,
and then they start to fall offbecause the content gets
repetitive and overly familiar.
And, much like the politicians,people become very risk averse,
right, like they're not willingto put their neck out and try
something new and deal with thepossibility that it might fail
or it might flop.
(39:01):
So instead they try to go withthe sure thing, but the converse
of that is that the sure thingcan sometimes get boring and
unexciting, right.
There's a reason why, you know,television shows don't tend to
last for 10 years.
People get sick of them andthey get canceled.
So you have to have that samekind of spirit.
If I'm going to be doing thisfor, you know, however, another
10 years, it's probably going tohave to have some sense of life
(39:23):
in it.
Aaron Pete (39:23):
So Well, I appreciate you for being willing
to come out.
I am a huge admirer of yourwork and your decision to remain
nuanced, to take differentperspectives, to try and break
things down for people, becauseI think you're right, that is
what people need.
During the last electionprovincially that's the feedback
I got was like I just want tolisten to somebody explain their
(39:44):
thoughts.
I can decide for myself ifthey're right, wrong, left,
right, whatever I want.
And you're doing a lot of thatwork and it's just.
It's an honor to have someonelike yourself be able to come on
the show, because there's a lotof work that went into where
you are today and you're sharingthat opportunity with me today.
So thank you so much.
J. J. McCullough (39:59):
Thank you so much for having me.
It was awesome, perfect.
Thank you.
I'm JJ McCullough.
I'm a professional YouTuber.
Prime Minister Carney, I think,ran on the most nakedly
anti-American platform You'vebuilt such a unique platform.
Aaron Pete (00:14):
Can you tell us those early nascent stages of
starting to find your own voice?
J. J. McCullough (00:19):
I didn't really grow up with YouTube in
the way that I think maybe somekids of your generation did.
Aaron Pete (00:24):
This was going to be the podcast year and this was
going to be the independentmedia year, but with all the
constraints, it seemed like theywere like let's just stick
status quo.
J. J. McCullough (00:31):
Obviously, Pierre has people in his caucus
and in his base that like Trumpand like America, and there is
no Canadian Joe Rogan right Likethere's just not a lot of
venues to have these kind ofinterviews when you see an issue
how do you go about figuringout the lens you want to bring
to it?
Aaron Pete (00:57):
JJ, thank you so much for being willing to join
us and come all the way out.
I'm so grateful to have youhere.
Would you mind first brieflyintroducing yourself?
J. J. McCullough (01:04):
Yeah, so I'm JJ McCullough.
I'm a professional YouTuber.
I've been doing it for about 10years.
I make videos about culture,countries, Canada.
Those are like my big three C's.
Aaron Pete (01:19):
Yeah, yeah.
So I'm curious you've builtsuch a unique platform.
Can you tell us those earlynascent stages of starting to
find your own voice?
J. J. McCullough (01:29):
Yeah, so before I got into YouTube, I was
sort of a TV pundit, apolitical commentator on
television.
I worked for CTV for many years.
I worked for Sun News, which isa network that your younger
viewers probably not even awareexisted.
But, yeah, it was thisshort-lived experiment and I was
a part of that, and the sunshut down very abruptly, you
(01:51):
know, because it was not makingany money.
They kind of had to pull theplug, and so I found myself very
abruptly out of work and I, youknow, I'm so I'm 41 and I
didn't really grow up withYouTube in the way that I think
maybe some kids of yourgeneration did, but I was kind
of dimly aware that this was aplatform that had some future.
(02:13):
So this was in 2015, and so Idecided to give it a shot.
I just went to the Best Buy andI bought a little camcorder and
I'm like maybe I can make myown videos in my own apartment
and just give this a try, andinitially it was very
experimental.
I wanted to see if I could makelike a video a week, and I was
able to do it, and then so,basically, I just kept doing
(02:34):
that for a very long time, andwhile I was doing that, you know
I had other gigs that I wasdoing on the side.
I was still doing a lot ofwriting, because that's my other
form of political commentarythat I've engaged in over the
years is writing for newspapersand magazines and things.
And so I was still doing that.
And you know, just kind ofgradually the channel grew.
I kept sticking to that weeklyschedule and the views sort of
(02:57):
gradually began to accumulate.
You know, I had a sort oflong-term view of what I was
doing.
I wasn't expecting immediatesuccess.
Long-term view of what I wasdoing.
I wasn't expecting immediatesuccess and I guess I didn't
need immediate success forfinancial reasons.
But yeah, I just kind ofendured.
And then a couple of years agoit became basically my full-time
job and I don't do anythingelse for money.
Now it's all YouTube and as wefilm this, I'm right on the
(03:21):
brink of hitting a million subs,or a million subscribers.
Yeah, 999,000.
Yeah, yeah.
So it's an awkward moment thatwe're taping this.
I'd love to be able to say Ijust passed a million subs.
But you know, presumablythat'll happen in the next
couple of days.
Aaron Pete (03:35):
Absolutely.
Can you take us back, evenmaybe before that?
What made you interested inpolitics and understanding world
events, Like I?
