0:00 [Music] and welcome back to just kidding news out of the closet we got Ryan here he's G I'm out I'm out guys today you were talking about So You Think You Can Dance season 1 how that changed your life dude yeah I think out of everything that's ever happened to me this would be like the biggest one ever me and Aris were going to Cypress Community College and this one day we saw a bunch of girls like like 50 girls walking to this one like building of the college and we're like why are there so many girls going there so he went over to check Eris was like yeah he was I'mma take down at least seven of them we went back there to see what what the what was over there and it
0:51 it was just like a dance room and they were taking like Coro classes oh and we were like yo that's dope I didn't know there were girls at the school so then we're we're so ████ dumb we like signed up for I accidentally signed up for every class um I thought I was just signing up for like I I didn't know what dance classes meant and I was like oh I'll take a class and I signed up and it meant that that was my class for the semester like I had like yeah I had like five units in dance just like that like an idiot and then so uh when I realized it I went to the uh room for my first day and I was like oh ████ I'm actually in this course now and it was like hip-hop um modern and Jazz and the only thing I did is break at this point like I don't I don't know what counts are I don't know like how to even I've never
1:42 even attempted Coro of any type and then the class itself was so um hard for me that it was almost like a crash course on how to like get proficient in like dance basically we we spent the whole semester learning an ush routine from yeah that's cool and I was like I had the hardest time that was your final was to perform yeah and that ████ is still on YouTube my actual yeah because the chick in class posted it and she doesn't I guess she can't get into her account anymore so it can't be deleted did you ████ rock it though no I ████ look I don't know it looked pretty stupid to me but how do you know she can't get in her account you're like can you please take this down hell yeah so like so that's how that's how that I ended up like so originally we me and Eris had
2:32 completely forgot that we joined this for girls because we just wanted to get good at the dances now and then uh I start that's so hilarious yeah I was in modern and Jazz in jazz like I was like you know how we were always talking about like dude it sucks to be in a Jaz class cuz all the guys are gay I was like the only you know gay guy there out the closet you're the only guys no like I was really the only like like straight dude but then uh it was like I guess the the teachers were so like what are you doing here that they wanted to like really help me oh cuz they're like he likes dance and you're like no I wanted a girlfriend yeah and and it's like the the teachers that I had during that time like were so important because I think it matters more when you're teaching somebody like me that's like I will I
3:22 could quit any day because it's too hard you know what I mean I could just not come back tomorrow because it's too hard I could drop the class but they made sure that like I learned everything that would keep me there another day like every time I like dude that's ████ nuts cuz like why do you even give a ████ about me like I'm not even I add nothing to the class I can't barely do anything but then they just they saw something in yeah they were just like and it wasn't that I was good it's just that they they just happen to be those kinds of teachers that care about somebody liking the subject matter this one's a St so the Jazz teacher was like really good at helping me learn all this stuff and then just by coincidence um this one night uh me and Hawk are just like on AIM or something like talking ████ and then he's like oh dude I saw this Myspace bulletin and it said that there's like a dance audition for this new TV show and
4:12 we were like oh dude it's probably for dance 360 which is like the dance show that was on at the time it was like a stupid show where you yeah you go on the TV show and you win a Xbox 360 and 360 bucks the ████ out of here cool it's literally that's the show yeah it was hosted by Kell from like Keenan and Kell oh I remember and honestly it was kind of tight though because we didn't really have a lot of dance shows no basketball court yeah this is still it's like $800 this is still like ' 05 there's no dance really no dance shows just that one and so we were like I think this is dance 360 like that that's like perfect for me cuz all you do is you come out and you go yeah I'm from Downey I'm going to do the spin move and you do the spin move and that's it it's super dumb so I'm like let's go out there and like do it and we're like oh ████ that ████ audition's at 7 a.m. it it's like 2:
5:02 a.m. when me and Hawk are talking oh ████ so it's like in a few hours yeah so we're like and we just had a whole day of like doing ████ so we're like you want to just like go over to um we're like let's just go over to our friend's house Richie um and we're like the three of us will go over there and audition and go there by by 7:00 a.m. whatever we don't have to sleep so we just uh we went over there thinking it was going to be some like really small thing the line is like it's at the Orum theater in downtown and it's just down the ████ Street around the corner like huge we we still don't know what it is um we line up and and all of this is on on YouTube like all of our like interviews and everything we clearly have no clue what we're getting into and um they they have different rounds it'll be like okay for round one you guys are just going to take turns soloing we we like went into a room with like 12 people and each
