Going Viral Is Easy… Building a Career Is Hard | @biggjah Social Proof Podcast

Big John's in the building, man.

Welcome to the show.

I was already known everywhere.

I'm taking pictures and signing autographs and stuff.

Wow.

But I was still broke.

And it says monetized 6 cents.

But you see this YouTube studio, you like, I made 6 cents.

I made 6 cents.

I can make $6, $100.

Every month I was on average doing 60 to 70 bands.

It's funny how life works like that.

When you lock in, you're automatically attracting people that's locked in.

Right.

Anybody that's trying to make it with no bread, you gotta find like-minded people.

You gotta find people that's just like you that have

no money, but they can pay you in effort and you pay them in effort.

What's your ultimate goal?

Ultimate goal is

to make film.

I want people to look at my films as classics, like the Fridays and the Don't Be a Menace and the Boyz n the Hood.

So my goal is to make films like that, that people talk about 30 years later.

The 30th anniversary of this film.

Do what you can.

Don't wait for the— don't be perfect.

Be consistent.

Welcome to another edition of the Social Proof Podcast.

We find dope people that do dope stuff, man.

And I gotta tell y'all, this person that is on the couch is literally one of my favorite creators, bro.

Like top 3.

And I've seen a lot of creators.

I know a lot of creators, but bro, when I came across your content, I was so like enamored.

I'm like, first off, how is this so funny and witty at the same time?

Thank you, man.

And I will— I'm just, I'm binging.

I'm binging, binging, binging.

But the coolest thing I saw

was you had a bunch of characters in the shows, right?

But then I saw each one of those characters had their own stuff and y'all would be in theirs.

And it was just this beautiful network of these LA creators that are all in each other's content and it was all fire.

So me watching you made me go find other people and I started like really binging their stuff and It was just incredible, man.

Big Jaws in the building, man.

Welcome to the show.

What's going on, man?

Brother Shands, what's happening?

Oh, bruh, everything's good, man.

I remember the first time I met you.

Yes, sir.

We went to some little restaurant he took me to.

The Yard House in Burbank.

Was that the first time?

Yeah.

Yeah, we went to a restaurant.

With your partner, with your homeboy.

Yes.

Yeah.

Bro, I'm not gonna lie, I was fanning a little bit.

It's all love, bro.

I was fanning.

It's crazy, that was years ago.

Years ago.

And you didn't have this.

No, no, no, no.

You was cracking though.

You was doing your thing.

I found you and you didn't know that I was,

I followed you.

I think that's what, and then you DM me right after that.

I was scrolling and I came across one of your videos and I was like, oh, I like what he's saying.

Didn't know you.

I did my first time ever seeing your content and I thought it was dope.

And I was like, I liked it.

And then I scrolled down again.

And usually what I do when I look, when I scroll down and I see 2 or 3 pieces of someone's content that I like, if I have to double tap, I was like, let me follow this person.

And off the first time, the first, 2 or 3 videos I seen, I was like, oh, this dude is dope.

I like what he's saying.

I would be there in the room listening to him if I was at, if I had the opportunity.

And I, I saved, I mean, yeah, I followed you.

And then within like 10 minutes I got a DM.

You like, hey man, bro, I saw the follow.

I said, Big John is following me, bro.

I, I was so, bro, I was fanning a little bit.

I ain't gonna hold you.

It's all good.

I was an instant fan too though.

So I was like, bro, yeah, what's up, man?

I like what you saying in the videos, bro.

What's going on?

How you doing?

And then we chopped it up and I don't know how long it was after that, but you was in LA and you say, man, I'm gonna be in town, man.

Let's have lunch or something.

And then I pulled up and we met up at the, at the Art House.

Yes, sir.

Yes, sir.

With your homeboy.

And then we chopped it up and he had a, just a slew of questions and conversations.

And it was dope, man.

And we linked in that day.

Yes, sir.

It was cool.

Yes, sir, man.

I'm so glad you're here, man.

Cause I haven't, we see your content, but I haven't really got your story like that.

You know, we've had conversations in terms of going

going through their marriage and all that kind of stuff.

But, um, I really want to know how you got started.

First off, let's start here.

You have like how many views on YouTube?

For those that don't know, like, I want to talk about what you've built.

What are some of the things that you brag on?

Real quick, I think we did do a video, or we did an interview when we first met, within the first year that we knew each other.

I came out to ATL.

Yes, sir.

And we told— I want to say I want to say 6 years ago, bro.

It was 2019.

Had to be.

