0:00 what's up guys welcome to a very unique situation here um I'm calling this JK overtime I guess I'm calling it JK overtime as well which is ironic because we're not being paid over time to be here but we are going over the usual amount of time that these episodes go which is what a lot of people have been asking for for a very long time they've been like over time episodes are too short so then we're like why don't we get together on an off day and just go Limitless and just talk about whatever you feel like especially because we're still in California compared to some people who left this business and abandoned it a while ago yeah and moved on to a better place sounds like they died dude this is this is it we were just talking about this off camera we were talking about the idea that uh we can
0:50 only sometimes go into a topic or go so deep based off of two things one is time at our longest episodes are like roughly like 20 minutes our otrs right off the records for all the fans out there but you know 20 minutes only goes so deep but then the second thing is that this whole place is just kidding new so the second you even get remotely deep into something you're gonna get dunked on right yeah you kind of have to in a way which is funny because I remember that brings up this really odd thing but a long time ago we had done this episode that was about uh why can't Asian guys date white women or something and the first time we did it we were joking and all the comments were like why aren't you why are you guys joking about that and people I really wanted to know like I wanted help with this problem but you guys just ████ around and um and then we recently redid it and
1:41 then we were like okay let's do it again like months later but let's not joke and let's actually address the issue and then people are like oh damn like this is what I wanted thank you so much but then people who are really close to us were like yo that was the most boring episode so I was like you should never really win but you know also like you said we don't really get too far past the Earth's crust you know what I mean in that amount of time I mean it's called just kidding news anytime anybody I think says why are you joking about that I think you have to like really think about the brand and the title um and just ask yourself why I stopped by just kidding news um but you know to even just expand the the the ecosystem and just like where we're all at and also we're all expansive people everybody has a depth to them uh outside of like the jokes and
2:32 stuff you know um maybe adding this little segment of longer conversation of our overtime uh will be able to satisfy some of those people that are looking for a little bit more hell yeah also I think it's cool that we know we're always focusing on guests or when we're all together we're focusing on the collective Dynamic but we never really get to talk like one to one and kind of just go deeper you know like a lot of people don't realize how well we know each other you know and how long we've known each other uh let's put a year to it we're probably I'm gonna have to jog my own memory I'm not even telling a story I'm like discovering myself let's put a year to it yeah uh I'm thinking like oh six dude 2006. yeah it might be osis I definitely you were a sophomore in in college I think yeah I was yeah sophomore in college for 0.506 I definitely heard about you like
3:23 0506 for sure because oh no I was definitely uh Victor Kim yeah obviously was a guy who's uh showing me some of your Clips um and we were watching this cat out of Ryan and this cat named ryanime he's from the OC you know what I mean so when you're talking about like a lot of other b-boys and stuff like that in the scene at that time they said I was from the OC yeah oh that's funny well uh or from from Southern California and we're in the area because you know we were watching people from like Korea yeah yeah yeah we were watching people from France you know what I mean anytime like this is before YouTube so when we're going on like onesipher.com or bibo world.com or whatever forums had like b-boy clips and Victor would be just showing me everything see what Mike you know what I mean we would just be ████ ingesting as much content as possible I do specifically you or stand out because I was like one there's a guy
4:14 who has his hair that I don't know how he has Cloud Strife here he has it yeah and then he's capable of doing like really flexible stuff with his leg where he does his thing where he puts his ████ foot on his shoulder and like magically brings his ████ foot over here or like does the thing where he like spins on his like elbow and stuff you know this before I saw like the head flip oh wow and I was just like seeing these moves and uh I think maybe at the time I was maybe equating it to like uh circus runaways you know yeah just like Sierra yeah flexible kind of Counter Culture breaking exactly you know you were like punk rocker type like either like tight jeans ripped up you had so much holes on all my clothes there was such an edginess you had like like uh arm socks there like wow you remember that actually like bracelets everywhere you just had a look bro I got called Gay all the time every ████ every day of my
5:05 life as I would leave the house my dad but yeah so like oh five oh six I was I was hearing about you but yeah it wasn't I don't think I met you did I meet you before hawk I I don't know I don't know if who came first because Hawk met Mike I think very early on yeah so the crazy thing is you Victor Kim Mike song were like the three freaking Amigos man and uh that was like the triplet and when I met Victor that's pretty much when I kind of met you and Mike yeah and you guys are like Inseparable back then and Victor is a guy that was from my crew Quest Crew but he ended up disappearing we'll get into that later but um but Victor my hearing just disappeared
5:55 uh yeah that's long story short he disappeared but Victor Anthony Mike lived together in college and uh that was the Holy Trinity well I don't know about holy um yes we were here but yeah we were we were click you know we all met our freshman year at College in 2004 at UCI um dance was for sure the definitive thing that like brought us together um Mike asked us to participate in a casa Korean American student associations like dance off so it's a freshman dance off um he asked us to join the the Korean Association crew to to do their freshman dance off we're literally that club puts freshmen together puts a routine on them they compete at some ████ club in L.A somewhere and it's like the schools that battle battle it out like yeah versus UCLA we do this for for Chinese Association too for all count stuff
6:46 um but same thing this is for freshmen for Koreans we were so cocky even me who had never danced so ████ ever already I was I was in a squad with like Mike and Victor so I was like oh my God like you know I just yeah yeah it's dripping with ego you know for no reason as an incoming freshman um thinking we were hella tired I was not for sure I was worst always will be probably um but uh we go and UCLA smokes us and like it just it just a Nile I remember we just got destroyed that day but it was so funny because I think people that go through struggle get closer than people who just share like you know wins and stuff totally um and I remember that being really the Catapult of like my dance Journey oh obviously it wasn't a career a journey of Revenge you would say low-key yeah and to the point where I was so like I'm I'm so petty I'm like
7:36 Steve Petty almost that when I remember I remember promising to myself that I would come back every year and assist a freshman to be oh that's still L.A and we did that every year I came back and I was a part of cost of freshman dance-off as like a choreographer or whatever oh we won every single time I've always been curious what your motivation was to keep helping that that was a very Petty one but there there is there was like maybe you know as a young kind of like about to be like director of different things in dance yeah I think that there was like a natural calling for me to want to put myself in that position to you know like create direct figure things out you know what I mean like the strategy of Showmanship and competition is always a fun thing for me you know um but point is going back to us three going through stuff like that and then just like
8:27 clicking up and then dancing because all of us went separate ways but still stayed homies right like yeah uh Mike went on to audition for Cabo modern I went on to audition for cadc Victor ended up joining a sixth step with you you know yeah which is crazy that you guys are all in different teams and it's crazy that as long as I've known you we've always been on different teams but very close circles yeah like we had the same friends but we never like did performances together or anything yeah to the point where you know you you were freaking living with with Victor and Mike and every everybody in that house which we'll get to in a second too but the cool thing about your mama crew I think as well is that that's how we like your mom Cruise even what brought me here and that's like JK right right right that's what your mom too yeah didn't get booked to be on the tick tick tour tick tick to I believe and we got Chad and can being our text yay in the
9:18 background for periodics periodix was just on a tear and they were doing their second tour in Australia where their headline is called the tiktik Tour Part Two I believe um and that's where Just Kidding Films was being brought out so like barjo and Gio um and that's when like Joseph Vincent J.R Aquino The Architects had like puss on it um to who else was there Shawnee damn just all-time All-Stars you know and then yo mama crew and Mike couldn't make it to that particular event so it was just me Victor and then Lawrence Cal because Lauren subbed in for Mike and we did a show there and that's literally how I met like you know Bart Joe and Geo and stuff and since then it was like you know coming onto JK films becoming a member of JK news all this stuff that's literally the whole story but it came from Yo Mama crew being like our thing wasn't even kinjas dude it's so funny
10:08 that like I feel like my first impression of you looking back like this is 2006 or 2007 how old were you at that time sophomore in college sophomore College makes me what like 1920. dude my impression view I thought you were like The Brainiac guy I thought you were like the smart guy like you had Victor Mike and you and for some reason I think I had gotten really close to Victor because he was always coming to practice and ████ but then like um and then I knew Mike a little because I'd went to Kaaba parties yeah and and like talked to him there but I didn't really know you so I just assumed that you were quieter than them so I just assumed you were smarter so I was like oh that that's a smart guy the caller guys now you know louder than them so I mean I must be I didn't know that for years I didn't know that until I moved in with uh until like 2000 I want to say like eight 2009 when
10:59 I moved to Invicta is when I really heard your actual voice hahaha and I was like oh damn this guy's cool dude uh similarly uh I you were just a Mystique to me like uh like just a very a powerful and edgy Aura of an image but I never really like knew that you were very much so a ████ goofball freaking dork yeah cause like when you uh if you don't like actually let's talk about the dance part about our expressive nature if somebody doesn't know you and they see your dance style it is both uh that's why me and Mike always call it sacrificial because you're ████ throwing your body yeah like you're that's like that's my favorite that's painful that looks like it would be painful for a number of everybody else on the planet um but when you do it like that and you don't know who you are obviously you look very very edgy and like oh a
11:50 certain type of rough right you know what I'm saying one-man Mosh Pit kind of kind of so you don't know yeah and then like when you learn about you when you get to know you and you realize that this guy's willing to do those moves but like I don't know like you know onesie or an address or like you know against the wall or break different things that's totally different I'm like this was a freaking goofball you know um and it wasn't until I feel like well there's in many instances but what really got me was your ████ IG stories oh wow that later that was like well it's because all the other states 15 years later all the other stuff was still really cool oh wow you guys are ABDC Champions and you're like living at foo's house you know what I mean yeah you used to come to those that was dope yes yes I did great for
12:40 coming or like hosting like the Halloween parties for Quest yeah like um or playing the piano like ████ reincarnated Mozart like there were elements of things that you would do that were very standout edgy and like really amazing but it didn't necessarily paint like goofball oh or or goofballs is too too ████ laxidasical word but it's just there's very a funny Charisma wow you know what's weird is like I think also I was so shy around you guys when remember when I lived with uh I think we were living in Costa Mesa and it was like all your friends lived in the house I lived in and you would come over Tony Tran would come over and like I was always so shy to interact with you guys because I didn't know the dynamic and maybe that's why I thought you were just a nerd because I was like he's like really shy and not coming out but everything there's like it's like all
13:30 Final Fantasy there's like nothing but like gameplay that I'm like only learning that you're like a ████ game nerd I would always just be in my room playing video games when you guys are over and then I would always be like man I hope one of those dudes knocks on the door and asks if they can play but like because I didn't know how to ████ invite you guys in but like in my head I'm like yeah maybe at some point I'll just turn this ████ up and they'll hear Mario and they'll go hey what are you doing there and Bully their way into the room and I can go no guys yeah we probably should have gotten a lot closer a lot sooner yeah but you know life works the way that it works it's because there were so many different webs like you guys are connected through UCI through like the uh the frats through so many different ways and I was like ah these guys are cool my uh my true uh and and I say again I I go back to the to the um the charismatic funny all this
14:21 personality stuff because you taking so much time in things like IG stories to like write things out showcase stories to be totally disposed yeah just crack up about stuff so there's like a particular articulation of that experience but like what my real game changing experience with you was like in terms of like I think what truly elevated our friendship are uh definitely two things one was the piano man yeah so yeah when I was when I was directing culture shock La back in 2011 to like 12 13 14. I don't know something like that around that time frame um yeah I had the greatest time you know what I mean it was like uh it wasn't necessarily for work it wasn't like uh this like career but it was like a non-profit hip-hop education organization you know what I mean that
