From Homeless to YouTube's 2nd Biggest Channel (Stokes Twins Interview)

The last three years we spent roughly $30 million on our videos. You guys are the second biggest creator in the United States after Mr. Beast. In the last nine months we've grown like 80 to 90 million subscribers. There's a lot of things people don't know about us. Our family didn't know that we were homeless. I just don't want to stress them out more. We're tensions high after we made that fake robbery video. We immediately got demonetized. They really want to make an example of our YouTubers. Definitely paid a price for it. I'm not interested. I don't know if I should even say this. Creators have claimed you guys have stolen ideas. You guys used to be part of Brent Rivera's creator group. What cut did they take of your revenue? The money we were splitting just didn't make sense. Can you share your ad sense? Oh my god. Ravaging close to 100 million views per video. What was the biggest disagreement you guys have gotten into? I had people in my ear telling me, "Hey, like your brother's freaking crazy." A lot of people don't know about your background, but like. I cannot believe the thousands of creators have already gotten our free YouTube hack pack with all my best templates, tools, and tips to grow on YouTube today. And you could get it as well if you go to ythackpack.com. Basically, it's everything that I've learned from my interviews with top creators to my five years working inside YouTube before that. So you'll get my 100 viral video ideas playbook with ideas for any niche. My 10 intro templates to improve your hooks with fill-in-the-blank templates. Literally the thumbnail templates that I've used to get millions of views on this channel. And if you sign up within the next two weeks, I'll be picking a few of you to redesign your thumbnails by hand, just like I did for this creator. And if you've already gotten our hack packs in the past or joined our newsletter, then just keep an eye out on our next email to submit. And if you're seeing this afterwards, don't worry, we're doing a ton more giveaways soon. So again, go to the link in the description below. Ythackpack.com or check out the QR code to get it all for free. And now back to the video. All right, boys, I am so excited to be here. Are you guys wearing tuxedos? 'Cause this is your first podcast interview. Like what's the deal with the menswear house get up here, guys? [LAUGHTER] Yeah, so this is our first podcast ever. And we just honestly wanted to address for the occasion. Wow. Dude, I'm usually the one who's over-dressed. So I'm excited to get into it. I have a lot of questions. But before that, I mean, we've been setting up here and I've seen two donkeys, two pigs, like a lambo outside. Just give me some like, basic numbers. Like how much of you guys purchased this mansion for, where you film a ton of your YouTube videos? Yeah. I think you're the financial guy here, Alex. Yeah, so we purchased this mansion for 9.4 million. Wow. And since then, we've put over $5 million in renovations and this mansion. Yeah, I mean, we love this house. It's basically the perfect-- I wouldn't really call it a house as more like a warehouse. Right, like we have our guys work out of here. Obviously, we have two rooms in this house as well. We film-- I feel like it's just the perfect fit for our videos. Right, it's an open canvas. It obviously has a home feel to it. But it's also like a really nice aesthetic warehouse where we can set deck, depending on the type of video that we're doing. So overall, we think it's just like the perfect home for the style of videos that we film. And this place is a ton of history. Like the Ace family you still live here, right? Yes. Before this. You guys bought it from them or how did that go? No, no, we bought it from the bank. It was a foreclosure. Yeah, foreclosure. They combined-- so this originally was made. This lot was originally intended for three homes. And this house is actually combined from two homes. So there were originally-- there's a home on this side and a home on that side. And they combined this space we're in right now was kind of how they combined the two homes together. So it went into like one giant mega mansion and pretty much this would technically be the biggest and most expensive home in Woolen Hill's history. Just a fun fact. Yeah, that's home, yes. But it was done illegally. So it's just just a little bit of history behind the house. So yeah, we actually don't live here. We have our own separate homes. We have two separate homes. So there's no hot water. Still no hot water here. Yeah, no hot water, no heat. So we have our own separate homes like 15 minutes away. We just come up here for work. $14 million a house with all the renovations. But it's not where you guys live. Yeah, I mean, we've been-- it's been three years almost since we purchased this home and haven't been able to move in yet. Well, I got to say the thing that fascinated me most of all this was actually the editing room. Like I walked in there and earlier. It's like, there's like seven videos being worked on. And once I saw it short, I saw a long form, a long form. It's just like, I want to talk about the videos because you guys obviously have over 110 million subscribers. I pulled up the YouTube 2020 Ford Trends report. And you guys are listed as the second biggest creator in the United States. It's wild. Behind only Mr. Beast, ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo, at number three, and Mark Rowebrat number eight. Whoa, you guys haven't seen? No, this is the 2024 YouTube Trends report. You guys are also the second most watched creator in the UK. And Indonesia, number three in Mexico, number seven in India, you're only 26 years old, which is wild. So I want to ask-- [LAUGHS] No, it's hilarious because it's like, yeah, like, keep adding to the list. It's like music to my-- no, I'm joking. But yeah, there's a lot of like, you want in that too. But I was studying up about your past. You guys were homeless? You slept in your car, you were showering at the gym, you were sampling at Costco? Yes. How did you go from that to this? Yeah, so when we first started, we were in college. And we were, obviously, our mom is Asian. And every Asian parent wants their kid to be a doctor, which is what originally we were in school for. And I just saw the life that a lot of my friends who were a little older, the life that they were living, along with my mom and me, personally, I just-- I had a dream that I wanted to do YouTube. I wanted to entertain. And I was like, why not? Why can't I do this? So obviously, we didn't have the support of our parents when we first moved out here by ourselves. So we were pretty much just-- we drove out here on a car. And we just wanted to chase our dreams, right? And it was just me and him. We were living in our car. We were trying to figure it out on Instagram. We originally started out on Instagram, grew to around 100K, which obviously Instagram doesn't pay anything, right? Our goal was to transition all of that to YouTube. And just starting out, like I said, we didn't have a place to live. We slept in a car. Didn't have a place to shower. So we obviously had to shower in public gyms. We would sample at Costco. We would kind of sneak in and just be like, oh, hey, I'm here to get my eye checked, picking up a prescription. Walk in, steal samples. We'd even put on different outfits, hoodies. You can't go back for two or three samples. I mean, you technically can, but it gets suspicious. So we would kind of do that to kind of get by. And I remember our first ever YouTube video that did really well for us. It was what it's like to be a twin. And we were finally able to get an Airbnb after that. So we finally had a place to call home, a place to go home to at night, shower. And from there, ever since we had our own place to work out of we were finally able to just massively scale up from there. So we're homeless for a year and a half. And then after we got our first Airbnb within months, we got our first apartment, a few months after the department. We got our first house that we filmed a lot of our videos in and fast forward. Six, seven years were here. So was that primarily AdSenseMoney? That was fun. Yeah, all AdSenseMoney. It was every single-- I don't think we've ever made a dime from Instagram or TikTok. Everything has come from YouTube. So we're just super grateful to be able to do what we're-- what we love, which is YouTube. So I was trying to understand your creative process by talking to a lot of the creators who have collaborated with you, like Jordan Matter. And he said that something along lines up, the Stokes twins are the best at finding what's popular across all of YouTube and adapting it. He said that by you guys. And so I want to break that into two parts, finding what's popular and then adapting it. How do you guys go about finding trends on YouTube or ideas that you're like, that'd be interesting for us to make a video about? Yeah, so I have an account on YouTube where I'm just-- obviously, I have like six different accounts. One is where I watch sports, another account where I just watch games, and obviously one account where I just only keep up with watch YouTube videos, keep up with other creators. So from there, my homepage, I'm really able to see what YouTube is recommending me, right? Where YouTube is kind of serving me up, hey, this is what I think you'll watch, where I'm one of my own viewers, right? So from there, I'm able to see, OK, wow, this video did amazing for this creator, right? They typically average 100,000 views, or this one has a million views in a day, which is a huge outlier, obviously. So from there, I'm able to kind of look at and be, OK, is that something that we can do? It honestly depends on the topic, but I can just throw you out secret rooms, right? Yeah, yeah. Which is for people who don't know, it's a huge trend, building secret rooms in your house. People were doing just secret rooms. And I was like, OK, there's got to be a better way to combine this, right? Where we saw secret rooms being built. No one really incorporated the hide and seek aspect a part of it. So we were able to kind of just see a video that was really popular. And we also know hide and seek is really popular at the time, as well. The camouflage hide and seek was a huge trend. So we just combined it all into one giant video, and really just make it a two-part viral video, I suppose, a one-part viral video. You're coming for the secret rooms, but you're also getting the secret room along with this huge spectacle of a search, as well. I'm curious, with all that said, where's the line between remixing ideas and stealing them? Because a lot of folks, creators have claimed you guys have stolen ideas. But specifically, I want to share this print out, because creators have claimed that you've stolen their content. I've pulled a video from Mr. Beast that you guys. later created a very similar thumbnail to a thumbnail from Iraq where he was busting myths. You guys made a similar thumbnail. And then thumbnails from Ryan Trayhan, phase rug, Brent Rivera, that you guys use as well. What's