And I don't think it was video, it was just audio.

It was audio.

Yeah, that's, that's how long ago it was.

You're right, bro.

It was in the small room.

It was in the room you had.

You're right.

I had another co-host.

I had a, I had a young lady co-host at the time.

I think so.

Yes.

Damn, it wasn't even no video.

We didn't have— there was no cameras up.

It was just audio.

He was like, man, I just want to story.

I remember that.

It was a long time ago.

A long time ago.

We about to update the audience now though.

Yeah.

Amen.

So yeah, so we can start as if we, as if we just not just met, but like, yeah, I don't even remember that's what we talked about.

So yeah, this is, this is the official one.

So for those that don't know, what are some of the accolades, some of the things that you've accomplished?

I would say,

I think my first, type of success was on, my first viral video

was on IG, but it was mostly, it was simultaneously on Facebook.

Tiberius, back in like 2017.

I was doing sketches for years before that, but I was never consistent.

I never really had any direction on what I wanted to do.

And so

I would say 2017 is where things really took off for me when I really got serious and I was consistent.

Well, what year did you start creating?

To be honest, if I'm talking about doing, I was doing sketches before YouTube ever existed.

Really?

Yeah, I was doing, I remember in high school, man, the first time I grabbed a camera, it was on my high school recruiting trip, football recruiting trip.

And I took a camera to, to the Bay, to UC Berkeley where I ended up going.

I was taking, my coach drove me up there and we met, I met the team and I spent the weekend up that week.

I spent the weekend up in Oakland, Berkeley area.

And I took a camera.

I had a, there was a video class in my high school that I never knew about.

I went to the high school, I was just about to graduate that following, that semester.

And I come across this video class and I was like, I saw all these cameras and video, I mean, and TVs in the room.

I was like, what's this?

This is a video class.

I said, what?

Y'all got a video class?

And I was always into like movies and stuff like that, but I had no outlet.

I had nowhere to know.

I didn't have no camera.

I used to always walk around taking pictures.

That was even like since middle school, I had like this camera that my dad had and I would like, we'll go to like Thrifties or something like that and get like a roll of film and put

it in.

So I was always taking pictures.

I couldn't afford a real camera.

You gotta take the film to somebody, like drop it off, come back in a couple days.

It was that situation.

So I saw this video class, I saw, And she explained to me that you can like rent the camera equipment.

I said, you can rent it?

Like how much does it cost?

I ain't got no money.

She was like, oh no, it's free.

You just gotta give us your ASB card.

You know what I'm saying?

Like the little ID card for the high school.

I said, and that's it?

Yeah.

But it was Friday.

I was getting ready to go to the Bay that night.

I mean that following morning.

And so she was like, no, you can use it this weekend.

I can take it right now?

Yeah, just gimme your ID.

I said, really?

She gave me a camera with two VHS tapes, blank tapes back in the day when you had the big camera.

On your shoulder.

Yeah, it's 1999.

I'm in high school, I'm 17.

And I'm like, man, I could take it right now.

I took it.

She showed me how to use it.

A quick crash course on how to operate the camera.

Took her like 10 minutes.

I learned it and I took it up to my recruiting trip.

And that's when I was like, this is what I want to do.

If it ain't gonna be football, it's gonna be camera.

It's gonna be filmmaking.

But before that you're thinking I'm going to the NFL.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

Then you take this trip and you're like, yo, I wanna be a creator.

Yeah.

On that trip I was like, man, I wanna do this.

So if football, and also the reality of not making it in the NFL was there.

But I'm like, well, I'm gonna go play football for 10 years, become a Hall of Famer, retire, and then I'm gonna go into filmmaking.

I'm gonna, but then let me learn how to make film now.

So when I go to college and it all kind of worked together, I was gonna play Cal, I was gonna play here at Cal.

I already, my first time filming, like I filmed the whole weekend.

Ask anybody that knew me back then.

What was you filming?

Everybody, I was interviewing students.

And now mind you, it's a recruiting trip.

So the same weekend of my recruiting trip for football was a program at Cal called BRRC, BRRC, Black Recruitment and Retention Center.

And that was like, it was basically the American, I mean the African Student Union, ASU.

So this is like the black kids on campus that were recruiting other black students from different parts of the country from high school.

So that was like two recruiting trips.

So I went up there to see how the campus was and how the black population was at Cal along with like the white population and others as well.

But also the same weekend, there was a football recruiting trip as well.

So I filmed everybody.

I'm interviewing people who was coming from different parts of the country to come in for the same program, the same event.