15:11 goes out to like underserved communities and like uses the best yeah you know it was just good people so we did the best with what we could as a non-profit to put together like fun shows and stuff but at the end of the day like as a Creator I'm still trying to like do something different do something fresh you know what I mean yeah uh and so I get this idea to uh and again this idea spawned because of me knowing you and your ability I you know when like you you're only as good as like you know as a cook like the the the ingredients that you have time so of course you got your skills but like with whatever you have right I mean you you were in my circle of vicinity and it just like was the the Ember to a flame that eventually became like a forest fire of an idea but like I was like man like Ryan can basically hear any song and compose like like variations of that
16:02 song of that tune to make it both original and fresh and and noticeable of what it is and then he can also mash it into like 18 other songs that you request and like that's imagine like being a dance team director and then being like these are the six songs we want to compete to and then make a mega mix that's already hard as ████ for somebody to like figure out transitions when the bpms are different or when the mood doesn't make this the right you know that's why you always get these Mega mixes of just random sounds but when you're doing it music like actually musically with like piano keys and stuff like that it's you you only have the one instrument and this is how I perceived it you know you don't get to add like you know this ████ all these hi-hats to your crazy booms of uh giant exploring it's just the the keys that you're playing with so you actually had to compose this entire like Symphony for us yeah that was I feel like that came
16:52 in a real really really good time because like so like you and Mike basically came over and you guys are like hey so you know how you can just play Anything Can you just like chain all these songs together and it was like 16 something songs and I was like yeah sure but like that's something I always wanted to do in the dance community and never got to do it because I always felt like oh if if I want to do that I would have to be the one to bring it up and that sounds so like I guess like selfish to be like hey guys when we all dance to my ████ like that would never happen in a million years but then for us yeah that you asking me was like it the timing was amazing because I think I was still super bummed out at that time because I was living I had to move back home because on tour I I tore my ACL and then I yeah and then I healed for like a year and I wasn't dancing or doing that
17:44 much so I was living at home in Downey I remember you guys came over to my actual parents house I was like Mom this is Anthony and Mike we're gonna go in my room now and make a show you want to eat later like super like I felt like a kid I was like God damn it and then um when you said you wanted to do this thing I remember the first thing was like your example was like or Darren you and Darren and Mike your example was like can you do something like Sam Smith mixed with Final Fantasy and I was like are you are you jerking me off right now because I just came like it was like the the requests were so on brand with like ████ that I genuinely enjoy doing which is why I was like yes all across the board no matter what like I would do this every time like 100 yeah that's actually nice to know um in a funny way because uh not to say this takes
18:34 anything away but I thought you were doing it just because you were super nice no not necessarily because like that was like your pocket of what you would enjoy in that dude that is the most pocket thing I've ever done in my life so like for people that don't know like that's amazing one of my jobs is I I do performance mixes for stage and TV and movies uh and then and it's kind of like after doing Quest mixes for so long and six step mixes certain other uh people like Olympic skaters or people that um do Ballroom or whatever they're just like hey I want a mix like that for what I do so then I'll do it for uh like the Chinese the Chinese TV shows or for um uh for the UCLA gymnastics like it's it's the same formula but very rarely do I ever get to go full piano very rarely because nobody it sounds like your foundation like your basis for all of it that's underneath all everything I do so
19:25 like it's it's basically the manual it's like the stick shift version of the automatic which would be like digital to me that's ████ crazy and for everybody who doesn't know like I like to think and again without any offense I like to think that Brian plays piano better than he dances and I think he dances obviously award-winning messed up bro award-winning Champion right here I honestly think I I think I I do too not that's not to mean like I'm so good but I think just the amount of years I've spent for piano has been like what since age six dude I I I can still go back to that culture shock show and watch it the music uh it's it's crazy because you know it's like that weird ████ in your brain chemically or whatever it's like music can also like like smell it can bring back memory yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah seeing the videos like oh yeah of course
20:16 it's nostalgic dude but hearing the music gives me the feeling of that time it like totally holds on to that era and that time frame and it puts every emotion back into play seeing you guys do it was like another thing though because I hadn't watched I didn't I purposely didn't want to watch anything like it you guys were sending me like rehearsal ████ I was like I don't want to see none of that I want to I want to see it at the show yeah and I like saved my virginity for that and once it once it went I was like I think I cried bro I was like this is a dream come true for me and I will never tell them because I'm not gay we went we lived so I went so far in the requests like I think just having somebody who is like willing willing one talented too and then just like knew that I like you could deliver it I think I was going I was almost abusive no nothing because because it
21:07 was like aging uh can you go into Jaws here because I'm gonna buy a a remote control blow up balloon shark do you remember that ████ yes and then I literally got this blow up shark that you literally it blows up and then it's got a little machine fan that's on it and then you can RC it yeah and then we threw it into the stage and then we had to fly over the crowd and it's like because I wanted to do this stupid little gimmick Ryan had to mix in the Jaws theme and then there was also a moment where it's like we want to have like a Superman and you know what I mean like a guy literally comes back there's a whole rewind section boat comes in and it's like super man there's it was maybe even a backs of the future moment yeah you know there was just things that we thought were were cool but because we had somebody who I just knew could do it we were able to
21:58 exercise that creatively I loved every single request like if even if it sounded like more of uh of a job I love to do it because that's my favorite thing is when you know like the when I would stream and I would just freestyle music and then people would ask for like I don't know Sandstorm mixed with Fergie like I love ████ that doesn't make sense and it's difficult to do and every time you were like sorry but can we please I was like ████ yeah let's do it what is that impression it's dainty Anthony I hate to be a burden I am a little ████ like that no it was like I I loved it because also um culture shock got like at the time had so many of my friends in it like Chris quenza Jolie Scarlett yeah yeah
22:48 like so many people that I knew and then and then Bo and Jillian and then it was and Darren and you just could name them forever but it was so cool it was like seeing a mashup of time and people that I've known and it was it was like Out of Body Experience seeing it so it's called The Piano Man and it's on I think it's on YouTube still yeah it's on YouTube yeah I love that's because to this day is still probably one of my favorite Creations ever but I think that again that just brings me back to a time where I think my career hadn't like taken off by any means um so I I think as a Creator I was I was so free of any like pressures yeah and I think that was like the last time for me personally where I feel um I didn't have to think about anything beyond creation and joy you know and not to say that I
23:40 didn't do anything better in the future but it's just like as an artist right when you mix your you know it is when you mix profession with your your Artistry there it just it's just a different cocktail no matter what like you know you put two different colors of ingredients into something it's just gonna be a new color right like you and you can't separate those things all the time those are always going to be some sort of like blend back and forth but that was like at a time where I feel like it was the last step right before my actual like career in dance was gonna take off so I felt like I had the ambition and the vision without the the whatever pressures of like needing to outdo myself or you know make money off of it or anything like that so it was it was like one of my favorite times in my entire dance Journey dude I didn't know that that's cool I didn't know that you looked at it with that much like value
24:30 because I did I I definitely didn't talk about it too much but do the Piano Man is for sure one of my most uh it's just the best time it's one of the best times I remember there was this moment where um we're rehearsing at but he's on Utopia down in like Torrance right yeah and uh I'm in the big room with like the main rest of the team and like you know mini shock Mighty shocks future shots all the little kids and we're putting together different parts of the number or whatever right um not not meetings and minus that's beneficial but just you know like uh all just like different segments with the other team and then I have Bo and Jillian go work on their mini duet section in just like one of the smaller rooms yeah so I just give them a couple hours or whatever you know and then uh as the team's working on stuff I go out and I'm checking on them and they they're like sweating the music just
25:20 played and again everywhere in all these Studio rooms like your mix is playing for different things right so it's just such a cool thing to like also just know we have like original music on this in a unique yeah yeah and then they're like sweating they come out I'm like how you doing they're like you want So You Think You Can Dance or what you know what I mean because they knew that what they had just put together was just so fun and but it was also it was a big ask you know like in these Community competitions and shows oftentimes people what they just choreograph segment 30 40 people learn it and then it's like you present the choreo it's never so focused on and especially during this is like 10 years ago you know I wasn't so focused on a small amount of people right but I'm over here knowing what Bo and Jillian can do as individuals and knowing the magic that like nobody needs to support that actually everybody needs to get out of the way to see the street yeah right you know what I'm saying stars for sure just like having that
26:10 confidence too same thing like like you mentioned just a bunch of our friends just in that era and that time just knowing that you could rely on the people whether it's like on the dance floor or composing the music to put this whole thing together and collaborate I think that that also was such a joyous thing in the in the early days did you never want to uh compete on like or audition for like those TV dance shows that were popping up left and right back in the day um I not really because I also know that when I got signed to an agent and I did like auditions and I told the story on JK news too like auditions wasn't ever really my favorite that wasn't your thing and I also think it's because I don't hot take but just for the sake of like this conversation I don't think like I'm like me being a dancer is my thing I think I love creating oh okay you know what I'm saying I do love things like
27:01 choreographing and sequencing Combos and putting them together and seeing it happen but even me particularly like choreographing stuff and then like needing to be at the Forefront of it like that's not that's not necessarily like this is me this is what I do actually like even my heart now yearns to create more and not be visually like the person who's doing that choreography and even choreography I think is too small a word um nowadays too I just like uh starting at zero and then a product gets finished yeah yeah right and the process is always different and that's what's fun to me but like when the product is done I just like knowing that I created something but like I never saw myself you don't want to be the product basically not necessarily like and I I also just don't think I trained like that I don't train the way certain people train like where where some
27:53 people and respectively so that they put in so many hours in training into like their sessions figuring out their combos their moves their signature moves like the physicality and the technique of certain things like I think I put in the same amount of time to things like sequencing yeah yeah yeah or or two things like you know if it wasn't physically difficult it was mentally Innovative or unique or stand out-ish like I think I put in a lot of times and I just enjoyed that and I would Revere like the people that put in a lot of time to their movement technique you know what I'm saying but that's why you don't see me in things like you know just a bunch of freestyle battles or jams all the time because I enjoy that as a fan yeah but that's that has nothing to do with like Anthony leave the dancer choreographer changes or whatever that's just me as a dance fan yeah yeah you know what I'm saying but I
28:43 don't put in that time I don't put in that same job I don't have that ambition wasn't it crazy I feel like no I don't know if any generation will have it exactly the same way but it was a trip growing up in the dance industry and and community and slowly seeing different pockets of friends just get famous that was such a like it was a shock every time every time people care about us you know like it like our world and then you'll just see like all of a sudden Yuri is this like Superstar and then you know Ben's up here and like all these people that were people that we thought were knew were Superstars totally and then they just like blow up it was crazy to see dude I remember and again not to like ████ sound like the old people but it's okay we are the only people that's true like my first YouTube video I think I posted in 2005. yeah right and um I remember when we posted
29:33 this like remake of the yo Chris Brown music video uh I remember we filmed it we filmed it in like four hours we edited in four hours I remember thinking to ourselves like whoa dude eight hours we finished a video and I was a film major so like film major I was a film major but throughout UCI the whole time um my first two years I was Undeclared undecided oh and then I declared if I didn't know that cool so I was a film media studies major under the school of humanities so I was going to things like Production 101 and you know this is like mini DVS this is like actual film at the time where you had to like convert it into a digital file and if you ████ up or you know what I mean like you're losing your entire project rendering takes overnight for certain things at like 480p like we were not in a ████ professional era like it is today where everybody can do way better work on just your cell phone like this is like you had to work your ass off to put a One