that line between adapting and remixing content and stealing or copying them as creators have suggested? Yeah, this definitely came from a time where we were very new to YouTube. I believe that some of these examples are when we were first starting five years ago. And honestly like we were very, very small. We didn't know that the backlash that would cause we I believe we had a couple hundred thousand subscribers for some of these and we had a friend who would do in house is at the time we were demonetizing YouTube. So we were just really trying not to get kicked out of our apartment, trying to save costs on where we could and he would do our thumbnails are free. And it'll be a hey like we just did a last leave Tesla video. Can you just find a thumbnail out there and create something and he would just pretty much throw our faces on other people's faces or just put us in the same background or almost make it a little too similar. We had no clue like the long term harm in our reputation would cause. We thought it was just a couple hundred thousand views. The creators themselves won't even notice. We were scrapping it get by and you know looking back at it now like it harms you as a creator, your reputation as a creator and it also harms a video performance because with these thumbnails, they're so similar to the original one that's already been seen by millions of people where when they see a such a similar version, they're not going to click on. I believe this thumbnail right here has like a two or three percent click through rates. We see this at the time where hey, you know, we're new to YouTube. Oh my God, this is a thumbnail that everyone is doing. And if we want this trend to be recognizable, we have to do the same thumbnail. Not knowing that viewers are going to see it as, hey, it's the same video. We're not going to click on it. This thumbnail here had a two or three percent click through rate. Our lowest one is like five, six percent after that. So it not only harms you as a creator, your reputation, but it also harms a video performance over time. And you're also like pissing off a bunch of other creators as well because yeah, I mean, this is, is there a story there? Was there a punch in the gut or a wake up call? Like, one day I woke up, saw a tweet that, hey, the stoked one's copy my thumbnail. And I was like, oh, no, like how did I even see it? The video only has like a hundred K views. Who's that tweet from? I was from phase rug. Yeah. And, you know, I was like, oh my God, like people clearly don't, don't like this, right? You know, and we see like, we see thumbnails being similar on YouTube, but not to the point where their copy and pace is given there are examples where like other creators do like, there's probably examples out there where other people do copy and pace at the time as well. But, um, you know, seeing us get directly targeted by that. And we're just starting out. I'm like, oh my God, like this sucks that we're just getting our name out there. Um, we're kind of getting dragged through to mud. Um, we're just trying to make it out as creators and it kind of fucks our reputation. So from there was like a really wake up call, right? We were like, okay, like when you do stuff like this, it is going to get out that you do stuff like this. You develop a reputation that you're just a copycat creator, right? Given that the content inside is completely different for like pretty much all of these concepts. Um, when they see that, they just assume you copy everything, right? You're just known as a copycat creator when obviously not saying it's okay, it's not okay to copy a thumbnail like this copy and paste. But even if the cop, the thumbnail is just a copy and paste. People are going to assume that everything you do is copy and paste. So it was horrible. We pissed off a lot of creators and, um, I believe Air Act one, this one got taken down by Air Act. Uh, he copyright strike the video. I was taken down for 28 days and we were told that he may even take it a course. So we were like, oh my God, like, okay, like we immediately changed the thumbnail on it when it got reinstated. And uh, views actually jumped up like crazy. So I was like, oh my God, like, it's actually way better way more. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's actually way better and way more innovative to not do this. And it was just like a wake up call for us. Right. We're like, okay, this is very, very dumb to do. This is bad harmonious reputation. This is harming, you know, the potential views of video could get an overall just harm in our business as creators, right? And you know, you don't want to be that creator that everyone like has a certain stigma about where you're like, okay, this person is just known for doing this or they're only where they are because they copied. And that's something that we had to learn the hard way, unfortunately, about the copy pasting thumbnails. And um, yeah, now we spend, well, I want to say I spend like six hours on just coming up with like original sketches on thumbnails. Okay. What is the most creative thumbnail out there that I know the viewer click on? Not what had they seen and what has worked. What is something that it's immediately grabbed the viewer's attention? We come up with like 10 sketches of thumbnails. And from there, I'll pick like, okay, this thumbnail immediately grabs my attention. And I'm going to pick five to the top five for my thumbnail artist to do. So now we have an actual thumbnail artist. We actually spend time doing the sketches and the results just kind of speak for themselves. I did want to talk about the video of it because beyond the thumbnails, like in that air act video, there were moments of it where, you know, he was like busting a mist where it was like him like going down with bed sheets from a second floor of a room. You guys did something similar. That point you guys had about four million subscribers. It's a myth that you can use bedsheets as a rope to escape your bedroom. Guys, please don't do this at home. This is a terrible idea. You can climb out of window using only bedsheets. Oh, yeah. Oh my god. It's working. It's impossible to ride a bike underwater. Oh my god. He's doing it. Of course, like our thought process from like, from now to five years ago, has changed so much. And it's just at the time I just know it's more so. It's definitely not, okay, pick up a camera. What are we doing? This is copying paste. The intention behind doing that was more so. Hey, this scene is so funny. I'm going to do this because now when I watch it back, I'm laughing as well. And it makes this whole video process. If I'm enjoying what I'm doing, I'm laughing at it. That's more so what I was focused on rather than the, hey, this is copying paste from another creator from there and like a bunch of other videos. It's just like moving forward from like fast forward five years. It's like the thought process, everything now, it's just complete like 180. And it's just having moments like that where you can really learn from your mistakes. Just really, I think key moments like that was just super important for us to like grow from and evolve and truly become like, where we are today. Yeah. Now on the flip side, like people like take a lot of your ideas, like I was watching a few shorts back to back. You guys had this short where you're drawing different circles and trying to figure out the path. And then there's other videos where it's come on afterwards that people are replicating the exact setup. It's impossible to solve this puzzle from start to finish. Is it possible to solve this puzzle from start to finish? The only rule is you can't trace over any of the lines. The only rule is you can't trace over the line. No, no, no, you can't draw over the other line. Show you guys how to do it. You have to subscribe. If I get this, everybody has to subscribe. Are there videos that like have come out since you guys originated the idea that really stick out to you or like you kind of are just moving on to the next video. Yeah, I mean, like we like it's kind of funny because it's kind of it's like a full circle. Like we originally would copy like other people's like video ideas or their thumbnails. And obviously that's not something that we do anymore. We see something we try to elevate and make it completely different. We try to put like two combined two trends into one where it's like, Hey, you're coming here for the ultimate view and experience. So like, yeah, sometimes I'll scroll through shorts. My video will pop up and then just because like, I'm on that account, right? That I have that custom account where like it registers me as a fan. So I'm able to see like what content that YouTube thinks me as a stokes fan would want to see or like in my niche, right? The whole creator ecosystem that makes similar content and what we make. So from there, it will serve me one of my shorts. And then right underneath that would be a coffee and pace of our shorts. And I'll be like, Oh my God, like this is like identical to ours down to like the, the people amount of people in a video, the exact same voiceover, the exact same like coloration. And it's like, you know, I don't really let it bother me. And it does happen pretty frequently nowadays. But I just kind of more so viewed as like, Oh my God, like it's funny how it's like full circle that happens now. And you know, there's no need for us to really, it would almost be hypocritical for me to call them out when I used to do that starting out. So there's no hard feelings on anyone who does it. I understand from their shoes what they're trying to do. They're, you know, at just trying to make a YouTube video, trying to make it happen. And you know, they're trying to live out their dreams. So I'm not going to like calling one out on that or anything. So do you mean there's a reason why remixing happens more on YouTube? Like then like other platforms or do you find that happens more on TikTok or Instagram? I'm curious because like part of it is also it's like our content is so reactionary, whether it's literally a react like format where you're watching something else and reacting back to it or you're like making a video about squid. game, which was popular on Netflix. And then we have all of our different adaptations to it. Like, do you think there's something about YouTube that like this happens way more? Yeah, I think, I think like, I think it's sometimes a back to like the culture, right? Like it's a squid game that almost became like a small part of like people's culture for like, you know, it was just everywhere for me, right? Where it's like, it's unavoidable. You know, people are saying it in school, like, you know, certain things. And, you know, you see, you see like a coin phrase that's from that show. And everyone's saying it as like a popular phrase. And it's just kind of like, it's one of those things where it kind of went hunger games was huge. I was a huge thing. When a song is huge, people are singing it. And when a show is huge, people are want to see more of it, right? They're dying to see season two where they're also dying to see any recreation of it as well. You