5:52 person goes out does a little You Know sample of what they do and then they they go back and then they just keep narrowing it down narrowing it down it doesn't feel like a TV show yet it still feels like a casting and then eventually so do they kind of like separate you okay you two yeah they just keep on like thinning the heard yeah and then so you just keep doing solos and then uh we get to a point where like you start sitting down with the producer they start talking to you about who you are and like what you're doing here your background and everything and then it gets to a point where they start talking about learning Coro and then that's like at the time is still my worst nightmare because like I can do it but I'm not like good at it by any means and I was like cor what the dance 360 don't have Coro what the hell is this and then um we realized it's it's not we started talking to people and they're like oh no this isn't dance 360 this is
6:42 American dance Idol and we're like what the ████ American dance idle do I still win an Xbox it's a little wordy yeah and then I was like Excuse Me is This American dance Idol and then the ladies like the producers like uh no we don't even have a name yet like that's just what we're calling cuz it's the same people that do American Idol and we were like what the hell for me I mean I love partner dancing I had a really good partner luckily and I felt like well like I got to dance with this girl cuz she's really good and um so my entire like situation going through I'm like so my had a number I think I was like 1900 something there's like thousands of people here and uh by the time we got out of this whole audition process it was already like I want to say 3:00 a.m. the next day oh ████ so
7:32 you just didn't even sleep it was just I was sleeping in the rooms where you're waiting like we were just like we were finished and by that time I was I was signing I was like the game is fat contract and they're like oh you're going to move on to like a a different uh like period of casting they want they're interested in you and stuff yeah and I was like the ████ it's like um I think partially it had to do with um my story now tell me about your parents they don't particularly like you dancing huh no they don't they don't really know much about that I dance at all really they just want me to do school or get into Med medical business or anything but dancing anything but art mainly it's sad really because you've got such a light in your eyes when you dance I love dance uh and and hopefully they'll
8:22 recognize that in the next round when you move forward in the competition thank you so much well done see you later done and then it hadn't occurred to me until then because it's not interesting to me until like someone was asking me about it uh I was like yeah they don't uh in in 7 Adventist religion They Don't Really they think it's the devil yeah and it was just like such a normal thing for me to say and it excuse me what like it was so like we're so used to saying that ████ so the the TR matter is that my parents don't know that I do this at all like and that's good TV cuz they could be like we could we could show that yeah cuz I had to keep it a secret my whole life because it it's it's basically like a sin it's like being you know homosexual at ████ in a Mormon church MH out the closet yeah so then I'm like I'm like do
9:12 I want them to find out like this cuz it's going to go on TV um but I was like whatever I'm probably not going to make it that far and then uh I come back the next day and they basically tell me like oh you're one of 100 people that's like the running to like be on this show wow and I was like damn that's that's crazy like I didn't think that I thought it was dance 360 I still tell and then U just is my am I still got to get Xbox which is why like if you look at footage of me through throughout the this show I just look like I always don't know what the ████ happening and that's because most of us didn't and I think like what are we get ourselves into for people that have worked in TV or like because you've been on so many sets you can tell like when when it's the first season of something
10:03 you're almost working together with production to make everything kind of happen it it doesn't have like a dividing line as much so the same people that are like I don't know what they're making yet either yeah yeah yeah it's very like everyone's kind of working together and it feels very like community so it wasn't as like hard on me for being nervous cuz I also I didn't I was clueless but they were two so we eventually get to What's called the top 50 they picked 50 dancers to go live in uh in this hotel it was the it was the I think the universal you know like by Universal Studios was like a yeah the Sheron yeah so we all had to live in this in this place and do the first week of challenges which is like um basically they split us up into like groups of 10 and we take these different classes and they test us like on our proficiency by
10:54 that time are you on the show now like by that point I realized like this is this is the show already and back then so thinking dance was a lot different it's not now it's like a total different show and this is the height of shows like Survivor or um like really high on drama so the season that I was on it's a lot of like ████ talking a lot of like they want you to be embarrassed all the time they put you in situations where you're going to like look stupid now they're just always trying to make the best dance possible because they want to win an Emmy get funding and like ████ kill it back then they were just it was like kind of like uh trash TV 200 stories right exactly it's like the American Idol it's literally American Idol yeah right and then the host at this time was uh Lauren uh what's her