30:24 Clip with another clip and then put music on it you know what I'm saying and then make it shareable as an edit at the time and so you know during this time that there were things like Mega upload.com or whatever to try and share files but then when YouTube was new I remember uploading that video and when there was like 15 views on it because we like sent it out to the homies we're like yeah dude our homies are seeing it's like so happy right and then when like there was 50 views I remember like the slight confusion of like you did you send this to anybody else yeah and then when there's like 150 or 500 views I remember I remember I believe you know I remember hitting up Mike and just being like Yo dude like I ain't got 500 friends I don't know what's going on right now yeah you know so like just being in that time where
31:14 and then I went to store a spot like that following summer student parent orientation program and I'm a staffer right for UCI and then I'm like we're walking around the cafeteria I'm holding my tray of food and somebody comes up to me and they're like are you Anthony Lee and this is the very first time that ever that's the very very first one I remember it was out at ████ cafeteria at UCI like are you Anthony Lee I'm like did I do something wrong and this is way before people started adding ████ hinges at the end of that right yes yeah that didn't happen until ████ Steve um I wish Steve was never born but um other than that right um in the cafeteria at school yeah and and I I genuinely this never happened before so I thought it just something stupid or wrong you know what I mean that was the easiest place to equate something too and they're like did you do the yo Chris Brown music video remake and I was like whoa yeah right and they're like yeah um I saw you at our high school rally at
32:04 Cerritos High School oh ████ because you remember okay you remember what a ████ High School pep rally yeah yeah like I remember thinking of High School pep rally was like if you were anybody who's anybody like and you were featured a high school that's like a big that's a big deal yeah you're a big man on Captain yeah you're like yeah literally a a mega star you know and then somebody's like yeah Cerritos High School and again I I grew up around the Cerritos High School area too you know it's like wait what like why would anyone play our video at a high school pep rally and just thinking like yo we're in a totally different time you know what I mean so seeing people just become quote unquote something yeah was just and and my closest connection was my song right so when ABDC 2008 season one happens on MTV and I remember he's
32:55 on a break from the show uh so I'm like yo let's go to dmbs because that was that was what US UCI kids would do right yeah yeah you want to go for the drinks let's go to dmbs and we ████ go to dmbs and I ████ you not like like all these Asian cats Frat Boys all these fat people and stuff like that all these random fans would be like oh my God you Mike song from Kaaba and this was the first time ████ like this was really happening and it was just such a trip yeah you know like I was never quicker to be like I'll take a photo for you guys you know what I mean just like what is this Mike's song let's go you know I'm so happy for Mike but at the same time I was like I was pretty jealous not of like like jealous like I didn't want them to rise I was like the feeling of people coming up to me going yo you ever seen this team Cobble
33:46 modern and it's the same ████ I've been telling them for years and they just didn't listen it's like it made me mad to be like oh now you're now you care about it you know what I mean like immaturely known though you know yeah right right what a what a phenomenon a ████ phenomenon yeah it was massive but yeah who would have known you know you know it was a ████ really really wild time too I think um it was just these TV shows for dancers like we talk about this on like different pods but like it just it wasn't just about people getting famous it like shifted and changed the culture of the industry right no like we we barely mentioned some of these topics before in JK news but like a dance level Asian suddenly becoming a thing yeah to like you know back in the day when
34:37 people would go out and teach in like Europe and stuff like that everything was about like Britney Spears choreographer or like Janet Jackson chore up for JT or whatever and it wouldn't even sometimes mention the name of who that choreographer was it was the credit was more important than the person yeah and Artistry and like it wasn't until these dance shows that that changed yeah and witnessing that was also like whoa because nobody was interested until the dance shows came along what was uh your first moment for you like where you're like holy ████ this is like this is the ride you know what it was it was it was um because when I I did so you think you could answer the very very first season 2005. prior to that I'd never done any audition I'd never had a professional job like of any type I didn't even know choreography counts very well the
35:28 maximum I did was on six step as a competitor and of course we found ways around learning how to count but um the the shock of being on that show and this was like a thing maybe that only applies back then but going on the forums so so you think your dance used to have its own Forum um but now it doesn't you don't need ████ like that for anything but yeah back then all the communication about the show whether fans are discussing it all took place on the fox.com website and it so he think had its own like thread and I remember going on there while I was still competing and I was sequestered so I couldn't go anywhere I lived in the hotel uh you weren't allowed to see anybody uh and then we would all just the um contestants would just go on the Forum to see what people are saying about us at the time I only saw social media was Myspace and back back in the
36:20 day they had a backwards view on it so networks would make you delete your Myspace if you were doing something like this if you're doing idle if you're doing anything you would have to delete it which doesn't make any sense but yeah they saw it so backwards so we deleted it no we had no way of fans talking to us or telling us nothing you go on the Forum and then you just read what people are saying about you and then the the first time I saw somebody say oh yeah I'm a Ryan fan and it like almost Justified my existence because until then I had like no confidence yeah I was very like low confidence kind of person what year was the first season so you think 2005. oh my God yeah that's my first YouTube video right there oh yeah someone like seeing somebody say that and like feeling like oh like oh I have a responsibility now to uphold their confidence in me you know it was it was
37:10 a good feeling but at the same time of course if you read The Forum and you like the compliments you're gonna get affected by the negatives too yeah and at the time reality TV was a different Beast yeah and you know negatives were just as big as positives and then I started going through the rabbit hole of like reading about people that didn't like me and it would just break my heart and everybody would go through this um kind of like up and down thing like all the contestants because we didn't know yet no one had ever primed us that like hey don't read about yourself online because I wasn't even a thing yeah and then um we learned the hard way like everybody had these identity crisis the uh abilities would go Haywire like you just wouldn't be able to perform or do your thing because you would just be thinking so much about how somebody hates you some random person that's weird yeah it was weird because you couldn't resist looking at it be like you'd know it's bad for you but no one's
38:00 ever written about you anywhere on a blog or nothing so you're like what are they saying what are they saying and if it's bad it's just like destroys you I do remember uh watching you on the first season and uh I remember again we're all ignorant because this is like the very first time it happened but I remember thinking it was like there's no way uh like a hip-hop dancer or a b-boy is gonna get that far yeah I was just like there's there's some sort of uh Unwritten politics to like the dance yeah yeah yeah right you know what I mean and you know uh it's not untrue no even one sense it is I think true yeah yeah so so I remember thinking to myself I'm like Yo dude how's Ryan gonna like you know do well on this I think it was true then but then following That season people would train specifically for the show yeah knowing they would have to do Latin Ballroom all that ████ well that's
38:51 exactly what I'm saying we didn't know you had to do lag and I remember when your hair was all like combed over you were in like ████ bell bottom pants and stuff right plunging v-neck to your belly button or whatever it was your way yeah did this guy either sell out or not hip-hop or is this amazing I remember being like whoa like because it was low-key like if you know people who pay attention to the scene just straight up again and we weren't even like friend friends back then or anything like that I just remember being like this looks funny right just you coming out but then when you did it I was like because they had the whole pre-interview packages right right so like you would know that you were gonna kind of do stuff like that and it'd be like this is so funny like look at this b-boy trying to do I know yeah and then you come out and you're like full outfit and you're like committed and I was like whoa he's pretty good dude I worked so
39:43 freaking hard to get that routine right oh dude it was it was a it was one of those yeah Fish Out of Water for sure Fish Out of Water but like surviving and it was one of those things where you were like wait a minute you don't have to be one way you can just do multiple things yeah you know what I'm saying like that was just yeah simple intro to your bisexuality yes and then when you was on the chopping block and you had to ████ do your freestyle yeah wow you remember this song too poison of course man like that I think that to me from a fan of Ryan in the entire career and the length of your life that I think will it would be a top three moment in that stuff for sure because what it said yeah what it said in that moment it's like you were on the chopping block I think that's the
40:33 context yeah yeah yeah yeah you're about to be cut basically so save your life no yeah you don't see people fight for their lives through dance you don't that's true yeah it's not a battle it's like uh right if he doesn't pull something out of his ass right now he's going home it's like you have to you have to kill it off yeah and then you did something that you just never really did before like I never seen that headstand like that before you know I mean I saw a back head spring like flip thing yeah tap your head in the moment did I tell you how I first did that the very very first one mentioned again it was at all Cal oh yeah yeah because I was trying to go all the way over but I messed up because I was trying to impress freaking Cheryl like I really wanted to date this girl who didn't want to date me and uh she
41:23 was like in the audience and I was like oh I have a solo coming up I gotta make it the best one of my life and it's at Union Station where it's like basically 100 year old tile so it's like the hardest surface you could ask for and then um I wanted to just do it where I bounce on my head and stand up and look all cool and I was gonna look at her but then I slipped and I landed straight on my head and just went and then I made eye contact with her anyway upside down and then I remembered after that show at all Cal people were coming up and going yo dude that was tight never seen that before how did you think of that and I was like ah you know just in the lab you know just like working on it you know I tried to like play it off like that's something I had in the pocket meanwhile you had a concussion yeah meanwhile I was like what the hell how do I do that again how do I replicate it dude yeah insane and you could tell you could tell when it's like when you watch somebody
42:14 do something in a battle and like let's say they like you know they they do 90s or 2000s but they did like two extra spins and they normally yeah yeah yeah and they get up with the fire like like the Holy Ghost is in them that was like your energy you hit this thing yeah and you're like there for a second yeah and then you get up whoa right because like until then like tons of dudes were already like showing it where they would just go bang uh there's maybe like a maybe one or two people that I remembered being able to to stick it but not that long like nobody like it like a freaking location pin and that was you know that was always and again I love I love that you know I do geography because at the end of the day like straight up choreographers get paid the most in the entire Dance World yeah say that for real once I recognize that I was like this is where I'm going but when I first started dance my first thing that I was doing was was breaking
43:04 that was your very first very first thing is it's what my first love for dance so so Mike you and Mike battling at school made you want to be a b-boy dude I don't know man uh I was again I had never danced a formally or like officially so I was like one and I was like ████ walking and whatever you know what I mean little bits here and there yeah I saw things I was trying to be Michael when I battle Mike but it wasn't until we become freshmen um I think it was uh cadc auditions are at the beginning of the year and cabba auditions are like later on like in January at the fiscal year or whatever and uh Mike is about to like audition for cadc so I was like oh maybe I should try this I've never really done ████ like Mike was gonna audition for DC he went to auditions right and then I think it was like people like Ben Ben Chung
43:55 was like nah dude come I just for Kaaba wow so Mike's obviously like oh okay so yeah because it's Ben like who's not gonna does an audition for DC but obviously I never learned this ████ before either even though I went to auditions with him like the learning of it um so I don't audition because I've never done this and the only free Club was UCI b-boy Club oh yeah you didn't have to audition you just go to the arc the uh anteater Recreation Center once a week and then you just session and people will teach you and it's just like open space yeah so I would go there with Victor I didn't have to audition for anything I didn't have to be good at anything I could just learn so I started b-boying first and you know for all the wrong reasons just trying to like look hot for girls type stuff like you know no Foundation let's go right to windmills right yeah let's spit like Ken's Journey right now right Ken yeah yeah where's your foundation right now but he's posting his like continuous
44:46 windmills every year right because it's like the most fun part it is because that's what b-boy gives you when you like stick a freeze that trumps dude every other feeling yeah yeah you know what I mean and like that's why I don't know I still love it I still love watching I still love you being a part of it in some way damn that's cool I didn't know that was your first thing that you wanted to do yeah it was my first and then I was uh I got injured all the time because I was weak and not good and then I remember I remember you being you were pretty skinny back then thank you like uh but not like you were like lanky Skitty which everybody calls me fat but yes I was like you scared well the only time I remember you gaining weight was after you quit dance you you had you had a weird like so from my side I remember you had this like moment where word around the house I lived in