know, back when dancing was a huge trend on TikTok, right? Like I would see like a hundred of the same dances from like one creator where it's like, I think like that was a huge thing on TikTok. We're like, Oh, you didn't give me dance credits on this. And it's like, well, not with us because we didn't believe we made one or two dances. And I couldn't, I can't dance. I can't dance. I cannot dance. Don't put anything of us dancing. But no, it was a lot of creators were doing dances. A lot of people weren't giving credits, even the biggest creators. Like they would be like, Oh, I didn't know like where this dance credit came from. So I can't credit you if I don't know where it comes from. So that's kind of like, it's more of like a culture thing, right? Like you're dancing to your favorite song and then someone makes up a dance that's popular. And you dance to it. And that doesn't necessarily mean like, Oh, you're copying a person. It's, you know, it's just more of like the culture, more of like what people do. I also think like oftentimes you know what the origin of your inspiration is and look at it. And you could tell like who's adapting there. But sometimes like with dance moves, you don't know where it came from. Or you see like a format or like a game that people are playing in a short. And you know, people may not realize where it came from. So it's like interesting that yeah, it's such a, and everyone's kind of on this hamster wheel to make more content pay their bills. So yeah, I think, yeah, you guys sharing the other side of that is fascinating. Because most people don't think about that. Take me through like, what's the average cost of a Stokes twins video? I would say the average cost is around, yeah, like 500,000. No, you're kidding me. No, no, I'm kidding. No, um, okay. So imagine getting over 50 million views on a video you uploaded, but didn't edit at all. That's exactly what Jubilee did by using opus clip. And it's a tool that I want to give to you guys for free. And this is how it works. All you have to do is copy and paste a link from your YouTube or even your Google drive, loom, riverside, and boom, opus automatically analyzes best parts from that video to turn it into a bunch of clips for you. And better yet, it adds caption suggests a title, a description that fit your brand and automatically reframes your video. So it looks good vertically so you could upload it immediately. And let's say you're a perfectionist like me. Don't worry, opus also lets you export your clips to Adobe Premiere. If you want to make any final touches, it's used by creators and brands of all sizes. For those just starting out to some of the biggest channels out there like Jubilee. So just go to this link below or click on the QR code to get three months free because opus is giving me a deal that they're not putting anywhere else. This link is the only one that will give you full access to the opus pro plan for three months. So you could clip as many of your videos as you want, no strings attached. So click the link below in the description or click the QR code and now back to the video. I would say it's definitely all under like 50,000. We definitely try to keep it under 50,000. Sometimes we go over, but when it comes to like, you know, sometimes we can get it around like 20 to 30 or 40, but it's just depends on like the videos needs and whatnot. But we're definitely, we don't want to be like super wasteful and just, you know, if there's something we can do, I'd rather optimize it more so in like the story versus like, you know, getting something super expensive that I feel like want to add a ton to the video. Yeah. What's your most expensive video you guys have ever made? Well, we spent, we did a video where we spent a million dollars and 24 hours. We got like five of our friends told them, hey, you can buy whatever you want. And we kind of had things planned for them where like we know Tanner is a huge like basketball Lakers fan and we've got him court side tickets to go see, you know, NBA game. That's part of the segment. Someone else, um, for example, like Sean, we really needed something that was going to be get to that million mark. So really, hey, like you have any like cars that you like and whatnot. And we kind of, you know, got him to Lamborghini, um, which was around. I believe like 600 something thousand. So that took up over half of like, you know, the budget. And with everyone else, a lot of our friends also share like the same struggles like we did when we came up, um, didn't really have like a place where they could go home to every night or they were kind of couch hopping as well. So two of the friends we, um, got them like a year lease for like apartments and whatnot, kind of just covered those costs for them. And I believe the video in that video, we spent around 1.1 million. But so we definitely went a little bit over. But yeah, that was the video where that was expensive video. But it's just, yeah, that was a fine thing. That was our first really, really good year. And, you know, our team was very, very small. We wanted to kind of give back to our team, make them feel like, hey, like you're, thank you for being part of this journey. Um, the same struggle is that we went through. We wouldn't wish them on anyone. So we just really want to take care of our team. You know, I, I really believe in taking care of your team, your employees. So we kind of just went out of the way, learn what the struggles were, learn what they were trying to do, what they wanted. And we pretty much just, um, yeah, just made sure that no one, if we had the power to do that of our team, we didn't want anyone to go through. That was the first struggle. So a lot of people, we got them like homes, some of them, we got them like two year leases departments and gave them a bunch of cash. A few things that obviously didn't make the video as well. We're like, Hey, like I don't want to like show everything. You know, like we do a lot of these things where it's off camera. It's just that was the one video where I'm like, I felt really bad about like, um, outing them. Not even outing, but it's more so like, I feel like the narrative. I want to want people to think, Hey, we did it because of cameras. If anything, I wish we could have done it without the cameras. I feel like it kind of defeats the purpose sometimes. So that was the one video where like I, that's originally why I didn't really want to talk about it because I feel like to me, sometimes where it's like a trade-off where it's, hey, if you didn't record it, it didn't happen versus, Hey, you're only doing it because it's yeah, for the cameras. So it's just that was one of the things that I kind of struggled with. So of course, there's a lot of things that happens off camera that we don't really like recorder captures is there's just no reason to do that in my opinion. It's between me and this person, not for the whole internet to see. Yeah, it was a beautiful video. How big is your team today? Today, shoot. If you're asking us like two months ago, we had a team of like seven people, six, six full-time people. Yes. One like part-time person. And this year, one of the things that we wanted to do was scale up a lot, bring up more of my time into being in the videos and really script writing and just focusing on like bigger things, right? Like, one of our goals is to expand to China and like, we brought on six new people. And I'm just training each day at the week. I'll dedicate like a few hours to them, trained them exactly on my thought process. Like, Hey, like the reason why drives dislocation do this is because I need to know how the location looks like. If we're building this in this location, we can't build it in this way because this is where the sun comes in from what's an exact example of that? Well, like, so like, let's say we're building like a chocolate, a slippery staircase, right? And I have to go to the location. It's one of the bits in our videos where we're like trying to climb a slippery staircase. And I'm like, okay, it needs to be in this location. It can't be towards this way because look at where the sun's coming from. It's going to look horrible when we film. Is this going to backlight? Won't be able to see anyone's face because it's going to be horribly backlit. Can't do the single either because it's going to have horrible shadows in it. And, you know, just kind of like decision making on like, Hey, and here's why we're going to do it on this day. Here's why we're going to have this person work on it instead. And just really, really training like we have people who live here as well with us right now that we're like training up. And I just think it's essential for them to be, I want to say like around this 24/7, but like around us anytime we are working and it's just more so I because like initially this is a really, really fun, funny story initially like he didn't want to do social media. And for the first, yeah, I had to convince him like he thought I was crazy. Like we were in college. I was like, Hey, I think we can do this. And he's like, no, you got to be realistic man. Like everyone's dream is to be a famous movie star. This is just another one of those crazy dreams. And it took a lot of convincing and it sucked at the first year and a half. We were homeless. He was like, man, this sucks. And I was like, Hey, I promise you we're going to figure this out. And it's amazing that we were finally able to figure it out. But for the first three years, I just told him, Hey, you don't need to worry about anything. I got everything under control. I'm going to like make sure that like I'm going to film our content. I'm going to take our pictures. I'm going to edit all of our picture. I'm going to edit all of our content. I'm going to, you know, I'm going to direct it. I'm going to produce it. I'm going to make sure everything you'd only have to show up as talent. So the first three, four years, that was the case. And throughout over the last two years, I want to say that's when he finally started picking it up. And he's been really, really able to like, obviously, it's crazy because he is my clone. Right. So like he's able to take off a lot of the times when I'm not, you know, we have different shifts. I go to sleep really late, making sure to videos up and it's, you know, ready to be posted. He wakes up early, meets with the team, has him go through this, I go in and I come in and I make like, okay, we're not going to be able to do this because of this. Or here's how we can improve it. So he gets a lot of the base work done, but it's really, really amazing how like I was able to train him up and directly. So it's like, okay, like I can just find like multiple people, six other people in every aspect directing filming another talent, another producer, an editor, just pretty much every single aspect that we're heavily involved in trained them up and free at my time because if he was able to do it, I'm sure I can find someone who seems like the perfect candidate that I get along with that is very smart that is hardworking that wants it as well who's going to be here long term. Found those people over the last few