Really I was watching yourIsrael Hamas breakdown and kind
of what was going on and I justI really appreciated that it
wasn't kind of what we'rehearing from almost all
different kind of pundits.
(03:55):
It's there's normal positionsto take and you either adopt one
or the other.
You brought a really uniqueperspective to an important
issue and just helped usunderstand why and I just want
to go back to the very beginningwhat made you interested in
politics and then starting tofind your voice and share your
perspective?
J. J. McCullough (04:13):
Well, I remember when I was really young
I guess I didn't ever think Iwas going to be interested in
politics.
I came to politics in a kind oflike weird way because, like my
first sort of great love inlife has been like cartoons and
drawing cartoons.
I love to draw and initially Ithought I was going to be a
cartoonist and I was going to beinvolved in animation or making
video games or something likethat.
And then I kind of found myselfsort of seduced by political
(04:35):
cartoons, just because I thoughtthat they were just interesting
.
I liked the style.
And then, in order to sort ofunderstand what was going on in
political cartoons, I startedlearning more about politics in
order to become more literateand understand this kind of
cartoon that I was sort of drawnto and just kind of almost a
purely sort of aesthetic way.
And then this was when I wassort of in my final year of high
school, and then 9-11 happenedthat year when I was a senior in
(04:59):
high school, and then that justkind of seemed to really raise
the importance of politics in avery visible way.
And then I'm just kind of like,okay, maybe politics is the
most important thing, maybe it'snot the cartoons that matter so
much.
Maybe it's like politics issort of what really makes the
world go around, and I also justkind of felt stimulated by it,
like it felt like it was a realmof knowledge.
(05:21):
That was just very interestingto me, learning about all the
different governments of, youknow, canada and the different
provinces, and then thedifferent countries of the world
and their leaders, and howeverybody interacts with each
other and, and you know, and thedegree to which sort of
politics and political historysort of affects everything in
our, in our modern world, andthe degree to which that sort of
knowledge is taken for granted.
(05:42):
In order to be fully literate asa person, in order to
understand, you know, movies andliterature and all this other
kind of stuff, you have to havethis strong grounding and
political knowledge.
And I guess I've always beensomebody that's also just been
very drawn to the idea ofaccumulating knowledge,
accumulating facts and details.
And so, yeah, then I made adecision to sort of study
politics in college, which I did, and that's what I got my
(06:05):
degree in.
And then, yeah, when I was incollege, I was just, you know,
continued to be interested infollowing current events and
doing writing and all that sortof stuff.
And then eventually I decidedthat I wanted to be a
professional politicalcommentator.
I wanted to be somebody thatwrote and went on TV and I was
able to do that.
Aaron Pete (06:23):
So what was the experience of going down that
path?
Because I imagine you want tounderstand an issue.
You also want to add value tothe conversation that's taking
place and in a way that thatsparks other people's interest
and understanding of an issue.
So how did you start to developthat approach?
Because initially you're justreading and you're going, I'm
(06:45):
just taking in so much facts.
But, then to figure out whatyou're going to say about those
facts really, really matters,and it sounds like, with your
writing and with your ability tobe creative, you're taking
unique perspectives and I'm justcurious how did you end up kind
of developing that fundamentalunderstanding?
J. J. McCullough (07:00):
So I mean sometimes I think that one of
sort of the through lines thatI've had in my life when I've
been drawing or writing or goingon television or making YouTube
videos or doing interviews inthis sort of context, is I do
value sort of clarity ofcommunication.
I think that's why I was drawnto political cartoons as well,
(07:34):
because, you know, politicalcartoons use the language of
visual metaphor in order toexplain things they used to at
least.
These days there's not as manyof them, and the ones that exist
are much more sort of strideinto an ideological.
But at one time it's like, youknow, and people sort of rag on
this kind of stuff, but you know, at one time, like okay, you,
you represent the deficit aslike a big hole, and then
there's the donkey and theelephant and they're digging the
(07:55):
hole right.
It's like this kind of stuff isvery cheesy to some people, but
at the other hand, like it's avery effective way.
It's sort of communicating anabstract concept like the
deficit.
You can break it down, but whatis it equivalent to?
Okay, like a deficit is like ahole.
In a sense, You're diggingyourself into it.
Therefore, we can represent itvisually that way and it kind of
makes the concept moreaccessible to the reader.
(08:15):
And you know, that was somethingthat was compelling to me when
I looked at sort of politicalwriters that I liked.
It was those who did notpresume too much pre-existing
knowledge that were able to sortof break down the fundamentals
of the story in a way that wasnot condescending but was also
not inaccessible.
You know, I like that style ofwriting just in sort of terms of
like.
I like to read nonfiction booksthat are clearly written and
(08:40):
just kind of have a clear senseof like what is the gist of this
?
You know, sort of cut out allof the flowery sort of pompous
language and just kind of get tothe facts of the situation.
And that's kind of an attitudeI try to bring to my videos as
well.
You brought up theIsrael-Palestine video I made,
you know, a couple of years agoand I felt like there's already
so much people offering theirhot takes on that conflict one
(09:03):
way or another.
But you know, most people don'thave an interest in sort of
making videos or commentary onthat conflict.