11:46 name that's Jeff Bas was his wife now no way Chi yeah Lauren Sanchez yeah she was the host at the time so then we all mve into this uh place and then there's 50 of us and they they told us like by the end of this week There's only going to be 20 of you or whatever or 20 something like that all of the most like I guess um charismatic loud speaking people that I thought were going to be like the ones that made it did not make it which was like crazy cuz I was one of the more shy guys I was like pretty quiet and ████ and I'm like damn this guy's he always knows what to say that guy always knows what to say this girl's so ████ funny and Loud they just didn't pick any of those people which was like really weird to me and they picked the other half of people that were more like reserved it's like such a my understanding of TV was just like mt off uh so then we go to top
12:36 24 and then from there they go to top 16 and the top 16 was the final absolute like this is season one cast and um at that point like I had never done anything official or professional or anything until this this show had happened and that was the first time that like there was like message boards about me and ████ like there was like four and like oh right people get into the character for you or whatever yeah you could like read what people thought of you and I was kind of invisible to the ████ world till then so it was like it was like a night and day switch of like holy ████ like people like think they know me and stuff like it was really like TV famous back then was like a different Beast cuz you can't quantify it you just have to ████ experience it next up is Ryan my name is Ryan conero I'm 22 years
13:29 years old Growing Up dance was really non-existent in my life not only did my family not approve of dancing but I came from a religion where dancing was considered wrong basically I learned dance through TV and hoping someone on that show would break I've always felt like maybe my parents don't support cuz they don't think I'm good enough and they've just never said what these choreographers were saying to me they were just saying you know what there's something special about you and we're going to keep you at least by this you know my parents can't faith in me and I can do this with confidence I can I can be a dancer Ryan have your parents seen the show yet yeah they seen it and what do they think of you now I don't know they're like they think it's pretty cool you go somewhere and everyone's like and like that's the thing where I
14:19 was telling you guys a story before where I went to like Saddle Ranch with the cast like in the middle of filming and that guy called me where he was like he's like oh are you you're on that show he's like oh I didn't know we're break dancing now it's just like incredible dude yeah the ████ that happens it's like what the f it's like a '90s movie you go from I think it's interesting because for for me personally like it literally was going from like nobody notices me really to like people are like asking about me which is like a trip and then so we top 16 we end up living at uh this place called The Villas in Hollywood and it's kind of close to park Le so it's off of like Wilshire and that's where we're sequestered during the duration of the show oddly enough that's also where they filmm the hills do you remember that show The Hills ████ love the hills
15:11 dude so that place they live at the hill is just it's just like why this the best Jesus Christ yeah it's the ████ best TR yeah so we're we're living in this place and um that's I can't think now that's really like it's that's also the same place that I would told you guys that story about that one girl I was dating where we did anal and it was like bad it was in the middle of that it was dude you sploded her butt yeah yeah so um yeah the season goes and they weren't going to pay us anything in the beginning they were like oh well you guys are here you just got to be here and then our cast was like upset about that because they're like I got like rent to pay I have to do all this ████
16:01 and they were like no there's no money involved you're just here as a competition we're like but this could take months so uh we had like almost like staged like a ████ protest basically and and so they ended up giving us like a weekly pay which is the because of that is the weekly pay that to this day they still give for like uh people on like dance reality shows and ████ and they give you a shopping list where they'll be like every week like you just put on a list what you want and it'll just be in your living quarters use your gay pants budget yeah all the sequence sequence that and we would and we would like test it to see if they would buy certain things and we would put like deer antlers and tomato paste like just to see if they would really do it those poor p yeah it really was but then like cuz then they weren't in the beginning Xbox yeah in the beginning they didn't
16:51 give you anything and so like people were stealing toilet paper from like other places to like bring it back like it was really they weren't even giving you basic things like that so then uh throughout the show it was like the experience for me was not super great dance-wise because I was always so freaked out all the time like imagine if you don't you're so new to this thing and then all of a sudden they're like all right you're going to learn ████ uh vienes Waltz and you've never even heard that word you know it's like and you got to do it on TV for everybody like it's ████ crazy wow that's wild ████ and uh the first couple weeks was like pretty good cuz I my first thing was uh I think it was Mambo was my first piece I had to learn was a crazy rtin the one where your hair slick yeah yeah yeah so I've never like done I've never done anything close to like just super just the first time ever and uh they