months and those people are here every single day, kind of just understanding my thought process and, you know, there are pretty much many versions of us that's able to make decisions and kind of just really, really bring up my time and that's one of the things that I want to do this year so we can focus on like other big projects that we have. Yeah, I feel that on such a deep level because, you know, as we're growing our team, I'm realizing one to one meetings are not enough to try to train new people like shadowing and them spending time because like I even got questions like, wait, John, why did you make this decision or why did you do that and it's only because, you know, by spending time around in those down moments that you could do that I did want to ask the why not just go solo. Why not just go solo why didn't you just go on your own like and not be the twins just be. As an identical twin I even went to the I had opportunities go like I had a full ride to go to multiple like super good colleges even an Ivy League as well and I just didn't want to be away from him like you know we're twin brothers like we're pretty much like bonded together since birth we've never spent more than a day apart. And the first time that happened was I think four years going our birthday we finally spent a day apart yeah he his ex girlfriend they were you know he they went somewhere and I was oh my god it's our first day that we're spending apart from each other so I just we were kind of inseparable I didn't want to do without him and I knew that I couldn't do it myself I needed that support I knew it was going to be a struggle and I unfortunately I we did I dragged him into it with me in the beginning. But I definitely wouldn't have been able to do without him so I just needed that like person that was the closest to me to help me do what we do it's beautiful. How did you feel during those early years do you think he was crazy. Well it's I have to say because right before social media has obsession was us making it into the NBA. We were just you know doing all these basketball training programs jump manual programs you know and just like we're vigorously training yes and then I just knew that dream wasn't going to be you know super realistic and then I thought this was another one of his crazy endeavors so I was like hey like I get like you know we could probably make a honest living out of it but hey like why not just do what's safe and you know we're already two years in college and we're going to be the goal is to be doctors right. And I had people in my ear to tell me hey like your brother's freaking crazy like don't do what he's doing just play it safe and do this and this and I'm always like the safe person kind of guy and he's definitely the one he's like hey like he's a risky kind and he wants to take risk tried new things so. Yeah that was like the only thing I would say that was a little bit different about us and yeah so I just didn't think it was everything we've accomplished everything that's happened I wanted to imagine you know in a million years like in my wildest dreams that we would have come this far and achieved all this it's really we. We don't really spend as much time talking and looking back and reflecting how we were able to do what we did some of our favorite things like probably our favorite thing growing up back then like picking up a camera recording random stuff just beating each other up on a trampoline things like that goofy moments and just being able to actually turn that monetize that and make them to like a full time job and just be able to. Make videos on the internet you know as and create this whole business out of it it's kind of wild but yeah how do you divide up responsibilities now well I do everything now. He likes to say that I was I got a little sick the last few weeks you don't do anything anymore the beginning you did but now you don't yeah so I would definitely say like we literally like if he's awake we have like a list of things that we know to get done with each other. We like one of the things is like every day I try to get some training in right I'm trying to train up like filmers as well because like you know I can't the reason why I'm not in a lot of scenes is because like I'm behind the camera filming and directing I trust no one but myself. So you really hold on holding the camera and then like I'll like set on a trap on just run into scene or like have one of my friends hold and be like hey just hold it like this if I move please follow the camera I'm like if I'm like pointing at like. If I'm pointing at this moss wall whip it to the moss wall and like they don't do and I'm like dude like if I'm pointing at something you know that you should whip it to that. So yeah now I spend a good amount of my day just like training up people along with like you know other things right to prepare for where it's like hey we're going to work on a script from this and this time we're going to work on a thumbnail from this to this time we're going to take the thumbnail at this time we're going to do video notes. At this time we're going to do voiceovers at this time we're going to film these five videos the next day these five shorts we're going to film our long form video over the weekend and we still need to go to this location to check it out to see if this is the right location for it. I'm going to hop on a phone with a contractor tell him hey this is what these are the tools that I'm going to need to build my video and then I'm going to run through the team of like the script like hey guys this is what your this is your role in the video this is your lines here this is what we're doing depends on a video honestly right. But yeah we have a list of huge responsibilities and like I'm not just saying this like we can pretty much reach others minds like we know exactly what to do without telling each other. So like it's we have a notes thing where we kind of go through have like a little checklist but we technically don't need it like you know he goes through and runs people through and vice C he's already taking care of the video I'm going to run through take care of production. So it's it's amazing having that I'm okay let me get a few more of those to kind of where we only have to do one thing and then I can finally maybe play basketball more maybe make the NBA that dreams not over. Yeah maybe if I was like six eight. What was the biggest disagreement you guys have gotten into this agreement. I don't think we've never got into a fight before like actually never got into a never got into a fist fight before the worst that happens is on the basketball court. I'm like why'd you see that three I was open like that is the worst it's ever happened. There's never been a disagreement about the creative direction of a video. No, I mean we we get really you know when we talk like I try not to ever yell. I don't think I've ever yelled or cussed or like what of course I cussed but like I'm not going to cuss at someone and just kind of yell at the top of my lungs. I think that's maybe happened like once or twice my entire life but I really try to make it a role to never get to that point because I always think there's just if the goal is to get something done there's. You don't screaming versus not screaming and argument isn't going to change the outcome. So that's just the way I always think I try to be more patient you know on days where he's not as a. When I know he's in that mood and he's groggy he's not feeling well I know to not like step on his toes I know to the hey it's okay like don't worry about it I'll give him his space I'll go and figure it out without him and I think. So I genuinely mean we don't really ever fight and ever yeah of course we have small disagreements or hey like why this why the hey Alex come on like you're. Being you're not focusing right now let's come over here what's taking you so long but it's never like what the f like are you doing you you know yeah it's funny because we've never been into a fight with each other never been in a fight in real life. Ever either so we're just very very non-confrontational to each other yeah and it's it's hilarious because everyone thinks like we always fight they're like oh you're twins you have to fight I fought with my sibling and I'm like no like the worst we've done is just like. Maybe I'll just calm the calm the dumbass on a basketball court for like the worst has ever gotten honestly it's on the basketball court where he does something dumb yeah and that's it and it's just like a thing or two like why do you do that that's right so yeah funny. I was interviewed you perfect and you even they talked about disagreements they had and like there are five guys who aren't related but they've spent so much time together that they are like brothers you guys are literally brothers and yeah it's interesting to hear. I'm wondering what were tensions high after you made that fake robbery video like can you tell me about that because you guys had like done a lot and turned things around since then like tell me about the fake robbery video you guys got arrested is that right and like like tell me about like yeah yes so so Alex yeah. I guess what do you think happened you said you guys got I would love to hear like what you think happened and I can we can we have not been able to talk about it. Yeah it was one of the things that were what that was able to get us remanetized yeah and I'm not even sure of us talking about it could get us demonetized okay I'm not sure but what like I'd love to hear from your perspective like what do you think happened will tell you exactly what happened. Yeah it seemed like you guys like fake the robbery the police got involved you guys got taken in then YouTube got involved and then they demonetized your channel but set the record straight tell me if I'm wrong there not recollection or if there's something that the public doesn't know. Yeah well right off the bat nothing happened until two years later and there wasn't an arrest or anything we got off of the warning because we explained how so it's funny because I I called a week before. the Irvine Police Department, how, hey, we're going to be doing this video where we're kind of just walking up to people in like ski mask or like just asking them directions for the bank. And once they tell us the directions, as we're having this mid conversation, I'll be putting on a ski mask and just walking away after they give me the directions. I'll come back like two, three minutes later with a double back full of fake money and try to give them their share just to get a reaction, right? That was the main premise of the prank. And I thought it would be super helpful and to kind of think ahead and be like, hey, maybe someone could call the cops over there. So we, I called the Irvine Police Department the week before, I called them the day before and the day of to let them, hey, we're shooting this prank on this day and you proactively reach out to the police. Yeah. We even talked to it. And I spoke to a dispatcher. We talked to the campus police because there's, we also shot it at University of Irvine. They have their own