That sort of takes the kind oflike the meta perspective.
And the meta perspective in myopinion, is not like what is the
entire history of this conflict?
You know, which plenty ofpeople made videos and essays on
.
(09:23):
But it's just like, why, of allthings in the world, why does
this conflict sort of fascinateus?
So why does it get people intothe streets in the way that so
many other conflicts around theworld don't?
Why do people get so emotionalabout it?
Why is there graffiti about it?
You know, I was walking aroundmy neighborhood this morning and
you know people have likestickers on lampposts and stuff.
It's like, what is it aboutthat?
And in that video, hopefully, Ibroke it down right, Not in a
(09:44):
way that was like overlyopinionated, but just sort of
saying like look, this is aconflict that fascinates and
obsesses us.
It has some very clearlyidentifiable factions that are
interested in it and thosefactions are, in turn,
interested in it for particularreasons that you know relate to,
you know, history and cultureand identity and all these sort
of complex topics.
So sometimes I think thatthat's kind of thing is what we
(10:08):
need the most of.
People get on my case becausethey wish I would make more
opinionated videos.
They're like well, JJ, just tellus what you think, and it's
like I have no problem sharingmy opinions on things, but I try
to ask myself, like what isneeded?
What do people need?
What kind of media do peopleneed?
What kind of media do youngpeople especially need from
somebody who's a bit older likeme and has this platform, has
(10:29):
this ability to reach a largeaudience, and I believe pretty
strongly that what they need istools to help them make them
more culturally literate so thatthey can navigate a world that
is so dense and complex ininformation and does take for
granted a lot of pre-existingknowledge, that is so dense and
complex in information and doestake for granted a lot of
pre-existing knowledge.
Hopefully I can help presentsome of that knowledge in an
easy, digestible, objective waythat can make them feel a little
(10:51):
bit more equipped to navigatethis complex world.
Aaron Pete (10:53):
That's exactly what I was so interested in
interviewing you about isbecause your ability to look at
a problem like that and then saywhat do people need, and have
that creative element of likeokay, what's missing from the
conversation in a Canadian or aU like?
We're not there and yet we'refascinated by a conflict going
on thousands and thousands ofkilometers away from us.
(11:14):
What's public that?
That is a unique characteristicI feel like you have.
Where does that creativity comefrom?
When you see an issue, how doyou go about figuring out the
lens you want to bring to?
J. J. McCullough (11:25):
it.
I guess it depends on the issue.
I mean, I do like to try tocome at it from the perspective
of like, like what I said before, like cultural literacy.
Like cultural literacy isbasically like a concept that,
like I said before, like inorder to sort of navigate our
complex world, there isknowledge that is taken for
granted, right.
It's like you kind of need thelittle, you know, the cheat
(11:47):
guide, the Coles notes, whateverthey used to call it right,
just the kind of thing to sortof bring you up to speed so that
you can sort of, at the veryleast, kind of like fake your
way through a conversation on itor read an article in the
newspaper and not be completelysort of caught off guard about
what's being talked about.
And so I do a lot of my videos.
I try to come at it from thatperspective.
Like I think, like I have akind of vision in my, in my mind
(12:09):
.
It's like, if I think of mytypical viewer, or even it's
maybe it's not my typical viewer, but somebody that I'm still
making my content in mind thiskind of like platonic ideal of a
certain kind of viewer that I'mmaking it for it's, like you
know, probably a younger guy whowants to know stuff about the
world but is maybe a littleintimidated by it and is tired
of only getting information fromvery opinionated, very biased
(12:32):
sources but, you know, stillwants to be able to navigate and
not be sort of seen as an idiotand not feel ignorant and
helpless.
And so it's just kind of likewell, here's all the knowledge
that the rest of us have already, here's the knowledge that we
take for granted that aneducated, literate person should
have.
And then can I present thosebits of sort of taken for
(12:54):
granted knowledge in a waythat's sort of accessible and
easily digestible, because it'sclearly explained and is
animated by a sense of conveyingwhat matters and leaving out
what doesn't, and I think that'ssomething that a lot of people
miss.
In the same way, like, sort oflike, if I'm drawing a picture
of somebody, if I'm drawing likea cartoon of you, a caricature
of you, right, I don't need todraw every single line of your
(13:15):
face in order to capture thelikeness.
Like, there's a few sort of keythings like your eyes and the
way your facial features areproportioned and your hair and
this kind of stuff, right, likeyou just get the few basic lines
down and you have a likenessright.
It's the same with when you'reconveying information there's a
lot that you have to leave aside, there's a lot that just
doesn't matter.
It might sort of feelflattering to you as a writer or
(13:37):
creator to include so muchdetail, in the same way that an
artist might believe he's made abetter picture if he draws
every single eyelash.
But I tend to not think that.
I think that knowing what toleave behind, knowing what to
focus on, that is the essence ofeffective, useful communication
.
Aaron Pete (13:52):
One of my beliefs is that we are right now a really
immature society and that we'restruggling with complex ideas,
and I think we're starting withindividuals like yourself and
the growth of independent media.