45:36 was that Anthony doesn't dance now and he got a man's job and he's like yeah sales yeah and then that's when I remember you were coming over and then you just looked so different like you just looked sad say different again in a different word three letter words starts with f ends with an a you uh you came by I just remember you looked so like your spirit was gone and I was like hey man how's the job going and you were like no I mean that's like the least of the of the change the the major thing was you're you're you were just so like gone like your face was just like I was like hey how's your job and you're like no I don't you like didn't want to talk about it this is the depressing moment where I'm gonna ask Chad to pour me a shot but think about this like the thing that
46:27 always trips me out which I always want to credit you for is that like imagine if you never stopped that path there would be like no none of that like the fact that you came out of that I mean you could have become like wildly successful in sales that would be fine but that is my biggest regret what not being successful in sales yeah my biggest regret is is coming back to dance no stupid no for sure that was crazy um because I actually physically saw that fork in the road which is crazy to me because you know people might you might tell your story somewhere and then people would just imagine I should tell that story right now actually I've never really talked about that entire Journey yeah I'm gonna take a shot it's wild because do it you almost had a completely different life yeah so um
47:18 man is uh this is such a weird time in my life I just graduated um Mike was you know uh doing his whole cab of modern post ABDC life where it was just like this conundrum of um constantly traveling yeah constantly living it up he was living in a big time yeah he was huge and then we were on our way we were about to do ABDC yeah and I was nowhere near like that World um and I you know when I graduated I remember one of the first places I applied to um ended up being one of these sales jobs right and it was one of those business to business ones where like people in suits they walk around and they just like they solicit they like walk into stores and sell ship they're selling like anything they're selling stuff from baseball tickets to coupon books to Clippers tickets so your your
48:09 job is to sell to stores yeah so like they put together this back in the day again you know what's funny is I had a complete misunderstanding somebody had said at the time that you were door-to-door selling books that's as good as it gets yeah that was like I understand what it was that was like kind of like the basis of it oh like you would go business it was business a bit because it like the the maybe the a decade right before that like the 90s right people would go door to door yeah residential right and then you know suddenly you remember when people would ████ like knock on your residential door and they'd have like like the backs of car seats or like different toys yeah yeah that doesn't happen no more yeah exactly it doesn't happen anymore because people probably like die now um but it's not worth your life yeah but that evolved and then it became like people put on suits they got like better deals with better clients okay and so we got into a realm where like we were
48:59 walking around a season we were working with like the Dodgers or working with like the Oakland A's like every almost major sports team uh around the nation because the whole concept is especially if you want like a top tier sports team but like you just had a huge stadium with a lot of seats yeah they would have excess seats so then it would make more sense for like those organizations to give away those free seats if they weren't selling them anyway in order to make sales off the concessions make sales off of parking make sales off of what the heads being in there yeah otherwise you just have an empty seat so they would constantly give us these free coupon seats and then we would go selling those coupons in a bundle at a discounted package and people who are familiar especially like you know we're in like Southern California when we were pushing Dodgers tickets like all the Hispanics out here they knew we would come around so anytime you walked into the right type of Shop people like you guys are the Dodgers guys come over here
49:49 so it was okay also for for guys that were not afraid to go to different businesses like guys like me you could do really well and I was so you were not afraid you didn't have a shyness or like a inhibition I'm more one of those guys I'm like what the ████ are you doing you know like this is stupid like give me that ████ I'll just do it you know I could see that you were good at just cold talking to people yeah I'm just gonna like it's like this is the pitch okay cool like I'm not about this but let me see if I can do it and then I'll do it and I'll be like I could do it and I'll be like doing it better than half the guys in the office and I'm like and you're younger you're like the Young Buck yeah you know what I mean and I'm like this isn't what I want to be or where I want to you know go with things but I'm good at it and I was just like making money for the first time truly yeah you know what I mean and I was like okay and then I got into the point where I was just also at that point in the um in that industry scope where it started evolving in general so we I was part of
50:40 the um the test team where we wouldn't walk around business business we would go into places like Sam's Club or Costco and we'd have a booth there and we would sell different cards at a booth and we would do even more sales because this now people aren't being solicited to now they're going to a place where they're already looking to be you know solicited or sold something yeah yeah yeah so it was a more appropriate environment so we would suddenly 10x sales at a person who was walking in the streets would do oh that's dope okay so then I was on this team where I would constantly be like the Innovative team that would push new initiatives with the company the the major company Across the Nation I'll be flown out to like Texas for convention so no way it started going really really well right and then um basically got to a point where uh in our branch in like in Orange County and like Santa Ana or whatever or Anaheim
51:30 um the assistant manager there got pushed up to a manager position so she opened an office in in Riverside that's when I moved to Riverside because I was under her team so I go out and I work under her team and I became the assistant manager and I started running the entire office out there and the thing is she was like super lazy and ████ and she was also ████ the ████ old manager for Anaheim anyway so it was like they're in concludes in a different way which was cool but like she was a little lazy so I'm gonna keep it real um and I basically ran like the whole Riverside office right so then there was a point that's how you get promoted man you start yeah doing someone else's job yeah so then there was a point where obviously I was doing well so even the upper is there like it's time for him to get promoted because that's the whole point you join not to do those sales you join almost like a 2x2.net kind of marketing uh kind of client yeah yeah you do it because when you get to a different position all the cronies under you who are doing the sales you're getting a portion of those profits you
52:21 know what I'm saying so like I was working for about a year and a half to get into this place and I was killing it and I was getting to this place and I'm running the office basically in Riverside I'm doing hiring firing I'm doing like morning meetings uh and I didn't know you got up to that level I was I was so far in that level that it was time for me to get promoted to manager myself so we were opening my office in Arizona I was gonna move you were gonna leave the stage I had a going away party they got me a cake I literally was getting promoted and and on Blue Black Ops on the Black Ops which was the first performance of kinjaz ever was my going away performance I didn't even know that so that whole thing came together because I was quitting dance formally like leaving the scene wow and I hit a mic and I'm like yo Mike dude like I'm I'm gonna move to Arizona for this job and he already knew all this stuff and I was like so I want to do one
53:12 last dance thing so that show might not have even been close to what it ended up being had you not been no about to leave everything was very like last two raw kind of like attitude that's why when we got there like in our show if you watch this first show of Ken just like I love that show we're literally we're drinking on stage with all of our College roomies that you lived with yeah yeah I was about getting people to just come out and just have a good time together um we were dancing to because I got high and we even asked Jason Parker like can we smoke weed on stage and he's like dude that's too far that's a fire hazard so that's why we just danced Because I Got High we were like jacking off in that routine you know what I mean like we're doing everything as if it's a last hurray yeah um because that was me hanging up my shoes wow I hit up Mike too when I asked him I was like yo you know it's my last dance thing like will you do it he like he was killing it he was booking everything he was like
54:02 traveling there he was gone dude but he was like all right for that month of January as you were not ready for it he's like I won't do any gigs yeah that's a big thing to do because business was never booming as hard as it was that exactly so so that was for real like a going away thing yeah and then uh that was in January like January 28th or January 31st 2010 and we finish that thing we gotta we get a standing elevation obviously that shows like one of the I that's top one loved ones in my life hands down it doesn't matter anything else comes in life that's still number one um and then that week I go back into Riverside I go back to my job I'm getting ready this is like maybe like my last month in that office I'm supposed to I'm already looking for uh Apartments I found an apartment on Arizona the whole thing right that week it was a Thursday and I for some reason I should have saw
54:53 this coming but maybe I was just already too like like in the momentum of like I'm moving forward you know this is like where I'm gonna go with ████ um that week on Thursday for whatever ████ reason uh the office and the team wasn't ready for me to leave so they had to hold me back right her my man is getting postponed or hold you back like you cannot be promoted both oh both it was just an indefinite like oh like uh you know everything is a boner killer basically basically yeah but what it really came down to again like I said just a little ago I was basically running that office so what really would happen is if I would leave just like in Anaheim when my my manager got promoted right when she got promoted her whole team including myself we all left there and you go with your team the people you bring in or
55:43 you're training either your team right so you leave with your team at that point she was no longer working and going the field because I was doing everything yeah so she didn't really have a team which meant that like if I were to move to Arizona I would be taking the hole so she would lose everyone under her too exactly so she would literally noticed up exactly so that's why her and again she was like in a relationship they prevented you the person who was above her that she came from that you know our team team leader yeah so then again being blocked out basically yeah yeah you know what I mean and that morning when we got held back I still kept my cool with it and I still did the morning meeting and stuff but my main assistant manager my assistant yeah who I brought in was my number one guy right-hand man his name is Derek we live together in Riverside we moved from Anaheim and lived together we like started this journey and you know all
56:34 these promises of like growth and stuff and we got held back again that day we quit we just walked out he just called left yeah just cold left we're like you know after this like it's over and we just left it and I remember driving home from that Riverside office and I remember I called my sister uh because I didn't know I didn't know who else to hit up and I remember just crying on the phone as if I had like failed something because there was no plan there was no there's no severance there's no two weeks no there's no other career change yeah right it was just like a feeling of being held back failing or losing something you know what I mean yeah but I think that in combination with the emotions that I had four days prior at Vibe where I had the greatest Peak and experience and emotion ever in the history of my entire dance relationship yeah yeah and I was leaving that I was like let me go deny this thing
57:24 that brought me absolute happiness let me just walk away and put my hang my shoes up even though it brought me so much identity and confidence and joy and belonging yeah let me hang that up let me go do something that I absolutely hate just because I'm decent at it get held back you know what I mean uh and then just I remember like hitting her up and she was she was like it's okay you know what I mean because I I thought all the other stupid Asian boy pressures you know or anybody in general it's like I failed it's been like two years since College I got nothing for myself I don't have much saved up I'm living in Riverside and I gotta just move back home like where I don't have anywhere at home to go I gotta go to my parents you know I mean everything just felt like I'm sure too at this time like jumping back into dance full-time seemed completely like unattainable wasn't wasn't even in the books actually I think um because everything was moving so fast and this was 200 like nine yeah for me
58:17 um so then I ended up getting uh I ended up getting a job from one of my best friends Sean who was running uh flow route which was an internet telephony company kind of like Vonage back in the day using like voice over IP internet for phone calls so he knows my situation he just hooks me up with a job of course I'm not trained of course I'm not saying it hooks me up with a job good friend man and he trains me I like work there for like only a month or something like that and then I get recruited by my boy alex at collusive clothing company right right so I get recruited to do because he's like I heard you did sales he's like and I was like yeah pretty good at sales he's like I need somebody to come do sales I ended up transitioning over there and then doing sales and marketing but that's how I got back connected to the dance world because collusive was so linked into dance yeah collusive is like the Zeitgeist of dance apparel like dance team fashion you can see that
59:08 entire era that collusive had it's like you know whole on the entire dancer your branding everywhere every event every whatever right and so that's what got me back into the dance realm because I ended up being the point of marketing and then seeding out all this clothing that's very smart that you were the one doing that because you already have the trust of like all of the dance there was this hilarious moment actually um because I ended up started to do a lot of the marketing um and Kyle Deneen was also doing at that time when I first came in um but there was one funny mess up I remember that happened because it was ABDC season five during that era right and uh um are the collusive art director at the time who's doing a lot of the designs was Josh eulip who's Brother of um Hazmat has been yeah exactly right so