17:43 were just like yo I think it'd be really cool if like cuz like I had really spiky air back then and they're like I think it'd be really cool if you just slicked it back and you just looked so different from your normal self and then um so I did that I remember when I walked out at the taping to like do this piece I just saw like in the crowd was like so many of my old friends had like come and it was like ████ dope so many people in the dance scene like all a lot of people from the teams that we grew up with were all out there and my ████ old neighbor from like where I grew up like all these people that I knew I didn't even tell them they just like found out and they showed up to this taping and it was like it's like you know when you think like at the end of big fish when it's all the people that ████ he was like telling stories about it felt like that it's like damn the all the people from my life like that meant something were just I was just going whoa whoa
18:33 whoa who it's ████ crazy yeah and then um and then it just got so progressively ████ harder that like eventually I got smoked and uh I I went home like top ████ 10 or some ████ but it was like the poison solo Oh yeah yeah yeah I think doing solos was the only thing that I was really confident at he was like on uh you can correct me if I'm wrong but it was like one of his like last elimination like you were in the bottom whatever so you got to do a solo to save your life type ████ and then he just it was just one of those iconic like this fool hit everything in a way that we had never seen he was always doing these back head Springs he would jump back and hit hit his head and then fall over onto his legs it was back head this fo jumps back and just sticks it and he's like looking at the camera just like I remember screaming the risk like element of back then was like crazy
19:24 because it's like everything I did at the time if something was off by a little bit it would be a horrible like accident basically calculate it perfectly I just got I just get lucky and so like after the show and everything it was like a trip because now I got to like basically when you're you're eliminated but you can't go out in public yet because they haven't yet told the public that you're off I just want to say that um thank you to everyone who voted for me and I'm glad you guys like what I do um and you you made the right choice America cuz I mean man Jamal's my best friend on the show and I I love this guy and I'm glad he's going to be staying yeah so it's surv they send you exactly it's a weird experience because they send you to live at a different apartment I lived at like this ████ apartment in Long Beach and they send like a security guy with you
20:14 back then they took this ████ really seriously they like don't care anymore but back then they sent like a ████ like a special ops guy that was like just supposed to go with me anywhere and he would stand on the other side of the door all night holy ████ boiling cow that's okay yeah yeah yeah so we would so like me and uh me and my friends when it's time to go eat I'd be like hey you want to try this place called T barbecue and like we would ████ go to places just so that guy could experience ████ oh sh that's yeah he's like you never had beef s yeah and we just thought it was funny that this ████ crazy like cool buffer just be eating with you guys yeah we're like this guy has to go everywhere we go that's so sick it just felt like so like a celebrity and ████ but then it that's because back then there were so many crazy fans and crazy people that they didn't want to take a risk on like something happening to you and then that's now the story for the
21:04 show yeah so then after that after I got off I went on like Regis and Cali I did the ████ weather report in New York on their ████ news like they just place you at every ████ possible thing gin this guy D is King believe it R like dude he was ████ great yeah he's great he's it's just everything that you do after that is like it's like another life it's just like really was night and day and uh and yeah we I ended up moving into that same apartment that they sequestered Us in where they were shooting the hills because the guy there was so cool that he's like hey if any of you dancers want to live here afterwards I'll give you guys a special rate even though it's trash no it's great it's actually like a really fancy place uh five of us pulled our stuff together and we moved in there and they were still filming the hills and I would run into
21:54 the people from The Hills all the timec D yeah they just wouldn't talk to us they would just like be really like Heidi like we would have to use the same laundry room as them Heidi yeah Heidi's pretty heid after she got the titties yeah Heidi Mont yeah before pre titties why what were your parents saying about this so my parents were like uh they were pretty upset that I had even told the um producers that that was what life was like why did you tell them the truth yeah yeah yeah they they were my mom I remember the whole time what are you talking about pretty mad yeah she was like you're making us look bad and I was like that's the truth though like what are you talking about sucked but don't tell them yeah I know but at least embellish it yeah they were just they were not really happy about that because I guess like that show was so pop like that was a top show so at my mom's work all of the nurses and all the doctors
