Video summary
The host reflects on his decision to begin vlogging, acknowledging a hesitation rooted in the fear that documenting an ordinary life would be uninteresting compared to extraordinary content creators. He finds encouragement in seeing behind-the-scenes glimpses of respected figures living mundane lives, which suggests that one's own daily existence can hold significant value. This sentiment extends to broader societal shifts; citing Scott Galloway and his blog "No Mercy No Malice," the speaker highlights dramatic demographic changes over five decades, noting that while only 5% of American children were born to unmarried mothers in roughly 1960, that figure rose to 40%, with the share of children living without one or both parents doubling from 15% to 30% between 1975 and 2020. A central theme regarding personal discipline is the necessity of treating reading as a dedicated activity rather than an incidental habit. Drawing inspiration from friend Rob Henderson, who treats reading like a full-time job scheduling approximately 37.5 hours per week, the speaker argues that just as one must plan time for going to the gym or preparing rituals before exercise, reading requires intentional planning and protection against distractions like smartphones. This philosophy of intentionality also applies to his podcast production; while he prefers in-person episodes due to their effort and "pillow talk," the logistical demands of three weekly shows led him four years ago to invest heavily in making virtual content look professional despite having a small team, eventually transitioning from simple waveform recordings over the internet to high-quality setups. The technical evolution of his studio is detailed through specific equipment choices designed to reduce friction and enhance production value. He utilizes a $10 remote for power control, a Canon R5C camera feeding into Streamyard, and lighting solutions including an Aperture key light, Amaran F22 X lights from Ikea, and copper-and-teal colored bulbs that match his brand identity. A significant upgrade was the addition of three layers of magic cloth with bleach muslin diffusion to soften light on his face, addressing previous complaints about flat shadows caused by a prominent brow. He also emphasizes the importance of vocal warm-ups using poetry collections like Tim Burton's "The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy" and specific tongue exercises to maintain diction and cadence before recording intros that he personally edits for an organic feel reminiscent of Joe Rogan's earlier style. In lighter moments, the speaker shares humorous anecdotes about his studio setup, including a board with copper accents and various "vocal warm-ups" involving birds and limes which serve as ironic commentary on brand loyalty and social media trends. He discusses facial hair trends using an economic metaphor, comparing mustaches to Bitcoin's fear-and-greed index where popular styles represent market tops while unpopular ones signal buying opportunities; he ironically adopts a style that counter-signals his "surplus mate value" despite knowing many women dislike it. These observations lead him to theorize about the nature of fandom and celebrity worship, suggesting that looking up to heroes often involves putting oneself down consistently until meeting them reveals they are just regular people figuring life out, much like how adults were once children with no clue what to do. Finally, he addresses the challenge of managing online consumption by strategically ignoring content rather than actively curating it, a method illustrated when an AI transcription error on his Joe Rogan episode changed "housemate" to "husband," sparking a viral moment where people assumed he was married despite him being single. He concludes with a philosophical realization that there is no definitive moment one becomes fully adult; instead, everyone remains in a state of figuring things out throughout life, whether they are teachers who were once wild undergraduates or celebrities whose public personas exaggerate the struggles and uncertainties inherent to human existence.
Read the full video transcript
I've been thinking about doing some more
vlogging for a little while I've always
been hesitant because the reality of my
life is sometimes kind of boring and
normal but I actually also thought that
that kind of might be interesting and my
uncertainty about being too boring for
people to watch may be proven completely
right but we're going to give this a
little crack and you're going to get to
see behind the scenes certainly for me I
know that when I was on the come up and
admiring a lot of different content
creators I really just wanted to feel
like I understood how they lived their
lives uh and oddly seeing someone that
maybe you've consumed a lot of their
content or you would respect in some way
seeing them live a life which doesn't
seem that extraordinary compared with
yours I think actually is quite
encouraging because it makes you feel
like well you know God my life sometimes
more interesting than that person on
some days so maybe I can go and do
whatever that thing is so so yeah I
think uh showing people behind the
scenes of a very normal life that has
sometimes extraordinary outcomes is
probably pretty
useful Scott Galloway uh he's got this
blog
called No Mercy No Malice she's actually
I really hated the first time I heard it
but in retrospect ECT it's it's kind of
nice no mercy No Malice just saying how
it
is in 1960 roughly 5% of American
children were born to unmarried mothers
today that number is 40% between 1975
and 2020 the share of children living
without one or both of their parents
doubled from 15 to
30% I used to get frustrated at myself
and not reading enough because I kind of
just presumed that reading would be a
thing that happened alongside everything
else but the more that I've realized
reading needs its own time like going to
the gym needs its own time you don't
accidentally find yourself in the gym