police department there as well. We talked to them, talked to beforehand, just because we've seen the video online multiple times and they call like any time the cops like come in, they're like, oh, yeah, hey, you're the guy that we received a call on. And I was like, oh, like, we should probably call too. It's like, yeah, it's no brain or to like call so they don't, you know, they don't waste their resources, waste their time. And that's pretty much what we did. We even called like during the prank, so hey, we're still going on. We said it was going to be for an hour, but it's going to be about two hours. Oh, yeah, yeah. Of course, you know, talking to multiple people about it on the phone, on the phone with the police, non emergency, non emergency number talking to the police and we're not on the phone with 911. That's dispatch. We're on the phone with the actual police department. They're off it's talking to multiple people. And you know, we have the whole like body cam of even the cause as well. Just to keep us protected. And pretty much we were, like I said, I would go to bus stops where it made sense for the people to still be there a few minutes later and just kind of mess with them. Like he said, it was I would go up to them and be like, hey, where's the nearest bank at? And I'm in full black. Right? And then not a ski mask. Yeah. And there's a, I think there's one and as I'm like listening in on your conversation where the nearest bank is I'm like putting on my gloves and he's like, why is this person putting on gloves and they're making super funny faces. Yeah. It's right down there. All right. And I'll be like, all right. They're on my mask. Thank you. And they'll be like, wait, did I just give a guide direction to the bank to rob the bank? So I would walk down the street, like just maybe like 50 feet away. Come back three minutes later with a double bag all calm and be like, hey, would have never been able to do it without you. Here's your share. No, man. I don't want any of that. Like, and some of them would know it was a joke. It was like very like hardy into the camera to be like, and some of the, hey, I know you're recording, man. I see the camera man up to nothing. Dang it. Like, but yeah, we're got, we're got out of hand was it was outside of our apartment and hurt the meat. I just want to preface this by saying we were never near a bank at all. Never even near a bank. The nearest bank was, I believe, 2.3 miles away. There wasn't that scene where you guys were going down the stairs. That's the, you know, that's outside the community center at the universe at the college. Yeah. That's a bank. That's a lecture hall. That clip was, that was taking my news. Yeah. That's a lecture hall where we ran down where it made it look like a bank for the intro shot. So that it just, we're, okay, what's the good intro? Make it seem like we're actually running out of a bank like in the Joker, the Joker making a bank heist. Yeah. So, okay, this building looks like a, like a old ancient bank. So we, it's actually like, I think the auditorium. So we ran out of the auditorium for that opener shot. That clip together multiple scenes to make it look like that one take, when we did that initial rundown, there was, I don't think there was that many people there, but the second angle we made it seem like there was a lot of people when we're running through because it's a different background. So like, it was a bunch of clips, like shots clip together, but regardless, that opener shot was outside the auditorium. So the nearest bank was like, I believe from the college was like a few miles away from our apartment was like to something miles away. So we were nowhere near a bank and that's, if it's going to be near a bank, like not only am I not going to do that for my own safety, but also for like other people's safety as well. But yeah, we were, the part that I think a lot of people saw and got upset about was we were outside our, it was different segments at a prank, right? Like that first segment was, I told you, asking people for directions to the bank. That's the first segment. Second segment, and that's as far as we got to, was we were outside our, we would call an Uber and run into the Uber with Duffle bags outside of our apartment, right? So we would get these Uber drivers to show up and we would already be running into the car with Duffle bags. And we only did it to one Uber driver. We ran in and I was like, go, go, go, go. And are you Alan? Yeah, I'm Alan. I got to go, man. And like, you know, just kind of making it seem like it's an emergency. And he is like, the Uber driver, you could tell you really wasn't messing with a prank. He was like, I don't feel safe. Get out of the car and I was like, oh man, really? And he was like, yeah, please get out of me to the guy out of the car. Yeah. We have the whole thing online. It's recording the whole time. We really got out of the car. And what ended up happening was a new port police responded to it. So the, you know, you're an Irvine, yeah, but we live like next to John Wayne Airport, which is like, yeah, two miles away from Newport as well. So a different police department responded to it and they sent out like a patch of like, from my memory, the new port police got involved with it and then Irvine police also got involved in as well going like, hey, like what, like what is this prank came up to us and told us, hey, the Uber driver could have been pulled over at gun points. So it's a very dangerous prank what you're doing. Also, like you're putting your life at the line and pretty much like one of them recognized us and was like, hey, like I see the videos you guys make. And one of the people is actually the people that we spoke to there as well. So long story short, that was filmed two years ago. And then two years later, like we randomly see a press release going like, hey, like the DA is going to come after the Stokes twins for doing this rob in a bank. And there were all these headlines that we saw where it was like, you know, I get it's the news. They're like trying to outclick bait each other. One news station said we went into side of bank, shot it up and then said it was a prank. We have people saying we pulled the Uber driver, held the Uber driver at gun point. And at the end of the day, like YouTube demonetizes over it all over the press coverage. We never went, we never, never approach by the police. The only time we were approached by the arrested, no, no, we were never approached by the police other than inside the prank when a new board police shuttle was like, Oh, like one of them recognized us. Oh, it's you guys like. And then one, I believe he was like more of a senior officer. He was on par to call, but he was like, Hey, like can I speak to you candidly, like what you're doing is stupid. You know, like you're putting your life at the line. You could be putting other people's life at the line, like what is the incidents for other YouTubers? I think that's a piece of con. Yes. Yes. And yeah, I just know, I just remember seeing that press release YouTube. We immediately got demonetized from YouTube. They wanted to charge us with a kidnapping to Uber driver, which I was like, okay, like holding the Uber driver hostage. I was like, okay, like they're never going to be able to get that had the footage, but they really, really wanted that. They really, really wanted that. And YouTube was like, Hey, like that's a felony charge. We're not going to remanetize you with a felony. Even as like an alleged felony. So the only way you can get out of it is it's a misdemeanor. So we, I was like, Hey, I'm innocent. I'm going to take this a trial. They kept filing motions to like delay it. And after six months, I was like, this is during COVID. This is during COVID, by the way, like this is post COVID and we didn't film the prank during COVID filmed it. Wait, it was like, I want to say seven years ago, we filmed a prank was one of our first pranks we ever filmed. And basically, during COVID, every single time they filed a motion, it would push a court date back by like three to six months. And they just kept doing it repeatedly because they didn't want us to remanetize on YouTube. Not the DA didn't. What? Why would the DA they wanted to send example? The Nell boys also lived in Irvine and they were also like doing pranks there as well. Like they were the whole like they brought, they even brought up the Nell boys during like the deposition stuff like, or our lawyer would be like, Hey, this guy is after the Nell boys as well. They want to send an example that Irvine's going to be safe. There's going to be no pranksters in Irvine because Irvine's like, you know, regarded as one of the safest cities in the world. So they wanted to keep that reputation. They wanted to set the president, Hey, if you're going to mess around Irvine, we're going to lay down a lot on you. So they want really wanted to make an example of YouTubers. So unfortunately that happened to be us. But after the motion got filed like three different times that we were demonetized for six months, I was like, Hey, like if this goes to trial, even though I know will be proven innocent, it's going to take two years to get the trial. I, we're not making a dime off of YouTube. We're not making a dime off of Instagram. And that's during the same time period when I had our thumbnail guy like, you know, just put our face. Everything was hitting. Everything was hitting at once. So we were like dang, like we're just trying to like, you know, have a little bit of left over money trying to cut down on the costs. We even let go like, you know, one guy because we couldn't afford him because we were didn't make a dime at the time. So we were. Because the main way you guys were making money, yeah, that's the only way we made our money. So we just, I just didn't think it would take that long. So we say, Hey, it made me more sense to take a plea deal and not wait two, three years when it goes to trial, even though we will win. And it was just kind of sender goes like, but we're pleading guilty to something we didn't do. But we definitely needed a money to like be able to make money again from YouTube because that's our only source of income. So taking a plea would mean that the like demonization will be lifted soon. Yes, because we would plead down to a misdemeanor. That's what they were. I think they've never lost the case, the DA and he wanted to keep a perfect record. So technically by us pleading guilty, it wouldn't mean that he won the case. So basically that's that was their game plan. They wanted to say like, Hey, like we gotcha anyone else who's going to do this, same thing is going to happen to you. And yeah, I guess fast forward like when we did plead guilty, we had a plea guilty to I believe it was reporting a false emergency which isn't what we did. They said that we called the cops to get the cops to show up for the video so the video was seen more epic. We never did that. It's the our neighbor called the cops, you know, thinking that oh, like what's going the Uber driver is doing something weird. There's a sketchy. There's a sketchy Uber driver. Because you guys get