1:00:00 uh oh no the new con is the brother of Josh right Hazmat so then uh Josh is on ABDC right and type 5-0 as high five oh and they're competing with periodics and then well way better than periodics yeah what had happened is we had brought a box of cluesome merch uh-huh for high five oh excuse me in some sort of confusion periodics thought the box was for them so the whole rest of the season four addicts has all this exclusive gear that was not ever meant for that but they got it I didn't know that and so they're just hella rapid and we had to get a and again this is before I was doing all the marketing and stuff like that too so but that's kind of a great mistake because they end up being the winners right yeah I know it's wonderful kid you know what I'm talking about do you know this story you just Jack the whole box
1:00:50 how we got the shirts but we did oh man but that was just literally how far yeah one Colusa was in the dance world and then two like like ironically after all that sales and stuff like that I come back and now I'm in this position because I'm like I know people or whatever you know what I'm saying so just just it wasn't even about coming back to dance for me yeah I just started being surrounded by it again through life and then it wasn't until 2011 when I got laid off but not because like the company there's a lot of business complex sometimes and for the sake of the company everything was amicable but I did have to get laid off in order for things to like not bring a certain type of liability to me um but I remember it's 2011 uh the time in which I got laid off was also the time in which me and my longtime girlfriend at that time broke up and I was living
1:01:42 with her in Hollywood you know um and then so I'm laid off jobless heartbroken from like who I thought I was gonna marry and then had to like move out of that apartment so I moved back home important part time that is what you call a high value man I was ████ miserable I was like this is like my lowest probably Point ever you know what I'm saying in my entire life because you just felt so broken you know multiple years after graduating college it's crazy that I'm rapidly passing you throughout this whole time and I don't even know that you're that like busted dude I didn't know you're that much of an introvert nerd when you were living yeah but um I remember uh and this is the time where back then there was not even LinkedIn back then so if you wanted to apply for jobs and stuff like that you were going to things like monster.com or what you know what I'm talking about like like yeah literally you're looking for jobs you have to
1:02:32 submit resumes all the time yeah and there was something it's almost like a casting site yeah it was there was something so demoralizing for me personally like trying to re-put my resume together you know what I'm saying yeah like years after you graduate and just feeling like and yeah maybe this I also have my closest friends around me at that time people like Victor people like Mike yeah who were excelling at things in ways that that that industry had never seen before yeah and chasing passions in a career that like was so oh yeah people were making it happen yeah they were making it happen so I felt so inadequate yeah you know what I'm saying I felt really like there was a lot of things that maybe I didn't ever really give myself a chance to process but emotionally for real I was like low right so I remember thinking to myself there were these periods of times where I put hours into like so depressing to sit there and just
1:03:23 submit your ████ resume yeah read this job listing submit read this and you're just doing that like fishing but like s███████ um there were even a couple times I went on interviews for different places and I do do fully remember one time I sat in an interview and you know standard typical interview questions like you know why do you want to like work here and I froze because it was so hard for me to lie at that point in sales I was it's like a really bad movie you're like you know what I don't want to work here that was my heart my heart was like cats out of the room don't want to work here so instead I remember looking I I freeze I was just looking at this lady because my heart wanted to just be like I don't want to but I know I'm supposed to say something else but I can't bring myself to say it and now this is getting awkward it was just ████ weird you know what I mean but that's that was just a just a huge that's the moment
1:04:13 yeah and so I go home failed again and I'm doing my daily routine I'm like I have to you know here's my hustle I have to look up different job listings and I remember when I would be so at the lowest point and hating that the only thing that gave me some sort of Salvation was freestyling was just dancing so I was like I'm gonna ████ not do this right now and I'll play some music and get down and for me A lot of it was also choreographing right because for some like I just felt like if I choreograph me putting sequences together like no one could judge that and take that away from me it was like the only thing I had yeah you know what I'm saying like no matter how much somebody judges my resume no matter if I get laid off because I wasn't good enough here if I didn't do a good job here it also never needs to be up for judgment exactly it was just the only thing that I could create and then like hold on to
1:05:03 yeah right so like I would just suddenly start pouring hours into that and I would have these routines but I'll be broke so I would slowly hit up random people in between my like looking for like jobs I would hit up random people but hey I um I'm still around I still exist yeah like come teach at your studio we're gonna do something and I remember getting like 20 bucks for a workshop and thinking like yes I can like buy like Boba this week you know what I mean like I can do something I remember when I got an offered a job in Culver City's your neighborhood Studio it was 20 bucks per class and it was once a week and I would drive from Buena Park to Culver City which is like the gas money alone is like the whole thing yeah but I was like if I do this I can make 80 bucks a month I can pay for my cell phone what are so just for perspective what's the highest
1:05:53 you've been paid for a workshop at for the same amount of time the highest you've been paid like ever in life just to scale for people what 20 bucks is in comparison to this maybe like three thousand dollars Jesus Christ for like a like a 90 minute Workshop jeez 3000 versus 20 bucks yeah for the same amount of time it's just a it's a totally different scale you know what I mean yeah but at that time right twenty dollars was everything to me and I think that's that's more important right the mentality of it you know even just in the hopes that that might lead to another 20 bucks next week and that's all it was and there was Word of Mouth people would be like yo Anthony's still dancing apparently um but that's all I had I that that's you know and I remember that's a great
1:06:43 flyer for your Workshop by the way Anthony's still dancing apparently twenty dollars but I do remember when I made maybe like a hundred bucks in like a two week period because of a difference yeah I was like yeah I was like holy ████ I'm like maybe there's a maybe there's a chance and my one of my most pivotal pivotal conversations of all time for my dance career was when I looked at Mike's song and I asked him and I was like yo man like honest tell me the homie like do you think that I can like if I tried to do this dance thing because again like this was a very first era in which people started doing you know what I mean it wasn't yeah yeah yeah it was just a new thing and I was like I was looking at myself there's nobody to learn from there's no failures to learn from it's just this and Mike was killing it you know he was killing like yeah I was like Yo dude like do you think I could do this and without hesitation he's like yeah I was like and that's not like homie to homie
1:07:35 that's like he's being real yeah and then he looked at me he's like dude you know that you've already gotten more dance opportunities in life than so many people who like moved from other countries to La who try that's a good place their entire goal and that's still the case for for a lot of people totally that's true yeah I was like oh ████ that's a good point yeah and then the most the second most important question I ask you know I'm like will you help me and he's like yeah no how did he help you number one I think just having somebody say that they would help you is is like so he never did anything he never did it he just said ████ um one of the my first time truly traveling internationally for dance was when he brought me as an assistant to Croatia he didn't need to whoa he would have made more money if he didn't he'd already been going out to countries by
1:08:25 himself but definitely he this was his first time going with his promoter so there was a comfort in having a friend because like yeah at the same time this was also an era where like you didn't know who the wrong promoters were you didn't know and everybody was trying to be a promoter exactly out of nothing and people were getting left in the dust out there too people were getting ████ conned or like jacked and bad jobs here you know so anytime somebody was working with like a new promoter in that area era there was something to being like you know bring my bring my manager with me bring my assistant with me or something you know just in case the worst happens you know so he he was willing to bring me I was super chubby we got photos from this time um but it brings me out to Croatia and assisting him and I got this taste imagine he's like all right y'all want to see what it looks like if you're fat all right go ahead Anthony that's all he brought you for yeah I would have still done
1:09:17 um but that was like you know when you give somebody a taste yeah and I'm not I'm a real taste you know what I'm talking about yeah you're in another country people save up their like Croatia yeah they save up forever to try and be able to travel somewhere I'm there on somebody else's dying yeah an opportunity and name at that point for me personally and I just get to experience it and do what a little bit of dancing you know what I mean you go to you go on a trip like that you're there for like four days but you teach what maybe two three classes an hour and a half per class you're really actually working like four to five hours yeah total total work you know what I'm saying and the rest is like what vacation for you for a bit you know sit on a panel and do a q a like oh yeah you're talking about like all the free and easy days yeah it's just like because they also want you to have a good experience which is cool yeah and then it's like you're making the same
1:10:08 amount of money in literally a weekend that I was making in two weeks to a month oh yeah yeah doing what you love so I think once you get first-hand experience because remember those first few years too like I'm I'm sure for you as well when you're traveling teaching performing whatever it was you were doing weren't people still perplexed like so you get to go to this country and just dance oh yeah and it's like and so they they pay for your flight yeah and they pay for your hotel all of it seems so weird and they pay for your food and you get I was also asking myself that you know what I'm saying like it was such a weird like process to catch every time you go you're like what's the catchy exactly what's gonna happen that was just what it was people literally desired what you had to give them and they would pay you top dollar for it and like the second I got that actual taste to note was real you know it was like it was like me
1:10:58 joining that sales job once I saw somebody else do this I didn't give a ████ what it was I was on the first team to push makeup because I because I had so much ego that I was like ████ nobody else is gonna do it I'll do it and I'll do it with everybody in this office so I was there was a point where I was going business to business selling makeup just to prove a point to my team what was your what was your opening line tired of looking ugly I was like damn you're ████ fine you want to look fine I have no idea what it was but you know it's just like it was just that kind of like mentality and again for me that attitude that I had and then I saw somebody do it yeah yeah then I knew it was attainable right and like that changed everything I mean that's probably like 90 of it to me is just seeing how it can be done yeah yeah yeah and you know like I think we were privileged to live in that era where it wasn't done before us so we got maybe a bunch of first time the ignorance was a
1:11:48 major privilege but we just went head first into everything without any doubts or like you just did it yeah I was I was I was teaching a workshop at UCLA like this past weekend right and it was a q a after and then one of the questions you know super I remember these questions all the time being a kid too and one of the questions like how do you like find your own style you know what I mean and uh again there's no like 100 correct right answer to this I think everybody has their own answer right but I remember having to think about it and being like you know um the time in which I grew up uh learn and dance and stuff like we didn't have YouTube IG Tick Tock anything like that right there was nothing in abundance they're only like the minuscule moments that you got something by going to like a jam or going to like a club right asking like an OG that you maybe saw in one clip through like Napster or something like that they give you one tip and that's it and then yeah three months yeah you're
1:12:38 living on that tip yeah but I was like but there was something about that time for all of us as creators because if you didn't get influenced by the overabundance of content or you weren't taking a bunch of class all you were doing was doing the things that you had and then trying to evolve that and it would eventually kind of Harden something about you right right you know what I'm saying and I like to say this still like during that era there's way less dancers but way more artists and creators and today everybody knows how to dance but like there's very very few innovators in the space yeah yeah because everything is a natural kind of like regurgitation of everything that has been created or like they've put into their body or whatever it seems like it's so hard to be an innovator because you have such an overload of data back in the day some people innovated things just because they didn't know it already existed exactly
1:13:29 and they took a road and they just kept going because they didn't know someone else was taking that same road and then they met in the middle and went oh you do that too and they're both proficient in different like ways but now it's like you could stop yourself every turn just going Awesome's doing that already yeah I mean it's kind of like I was never in dance classes like my first for real like kind of foray going into dance classes was when I was already getting invited to dance camps to teach and I felt like a jerk for being on that lineup and then like we're already there like why would I not take this person's class who just took mine you know what I'm saying like other choreographers taking each other's classes stuck in Sweden right now and there's nothing to do because it's snowing outside yeah but be at these workshops like why would I not just jump in this person's class even if I'm gonna look like a fool but if I'm gonna look like full I might as well do it like across the world and back in my own tour that's true you know what I'm saying so like that was me