exercising you plan it into your day and
then you get in the car and you travel
there and you know you even have a
ritual of preparing maybe listening to
music getting changed or whatever and um
reading if you want to read you need to
do that and if like me you often get
distracted have a terrible relationship
with your phone and struggle to pull
yourself away from busy distractions and
things you even more so need to dedicate
a period of time in your day to reading
so Rob Henderson my friend's got a
phenomenal blog post I think it's called
how I read and um he just literally
treats it he reads probably more than
anyone else I know his reading I would
guess is nearly a full-time job I reckon
he probably does 37 and a half hours a
week just sat in front of a page and he
schedules it it like
what I'm probably right in saying I'm
one of we might be the biggest podcast
that still does most of its stuff
virtually Peterson does a good bit of
his stuff virtually actually um but for
a long time uh I did things over the
Internet because I couldn't afford to
not in fact if you go back and look at
episode sort of 10 to 50 we didn't even
have video so I was recording over the
internet and it's a waveform and then Co
happened and that even Rogan started
doing virtual episodes then and that
kind of legitimated I think a little bit
more the virtual setup and I really like
doing the virtual episodes I prefer
doing it in person don't get me wrong
but it is a lot more effortful the guest
needs to fly in and you need to organize
time and there's always like some
foreplay and some pillow talk and and
that is really great but at three
episodes a week it's just it's a lot
especially when I don't have a huge team
of people that organizes it it's me
speaking to the guest it's me going to
greet the guest and have some people
there that you know get a car send a car
make sure they hear you okay here's
Refreshments there's none of that so uh
I still quite like doing it we decided
about four years ago to really make an
effort to try and make stuff look
beautiful over the internet and that's
been a work in progress don't look at
this don't look at this it's in my pants
that's don't look at this that's [ __ ]
only fans material all right
[Music]
so turn on there we are one of the
things that I realized when I started
doing YouTube was the more frictionless
it is to be able to record the more
likely you are to do the work so this is
a $10 remote and uh if I press
that it it's just powering this and it's
10 bucks but it means you can come in
and just press things and everything
comes on which is fantastic this is a
Canon r5c this goes into a camlink 4K
and that is then fed into streamyard
this key light is an aperture amaran F22
X lights from Ikea the reason that we
love these colors is that copper and
teal is this sort of very Classic
Hollywood Cinema style thing and I've
always loved this as a color pairing it
kind of matches the colors of the brand
as well for modern wisdom and by always
getting everything from Ikea they've
made all of the color Hues the exact
same so we don't need to try and match
different bulbs we just went to one
place that's it little bit of board here
which is just a tiny little bit more uh
fill uh pretty big change from when we
started
the main thing that we did that was the
biggest update recently was this magic
cloth with bleach muslin as diffusion
there's three layers you you can see at
least two the way that that throws light
is really really soft and we tried so
many different things you can see the
before and after from where we were when
we first built this studio about two
months ago 3 months ago to now should be
really different way like shine on my
head I have a quite a prominent brow
someone said the episode I did with Mike
isrel was like two alien head races
meeting for the first time I didn't like
the fact that the light had managed to
create this completely sort of flat area
on the front of my head and someone
commented saying petition to put a solar
panel on Chris's forehead and uh that
was the moment where I said yeah we need
to we need to change I do my own audio
editing main reason being that I need to
record the intros I've always loved
doing intros um I think it's a cool
opportunity to say stuff directly to you
guys it's like in a newsletter there's a
little touchy feely PS bit or there's a
bit at the top or something it's just
nice I've always liked it I loved it
when Rogan had it and you know he would
do this sort of very organic intro and I
kind of missed that I understand why he
doesn't do it I understand why no one
does it anymore because it's a [ __ ] on
like I could just export the the folder
all of the files and then it would just
get uploaded like that this requires the
pass through it requires another set of
mastering what's that
say so this this is um Tim Burton's The
Melancholy death of oyster boy this was
suggested to me by my speech coach miles
the tongue takes a little bit of time to
get warmed up this is why a lot of
singers especially ones that are on tour
will do a lot of vocal warm-ups so that
they don't strain their voice uh the
tongue is a muscle just like the rest of
your muscles but it's huge you only see
a little bit it's like a fire hydrant if
you've ever seen one of those get
knocked out out of the ground you
realize that it's this little bit above
ground and then this huge thing that's
below it uh so this is just a collection
of like interesting poems I tend to read
a couple of these before I get started
and that tends to get me into a nice
Cadence and it's sort of whimsical and
Theatrical and stuff he wasn't soft and
pink with a fat little tummy he was hard
and Hollow a little boy mummy tell us
please doctor the reason or cause why
our bundle of joy is just a bundle of
gws my Di nois he said for better or
worse is that your son is the result of
an old Pharaoh's curse having this here
is basically a reminder that I need to
focus on diction that it's something
that I care about and it's just like a
little a little way marker in the ground