Some people were from the Bay, some people were from LA.

It was, I was like, so what's your name?

Where you from?

And what you gonna major in when you get here?

If you do come here, I was doing that.

Have you always been like funny?

Like that personality that you have?

Yep.

So you just in there wild ass, off the wall stuff.

Yeah, I'm flippin' with the girls and stuff like that.

And I still got that videotape.

Really?

I still got, I gotta convert it to digital.

I gotta convert it to like the computer.

But like I still got, it's 1999.

You see the stamp and you see like the gas prices.

Gas prices was like $1.10 back in the day.

I got old videotape of, uh, Dame might be on it too, you know what I'm saying?

Me and my manager, me and Dame, we went— that's how we met.

We met in college.

Wow.

He's a year ahead of me, so I was a freshman.

Get it done.

I want to patch that in a little bit to this video if we can get it done.

I can't believe you haven't converted it by now.

I know, I know.

That's one thing that, hence Dame be on my head about, hey man, get things done.

I should have been converted it and it's— I'm editing now.

I know how to edit.

I could have been and done it.

Yeah.

You know, it's probably a program.

It's probably like a device that you can just put a VCR connected to the computer now.

No, bro, you dropped it off to somebody that does that stuff.

Exactly.

Yeah, it's that simple.

And I live in LA, so yeah, 100%.

So many places I can just go to get that done.

But yeah.

So you, you're doing these interviews just, just wilding out, having a good time, right?

And I'm loving it.

And I, of course, I'm asking people questions about if you was an actress, what would you do with your favorite movie?

And give me a scene from your favorite movie.

And they act, I'm like, go, action.

I'm just, you know what I'm saying?

So I knew it.

I said, I love this.

And you, did you already grow up in love with movies?

Were you a big movie buff growing up as a kid?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, gotcha, gotcha.

My uncle had like the LaserDisc back in the day.

Oh yeah.

You know what I'm saying?

Some people don't even know what LaserDisc is.

Come on, bro.

It's like a big-ass CD.

but it's like for movies.

And I would go to his house, he had all the new releases, and if he didn't have it on LaserDisc, he had it on VHS.

So any movie that came out within a month, within a week or so, he had it on VHS.

So I'm going to his house and he had like a library of movies.

It was almost like a big screen, and he had these cabinets, and it was all coded and it was all, what's the word, structured by date, you know what I'm saying?

New releases.

And it was like going to Blockbuster, you know what I'm saying?

And I would open, I would watch all the movies, and it was the

that I wasn't supposed to watch that was like rated R, you know what I'm saying?

At nighttime I'm going in there, everybody's asleep.

I'm in the living room watching it.

And I knew, and my dad was an artist, you know what I'm saying?

He was an illustrator.

So he drew and he made jewelry outta like metal, outta like silverware and like he'll make a ring or a bracelet out of like a fork.

But I wish I could show you what it is.

I could too if I brought it with me, but like, My dad was very creative.

So is he still around?

He passed.

He passed 2016.

Ah man.

Yeah, bro.

Appreciate it now.

It's all good.

So after this recruiting trip, you go back, obviously you do nothing with the footage.

No, I didn't do nothing with it.

We was doing pranks and then I get to college and my birthday, I turned 18.

That was like, I was probably the youngest dude on the team.

I was the youngest dude on the team.

I was 17 when I got to college and my mom bought me a camera for my 18th birthday and I didn't even know it was, she, it was like a— What kind of camera?

Like the handy cam joint?

VCAM Sony.

Yeah.

And the 8mm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so that was the best present I ever got in my life at the time.

And probably still.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying?

But like, and 'cause I never, we can never afford a camera.

And,

but she knew that, she knew that's what I wanted to do.

I was talking about it, man.

I love, I got a camera.

I rented one from college, from high school.

And then she saw my 18th birthday and she got me like this every year.

My birthday's in December.

So every year she gives me a calendar.

'Cause she said, you gotta write things down, son.

Put it in the calendar.

You know what I'm saying?

Now Dame is that guy, right?

Dame is like, hey man, you gotta write everything down so you can know and remember what to do and all that stuff and what time to do it.

My mom would give me a calendar that I would open it up.

So basically it was the year 2000, you know what I'm saying?

And I'm 18 now, I'm about to be, it's 18, I turned 18 right before the year 2000.

And inside the calendar, she opened it up and it was a sticker.

A tape, it was a coupon for the camera.

And so I'm thinking I'm just getting this, I'm cool, I'm grown now.