away driver. Get away driver. Yeah. But you guys were there with a mask with money. Yes. Yes. He had a reason to be alarmed. Yeah. So we told all these people was a prank afterwards. It's not like we tell them and they just like wonder off on the end of the day like, oh my god, like, does someone just rob a bank like we tell these people it's a prank. But yeah, long story short, we pled guilty and we were remanentized on YouTube. But the press that was there was like a second round of press that was like Stokeswinds plead guilty to robbing a bank. Stokeswinds we guilty to reporting a false emergency. It's just, you know, these headlines really all trying to like out, clickbait each other. But I, you know, looking back at it, it is a dumb prank to do. But we did take the proper precautions, you know, like considering other people safety, our own safety. You know, I believe that parts of the video were harmless. And I believe that parts of the video, like getting into the Uber driver, like it could scare the Uber driver, right? But like as far as going up to someone asking for directions to the bank, like I think that part was like pretty light hearted. And I just do not like how it was really, really spun out of proportion on us walking inside a bank, shooting it up. Then, you know, there's that whole like before that, there's this whole stigma of like YouTubers. It's a prank, bro. It's just a prank, bro. You can get away with anything. And, you know, that's definitely not what happened. But at the same time too was something very dumb that we did. But yeah, definitely way blown out of proportion. And we definitely definitely pay to price for it. Yeah. And yeah, you know, to this day, like gave us a lot of to think about when we were demonetized. Yeah, obviously that like bank robbery prank was done. Yeah. But you're saying like there's nothing else that happened there that like false reporting and emergency. Yeah. Yeah. They were saying that we caught 911 to get the cops to show up, wasting resources for like, you know, obviously an intro shot of a video where like we're running outside a bank. And we're like, you guys were running it like out of a university. Yeah, it's yeah, it's that's a, everybody thought it was a bank. Everyone thought it was a bank. And it's what we wanted for the entertainment, right? Like, you know, the, the, the Joker driving the bus out of the bank. Like that's an amazing shot, right? Like, and you see the cops chasing and right after him saying, oh, wow, that's such a great hook to an opener of a movie. We were trying to recreate that as well, where it's like we're running out of a bank, you know, a fake bank. But obviously, that's what people thought that we were doing by they said that we caught the cops to have them show up to the scene when we caught the cops let them know multiple days before. Hey, we're doing a prank. This is my full name. This is how we look like, you know, just talk multiple people about it. Just kind of sort of didn't waste their resources. But unfortunately, that is something we had a plead guilty to. And why not? Why not address it? Because I hear in your side, like when I was trying to research for this interview, like it's all their side, you know, like everything I found, like they're taking your clips. Like I know, again, the context of it and the prank was like, you know, it's it's it's like it's pretty dumb prank, but but like hearing you explain it, I've more of understanding that I didn't you guys have such a huge platform. Like why not come out and be like exactly what you said? Like there's more nuance to it. I really believe in like to me, like I think it's more so like not relive in the past. I think when I'm repeating it, like I try to move on with my life. But like if I'm just dwelling on the past, I feel like I'm missing like the present and the future. And it's just to me like relive and that's just reminds me of a really crappy time in my life. And I just I just personally don't like to talk about it. We're of super private people too. And it's just I just I'm just not the kind of person I share over share. I feel like we're just we're creators. We just want to make entertaining videos. And it's just not something I think I it's like worth like sharing even like I don't really there's a lot of things people don't know about us, right? So that's just we're super like honestly. We're very introverted. We're private people. And me, I just my personal choice was to just not even you know like me like I'm kind of against him sharing this whole story too. Because like I'm just kind of reliving everything. It's kind of like making me feel a little bit like weird. So it's just like I definitely don't like relive in the past if that makes sense because it really takes away from my main focus in the future. But of course it's like one of these things where it's like oh like why not address it because I really me personally I don't care of people like I'm not over here trying to impress like a random neighborhood. Oh, so you didn't rob the bank. You want to come in and have coffee? Hell yeah. Now I just made a new friend like I don't really care. I appreciate you guys even talking about it. Like I know that's hard. I also think people who haven't heard your side of it are going to think differently about it. And I think the more remarkable thing is like how far you guys have come since then you know and like what you built and like looking around was there a moment after that you're like okay things are turning around like we're really like on the up and up like we talked about like that moment. Yeah I mean when we were demonetized like I feel like the smart thing to do would have been like hey let's post another other platforms to make money. Yeah but to us it wasn't like about making money with YouTube like we genuinely love making YouTube videos like when I say like we love making videos we genuinely do. So it's like we just wanted to like keep posting for our audience and also even though at that point you weren't making yeah well we were done. We've consistently still posted a week and of course we had a scale back on a few things and kind of cut out like you know costs and you know be more hands-on and I think that's also what taught us to be a lot more hands-on as well like every single little part of the way but no I definitely think that situation just it you know gave us a lot of perspective and we kind of like figured out hey like what do we do do we still keep posting videos and you know that conversation was have but I was like absolutely like we love posting videos like why would we stop we posted videos when we were like little kids without making your money like I love posting videos why would we stop so of course like you know it was never about the money to us it was more so like the passion and making videos and that's just I just didn't want that to stop like at all so that was definitely something that I remembered and just wanted to like keep doing or tell me about that day where you guys were remanetized again and like thinking about like you know using that money to build the team and like like almost like the next chapter this talks to us like how guys how were you guys thinking about that after you got your monetization back oh I mean right when we were remanetized I think you can see like the huge spike in views where it's like you know right now we we're we're a cost efficient when it comes to like certain things but back then we were to the point where it's like hey like we could use a couple hundred dollars a couple thousand dollars extra to make this more you know epic and I will leave a few months after we were remanetized I think our views like 5x and it's just it was definitely we definitely used a lot of you know we didn't stop posting obviously so we were getting better at each video and then when we combined that with you know thinking of hey how do we actually elevate this video by spending more like just figuring out like what exactly can we do to make it like you know elevate this piece of content for the viewer yeah the main thing is we were just able to kind of like you know if we wanted to get we we got this Kevin Hart voice imitator who was going viral on TikTok we flew him out to be in our video and that's something we wouldn't have been able to forward at the time when we were demonetized so we were just kind of posting as normal but we were able to do like hey like we can finally go to this trampoline park rent this trampoline park out or get this actor to come out here and be in our video right so we were just posting like everything was normal and you know we just like I said we didn't think too much of it we just wanted to move past it was a very hard time in our life so we definitely posted like nothing ever happened so just scaled up in a way that we weren't able to beforehand financially yeah I want to ask about a big turning point in February of 2024 because I pulled up this graph and I want to share with you guys for years you were getting like a few million views per day and then in February 2024 it's skyrocketed to you guys averaging 50 million views per day what happened what what changed view bots I'm joking you're actually okay now it sounds suspicious Alex I thought you okay well our goal like for every year to try something new and originally 2023 going into 2024 we wanted to try to globalize our content more and we always thought we our content really appealed to mass audience and I know like uh with that in mind we definitely wanted to try dubbing and make in our content more globalized well tell me about so how do you make it more globalized because I think dubbing a lot of people know about like what do you guys do to like did you guys like try to speak less in your videos or like what what else do because it that's that's a crazy jump I definitely want to say that we filmed some videos that were very targeted towards dubbing which was like which country has the best school lunch um which country country competes for this that where it's just more like appealable on the homepage when you see it you're a new follower from like a different country and I definitely would say like our content is a little bit more globalized right I feel like if you look at what videos are doing well globally I feel like challenges play a huge part of that um blogs, pranks that definitely plays like a huge part in it as well that along with I do want to mention that we also got a new editing team as well, right? So literally we got a new editor in February who kind of really Understood like our vision what we wanted to do in the videos someone who specialized a little more in editing's graphics Yeah, the effects 3d and he was really helped able to help us storyteller videos a lot better on the way that we wanted a You know better retention better storytelling better graphics really elevating our video to like the next level Yeah, I think that combined with like dubbing tracks really really helped with the huge boost and views as you can see Yeah, and then just around this time like another graph that I thought was fascinating was your subscriber count This is from