We're starting to be able tohave more complicated
conversations and to understandboth the facts but different
perspectives that are relevantwhen we're understanding an
(14:13):
issue.
But we still like.
Donald trump has always been aperson that's interested me
because I have so many peoplewho are much older than me go
like he's just a terrible like.
One person I know was like Ihope it rains on his birthday
yeah and I was just like that.
This person has too much controlover your life if you care
about how his birthday goes likethis is just.
This is a crazy thing to hearfrom a grown adult when I would
(14:36):
imagine a 13 year old might havethat type of opinion of like
screw that person.
I want my friend to have a badbirthday.
Like that seems, but we've.
We've had such a relaxedsociety for so long because we
haven't experienced thechallenges of great famine like
um, like the great depression,or a war like world war two,
where we really knew who thechief villain was and we were
(14:59):
able to understand that, that wewe haven't had maybe as strong
an understanding of challenginginstitutions while also being
able to understand that that wehaven't had maybe as strong an
understanding of challenginginstitutions while also being
able to trust institutions.
Because right now it seems likethere's a whole group of people
who have no faith ininstitutions, there's a whole
group of people who only trustinstitutions.
That we haven't had acomplicated understanding of
much of these issues.
(15:20):
And I'm wondering how doesindependent media kind of factor
into that from your perspective?
Because I hear one side beinglike these people aren't doing
fact checking, they're not beingas professional, and we know
that.
We know that people like JoeRogan aren't fact checking their
guests, but then, at the sametime, we also do need to just be
able to hear from individualslike the president of Iran and
understand what they're saying,even if you don't believe it,
(15:48):
even if you think they're lyingthroughout.
We need to be able to have that.
So I'm just as we watch likecorporate media start to fade
away.
What is the role of independentmedia, from your perspective,
in addressing a lot of thesecomplex political issues?
J. J. McCullough (15:55):
Well, I mean, I think it has to be more than
just giving hot takes based onsomebody else's reporting, right
?
I mean, that's something that Ifind very exhausting is that
there are a lot of these sort ofopinion, you know, pundits,
podcasters, influencers, who arevery ignorant, and they're sort
of almost wear their ignoranceon their sleeve.
It's like, oh, that's, isn'tthat charming, doesn't that make
(16:16):
me seem like a relatableeveryman?
But then all of their takes arejust informed by reporting that
someone else is doing, right.
So none of these people areactually doing on the ground
reporting, none of them aregoing to these conflict zones or
gathering facts or going to theWhite House press briefings or
whatever.
They're not informed by apursuit of truth, they're just
sort of informed by making asort of content that's very
(16:37):
dopaminergic, that's very sortof satisfying because it's
entertaining, right, it playsinto our desire to see sort of
entertaining media that has someaspect of conflict, that has
compelling characters,compelling personalities and
that sort of thing.
And I think that independentmedia has to be aware of that
temptation to produce stuff thatjust only delights the audience
(17:00):
in that very sort ofsuperficial way, and I think
that we have to be much moreappreciative of the many, many
things that you know corporatemedia or mainstream media or
whatever you want to call itprovides, which is that they are
still doing the vast, vast,vast majority of the hard news
reporting.
That is, like you know, thekind of the essence, the
(17:23):
mother's milk of punditry andall the rest of it.
You can't have one without theother.
And yet in independent medianow, you just see nothing but
scorn and derision heaped uponthe mainstream medias if they
offer nothing of redeeming, useor value at all.
And I just see no sign thatalternative media people are
interested in actually replacingthat which is best about the
(17:48):
mainstream press.
They only sort of conceptualizemainstream press based on this
kind of like narrow criteria ofideological bias.
So it's like because themainstream media is biased in
this way, or because you knowtheir editorial page has an ax
to grind, or because they don'tsort of present every story
perfectly in line with how Iwould like the facts of that
(18:09):
story to be reported.
Therefore they're justcompletely useless and we should
toss them out altogether.
And I'm just getting reallysort of tired of seeing that
narrative perpetuated, becausethen I think what happens and I
think a lot about young peopleespecially is.
I think that young people aresort of fed a very steady diet
of mainstream media sucks.
Mainstream media sucks, don'tlisten to it, don't care, it's
(18:29):
biased, it's terrible, blah,blah, blah, blah, blah.
And then so, as a result, youngpeople think that they're being
informed by just listening to afew like dopey podcasts and you
know, youtube channels andstuff like that, and I think
that that just leads to, I don'tknow, an increasingly sort of
ignorant society, you know, inwhich we're just not literate on
(18:49):
the things that that mattermost, and so, as a result, our
ability to sort of conceptualizeour place in the world and deal
with the challenges that facethe world whether it's problems
in the Middle East or, you know,covid, or things to do with the
economy or whatever, like,they're all just informed by
just like ignorant, halfinformed opinions based on
nothing other than, you know,the entertainment value of the
(19:14):
of the shows and things thatwe're watching.
Aaron Pete (19:16):
The other piece I wanted to get your understanding
on, because I feel like I'mtrying my best to walk this line
and I imagine you've had tocross this as well is audience
capture, and one of thechallenges I see now is I don't
want to avoid toughconversations, and so I'm having
more tough conversations, likeI had Candice Malcolm on from
True North Media and we had areally good debate on Indian
(19:41):
residential school denialism andwhat that means and what her
book is about.