22:45 like know about it and they were all like they were all asking her like oh what's that's not that cool cuz she's he's talking ████ on her yeah he's like 7even days whack as ████ it's like well look at me now seventh day ████ you I yeah so it's like cool but it's not like my mom's kind of like she was more like hurt by that so it was like I was in a time in my life where I was pretty ████ conflicted cuz she still 7th Day yeah they're all they my whole family is still 7th Day yeah but that it was like kind of Bittersweet for me the whole way because I'm like I ████ love what I'm doing but it's like it's going to hurt my family like you know in a weird unique way where they have to face the fact that like their own friends are going to be like wow you didn't allow them to do that it's not even that bad M what do you mean like who do I side with you know no you know you know don't
23:35 don't make me sit you're asking me again yeah it at this time probably my dad yeah I also say though especially for a lot of the times that like we've happened to especially Steve like always chooses the champion like Heroes of the Asian American community and stuff like that I don't do that yeah absolutely you I do not do that yeah you do um Ryan played a huge part in like what it was for like an Asian-American to go on like a show represent whether it be a danc or anything he was just like the Asian-American dude that was there and just killing it and stuff and it's like so all you gold house ████ and stuff like that you better remember you know what I mean like Ryan did that ████ for it definitely was like it was crazy because like I felt like when I was there on the show I felt like more like I was representing our dance Community because uh so many of them were there at
24:27 the taping as well and it like damn the people all the other cast members was like how the ████ you got this many people here I was like I don't know dude they just they roll deep man like and and then as soon as I was out yeah yeah yeah yeah as soon as I was out I went back to doing shows for the dance Community right away like We just and I went back to losing in those shows yeah it was like that that's just where my home was so it was cool to like uh I guess like be one of the first people from our dance community that I guess like got to make a mark on this era of dance TV because it was the first first of his kind yeah it was the first dance TV show that was tapping into the community and pulling people out and being like Oh like they discovered that there was a whole slew of dancers that were like that talented at just being um I guess
25:18 like entertaining so then they just started before you know it like that plays that show had been on ████ how many seasons like 18 or some ████ yeah it's just and we all thought it was over after the first one they didn't even have a name like as soon as that wrapped like producers were like hey all right I'm going to go back to working for Survivor now I'm going to go back to working for whatever Fear Factor have they ever asked you back yeah so ever like almost every season until the maybe like the fifth or sixth I came back to do guest spots okay and then uh yeah I came back with six-step crew season twool uh came and then by season 3 that's when Hawk was on and then dietrix was on so every time there was a reason to be back for something that's ████ we would come back and do shows with uh Quest we came back and did shows with LMFO when they were big so that like So You Think You Can Dance family was very strong and they're very like good at like uh I guess like bringing their
26:10 people back to you know to represent yeah yeah yeah yeah really good so that was um pre ABDC right so you think things like that built the whole appetite for a dance show I think like yeah it did I think it really uh it really showcased what was out there and I think it also showcase that there were crews out there because when you have season one and I'm there and then season three Hawks there and then like every season they're like oh they would always go do you guys got any more people in your crew that want to like try out do you guys got any they would ask every person who's in your crew cuz we want more people and then eventually they got the idea like why don't we just get Crews right so then that's you know where that went but the cool thing is that if it wasn't for So You Think You Can Dance we wouldn't have been so media trained and so like I guess normalized
27:01 with TV that by the time ABDC came around it wasn't like nerve-wracking yeah it wasn't your first Ro yeah yeah yeah so like just like how Anthony like we were saying by the time we did season 8 of ABDC like kjas was like man you all look real comfortable and ████ how come you guys are all ████ around cuz they were so serious you know they're like so like making sure that everything we were at like the the ████ first round interviews and stuff where they do a photo shoot and press and then we're getting ready to walk into the room to take our crew photo shoot and the these guys are running out diet's butt naked holding his nuts and we're like cuz they were like posing all nice for the photo by the time we came on Dom stripped completely naked cuz you guys it's like your first piano recital and for you it's like you guys been playing Vegas for however long and like so and now we're just doing Chopsticks to troll you know it's it's like that thing where
27:51 I think like so you think you dance again like my whole life has been nothing but crash courses so where most people might assume like oh you prepared like in a timely manner for these things no I was dropped in every single thing I did dropped in and it was a fight to survive so if you guys watch any of this old footage I I'm really nervous So You Think You Can Dance season one I'm ████ stressed all the time and I look like I haven't slept and I even just stopped ████ doing my hair cuz I was like dude this is ████ I don't got time for that ████ speaking of doing your hair I got to go do mine so we're going to be right back and we're going to we're going to continue with uh your experience on America's Best Dance Crew V RB after these paid advertisements thank you thank you
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