So she like, "Yeah, I ain't, I don't need no toys." So I'm thinking this is all she gave me for my birthday.

And I opened up the calendar and it has like the receipt to the camera.

And I was like, "What's this?

Oh, the camera?" Yeah.

And then she pulled it out from like the behind by the Christmas tree or something like that.

I was like, "Yeah." So, and I used, so now I don't have to rent a camera no more.

I went back to college that, the second semester as a second-year freshman.

And I had that camera and anybody that knows me back then, he even Dame, Dame, like, yeah, I was always the dude with the big ass, the Afro walking around or braids.

I'm filming everything now and I'm shooting sketches with my teammates and I'm in the locker room and yeah, I got all that.

So you were shooting sketches at that time too?

Well, even I didn't even know what they were called back then.

I was just having the homie or mostly it was probably more documentary style than anything.

I'm just walking into the room and the homies is playing 2K, playing Madden.

And they just talking.

And so I might have to go back and sift through what the hell I was watching.

Right.

You are gonna be floored when you see that stuff.

Yeah.

I'm talking about it's 18-year-old me and the homies and a lot of them dudes are still my partners to this day.

Yeah.

So, and there wasn't nobody filming them back then unless they was on the football field.

But like other than that, they gonna be like, man, I'm gonna, yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm, I gotta develop that.

I gotta look at that.

100%.

But I have, I have a bunch of college footage too.

Cause I was always the person with a camera too.

That's why I understand this game.

Like it's not even like I know what the

to do with it other than just show my friends after the party what we saw.

Like it wasn't even nothing to do with it.

You freestyle in the car.

I'm in the backseat filming everybody.

Come on, bro.

What?

I got so many freestyles.

Absolutely.

We did some things that we probably shouldn't have done with the kids.

Yeah, some things.

And this is 18-year-old freshman, sophomore year in college that I was like, man, my wife kind of already know who I am.

So I was like, hey, There's some parts I'm not gonna show.

'Cause you saying probably the wildest things, you doing shit, you saying all kind of crazy shit.

When I got, when I like really started going to church, I had to delete some of that stuff.

I remember throwing some of those joints away.

I said, I don't even want to have this nowhere.

You know what I mean?

Man, look, I got some stuff I shot that my boy's nephew, he grew up with us, like, and he was always, we had a camera in high school and we used to be at my homeboy's house and he had,

he probably had the least money outta all of our families.

But we, he was, his spot was the kicking spot and there was like this bedroom and we had like this California queen, California king bed and it's like 5, 6, 7 dudes just sitting on

the bed playing the game.

It's one dude laying against the wall on the phone talking to a girl and talking to a girl and it's like the two dudes at the edge of the bed and It's like another dude laying across

the bed on another phone line.

Or one homeboy had a cell phone, so he on that.

And his cousin, his nephew is just filming us 'cause this is one of our cameras.

It's probably my boy Willie.

He had a camera or my boy Ray had a camera and he's just filming us.

And the things he's saying, I'm like, and he sent this to me now, mind you, his nephew was probably about 5, 6 years younger than us.

So when we like 17, he's like 10 or 11,

12.

And my boy will always make him get up and leave 'cause they shared a bedroom.

It was just the room was so small.

It's just a bed in there.

I think the dresser was like in the closet or it was like in the hallway.

Right.

And it's just all these, we big football player dudes.

And I'm like, one of my homeboys is 290, he's 6'4", 290.

And we just big dudes.

And the other homie, he's 6'4".

I'm 6'3" and I'm a linebacker.

It's just a lot of dudes.

And I'm like, first of all, why are we, why is all these dudes on this one bed?

I'm gonna keep it 100.

But nowadays you be like, that's pause.

But this is 1997, '98.

You know what I'm saying?

Ain't nobody tripping.

We watching the game, we playing the game.

And his older brother was in there too.

He's 6'5".

It's just, and we just saying some of the craziest stuff.

We clown each other, we talk bad to each other.

And all in the name of love and just having fun.

I'm like, damn, those things you couldn't put on the internet now because we'd be getting in trouble.

[Speaker:TRAVIS] Yeah.

I think it's important to be documenting the process wherever we're at right now.

Now we make it easy.

Like our phones is cool, but like you had to go to Extra effort to actually do that, right?

So after you get this camera, what was the first skit or sketch that you remember doing, writing, and producing?

Once I got to college, I was shooting that, that year, that semester, and then I went home for Christmas break at the end of the season, end of the semester, end of the school year,

my freshman year.