And now I'm getting pushbackfrom a lot of listeners saying
I'm platforming too many rightwing people and but I don't want
to just hear one side of thestory, and so I'm trying to make
sure I walk that line and getan understanding of issues,
while not picking one side orthe other, but trying to go
(20:01):
where I don't understandsomething.
J. J. McCullough (20:03):
And you feel like you're more informed now of
like what animates somebodylike Candace Owens or not.
Aaron Pete (20:09):
Candace Owens, candace Malcolm yes, I do, and I
think what it showed me was atleast there was good faith of
her asking, like I've neverlived on a reserve Can you tell
me about what's going on there?
I've never been in a chief andcouncil meeting Like there was a
willingness to receiveinformation and she was honest.
(20:29):
That, like this, isn'tsomething I'm like immersed in,
but her point was well taken.
And again, I've interviewedmultiple chiefs who feel very
uncomfortable, admitting thefact that Tecumloops has not
removed bodies, They've notshown bones of children, and so
that's not to say that they haveto.
But you made a really bold claimand now people are asking for
the evidence and it's making youuncomfortable.
So we have to have acomplicated conversation, and
(20:51):
the reason that I was willing toparticipate in that was because
my fear is that individualslike Dallas Brody are starting
to be animated by the fact thatthere's not evidence and there's
a growing group of people whoare like I'm sick and tired of
hearing about First Nationsissues and I'm alive to the fact
that that group can grow andour time of reconciliation can
come to a close if we're notresponsible with having people
(21:13):
respect and understand theissues we're facing, and so
that's why I was willing toengage with that.
But I'm just mindful of tryingto figure out how I don't get
captured by one side or theother side of the argument and
I'm just curious how you digestthat.
I'm sure there's issues where,as you said, some of your
audience wants you to take aposition or say something.
J. J. McCullough (21:30):
How do you navigate that?
It's hard, I mean.
I guess on some level you haveto be willing to make sacrifices
, right, and, you know, animatedby a desire to bring useful
(21:56):
information to the audience, notjust entertaining.
Dopamine hits all the time,right.
But you know at the same time,right, it's like it's in the
same way, what sells better.
You know Coca-Cola, or you knownutritious, you know health
drinks or whatever, right, likepeople want what they want, and
that's fine.
You kind of have to resignyourself to.
You might never be assuccessful as the most
(22:17):
entertaining product out there,right, and that's fine.
But it's a challenge though,because I think the problem is
that sometimes people try towalk that line a little too
delicately and then they wind upproducing something that has no
audience at all, because itstarts to feel, you know, kind
of overly timid and overlycalculated and overly sort of
(22:39):
moderated and that kind of stuff.
And because you know, like Iguess, one thing that I say a
lot is, I try to be objective inmy content, right, I am biased,
as anybody is, in the sensethat I have opinions and I have
preferences and all of that, andI could, I have the capacity to
make very biased contentbecause I'm clever enough to
know how to do such a thing.
But at the same time, I like tothink that because I have
(23:00):
biases, because I have strongopinions, I also have the
capacity to put to knowingly putthose biases aside and try to
create content that is objective, to knowingly put those biases
aside and try to create contentthat is objective.
And I think that that's a verychallenging thing, because
biased people can often like, ifyou're biased because you're
sort of biased in a clever way,as opposed to being biased like
unknowingly because you're justignorant, but if you're biased
in a clever way, you have a sortof sense where it's like I have
(23:22):
a sort of propagandistic kindof power.
I can mold my impressionableaudience to think like I think
right of power.
I can mold my impressionableaudience to think like I think
right.
And I think it requires a lotof humility to turn off that
side of your brain to sort ofsay like I'm going to choose not
to use those powers that I haveand I'm instead going to try to
serve some larger goal that isbigger than just the ideological
objective or the partisanobjective that I might like to
(23:43):
see, which is to believe thatthere is some sort of net
positive to be gained from apublic that is just more
informed and just has a greatercommand of facts.
And you know, it doesn't evenhave to sort of put your own
ideological goals asidecompletely, because if you
believe that your position hasthe facts on your side, then why
not just present the facts asthey are right?
(24:04):
Like I have my feelings on theIsrael-Palestine thing, but I
also have a sort of sense thatyou know the facts of the
conflict, in terms of theconflict as it manifests in a
sort of like cultural way in21st century Canada, not in the
you know the war zone itself.
Like if you just kind ofdescribe those situations, you
know people can decide forthemselves what side is they
(24:24):
find is more persuasive.
You know, I don't try to leadpeople to one conclusion, but
you know, I think that when youpresent the facts objectively
maybe one side does look moresympathetic to the other.
But you know, people might thatmight just be my own biases
talking and when I present thefacts objectively some people
might reach a differentconclusion than I did.
But yeah, you just you kind ofhave to, I suppose, just have
(24:47):
faith that.
You know, I don't know.
Objectivity is important andobjectivity requires a bit of
humility, and it's just.