1:14:20 finally going into dance classes because you just did your own thing you know what I'm saying you did it long enough until you got good at something and you bunked up with people who kind of did similar stuff yeah period in the so in the future like skipping over a little bit when you started coming to JK as uh not JK news but when you started doing skits and stuff yeah and then you ended up on the news did you ever want to like be a host on JK news did you ever think like oh my God this is somewhere I want to be long term never never I was um not because it wasn't cool it was like what's it like it's like um because your first skit with them was what 2 000 like like 12. dang yeah yeah it was after the six Six Tour and there was like that following year 2012. and that's a Yakuza thing was that the First skit No that's
1:15:10 all that was like the the third or fourth or something oh okay yeah I did I did random stuff with them I did I was in a skit I did a couple a few skits with Lawrence Cal they always made a super gay in it someone's got to be gay right um I did a skit with them in 2009 or 10. something like that it was like maybe it was 11. but it was a I think they took it off because it I think it got some Flack it was like it was a skit about suicide and how you like you like take a pill and it makes you laugh and then die and then um yeah it was like me and Steve were in it I think and Fang and then and then I remember meeting them that day and I think I might have even met you that day yeah yeah it was it was uh that era was really really just fun because I feel
1:16:01 like I was already doing things on YouTube I was putting myself out on YouTube and stuff and like when people like stumble upon my my choreography or whatever and they don't hear me talk or don't know anything about me like my dance choices are very uh I guess for for lack of better terms or how would you describe my dance choreography like just blatantly just looking at my dance team you didn't know anything about me you're just like looking at my style of movement and choices I would say very interesting details in the choices and the songs are always usually like what like my favorite YouTuber a little yeah my favorite thing about your choreo is that you choose to do something that I think from a dancer's perspective is the least expected thing on small moments oh yeah yeah like rather like because my ████
1:16:52 idiot brain always wants to do everything big and then once I saw your guys's stuff how you put a lot of focus on these like little pictures I I can't think that way so I appreciate it yeah so like that I think is very it's uh very contradictory to like my natural personality you know what I mean like sometimes like when people meet me they would never expect that my personality the way I speak is the way that like that creator of moves because like you know it's like more subtle it's more like yeah you know um ethereal a little more deep and like quiet and reserved right yeah sometimes it's like really just soft spoken stuff right so like that's my way to express myself you know what I mean in just that way ways that I don't have regular words to so when I was in JK film stuff and I was already on YouTube in different ways I was even doing Wong Fu stuff from time
1:17:42 to time yeah I just felt so blessed to have a different Outlet publicly so to speak to like have fun yeah yeah in front of the camera then my normal ████ because my normal ████ again I naturally just choreographed like that or whatever you know um and then JK films comes around and then suddenly we're just doing these skits and they're like hey we need some gay guys what are you doing Friday it's funny because I give him ████ for it but obviously of course they're not riding like hella gay scripts or anything like that because like they're like they're like so anti-gated they're like homophobes for a little bit at that time there's such cases right which of course it's more so because dancers are so in tune like we're we're constantly like it right doing stuff all the times and it's it's especially for dudes in like predominantly guy groups it's like of course we're gonna just be comfortable so sure when me and Lawrence are coming
1:18:32 on a set for them they're probably thinking like this was a hell of gay one really we're just like super comfortable it's like being an all-boy summer camp for like Perpetual years yeah but like that ████ was just so fun and when news came around and we just sit there and talk the funny thing is that I feel like when I first came on the news everyone's just such a ████ comedian was that like 2000 when was it 2012 2013. I remember when I first saw you on on JK news I used to watch JK news a lot yeah yeah like since they started it like the debut of it and then I saw you on there and I was like dude that's ████ tight I thought you were really good oh yeah so I was like oh he's so cool you know what's funny I feel like when I was a guest versus now being a host yeah it's very very opposite experience very opposite not just the work that I do but
1:19:22 even just the personality that I have yeah because back then I was so rarely on yeah that when I came on I feel like it was like uh I don't know it's it's not a matter of like being yourself or not but like my voice was the most um uh grounded in the room it wasn't like jokes because you know I didn't know I was just coming on I was just literally speaking my mind on a topic yeah yeah yeah you know what I'm saying but then once you become a regular and stuff like that uh uh you're not always trying to get your point across about sure yeah it's not so important yeah you know what I mean you just talk about whatever right and then like it was like I was I was regular for like this blip of a second before becoming a host just because of the time of that yeah yeah I mean I remember distinctly like the first time I came on
1:20:12 as a guest I I misunderstood like I was so worried that I wouldn't have anything good to say or like there's some episodes I didn't like one episode they did I think one of the first ones ever when I came on here they were like all right so we're going to talk about Game of Thrones in the recent episode I was like I've never seen one episode of Game of Thrones I spent the whole episode just going yeah and you think about it too right yeah when you're like a first I remember like yeah you're like third time I'm so mental yeah I remember my because the first couple times I would be a guest I remember coming home and just being like yo I think I did a good job I was like talking yeah I just want to contribute yeah at the other day it's like a big YouTube channel and you don't want to interrupt anybody too because you don't understand that like the pockets you're just kind of like and then I do remember it was like my third time or something coming on and like there would just be a couple articles that were like sometimes you just don't know what to say or you
1:21:02 don't have something to say the flow is just going a certain way right and you're like whoa and you don't know that that's okay either yeah it's like 15 minutes went by I didn't say anything I did a bad job there's a totally different Dynamic yeah yeah when you're just like a guest and it's all in here like it really is totally yeah it's funny but then like you know being a regular and then like also also when you're in the guest seat which of course we're still there because yeah but when you're sitting at that table it's like the energy of the room goes together everybody sitting on the side is looking that's like when you told Jason Cheney like hey sit on that side and it'll feel way different right it's completely different It's So Different yeah it's like it is it just feels more relaxing and stuff like that but it is it is refreshing now yeah to be on the other side and you know sometimes because guests will say even
1:21:52 Jason Cheney said that one time recently when when they don't kind of contribute and they're like oh look I don't know I I didn't was that okay yeah yeah you know what I mean you're like dude it's okay I forget that people will still be thinking that because you thought that yeah yeah yeah everybody yeah always but it's it is you know like especially now like Geo had mentioned it too like the flow is so especially the careful boys area attitude it's very natural we have a pocket now because we I think we went through a lot of ups and downs together and like testing certain things and hell yes being able to take like trips and and just kind of like spend some time developing some sort of chemistry right you know specific quickly and even our initiatives to like requests like uh sessions where there are no guests sometimes yeah yeah straight up you just be like hey just to build the dynamic yeah it's kind of good to not have like new energy all the time and just right because you have to accommodate yeah yeah and like now you know we've gotten
1:22:42 our our energy to a certain place with the Attitude Era and the careful boys that even Geo comes in she's like I don't even want to disrupt that I know I was like I can't believe Jesus saying that's crazy you know what I'm saying because she is technically the dynamic yeah that's the yeah but the framework I find a sense of um I would totally say Pride because I feel like we put in energy we you know when you put work you actually try yeah for things happen you know yeah those are like eight to ten hours of ████ you know you've got a ████ podcast trying to go on right now because we're like putting in energy yeah yeah and that's a cool thing when you come in as a guest like you you want to put in your personal energy in hopes that you're doing you're doing a good job right and I think now just like the rest I can feel it from YouTube just the responsibility even as hosts knowing that we're a formal part of this team and this family yeah we want to try really hard it's not even trying hard for ourselves anymore we just want the the whole thing to work and the Legacy
1:23:32 like to uphold it it's been around so freaking long and we've just been a part of it in some way even if we're like fractions at a time like we've been a part of this journey for over a decade yeah like you've shown up yeah like that one there's that one time you and Steve were arguing about who's been here in the locket so like just for context a lot of people don't understand that like making fun of Anthony the reason it's funny is because he's so cool everywhere freaking else that you should have at least one place where you get to play the other role like you can't be cool everywhere [Laughter] it's like that's to me that's why it's funny is because it's ironic it's like Channing Tatum in 21 Jump Street where everyone's ripping on him it's like and then he's playing that roll up because it's like he's so sexy and he's
1:24:23 obviously so sexy and he's like trying to be nerdy because he's sexy and cool you don't find yourself obviously sexy and cool shut the ████ up we're not even talking about this anymore there's way better things to talk about no but like I think it's a fun thing to um like Steve loves to play up on on uh comments he when people go oh man they're beefing like they don't like each other Steve will always agree with them in comments I don't know if you've ever seen it of course but his his next comment will be like yeah I hate that guy no I don't hate that guy I just hate all damn he doesn't come on to social media unless he's ████ talking about like a high from like yeah or something like that and trying to ████ rub it in people's faces or to talk ████ on me like literally his only time he comes out of the social media cave like the very first time we were all in Vegas we were filming that skit and like without being scripted or all he walks out and dumps all the Kindle noodles into a trash can I was like what is this would I have
1:25:14 thought that that was going to propel this like new brand identity for me on this ████ show like no you're his favorite straight man as he likes to put it so dumb I know but that's like something I remember thinking oh that's pretty funny when I came in and I noticed like that you were getting dumped on I was like oh that's kind of funny because it is ironic and then I remembered I was looking for old videos and I went back several clips and I found like an old old video where you were a guest and they were still doing that to you oh like that's where it started it was basically the first time um this is this is the the ████ Infamous clip by the way I think the topic is about uh it was like about like fans right and like everybody's talking about how like you know fans run them on the street like fan etiquette sometimes yeah can we take a photo and just being awkward or whatever and then I'm like I'm like fine it's probably one of those times where I'm like oh I think I have a
1:26:04 story to contribute to oh yeah I'm talking about like my situation where like one time right over here on Garvey like somebody like comes out blah blah and then bar out of noise like but you guys didn't even win though right and it's like it was for sure funny but David still like he's so ████ he's just so much he comes at a large quantity yeah um and he just Johnson runs up the camera he's like aha like it was the biggest roast ever right and it was a good roast but he definitely magnified it and then from there it just was on every comment yeah it was on every new Kendra's YouTube video every Instagram post every one of my new posts and stuff like that and it just like went super far but it went so far to the point where like fans would come up and just kind of talk junk to me but you know again I have a thick enough skin where it's like okay like I'm
1:26:54 logical and practical like I know where this came from so I can't be pissed off about it but at the same time it's like when it's everywhere you're kind of like oh yeah we talked about that before about how like it's funny in the circle but when people out of context or outside of it just think like oh here's Anthony he loves like hearing this type of ████ let me just go ahead and tell them ████ hinges yeah at the airport yeah so people people are randomly you know what I mean and it's so out of point it is funny but then when you got like other crewmates you don't even being like yo why this person come on here and be like ████ Kendra's like who's this and I have to be like no dude because there are 80 kids they're not actually hating it's an inside joke from JK and they're talking ████ to me you know just having to explain the context of a joke yeah yeah that's when it gets a little bit like oh it's yeah and it's hard that's a joke
1:27:45 that's hard to explain the context honestly yeah because it's so based on the moment that like they're not gonna start laughing because you explained it like it's not funny still and I'm me but I'm not ████ every Kinder right so if another kid just like yeah who the ████ is this right you know what I mean but it becomes a stupid thing where I'm just constantly planning why people are saying ████ King James that's really tough yeah yeah and it's like all right maybe we should just slow the brakes on this otherwise I'm not gonna do this in my ████ late 30s you know what I mean like can everybody chill out yeah it's bad when it becomes like a bumper sticker outside of the room like that's not the intent the tent of it at all but but you know how it is I mean sometimes it gets sometimes it gets heated yeah you know it'll heat up like that it's like it's such a it's such a funny thing to just like dunk on that like you'll try to explain something you'll try to