And I started shooting sketches when I got back home to like my homeboys, because these are the homies that I knew from high school, and we silly, and we could sit down.

In college, ain't no— I don't think the homies even had, myself included, didn't have the

mindset to sit down and create a sketch idea and then actually act it out, do 1 or 2 or 3 takes.

And then I didn't even know how to edit back then.

So I think the sketches came when I got back.

It was still 2000.

Yeah.

I think my first sketch was a parody of a parody.

Don't Be a Menace while drinking your juice in the hood, right?

Where they was jumping the dude in, he was jump roping.

We redid that.

I redid that.

It was 2000.

It says at the bottom 2000.

And I'm playing one of the dudes that's about to get jumped in.

I'm about to jump the homie in and he gets jumped in and then we be jumping rope.

And you see him going like this.

Like he's about to get ready to square up with the homies and get beat up.

And it cut, we widen out the shot and he's about to do it.

He's playing double dutch.

And like, it's just, and he once again, these big-ass football kids playing double dutch.

And that was the sketch.

That was 25 years ago.

What did you do with that sketch?

I— it's, it's still up.

No, look, it's on YouTube.

I put it on YouTube years ago when they first— because there was no YouTube.

There was no YouTube.

And I don't even know if it's still up.

I'm gonna keep it 100.

I gotta find it.

I don't even know how to find it.

You put it— I'm saying you put it— I put it on YouTube.

But you're saying when you recorded, there wasn't no YouTube?

Yeah, the YouTube didn't crack.

That's what I'm saying.

You put it up after— you put it up a few years?

5 to 5— I think I put it up at the earliest 5 years after

2000.

So 2005 or 2008 or something like that.

Oh, I see, I see, I see.

Yeah.

And that was when I did the first thing I ever put up and I don't even have that page anymore.

Yeah.

I could probably find it.

I tried to find it a while ago and I couldn't.

But so you put, you put that up and it's terrible.

Were you like, like promoting it and thinking about views or anything?

No, I ain't know.

I just put it up so the homies could see it.

Right.

I put it up for the homies.

So I think I put it up and then I didn't even know how to send it All right.

I didn't know nothing about the internet like that.

So once I had to be around them,

I had to be around them to show up, to show up like, hey, to show them this.

Yeah.

And now, yeah, I ain't know nothing about views, monetization, nothing.

That never crossed my mind.

I was like, man, I put this video, I shot this video and I put it out and I'm happy about it at the time.

Now it's like, oh, not now, but like I think it was early 2000s.

I was like, this is terrible.

Yeah.

Now, 'cause this is before college, you know?

But it was lit when you did it though.

You like, yo, look at this.

Look at the editing.

The homies is terrible with the acting.

My acting was terrible.

You get it.

We didn't have no sound.

It was just, man, it was, and some of the homies don't know what they doing and I don't know how to direct them.

And so yeah, it's terrible now.

But like, that's why, so I've been doing this most of, more than half my life.

And I was in film, I was a freshman in school and I wasn't even taking film classes yet.

'Cause when you get to college, you gotta take the prerequisites first.

And yeah, you gotta take the classes that, you gotta take the regular classes just before you even get to your major stuff.

So I feel like end of my sophomore year is when I started taking classes for film.

The reason you're here is because I decided to start a podcast so that I can have engaging conversations with people.

By the way, this video will be monetized.

I'll make money off of it.

You need to start a podcast too.

You can have engaging conversations like this one, okay?

Which means you need to be at Podcast Summit 2026.

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So fast forward, when did you like realize, yo, I'm going to be a content creator and really start taking it seriously to start making these uploads?

Because we're like, we're probably hundreds of millions of views at this point, right?

I mean, right now.

Yeah.

Now.

I would say 17 years later.

17 years later.

Really?

Yeah.

Cause I was just, I was doing videos.

I think then my next video after that, I might've put, I might've put out

10 years later,

2010.

Oh wow.

I had, I had this page.

What was you doing?

You was working a job, bro?

I was working a job, man.

Where was you working at, bro?

I was trying to imagine this.

After college, after high school, after college I graduated.

Cause you can't work in college and you play ball, you can't really work.

Work.

You know what I'm saying?

So after college, my first job was, I was an afterschool program leader

at Rosa Parks Elementary School in Berkeley, California.

Shout out to my boy Lamont Snare, man.

It's my bro, my bro to this day.

You was a monster to them little kids.

They're like, oh my God.

Yeah.

But also I was fun too.

I was fun, man.