view stats you guys jump from around 15 million subscribers around February 2024 to again 110 million Because of all the things you said, which is fascinating to see yeah, you start from 15 million Yeah, 15 million to 100 and let wait, so we've grown a hundred million subscribers this year I had no clue. I mean wait look at your can you pull up your YouTube studio? I know clue we grew that much. Oh my god. I really didn't know I had no clue. Wow. I had no clue that we look at look at your past year Your past 365 days. Geez 85 million 85.3 million in a pack last 365 days. Wow Oh my god, okay. Well, I thought it was the number was closer to 50 because I we didn't we don't really Necessarily like other stats on there that like kind of jump out on your YouTube studio. Can you share your AdSense? Oh AdSense I mean, it's amazing how far you guys have come like I want you to guess what her AdSense is Man you guys are so interesting because like I feel you guys are doing crazy views But I also wonder about the CPMs. Yeah, the January let's keep that in mind. Yeah, it's January well for the first 365 days Oh last 365 days. Oh God. Wait. Do we want to just throw it out there for the world to know over? 10 million 10 million under under 5 million 2.5 million 2.5 million. Yeah, I'm AdSense alone. He's joking. I'm joking. I'm joking No, it's under 10 million in between 5 million 5 to 10 million 5. Yeah, between 5 to 10 million AdSense last year. Yeah. Wow. That's wild That's wild. Yeah, how does that feel like making 5 to 10 million dollars on YouTube AdSense alone after coming from you know Basically like we it's honestly like a blessing like we love what we do and just being able to like Do wake up every day, you know have like obviously we have a huge passion for what we do It's like, you know, there's people always ask me like, oh, do you need you need time off and like no like I love doing this This is my hobby. This is like my joy. So to be able to make a living out of this and that much of a living from it is just truly a blessing So yeah, it's incredible. It's incredible. Can you tell me about your time in AMP the creator collective founded by Brent Rivera You guys were part of that you guys made videos with him and his crew for many years Rewind the clock like why did you guys join that group instead of you know making content on your own? Yeah I think that takes us back to like I guess They're in that time when we first came out here trying to make it on our own. Yeah, I believe this was like Even I think this was six months after we did try to do social media on our own We were obviously we were homeless. We needed like support and after like our first like breakthrough like Instagram videos Instagram pictures That really went viral Brent's done what up on some of them along with the other creators, right? You know, there were like multiple people who were like popular at the time uh Shoot like pretty much like all of them like approached us at the time like who um Like this is a Jake Paul team 10 era, right? Yeah, it's just more so like a lot of groups approached us They're in your hands offering you deals. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, and even handing us contracts But the one that made the most sense to us at the time was AMP and you know we Signed with them. Hopefully wanting to get you know, you know like a place to stay like a content group to film with and At the end of the day, it's just you know our time there We did learn a lot like you know seeing another creator who I've done it for all these years and Definitely we were able to kind of see and learn and almost felt like an internship right where I'm able to be oh my god This is a whole creator economy. This is what creators do. This is how creators mingle leg. These are how creators interact with other Creators. This is how they make content and this is how they think and I was able to kind of see what I'd like and what I didn't like and I guess after a few years. Uh, we just you know wasn't the right fit for us and we kind of we're more so alone Was we like thinking our own we like doing things in our own we like having our own team own people that we can train up Which is why we have such a lean team, but yeah at the end of the day we kind of um, you know, it was a Definitely a great learning experience from them and we were kind of able to take that and apply that knowledge to like our parts of like what we do and Yeah, I think we were with them for roughly two years three years around three years. Yeah. Yeah, it was the most surprising thing you guys learned during that time How much money you can make from social media really? Yeah, how much yeah, how like this is an actual living right like ways to monetize like through content right like you know I always associate it. I always thought like, you know, you just kind of do it and you have followers and you only make money from brands But there's a monetization from YouTube. There's uh brand deals you can get from Instagram. There's brand deals you can get from TikTok And just being able to like see that really was like, oh my god. This is a you can make a real living off of this And that's precisely what we did with it. What was the offering like what what did like a lot of a lot has been said about these creator groups Like like some are super helpful some are not they sell you a big dream like what what are they offered to say? We're gonna put you in this many cross promotions about other people in the group of tens of millions of followers Did they say we're gonna source brand deals for you like what what made you guys say like? This is gonna help us versus doing us on our own because obviously right now you guys are super successful as long walls Yeah, I mean that's precisely what it is. There's a group of people That you can like collaborate with, you know Other creators or other people that will be under Brent like Lexi. Yes, Ben. Yeah Yeah, those people where you can kind of just like collaborate with them make content with them You know kind of you know and just hang out with them as friends. Yeah, right And also there is like a manager That Brent had who would source us deals if the opportunity ever came And I think that right there was very very appealing to us and we're like, okay, like we would have Access to Brent to help us grow. Yeah, we would have Access to a manager to get us some deals and that at the end of the day was okay This makes most most sense for us. Yeah, and I guess culturally like, you know We don't drink. We don't like do smoke or any of that and he was the same way and a bunch of other groups They're very into like party heavy. Yeah, so that's just wasn't like that's not what I was trying to do I've Never really enjoyed that and when I saw that my vision was aligned Brent's vision was also that I was oh my god Like I want someone who's gonna help us grind. Mm-hmm So that's what ended up making us go with Brent. Yeah, not necessarily like the brand deals people inside of it But just his goals that it kind of hurts us to was mm-hmm Yeah, we're just like we're gonna grind. We're gonna do this. We're gonna do that And I'm gonna learn a lot from it. So that's what made us go with them. Yeah, yeah, you're gonna add Oh, yeah, just like the ecosystem having creators there and just surrounding yourselves with people who also want to make content as well Just like taking as an opportunity to learn and use others to kind of be in you know Help them and vice versa. Just kind of I just thought like the ecosystem there was Definitely appealing and yeah, we definitely learned a lot from that. So that was one of the main reasons why yeah What was the trade-off like what cut did they take of your revenue? I do not think we're Yeah, I mean it's is it for all was it like just Do you want to know personally or I know a lot of creators to enter these agreements and some are really happy with it But some like become too big for what they initially agreed to yeah As I'm just curious like Yeah, it's just complicated a lot of these deals Yeah, no of course like so whenever money gets involved I feel like everyone that's when things oh it always gets messy And of course when you're like going into a such a young age like people do have resentment But you know as you get older you realize hey like everyone's living life for the first time we're all learning And I just don't really hold any bad blood for anyone in that regard But yeah, it's just a got to a point where the money We were splitting just didn't make sense out of because we were Really operating outside of not really utilizing their resources resources or their team And it just made so much more sense to kind of have things Build our own schedule build our own team. Yeah, and just kind of Go from there, but of course, you know, we Things we learned there and all that was definitely Super valuable. Yeah, and I think there's a lot to be said about like these content houses like Amp they've been around YouTube for a while, but I think a lot of people think like oh the members of those groups like They have to be members of that group for life, but that's not true I view them more as like Saturday night and night live, you know Like SNL you guys come in you like there for a bit and then you go on your own and you graduate Which it sounds like you guys have done Yeah, yeah, I think the difference between like the group that we were in versus like them um I think they all get like a have like a certain ownership to channel where it's like you know if they leave they kind of Don't get that anymore, right? Like interesting. Yeah, they all get like a certain percentage of the channel Wait, do they all get revs here? Yeah, it's all like split like pretty evenly. I think oh interesting I don't know if that's still the case anymore with like a lot of these like groups that have been around I'm not going to name any specific ones, but I'll Obviously, you know, when you're when you own a certain percentage of like, you know, a successful channel Yeah, like it would be not a wise mood to leave unless you're unless you have like your own channel That is more successful that hey, if I dedicated more of my time to my own channel Yeah, I could be making this much more and I would be you know more so free I'm doing what I love to do and make more money which ultimately is what happened to us Yeah, and it just made more sense for us to do our own thing have our own schedule have our own team and not be tied down to like their schedule and like appearance everyone's content because that would Eat up a lot of our time like I was believe like we were not able to make like certain videos Because of the fact that we had a certain schedule that we had to go to had to make ourselves available for Collaborations like mandatory collaborations, so at the end of the day it made more sense for us to just kind of do off do our own thing make our own videos And just start up our own team. Yeah, so that makes sense and and you know Brent deserves a lot of credit for building that up and like a lot of people to try but he's done it You know with a lot of different creators and for many years