1:28:35 get into like a topic and seriously say something but then Steve's like oh there's a good joke that's gonna come out of this it's hard to like it's too tempting yeah so so there's even a moments you know uh in JK where it's like the camera's off it's like yo shut the ████ up you know what I mean and we'll have like many little arguments about it because it just goes so far yeah but it's not because that moment is so far it's because of what you know is residually gonna happen right in that moment somebody says something like dickish I'm not thinking like man that's so ████ up I'm hearing that dickages and being like this is gonna come for the next 10 months in comments yeah yeah you know what I mean and that's what makes it so much more like oh I hope the fans are idiots also it doesn't context does it feel like are you tired of it a little because it's predictable are you a little bit like because once you hear it you know it's going to go on for like I'm only okay I I submit myself I am ████ a servant to this news platform
1:29:26 that's just kidding news I understand nobody like I'll I'll throw it out when I can to again I'm not a comedian I don't have like comedy in my Ig like Steve Green comedy it's not my ████ thing you know but um but like a good joke is a good joke I will never not laugh at a good job right right it only gets it only gets a lot to me when it's like you could tell that the energy in the room is like it's easy fall back so it's like when when somebody when there's nothing to say so you're just looking for something funny and it's not even contextual but you're just gonna dunk on it which is why Steve is so not clever because like when he has nothing to say he's like oh it's just from a dancer that's his fallback you can tell anytime he says that he's been drinking too much because I'm out drinking him and because he doesn't have anything better to say in that moment and then that's what translates but his Classics man he him every time he says shoe cobbler yeah no matter what so no
1:30:19 matter what you dude go on that ████ like I will I will internally I'm dying every time it's hard because that's getting such a freaking Pro that you can't even like he's yeah the way the way Steve ████ can throw out ████ I'm dying on the inside so much and then there's this part of my like maybe my dancer exoskeleton yeah that's like trying to be all tough and stuff still because if I crack up that also just means I got owned owned yeah it's so hard not to serious but it's like dude the guy this is like his skill like he's like improv you know what I mean it's like right no way people in the fans like yo Anthony should clap back I'm like you put on the put on a hip-hop song Let's Dance battle maybe you know what I mean I'm not in my element this guy's a pro you know it's funny man so it's it's just funny but Steve uh again on a long form segment I ████ love Steve like yeah me and Nina sleep at his house him
1:31:10 and Nikki like he's me and him he's been helping me with the crypto Journey since like you know over a year ago like we we know each other like in ways that like we've never gotten a chance to share all right that's why he loves playing it up because it's so not actually true outside of the yeah I know that if I'll hit him up for anything he'll help me out if he needs anything like I'm there yeah he's such a good dude that's what makes it funny uh just because we and it's it's all our fault we give the fans what we give the fans if we don't give them the other side they're only gonna react to us the fans aren't dumb or anything they just know what they get and it's cool that the hardcore fans like understand that it's just a bit but like when you see comments that of people are like yo anthy's really getting bothered and then Steve's there to reinforce it yeah that guy can't take a joke well like he just loves playing it up because it's so far from the
1:32:00 actual truth yeah no it's no the funny thing is that it's not far from you the funny thing is I am sitting there getting roasted by an actual comedian and I don't have much to clap back on you know what I mean and I'm just like oh man this guy is really talented at this yeah he is it's like when are we going to be in my Forum what are we going to be on oh of course people have been asking for that for so long they're always like yo make Anthony like teach a dance but even then it's not like you're gonna watch these guys dance and be like haha you suck I know yeah they're not gonna they're gonna get credit for it yeah yeah that's true which which would be hilarious by the way you know getting getting these ████ up they they can't they got like two left feet you know what I'm saying like Bart being so buff like his muscles will move better than his like Rhythm it would just be so funny to get them to dance but that's not the point the point is people come
1:32:51 and they want to see our ████ personalities on the show and that's one of that's just interesting that that's one of the manifestations that I would have never known because as a guest as a guest right it was it was very very few and far in between because I was here so like not frequently like there was a lot of respect you know nothing is disrespect now but there was a lot of just like you know oh yeah yeah dunk on a guess hello you want to up them you want to make them feel good right that's why you're here yeah and then now you come regular and you're like yeah this is my family and then everybody's dunking on you and it's ████ funny dude I mean that's how it is like like Nick said about his ears he's like they're gonna dunk on you no matter what yeah you know but I honestly I I love this groups yeah me too it really is so dope I love the whole thing like I hated it at first like not when I came on as a host but
1:33:43 the first time I came on as a guest and I remember I thought it was so fun and then like 2009 yeah or two thousand like early 2000s I think 2014 yeah because my news wasn't around till like 12 or 13. yeah 2014 2015 I came on as a guest and uh I was like that was fun and then I I remember my cousin was like hey don't read the comments and I was like why he's like yo Their audience is mad toxic and I was like how do you how is an audience toxic they were watching the show and then I looked at the comments I was like every person just was making fun of me like who the ████ is this guy this guy sucks like I didn't even say anything for most episodes they'd be like what a loser this guy looks like an idiot like everything was like so negative and I was like what is the point of that why would that be a thing and then over time like um and then Joe had like was explaining it to me later he was like yeah
1:34:33 um we went way too long not checking the channel on that like not cleaning house because I remembered um when I mentioned that now like oh the audience is so much better now and Joe was like yeah that's not a coincidence it's like we had to like it festered for so long this like weird negative vibe with the audience and they operated on that and now like those people are all gone and now the people who weren't talking back then because they didn't want to chime in on that ████ are now the People speaking totally I mean you know like just a little bit ago we were talking about like first right like even in an industry like the dance community and stuff like that yeah being like oh we didn't even know that like people were watching these YouTube videos that we were sharing right same thing I think I think we were like even JK news was submitting itself to an Era that people were like the keyboard Warrior yeah yeah
1:35:23 right this is the generation that that developed the first keyboard Warrior that's true the first people that ever like you know behind the the comfort of their username and a different IP address location right you could say anything in your freedom of a speech and never be inconsequential yeah inconsequential even if somebody didn't like your thing it would do nothing to your physical nature yeah so people had this like just this armor on they could say anything right right and so if you did participate in like some sort of online form like a JK news comment section yeah say whatever the ████ you wanted to and not get checked like like Joe said like you know just leaving it and not really checking that into the right community of course you're gonna have the most toxic people yeah you know I mean JK news comments was like ████ League of Legends toxic you know what I'm saying yeah it's a college Lobby people were
1:36:14 just going off because they could yeah because it was the nature of the conversation sometimes right right yeah yeah yeah so I don't know if you were in the room when I I think I told the guys this but I got really like affected I asked this one dude who I thought was really cool I was like oh he's a Creator on like Tick Tock and stuff and I was like oh this guy's really cool like I I I ████ with stuff and then I asked him like yo would you ever want to like come on to JK and then he was like yeah man like I've been a fan of JK forever like that JK's like to go blah blah all good things to say and then I followed up with them like a few weeks later and I was like hey you're still down to come on and his tone was like completely different and he was like yeah no I'm not even I can't even be on that ████ like it's it's not what it used to be but like like I think he like either someone got to him and like said
1:37:05 something or he looked it up and just didn't like what he was seeing and then so rather than be like oh well ████ you then I was like yo can we talk and like can you just tell me a little bit about why you don't like the channel and then uh because I really wanted to know like what what's behind us this was uh yeah I was already hosting and but um this seemed like a good chance to actually get a good uh look on like what's wrong with it from his perspective and then he uh broke it down like for me and was just like yeah um one of the things was like he he said that JK does not defend when people are talking ████ about the guest which is true and um like when we have a guest on and nobody knows them people automatically tend to be like who the ████ is this this person sucks because they haven't won them over um especially if you lead with like an
1:37:55 article and not an OTR on a person's appearance yeah like who the ████ is this guy you know like out of nowhere there's no intro about which we got to do better on them which yeah but um that was one thing and I was like oh that's a good point another thing he was like oh the opinions aren't different like they used to be like Hive minded everybody's on the same page with stuff yeah which is like some ████ you kind of are on the same page but maybe we don't express enough that we are even though uh or that we aren't I don't know but uh that was one thing that he didn't like and then he was like oh look also there's like some ████ that's like borderline like racial or whatever that I was like that might have been way before my time I haven't experienced anything like that since being here um and uh and yeah and he just completely declined to like ████ with it and it just was like nah but then like I
1:38:45 get it yeah you know I mean it's not wrong no yeah I was like thank you I'm like I'm glad you you were able to speak your opinion and I wanted to like kind of take that and see if like what we could use from that one of the main things really was the lack of uh presence in in comments too was just like people are allowed to say whatever they want too much not like we should just like no you guys can't say that but like we should still weigh in beyond the video like if people are saying something bad about you know a guest or something like the fact that they might go look at the video themselves and go wow everyone's just dunking on me and JK's not here to be like No actually they're cool yeah that's that is a tough thing I mean one we should definitely always throw out new guests otrs before regular articles that's
1:39:37 in order with our production schedule so that makes sense because it's a story for people you know yeah yeah yeah yeah for long time followers and stuff that like are are diligent with like the new uploads you there is a little bit of a chronological order that helps with that right yeah I remember when Jesus was on uh-huh oh yeah that was a weird one yeah yeah and all the first comments were like I don't like this guy yeah people just couldn't like they couldn't and then by the time the third video comes out like I love this guy yeah and then people came around and they were like he's cool yeah it's complicated again everybody in general like you know maybe I don't know maybe maybe the world in general will be a better place with a little bit less judging you know yeah yeah everybody's very quick to judge because you never know and we don't know either too sometimes having a guest doesn't guarantee that like everything is going to click you know we're also sitting in the room and organically and
1:40:28 authentically finding a flow with another human being right right one who is like um in themselves just like we explained when we were a guests like there's already a camaraderie here there's already like a chemistry and a flow with like yeah five or six other people that know each other and I'm a new guy in the room sitting in the hot seats that's hard yeah you know it's a very difficult thing so any guess who survives the session with us is a feat and people need to know that you know that's what I like I really like the fact that you're just jumping into a grab bag of things where like you don't know who you're gonna get but you can appreciate the differences and that's what I like some people in the comments really do warm up to that and they're like I just like that I never know what it's going to be yeah and it's not always going to be the same yeah um I gotta say just because we have this forum uh uh Mr anime what you have been doing
1:41:19 with these social media and uh more than I think social media is actually too um it doesn't encapsulate the full thing I think with the community I think the JK Community truly exists today it's a good Community yeah because of like what you're also doing with the social media you know I remember when it first it was like it was before you were starting to jump on social media where I was looking at Joe and Barton I was like why why aren't we posting anything on our social medias like we we don't like we have all these this content we're creating on The Daily and the last JK news Instagram video you have is from like the old era of stuff oh yeah I haven't been posted for months and I'm like we need to like we're losing followers we're like um we're literally just at this point where things are going downwards and we need to have new stuff and then again back to my thing about being the biggest fan of your IG stories and stuff I was like I told him I was like dudes Ryan is
1:42:10 like the most genius guy I know in terms of a way to answer the 5G stories dude there's just there's something to it if you ████ know what I'm talking about you know what I'm talking about you know you just like have some sort of X Factor with it Indescribable right thank you and then you know the second you start actually doing our social media and stuff what happens the community starts growing this familiarity you're like bridging gaps in conversation there's there's an entry point for people to communicate with us where somebody on our side with the account name is responding in kind you know what I mean um there's moments where you're willing to in the IG stories like in between breaks just say thank you to new supporters or clarifying certain things or you're reposting different guest stuff that's not content from our Channel but maybe it's like a comedy show that they're going to be performing oh yeah go watch this and that's like nurturing the community and the relationship with all the guests and