I have a number of weird vocal warm-ups
that I uh I can go
through [ __ ] big
pimp we have a serious discussion to be
had here uh the nearest birds are a
further walk there are limes that are
closer I refuse we've thought about this
a lot that says everything I need to
know about you about if you think that
bird and lime are the same they're
literally same they both to the big
scooter wants you to think that there's
no difference between are they actually
a distance good distance
away it's only like
95° yeah on low batteries FAS this is
real brand loyalty cooking myself in the
midday sun when I could have walked
there
[Music]
look at the
stats as you can see by that I would
absolutely pump them in a street race
second generation fourth generation bird
second generation light blue is always
the best then you get second gen black
is okay no they didn't I don't think
they did a second gen black so the first
first gen was this with black and then
second gen is this with blue and then
there's the gay Edition like the pride
second gen gay second gen Pride Edition
they did that then they did a third gen
which is also blue mas and it's F
actually this is worst this is by far
the worst it's so it sucks so bad um but
this is the one you want you want second
generation bird blue or the pride the
gay Edition that also
works I have a theory about maachi
maachi a counter signaling basic saying
I as a man have so much Surplus mate
value that I can like purposefully put
this thing I know most women don't like
it but this is you I think that that's a
work of you no no no I think it is no
Chris I'm telling you across the board
this is women's prefer yep but I think
that not just on me no I promise you I
think I know where you're going with
this I started doing it ironically
yes and then it worked yeah but you
didn't intend for it to work was it like
iry it is a trend it's like an irony
facial head M have you ever seen the
fear and greed index for Bitcoin so like
there's a new sentiment analysis of
people talking about Bitcoin in a greedy
Manner and it basically says well that's
when you should sell and then fear
that's when you should buy just
analyzing social media and I felt you
could create fear and greed index for so
many different things like mustaches is
a perfect example mustaches 5 years ago
were like the fullon bare Market that's
when you got that's when you got in and
that I'll be a chump that comes in now
like a shitty mustache like buying at
the
top and we'll just write that thing all
the way down Bar B market Mark the
mustach yeah it's a facial hair inex
yeah I used to have this joke that you
could tell more about somebody from
viewing their YouTube algorithm their
homepage than you would about three
months of knowing yeah and I think
there's something to be said about
seeing their Emoji can tell so much from
someone better yeah mine's the
breastfeeding emoji
point point proven Point proven there we
go I've told you that thing about how
India is the highest consumer of
breastfeeding porn on the planet hav it
such a microcosm as well it's not like
you know breastfeeding porn rates ramp
up as you get geographically closer to
India it's like just normal fetish
distribution around it and then India
bre me it's so hardcore and is that is
that the whole population or is there
some like absolute power users that
follow the freo's principle might it
might just be one guy one guy yeah one
Indian guy doing for a billion Indians
DN what do you think of that whole never
meet your Heroes this this is actually
something super interesting to me I
don't know if Envy is the correct word
but like fandom isn't just um looking at
the people that you're a fan of or the
hero to you is up it's actually looking
at yourself and putting yourself down
consistently was always like I'm lower
than this I'm lower and I'm always up on
and then when you realize when you meet
them and maybe they they do something
that's very humanik and you might be
like oh man wasn't as special as I
thought of I had this I this essay once
it's like if you could put one thing on
a billboard that the whole world would
see it would just be adults don't exist
and I think celebrities a an almost
exaggerated version of adults that you
have the adults and you have the
children I don't know if you had this
when you one of the biggest realizations
I have was when I was like 20 21 on
graduating uni college and there's
people who were the people that were
undecided what they wanted to do that
were the party people that were wild or
just had no [ __ ] clue going I would
to become a teacher I like first
realization is like well that kid's a
bit [ __ ] whoever you're going to be
teaching but the second realization was
how many of my teachers were just that
person and then you realize oh everybody
to some extent is just figuring it out
there's no moment that you really become
an adult and you kind of realize that as
you get older and older and older that
oh these adults that were kind of
created infants all the way up infants
all the way up and a celebrity is
another example of that where you meet
the certain I've not met like Chris has
met but a few people I've met you go oh
you're just a dude think about that all
the even with' content now I'm like
where can I just build a wall of [ __ ]
that I don't want to consume that can
still be out there but just being
strategically as ignorant as possible
how are you doing that um just L myself
in the dark room yeah I think muting
muting thing
uh unfollowing things like training the
algorithm if if that appears don't show
me content like this anymore logging out
at certain period muting
keywords we were involved in we were
involved in this we were involved in
this two months ago when someone M
transcribed my episode on Rogan and
instead of housemate it transcribed it
as
husband huge huge Twitter threat of
people going see I knew it I knew
that's [ __ ] funny yeah and commented
on the thing that said it's me full stop
I'm the husband yeah it's me I'm the
husband I mean the house