You know, I was a goofball, but I also had the 6th graders and that was like the hardest, the 5th graders, they were 5th graders.

That was the hardest class to have.

Cause they was like, we preteens and they thought they knew everything and nah, but I had them in order, man.

We was cool.

How long were you doing that?

2 years.

2 years.

2 years.

And then what?

And then I started, I was a personal trainer at 24 Hour Fitness.

Word.

Yeah.

So I would lead there.

I was doing that after I was a personal trainer for like part-time.

So I would do like nights.

I would do like maybe from like 6 to like 9, 6 to 10.

At 24 Hour Fitness in Richmond, California at the Hilltop Mall.

They had a gym in the mall.

It was cracking too.

That mall was cracking, you know what I'm saying?

Especially for the gym goers, you know what I'm saying?

So I was in there, that's back when I was in shape, you know.

What was your dream at this time?

I mean like what were you trying to do?

At that time I was still trying to play football.

What did you have?

Really?

I was working out and then I was hitting that.

That's one thing.

I was in the gym and I was like, I was broke.

You know, I got this college degree.

I graduated, but I don't have no bread.

I don't got no job.

So my boy Lamont gave me a job at the

at the elementary school and that was cool.

But I needed, I got a second job as a trainer and just to get in shape, get a free membership.

Yeah.

And at that point I got a free membership every, at all the 24 Hour Fitnesses.

So no matter, no matter where I'm at, I can hit the gym.

Gotcha.

And I was training, I was working out myself and then I met a dude there, my boy AD, Aaron Dunklin.

He was a, he was a transplant from, from Mississippi from when, when, what was it?

What's the, what's the, Katrina.

Yeah, Katrina hit and messed up, you know, ripped up New Orleans, ripped up Mississippi too.

Yeah, that was by the Bay, Bay St.

Louis, Mississippi.

Bay St.

No, Bay St.

Mississippi, not Bay St.

Louis, Bay St.

Mississippi.

That was what, 2009-ish?

That's 2006, '07 when Katrina hit.

Yeah, I want to say, or '06, because I started, I started working for FEMA around I guess maybe around that time.

Yeah.

And he was from New Orleans, he was from Mississippi, but his people had to come to America, had to come to America, had to come to the West Coast.

Yeah.

And so it was a lot of people from New Orleans and from like Texas and

more so more New Orleans and Mississippi.

Louisiana.

Louisiana.

Yeah.

And Mississippi that were coming out to, coming West and him and his family, him and his best friend and their dad, Charles Hawkins and Mr.

Olympia 2003 or '04.

Oh wow.

Yeah, they came out.

So these big buff dudes was up in the gym working out and I'm a trainer.

So I'm talking, they seeing me every day.

They in there 2 times a day and we chopping it up and I'm talking up, I'm talking with the homie AD Aaron and he's like, yeah, I play football, man.

I went to Mississippi State or something like that.

And I was like, I went to Cal up the road.

He was like, cool, what'd you play?

I played tight end.

All right, what's up?

And then I'm about to, I'm gonna try, I'm trying out for these football teams, these arena teams.

And we, I tried out for a few teams and I went

And I tried out for the Gladiators in LA and then the, I forget the, the, the, the San, the Bay Area team.

But— [Speaker:JUSTIN] And you ain't made nothing.

[Speaker:JUSTIN] I didn't make those.

But I made this, the Arena 2 Football League called the UFL.

It's the Ultimate Football League or something like that.

And I, I, I went down there to try out.

So I just packed up my clothes, man, packed up and I went with Aaron.

We flew to, we flew to New Orleans.

His mom picked us up.

At the time, I'm like 25, couple years after college.

I'm still trying to like make the league.

I still got league dreams.

I'm working in the gym.

I'm bouncing, I'm bouncing at this club called the Holy Cow.

It's like this bar in San Francisco.

You doing all big dude activities.

I'm a bouncer, I'm a trader, I'm trying to play football.

And that's what, and I wasn't doing, I was still goofy, but I wasn't filming it and I wasn't writing nothing.

I wasn't doing nothing with my major at the time.

You ever had to put the hands on somebody?

Oh, come on.

Yeah.

Even in college, college is the, it got to a point where the team started, 'cause that's the only job we was getting.

We can get under the table money.

Yeah.

Like doing, being a bouncer in college.

We was going bouncing in Frisco, bouncing in Oakland, bouncing in Berkeley on campus and like frat parties.

Frat parties be the worst.

Mm-hmm.

'Cause some of the homies know you, some of the people know you.

Yeah.