It's strange to me that peopleare so insecure that they can't
just tell the truth.
Right, and that's the otherthing I do try to strive for.
As well as long withobjectivity is, like you know,
(25:09):
just be truthful.
Don't leave important things offto the side because, like, if
you can handle knowing thosethings and they don't sort of
steer you into a differentdirection, then clearly your
audience is probably matureenough to handle the complicated
facts that are uncomfortable.
You know, you gave a goodexample right where you're
talking about you.
You know the, the indigenousresidential schools and that I'm
(25:31):
sure it's an issue that youfeel strongly about and a lot of
people in your community do aswell, and it's like, but you can
handle that.
There's nuance to it, right,like it's not, it's not a
completely simple topic.
There are complicated anduncomfortable details about that
, uh, on the side of ofindigenous rights activists, and
I think that they have to beable to own up to those and not
(25:51):
just try to hide them or massagethem or get overly indignant
and offended at people likeCandace Malcolm who bring them
up.
Aaron Pete (25:57):
Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
Just out of curiosity and thisis the last one on just YouTube
and independent media, I'm justcurious what is the thing you
enjoy most about a YouTubechannel?
Because a lot of people see thevideo and they watch it.
They don't realize the workthat goes into the description
and the thumbnail and how youpromote it and all of those
things.
What do you enjoy most aboutsome of those behind the scenes
(26:20):
efforts?
J. J. McCullough (26:20):
That's a good question.
I've been doing it so long andit is starting to feel like a
little, a little stressfulsometimes Cause it.
I mean it is, it's my job, andso it feels like like work.
It's something I get out of bedin the morning and it's like,
ok, I got to spend all day doingthis, so I mean it's the best
job I've ever had.
But at the same time, you know,work is work.
So I like writing the best.
(26:40):
I like coming up with ideas.
That's probably like the mostsatisfying part is like when I
feel like I have an idea.
And then there's this sort oflike initial phase where, like,
the idea is very stimulating.
I like that I can do drawingsfor my videos.
I mean that's a way I can stillenjoy this.
One part of my life that hasotherwise been kind of cast by
the wayside is I can doillustrations for my own videos,
and that can be a lot of fun.
(27:01):
Yeah, yeah, and I still likewriting.
I mean like that's why YouTubehas been such a good job for me,
because it combines many, manyjust different lifelong passions
.
Right, like I like to learn, Ilike to write.
I like to do visual kind ofstuff.
Right, I like to be on camera, Ilike to make content that other
(27:21):
people can enjoy and consume.
So it's it's really like if anda lot of other YouTubers like my
YouTuber buddies they havetalented music.
I have no talent at music, but alot of YouTubers do have a sort
of a hidden skill at makingsongs or or you're composing
music and all that and so likethat's something that they get
to exercise as well.
So it's the sheer sort ofmultimedia dimension of it,
(27:45):
cause I do it all myself andactually a lot of YouTubers have
, like this cast of thousandsthat helps them edit the video,
that does the music and does thegraphics and all that.
But I do it all myself and andI actually find it strange that
some people would not want to doit all themselves, right, I
mean, it's obviously very timeconsuming and, like I said, it
becomes a bit of a slogsometimes.
(28:07):
But, on the other hand, like Iwould never want to give up all
of these kind of stimulating andsort of creative and visual and
kind of hands on aspects ofmaking something, as opposed to
just doing like one very smallpart, which I do think would
become pretty soul crushingafter a while.
Aaron Pete (28:24):
Right, we had an election recently.
What are your big takeawaysfrom the 2025 election?
J. J. McCullough (28:30):
That's a good question.
There's a lot of things to takeaway from it.
I guess I mean one thing isthat I mean anti-Americanism is
still, I think, sort of thedefault position of many
Canadians.
It's a very powerful, veryanimating force in contemporary
Canadian culture and politics,particularly among older
(28:51):
Canadians, and that is, I think,one of the biggest differences
between American politicalculture and Canadian political
culture, is just how strong asort of like progressive boomer
anti-Americanism is as a sort offorce in Canadian politics.
And Prime Minister Carney, Ithink, ran on the most nakedly
anti-American platform that Ihave witnessed in my lifetime.
(29:15):
And again, like you know to beobjective about this, obviously
it's because Donald Trump isterrible and belligerent and you
know all the rest of it, butit's also because Donald Trump
personifies like an anxiety thatpre-exists in Canadian culture
and Canadian society is thatthere are a lot of you know,
(29:37):
especially older progressivevoters, voters who traditionally
vote liberal, who do kind ofhate and fear America and
liberal governments.
I think Prime Minister Trudeauwas good in the sense that he
chose not to kind of likeactivate that anxiety.
I mean, perhaps you could arguethere wasn't really any reason
(29:57):
for him to do it because Trumpbehaved differently in the first
term than he has in the secondterm, but Carney was in many
ways given the perfect foil inorder to activate this kind of
like latent anxiety and passionand sense of patriotism that
exists in sort of like themiddle aged, middle class of
this country and get them tovote.
And so he, you know, was ableto activate that and rise to
(30:19):
where he is now.