1:43:00 stuff and now you're seeing that like as expansive as that goes from IG over to tick tock you know we have hundreds of thousands of followers on Tick Tock now and things are going viral are YouTube shorts being uploaded and like bringing the subscribership back up to a different level giving us new breath and Life to a space where it makes sense to like run patreon a different way because you're actively in the Discord communicating with our patrons like I think that the community building is truly a revolutionary and big change for this JK new structure because straight up your remember I remember we were going out to Vegas you know what I mean it was like when you formally got down we were in Bart's gym in his own house his old forever home yeah you know what I mean it's like hey we got to make forever home three I remember asking I was like you know can we can we get Ryan to be a regular because he's just yeah our first like meeting all together yeah you know it's just ████ good at what he does and the energy is cool but now
1:43:50 seeing like where it's being able to go like at that time where it was and where the energy was I remember because it you know we had just signed up to be like full not full-time but like regulars on it yeah and I I adjusted to be dedicated to it yeah you know what I mean and uh this is I this is obviously after you know like Tiff left and stuff like that and they there was like a host hole that wasn't being right Steve just stepped in because he was capable but it's not like he wanted to host everything right they're having this conversation right here in this office at this table about like not having like a host situation I was like uh hey I don't mean to be too forward but I'm I think I could do this if you need another host and they're so open bar and Joe they're so adaptive and oh that's how that happens that's really how it happened and I was like I was like I think I could do a pretty good job they're like you sure and I was like yeah I think I could do this yeah you know I mean I've done some similar
1:44:40 things and then my first hosting ever Dante Bosco is the guest that's funny to keep doing that it happened to me too yeah so so like Dante's guest and just straight into hard mode yeah someone you respect we're right into it and then ████ uh I look at the video in the comments oh the very very first video of my like my debut it wasn't like Anthony's debut hosting it by any means oh they just like cold was like yeah but I was just curious about it and like this was also in line with like the time that you know uh and I'm not gonna dive too much into it because again I'm just going for my third party perspective but you know uh old host Tiff uh also like you know just left so a lot of the fans were kind of like split in between the Middle right a lot of like drama that was like I wasn't very understanding or privy to because
1:45:31 yeah because I had nothing to do with us I just become a regular you know right um and I remember thinking like people were just so upset in the comments and like that was my first host job that's a rough entry point yeah so like it just felt like everything was like this and I remember telling Bart yeah cause you can't really win you know and you know and you know all love to guys like Barton Joe but like you know bar he's obviously still building a it's a giant Empire with like barbell and everything that's going on Joe was going he was deep in the trenches with everything he's doing Waikiki up and all this stuff like they're doing really huge and amazing phenomenal things that JK news was kind of like we were in a deep pocket of some sort of lull we were rebuilding our team from the inside out and obviously a lot of fans were upset and leaving right and you know I just become a host of this like dying animal yeah and I remember there was a point
1:46:22 you were almost like a human shield in a way a little bit a little bit but I do remember this this is the crazy thing I looked at Bart and I I remember just being like yo I don't want to be a part of like a dying thing uh you know what I mean like I I don't want to submit myself to that right you know it's like I'd rather be a part of like um I don't care if it's low and down at the bottom I just care that it's trying and yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah you know what I mean but like seeing where it's gone and again a lot of like credit to you and like what you've been able to do with the community building and social media and just Reviving certain things you know what I mean in a certain way just realistically also just playing by the regular rules of today exactly yeah yeah but like now like it's a growing thing and it's it is beautiful it's amazing the community and the fans are like amazing the Discord is ████
1:47:13 fun you know people are just like the the regulars that come in and they're supporting and like they're submitting articles and like just it's just so ████ cool now you know because uh the patreon is growing the subscribership is growing the followers on Tick Tock and Instagram are growing the views are growing like all of it is just working and it's just it's just way cooler I think it's harder too to to grow something that's been around so long in a certain degree like in a way that it's always been and then now it's not that anymore it's like yeah people are Justified for going I don't like this now you know it's like okay cool because you're so used to this thing but for the people that like are willing to accept it and they find out it's actually pretty freaking cool is like I love that idea that like hey if you stayed around long enough and you kind of caught the drift of it and you enjoyed yourself that's great I think that dude who like kind of um explained why he didn't like the channel really helped me a lot
1:48:03 because rather than like feeling like oh we need to silence all these people talking ████ it wasn't that it was we need to um we need to back the people up that are saying good things about us and doing that makes them feel like they should fight harder for you yeah because it's like hey like thank you for saying that you love JK thank you for saying that you've watched it for a decade thanks for saying that you've been here since uh Uncle chin like it's like the people that say that ████ they're really taking a moment out of their lives to be like I want you to hear this and when I looked back at the old messages that I like that were never answered on the DMS yeah I'm like dude there's some freaking really valuable things and I went through it and was just like thank you thank you sorry we didn't respond in six years like all these people that were saying all these things that nobody gave a ████ like nobody saw it that's what I'm saying God damn man once you connect
1:48:54 with the fans in the community you know what I mean like that's when it's like the super fans are really the ones that actually support and drive the yeah it's not just about like you know when you got like nearly 2 million subscribers like we don't know 1.8 million of them right you know what I'm saying yeah yeah but like the the 10 000 that are like consistently in like every new thing if you drop a shirt they buy if you drop a patreon exactly yeah yeah drop a video they comment like that's what actually keeps the whole thing going right you know what I'm saying so just nurturing that element like I don't know it's just there's definitely a magic there's something about the Attitude Era there's something about the careful boys and everything that's happening right now that like I feel like it's brand new it's growing and it's like ████ fun to be a part of it is and it's in the audience is so good like when you go to other podcasts or other or anything like
1:49:45 does there's very few people that are as like these people have been in here like 10 is deep like they're yeah down like they are down they're not going to change their mind about you overnight and be like oh you're not cool anymore yeah dude yeah they're Way Beyond that it's like that's way more value like you can't build an audience like that yeah it's so weird like back in um back to my ████ UCLA Workshop I was just teaching that yeah so funny we had this q a afterwards everybody's like lining up take photos and stuff like that people are just saying things that they they just wanted to share with me like Yo dude like I've been watching you since I was six do I excuse me wow like wait thanks for coming yeah yeah how old are you now 20 I'm like oh whoa like that's a thing it makes sense yeah and it's like that's what something even like JK is just the idea of even being one of like the first
1:50:36 channels to do something yeah like this and again it's easy for us to talk about maybe because we weren't the one the guys who created so like being able to also witness it gives us perspective you know but like to see it being one of the first in original kind of like YouTube channel especially for Asians as well to have this kind of like forum and platform for people to speak and still be alive is I think that in and of itself shouldn't be here in a different way because now people like you said are able to be like I grew up watching you you're the one you're the group that gave me you know what I mean my uh from my childhood you guys taught me all this XYZ you know yeah that's wild right that people can learn from that I love hearing people say that their humor is shaped by JK in a way that they don't take everything so seriously dude and it's not even just like people who like you know are like Asian people that are
1:51:28 yeah right it's like it's like Philip should be was on our Kansas podcast obviously pack and um he was very wholeheartedly expressing how much he ████ loves JK because he's like in today's hyper sensitive world yeah it's not just refreshing it's like needed yeah that a group of people can it's unfiltered just speak because it's not like we're ████ scripting jokes and going off of something that's like so Innovative right in all honesty it's a lot of the like the internalized societal regular feelings or thoughts that people have we're just not afraid to speak about it you know what I mean so even when like you know homeboy is talking about like oh you know things are like racial and blah blah like I bet you know I I beg to ask people in society in general to like look at that
1:52:18 our most viral Clips on JK oftentimes have to deal with race right it's not because we're racial we're talking about everything we're talking about conspiracies to like space to like it's all across we're talking about everything we're not just talking about race right but Society is holding on to like those bites the most exactly or have most comments because it's like polarized and it's something they feel like they can weigh in on exactly so it's like that's that's maybe some of the things that most people tend to think are the extremities they think the extreme expressions are the things that characterize what that brand or that that group of core values is right but I don't think that's necessarily the case I think we uh JK is truly like kind of a group of regular people so to speak I know we're irregular but a group of kind of like normal humans existing in life on planet Earth that are just
1:53:11 speaking what normal people might also be thinking or thinking about you know and I think that's the power it's not the magic like we're you know presenting brand new news before anybody else hears about it or like we're right giving some sort of perspective definitely not nobody else thought about yeah no speaking like regular people we're just choosing to speak about it versus like not you know exactly yeah that's true yeah rather than just stay silent on it the cool thing is I'm glad that they trust us with doing this like Barton Joe oh yeah oh I was like the people I'm like I don't think they should trust us yeah like I said there there's them being adaptive recognizing like you know how to uh encourage and and enable people's strengths and momentum I think there's got to be a reason why this thing is still alive after like over a decade you know what I mean it comes
1:54:01 from still like you know people that get it you know exactly yeah don't damn we're at two hours already nice I like it oh yeah let's wrap this up let's wrap this up but yeah I'm uh in total I'm glad that we both ended up here man like it's really cool I am too I I think it was just the other month I was telling Mike I was like I'm ████ glad Ryan's on her because as long as I have no ride this is like now the closest we get to become yeah you know what I mean which is like we've lived like this for years and years and years but like for JK for this to be one of the benefits of it is like a win to me I'm like dude I finally get to like connect with you at a level that I've only seen in passing yeah or I was too shy to go hey you want to play video games it's yeah it's all all cheesiness at the Forefront you know
1:54:51 what I mean like just the older you get the the less of opportunity you have to like make friends or like to really connect with people and you get very you get very like protective of your space yeah you know what I'm saying and like Jacob gives us one a forum to even bring on guests the fact that there's really a space to bring on a new personality or a new like networked person builds relationships in like a I don't know an adult play date way and then on the other side of it it's like we as a collective get to just develop our friendships and detail yeah yeah like that and as much time as we've spent with the camera button on where we're talking about stuff that's like the same amount of time as when the camera is off and we're talking about random exactly you know what I mean so it's like doubled that down and like that's how much we're almost fast forwarding our relationship building because of the amount of time we're
1:55:41 putting into it but I don't know it's just ████ cool I'm glad that we're like doing things like this podcast and just like finding new ways to not just express ourselves and like have a different kind of purpose in life but like again back to the just connecting with our community yeah is the most I think enriching thing like really just like you know everybody wants to belong somewhere and have some sort of connection is all you know and yeah I feel like this is what I also personally get selfishly from JK we just get to connect with people especially I feel like at this time in in the world where like so many things are going wrong for everybody I really like the fact that I can sit in a room and we can openly talk about how badly we're ████ up at things like it makes you feel better yeah I would probably be depressed if I was just thinking all these things yeah honestly yeah but we literally get to bring in the worst topics here and
1:56:31 somehow except for the ones that we're getting canceled for somehow we're cracking up about everything and I think that's what people also need like in the audience too they have their own stories about how things are going so badly but JK is there and we can all Relish in it together and just you know be miserable yeah I mean if we're all gonna go down hilariously miserable let's just crack up what we're going down yeah might as well that's what this whole show is yeah so thank you guys for joining us on the first episode of uh JK overtime where we go way over without getting paid that's just that's just the tagline oh please subscribe please subscribe right nice
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