And they people say, hey, just let me in.

Can't let you in, bro.

You ain't on the list.

So some dudes said they trying to sneak in and and then they trying to bum rush the door and yeah, one of the homies knocked out the kid.

What?

And then he got, one of the other homies got hit in the head, one of our teammates got his jaw broke and he couldn't play.

Coach was like, all right bro, y'all gotta, yeah, y'all gotta stop.

No, no, no more bouncing.

Yeah.

'Cause bouncing basically mean fighting.

Right.

But that's your bread at the time.

At the time, that's what, yeah.

So he's not on scholarship and I wasn't on scholarship.

Scholarship.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying?

I got, I was a recruited walk-on.

Yeah.

I was recruited there, but I already had this, I had a academic scholarship to Cal.

Gotcha.

And so, so after, at this point, when did we become a creator?

You say in 2010, you said?

I was already, before there was social media, I was already creating stuff.

So you were still in this process while you on the football, like on the football path.

Yeah.

Trainer, you're still creating content.

I was doing stuff like back then I was doing more like, Drewski type stuff.

Like I was just having somebody film me walk around campus dancing and I'm like playing music.

We had like a boombox and I'm over there just, I got pictures of that too.

I'm like 19, I got a cop uniform on with a Jheri curl and I'm walking around, I'm going, I go in like the little dining commons, the little cafeteria, he recorded me just dancing.

I grab a girl, I start dancing on her or something like that.

Everybody knew I was a clown.

So that's his job being a job.

You know, this is, we talking about 2001, 2002.

And you know, I was doing that back then.

So just, and I didn't really have no structure as far as like this, I'm about to do a sketch, I'm about to put together, I'm about to write a story and get actors and get to directing

them.

I didn't have that yet.

You know what I'm saying?

So, but that didn't come, you're saying until 2010?

2010, probably.

Yep.

I was doing sketches for, I was doing like my favorite TV scenes or movie scenes.

Right.

I was making a version of that.

You know what I mean?

I did one where

I did like a,

I was doing, I don't even think I can, I gotta see if I can find that.

I did like a, not Othello, but like a Shakespeare type gangster project where it's the homie Lil' Macbeth, you know what I'm saying?

He was tied up in the basement with somebody that the gangster, the opposition, the ops had him and we had to go free the dude.

So we snuck up in there, we walk in and we go through the back door.

You go through the front, I'm gonna come through the back door, pause.

And then I'm gonna put a gun on him Free the homie.

And so we was doing shit like that.

But so your, that was the process, was you're writing it or you're just freestyling it while you're shooting it?

I'm freestyling it.

I didn't even know how to write yet.

So, but here's a record, do it, stop, do that again, record.

So you're, you're producing like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

This is 20 years, this is 20-some years ago.

I'm in College Hill, I'm 2001 or 2002.

Yeah.

I remember one of the homegirls had me, remember Eliminate?

What?

Eliminate?

I think it was on BET or MTV.

It was like a dating show where you go on, like a girl or a guy goes on the show with like 2 or 3 different people and throughout the day she eliminates one person after the second

date.

I don't remember that particular show, but I've seen stuff like that.

So the Kappas, the Kappas on campus, shout out to my boy Chris Bailey, who I ain't seen him in years since college damn near.

He was like the guy, he was like one of the photographers for the high school, for the basketball team.

And he had this camera, he had the first guy's team with a digital camera that he could shoot video on.

I was like, oh snap, what's that?

'Cause every year, every camera I know, it was like a big old camera you had to put on your shoulder.

And, or what I had, I had like the little camcorder situation.

And he had like a, it was a Canon, something like that.

And we filmed, their version of Eliminate.

Okay.

Where a girl goes on a date with 3 different guys and one of the guys was my teammate, my boy Burl, and other dude, I think his name was Troy, Wesley, the homie.

He went to college.

Well, we was all students and classmates together and I forgot who the girl was, but that video was dope too.

And he basically, I got hired to film that and edit it.

Oh, word.

Yeah.

Is this your first job essentially?

Like where I made money from this?

Kind of, kind of.

Yeah, in college.

It was like, I don't even know.

I don't know if I got paid.

Lead.

Yeah.

But I got hired, like, you the one doing it.

And I was like, hell yeah, I'm ready, let's do it.

So he was outside filming the whole night, the whole date.

And she ended up— the homie was clowning, he being goofy, and I was behind the camera.

Yeah, I was— I wasn't even in front of the camera, I was behind the camera.