And Pierre Polyev, as the headof the conservatives, which is
the more sort of pro-Americanfaction of this country, head of
the conservatives, which is themore sort of pro-American
faction of this country.
Obviously, Pierre has people inhis caucus and in his base that
like Trump and like America andso being anti-American in a way
that's probably necessary didnot come naturally to him, and I
think that that was really, inmany ways, the big sort of story
(30:41):
of the election.
It was not an election aboutpolicy, it was an election about
fear, and fear of the other andfear of this force, the US,
that Canada has always gainedits sort of sense of identity in
opposition to and yeah, as longas sort of Trump is on the
(31:02):
scene and as long as Trump ishas these sort of mad ideas of,
you know, tariffs and traderelationships.
As long as Trump has these sortof mad ideas of tariffs and
trade relationships, as long ashe continues to have that kind
of stuff, I think that theLiberal Party seems like it's
going to be in a pretty goodposition, because the hope on
Pierre's side was that theLiberal Party had become so
unpopular that Trump's stuff wasgoing to take a sort of second
(31:27):
you know spot to.
You know dealing with theeconomy and all the rest of it,
and that was clearly not thecase.
Even a man as popular as PierrePolyev, the most popular and
successful conservative leaderin like 30 years, wasn't enough
right.
The appeal to anti-Americanism,the fear of America, the fear
of American conquest andtakeover and like grotesque
(31:48):
Republican style politics comingto Canada, that is ultimately a
much, much stronger force thananything else.
Aaron Pete (31:54):
Interesting.
The piece that I had a hugecriticism on in regards to the
election was the length of theelection period.
36 days is not a lot of timefor people to get educated on a
new leader, on understanding allof these dynamics.
Two platforms came out like 10days before the election day.
I wasn't a fan of that.
But then we also saw a stepback from independent media and
(32:16):
I had made a prediction in 2025,in January, that this was going
to be the podcast year and thiswas going to be the independent
media year that we were goingto see, because in BC I had the
opportunity to interview DavidEby and all of the other
provincial leaders and they hadreally stepped into that world
and I thought we were going tosee the same federally, but with
all the constraints, it seemedlike they were like let's just
(32:38):
stick status quo, let's hold toour guns, and I noticed you had
made comments about that.
Can you just reflect on theimportance of hearing from our
politicians in different waysduring the election?
J. J. McCullough (32:47):
Yeah, can you just reflect on the importance
of hearing from our politiciansin different ways during the
election?
Yeah, I mean, I had had thiswhole sort of dream worked out
where it's like I was going toget Pierre and I was going to
get Jagmeet and I was going toget maybe even Prime Minister
Carney himself go on my show,and like I had a whole set set
up and like I really thought Iwas going to be able to do that
because I had a goodrelationship with Pierre.
I'd had him on my channel oncebefore, a much shorter interview
(33:08):
, but I thought we could do asubstantial sort of sit down
Because, again, like we all sortof consume the same
conventional wisdom.
After Trump got back in right,it was like, oh, it's because he
went on Joe Rogan and the MilkBoys and all these other things,
and like clearly the world haschanged and new media is where
it's at and any politician thatdoesn't, you know, go on 100
podcasts is going to be left inthe dust.
Right, it's such a direct lineto the voters.
(33:28):
But Canadian politics is justdifferent.
Like Canadian politics is justincredibly risk averse.
Like the hierarchies that runthe Canadian political parties
are terrified of being in anysituation where everything is
not 100% under their control.
So it's like Pierre did acouple of interviews and so did
Carney and maybe even Jagmeetdid.
I didn't really notice it.
So it's like Pierre did acouple of interviews and so did
Carney and maybe even Jagmeetdid.
(33:49):
I didn't really notice it, butit's like if they did, it was
like with the safest of safe,most partisan or most like
innocuous, politically ignorantpeople possible, because the
last thing they wanted was anydifficult conversations, any
difficult questions, anythingthat was get them off their
talking points for even onesecond right.
And that just was verydepressing to me, because
(34:14):
Canadian politics alreadysuffers from.
I think and this is, I think, agrowing problem with Canadian
politics is that it just doesn'tseem relevant or coherent or
accessible to a lot of people, alot of young people especially.
They don't get a sense thatthese politicians are people
that kind of really understandtheir problems or understand the
country as it actually exists,that they're sort of off in
their little Ottawa bubble.
And I think that rougher, moreunscripted conversations with
(34:37):
people that are curious aboutthings that maybe the mainstream
sort of Canadian politicaldiscourse doesn't center on
enough would have been veryuseful and yet they chose not to
do that.
But you know, I mean what do Iknow?
I mean, you know both Pierreand Carney did as well as any
liberal or conservative leaderhave done in decades.
(34:58):
So maybe the Canadian peopledon't actually care that much
about this.
Maybe this is a fixation thatpeople like you and me, who
actually run these shows andwant to get you know things that
bathe ourselves in glory andattention Like.
I don't know, and that's alwayssomething that we have to think
about as well is to what extentare conversations about the
media being driven by the media,who are obviously not an
(35:19):
objective observer of media?