And the homie Burrow, who— he's like the, the receiver coach for UCLA right now.

Yeah, but he played— he played in the league, he played, uh, for the Redskins.

And— but this is back in college, we were just trying to figure it playing ball and trying to, we was goofballs.

We had our little jokes, our little sayings.

Every party we go to, every football, basketball game, not football, but basketball game or track, you see us, oh, it's like a pack of us that's going around clowning.

We was like the goofy crew.

I love it.

You know what I'm saying?

So let's get to where this becomes a thing.

Yeah.

So when did it become serious?

Like, yo, I am a content creator, I'm making money from this as well.

Oh, okay.

So those two different things.

Okay.

It became serious way before the money came.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying?

And that's another thing.

When'd you get consistent?

I got consistent 2017.

2017 consistent?

2017.

Yep.

Oh.

2017, I was living,

I was living up in the Bay.

I was doing commercials.

I was auditioning for like commercials.

I did a Nike commercial where I was like Terrell Owens stand-in.

Once again, I was way better shape back then.

People used to always say, you look like T.O.

And that's when he played for the Niners back then.

And so every time I'm walking through San Francisco, they're like, T.O.

I'm like, nah, man, I ain't T.O., man.

I was a tight end.

So I'm, but we ain't too much.

I'm like maybe 15 pounds heavier than him.

And so I auditioned for this commercial.

I got it, a Nike commercial.

It was NFL Street, NFL Street commercial.

And it also, it was another commercial with Michael Vick.

And T.O.

is like a computer.

It's almost like this is back in the day where CGI probably, but now it'd be AI.

And I played his stand-in.

And so I'm dealing with all the running around, all the route running and stuff like that.

'Cause he's a celebrity, he the real route runner.

But I'm a former college player.

At this point I'm done playing.

It's like 2000 and

2000, maybe 2007, 2007.

And David Fincher, David Fincher.

People who know film, they know David Fincher's one of our best filmmakers of this era.

Really?

Or maybe of all time.

What'd he make?

"Seven." He made several movies, but like "Seven" with Brad Pitt and

Morgan Freeman.

That's the movie he had, I think he had just made at the time before, and he was also doing commercials still too.

Like big profile, high profile commercials.

And I remember asking him like all these questions about the camera, about directing, and then he was like, "Hey man, what do you do?" He asked a lot of questions.

Athletes don't do this.

They just be in the, they be talking to the girls or doing something else.

And I'm like, man, I'm interested in what you doing.

And I told him, I'm a film major.

I went to Cal, just graduated.

He said, what you doing here?

I was like, this, I'm acting.

And he was like, I'm an actor too.

He was like, where are you from?

I was like, I'm from LA.

He was like, why are you, what are you doing here?

Well then one day I meet David Fincher.

David Fincher is like,

he's white.

So he's not Spike Lee.

'Cause Spike Lee, he's our bro, he's a brother.

Yeah.

But he's, he's on the same level.

You know what I'm saying?

Some people, some, he's some, some people's favorite director.

Everybody knows him.

He's the director's director.

So Quentin Tarantino, Scorsese, they all know David Fincher.

He's in that same light.

If you type him up, you're gonna see, and I'm drawing a blank now, he has a slew of movies and TV shows.

David Fincher.

David Fincher.

He is, he is the director's director.

Everyone loves him.

You know what I'm saying?

And he was, he was directing this music, I mean, this, this commercial.

I didn't even know who he was at the time, other than I knew at the time he had just did Seven, so I knew that.

Yeah, but he became— he did Seven, Fight Club, yeah, Gone Girl, The Killer Zodiac, yeah, The Social Network, the joint about Facebook, that was fire, fire classic.

He did The Game, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, yes sir, The Adventures of Chris Cliff Booth, The Curious Case, Alien 3, yep.

Mank.

He did Panic Room.

Yep.

Yo, he— the list goes on.

Panic Room was back in the day.

He's Indiana Jones.

Yeah, in 1984.

I'm gonna ask him if he remembers one day, because one day he gonna know who I am, and I'm like, do you remember telling me, man, that we'll move back to LA?

He said, go back home and direct, man.

What are you doing?

What are you doing here?

Because the Bay Area, you can cast for commercials and do TV spots, but it's mostly commercial work.

Work in the Bay.

He was like, LA is where you gonna make your money at and make your career.

Go home.

Wow.

He told me that.

And so I always remember that.

And then he became, he was already David Fincher, but I didn't know him as the David Fincher he is now.

Right.

And so what, what did you pick up from him at the time?