Aaron Pete (35:23):
you know trends and the cultural trends that the
media relates to, so I guess Iwould just bet that we're not
moving in the right direction interms of our spending, in terms
of our housing crisis in termsof our health care.
So it's clear, like to me I havea lot of confidence in both of
us that we are good faith actorsthat I was more like I wanted
those interviews just as much asI'm sure you did, but I would
(35:44):
have been more than happy if youhad have gotten it and I was
never heard from again and Ishut this whole thing down
because I knew that I likeconsuming interviews like the
one you were describing, and Isaw pierre pauliev go on candace
malcolm's show and I felt likethat was very like, I'm sure,
for her and his base.
That was very gratifying to me.
It was like of course you'regonna ask that question, of
course you're gonna ask thatquestion, like of course there's
(36:05):
not gonna be any deviation fromthe talking points that you
want to hear.
J. J. McCullough (36:10):
And so I was disappointed by that I will say,
though, as well, that there isalso a problem that there's just
not a lot in canada like shows,like there is no canadian uh
joe rogan, right, like there'sjust not a lot of uh uh like
venues to have these kind ofinterviews, which I think, is
that's why I thought I would besitting pretty, because, like,
(36:31):
I'm the most popular likeindependent canadian commentary
channel on youtube, right, andso I thought that you know, as
being the canada guy, that itwould be logical that they would
go on my show, but you know,clearly, they they didn't, and
there isn't.
There's just, there's just nota lot of sort of spaces, I guess
, from like a purely sort ofstrategic perspective.
Like they didn't go just on JoeRogan just because Joe Rogan is
(36:53):
, like you know, unvarnished andan everyman who asks the
questions that the average Joewants to hear.
It's also because you know hehas a huge audience where you
can take it for granted thatmillions of people will watch,
and a lot of these sort ofsmaller YouTube channels or what
, or even me, right Like it'syou can't necessarily take it
for granted that that would getmore eyeballs than just, you
(37:14):
know posting something onTwitter or Instagram or
something, right.
Aaron Pete (37:17):
Right.
Can you tell people how theycan follow along with your work?
J. J. McCullough (37:21):
Uh yeah, if you just type JJ McCullough into
YouTube or because I'm such abig shot now you can just type
in JJ Canada and it'll usuallypop up McCullough into YouTube.
Or because I'm such a big shotnow, you can just type in JJ
Canada and it'll usually pop upMcCullough is hard to spell, so
if people just type JJ Canada,they'll probably see me on
YouTube.
Aaron Pete (37:35):
Perfect, and what can they expect in the coming
months?
J. J. McCullough (37:37):
In the coming months I don't know.
I'm actually because I'm nowjust passing a million
subscribers and I've been doingit for 10 years I'm starting to
just kind of like think a littlebit more about the kind of
videos I want to make.
Do I want to keep making aweekly video?
Like I tend to make like aweekly 20 minute video, and I've
been doing that for a long time.
But now I'm starting to get alittle jealous of these creators
(37:58):
that take a little bit moretime but make much longer videos
.
You know, it might take threeweeks to make like an hour long
video, and so in the coming yearI'm thinking a lot about that
right, like I have someambitious ideas of videos I want
to make that are like an houror maybe even two hours, and
just really get deep into atopic that I care a lot about,
(38:18):
which is often cultural history.
That's the kind of stuff I likethe most.
Maybe some like political kindof explainer sort of things,
some contentious topics.
Maybe I'll do like I did withthe Israel-Palestine thing, I
don't know, but I'm definitely.
I'm trying to motivate myselfto be a little bit more
experimental and creative,because when you've been doing
anything for 10 years.
It's easy to get sort ofstagnant and complacent, and you
(38:41):
see that a lot on YouTube.
There's channels that have beengoing on for a very long time,
and then they start to fall offbecause the content gets
repetitive and overly familiar.
And, much like the politicians,people become very risk averse,
right, like they're not willingto put their neck out and try
something new and deal with thepossibility that it might fail
or it might flop.
(39:01):
So instead they try to go withthe sure thing, but the converse
of that is that the sure thingcan sometimes get boring and
unexciting, right.
There's a reason why, you know,television shows don't tend to
last for 10 years.
People get sick of them andthey get canceled.
So you have to have that samekind of spirit.
If I'm going to be doing thisfor, you know, however, another
10 years, it's probably going tohave to have some sense of life
(39:23):
in it.
Aaron Pete (39:23):
So Well, I appreciate you for being willing
to come out.
I am a huge admirer of yourwork and your decision to remain
nuanced, to take differentperspectives, to try and break
things down for people, becauseI think you're right, that is
what people need.
During the last electionprovincially that's the feedback
I got was like I just want tolisten to somebody explain their
(39:44):
thoughts.
I can decide for myself ifthey're right, wrong, left,
right, whatever I want.
And you're doing a lot of thatwork and it's just.
It's an honor to have someonelike yourself be able to come on
the show, because there's a lotof work that went into where
you are today and you're sharingthat opportunity with me today.
So thank you so much.
J. J. McCullough (39:59):
Thank you so much for having me.
It was awesome, perfect.
Thank you.
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