now, so That's interesting like the economics of it. So were you guys given like you don't say I'm like like a revshare of like other creators or that it was just no No, no, it was just You know everything that Essentially we own and created would be shared. Yes Got it. Got it. It's like what's your relationship with Bram Rivera now? We're still you know, you know like we I regularly text been we you know We actually saw him at the spot or summit. We had some you know We created a lot of core memories together, right? So it's just one of these things where you know just cuz we lost touch doesn't mean like There's any like bad blood, but it's just when with any opportunities Yeah, I'm gonna be excited to see like been or like someone else where it's a hey like you know, we we were both young experiences journey together and You know I'm of course I'm going to be excited to see someone reminds me of my past and it's just Yeah, it's just one of these things where it's very Reminesting seeing him just reminds me of when we were times were more simple. We were younger and you know We're also trying to learn and grow and do the same thing together. So yeah, yeah today at Forbes list your network at $20 million Love the spirit or is your network higher lower like what do you think about that number if you want to like Like I guess calculate a cute like accumulative earnings like everything we've earned I would say it's accurate, but it in terms of like liquid and all these things and the fact that we like reinvest a lot of our Into like payroll into like a bunch of you know Everything we have it's just I Would say it's not accurate, but it is accurate in terms of like everything I guess we've made in our lifetime like everything we've generated from Assense or whatever what have you right but no in terms of like hey, like let me buy a private jet like that kind of Yeah, I'm like nope. That is not yeah, it's not it's not accurate. It's not accurate. Yeah, I wish I wish How much you guys spending per month? Because you know, you're investing a ton of your condi imagine payroll like I would love you to kind of just What do you think it is? I love this a little pop quiz back and forth Over a hundred fifty thousand dollars a month. That's our you think that's our I guess on videos or everything Just on video like our team or pay world like how much my team every month on average Oh on leaves our bank account so everything in general, right? Well, like we don't ever like buy anything for ourselves I think this suit was like the most expensive thing we bought for ourselves. No, no Yeah, so like we don't we don't have any designer self. We don't ever buy anything for ourselves At all like given this is a very nice luxurious house. Yeah, but at the end of the day. It's off for content. Yeah, right? So Shoot like I don't want this number to be spun out of proportion, but Counting everything what leaves our bank account. I would say 90 Probably 98% of that is all in our business. Yeah Each year we've probably spent around 10 million dollars on our videos just to run everything Yeah, the last three years has been roughly that Wait a long make sure I heard that right. How much do you spend a year on videos? The last three years We spent roughly 30 million on our videos. So roughly 10 a year Some months. It's like a million some months is 500 depends on Wow, yeah, it's to me. I'm like I sit down. I sit down. I'm about your pain though I open up. I open up my own I look at the I look at my bank account Looking off through all these like PDFs, and I'm like where in the hell am I spending this much money at and I look at them Oh my god, okay, like so to build this was like $22,000 to do this was like 15,000 like and I'm like, okay Like that really really adds up right like Um, and like I honestly like I thought a huge portion that was like electricity like electricity for just houses only like I think like what like under a thousand like electricity water all of that's like under a thousand So you'd imagine a lot more because it's a pretty big house. I was like, okay, like I got to be spending this much on like electricity water Gas all of these things, but like I say like 98% of that is all like video costs right like the team We do have some very high level employees that we do pay like a premium rate to Um, and just you know, uh video costs uh Yeah, I would definitely say it's like um The payroll is definitely payroll is definitely like yeah, the biggest biggest chunk of it And that makeup of your team at mostly editors or I would kind of focus in there I would say definitely the biggest cost is um editors. Yeah, uh, then production then Right now we have like I said like people that I'm training up as well and A lot of them are from like you know different parts of like the world. So obviously having to pay for like their stay Um, you know food um their salary as well. So I would definitely say Payroll just payroll alone probably makes up four million a year Probably for four if yeah, I would say four million a year just payroll right now And you're fueling this through YouTube ads and really accents. Well, how many I look through your past videos I couldn't find a brand deal Yeah, like how many brand deals would you say you've done in the past three four years? I think we've done maybe like three or four one a year is that like because They're not coming in or because you guys aren't reaching out. I would definitely say like we turn down majority of the brand deals I just kind of almost see it as like a I okay, so it depends on if it's a good fit or not We're very selective on who we work with and I just almost viewed as I hate it sound a good fit My fans are gonna be it at oh like that's a obviously like When you put an ad in a video like People like to say like oh like this many people I'm able to do it like and keep this many people on that's never the truth It's definitely like a lower point in the video and we're just super super critical in our Videos and I know for a fact that hey like here's how much the brand deal is gonna make me Here's how much more I would make from the video if it were have to if it were to have this watch time if we're to have this click through rates These analytics that and I kind of factor in okay over five year course like maybe I'm making an extra This much money for the brand deal which Counting factor my time communicating with the brand doing this if it's not the right fit. It's not a right partnership It's almost not worth it to us But given like we have been approached by like you know, we have done like a few brand deals over the years that we think are good fits As well, so it's just like I said it's I Believe that right now we have a lot of fresh followers We just grew a lot a lot and we have the trust of our followers So not only do I want it to be a good fit for the brand. I don't want to disappoint the brand But I also don't want to disappoint my fans. I don't want to I don't want to just kind of force them to like you know Sift through an ad read, you know, because that's the part I get most know it at and someone's video. I'm like okay like I'm just I fast-forwarding that part when I see it in other people's videos But if it's a right fit if it's an organic placement a video like absolutely that makes sense right so that's the way we See it as but you know over the last few months we've Pretty close to closing out like a few partnerships that I think definitely make a lot of sense in our content so Yeah, it's kind of just back to like us not thinking it's worth our time or not a great fit. What's the biggest brand you've said know to Shoot I think like 120 million I'm making stuff Um, that's wait that that's a good question. That's a very good question I was like all of this happened really recently like like our growth. So of course we have like new braids with you know I feel like we're worse But the the funny thing is a lot of these brands like when they come to us They're like think that we're still at like 2030 mill. Yeah, like they don't know then the last few nine months We've grown like 80 to 90 million subscribers, right? So they're like they don't know where views are like Oh, you guys are still getting 20 million views of video right like over time and um averaged out like you know in the last I want to say last like 10 11 months like we're averaging close to 100 million views per video given give it like a few months But we've had a few like I would say like a seven-figure deal where I'm like hey like Like based on these posting requirements It's just really want to be worth my time and I don't think it's a great fit for like our audience either So we're just super super like selective with the brands and especially this year too When we do find that right brand and right partnership We're also so hands-on in the creative process as well where it's a hey like I know if this is going to be the right fit we can create that spectacle and really drive excitement about the product or whatever it is that we're trying to advertise. So it's just more so like being careful about that because I just never at any point since we're solar hyper you know specific on like our retention we just don't want any like low points and if we can find a way to really think of a creative solution and hey like we can find we can do like ad read here or like a super organic placement right here throughout the videos and just finding like the best conversion for us and for the brand is definitely something we're super focused on when it is when we do find like the right brand we do want to work with. I mean the way you guys think about retention is fascinating. I was watching a lot of your shorts and without fail you almost always have a call to action to subscribe but it's well done. What's the most subscribers you've gotten from a short? Oh there's multiple ones where it's like over a million. Like multiple ones. Yeah yeah how do you think about that because like it's almost like you know that you could take time for a brand deal you could take time for your own call to action for subscribing like how do you think about like breaking up the story to say subscribe or do you guys have any tips or tricks to integrate like the subscribe call to action in your shorts. Yeah we typically try to tie it in with light what we're doing in the video right like we went to this park in the Philippines it was it's called Dino Island. It's called Dino Island and there's just like these dinosaurs bite you this gorilla punches you right and it punched them in a face and pretty much I was like okay like punch that subscribe button. I mean like it's like feels like you know it's kind of like wordplay and it's like oh my god like during the replay we're like you know saying like punch that subscribe button and it's just I feel like that's just more of like a organic fit where it's not like us after the video standing there going hey thank you guys so much for watching make sure to subscribe blah blah blah blah which is what we used to do and I was oh my god like why did no one watch that part it's a huge dip. So we just found ways to make it a little bit more organic and it's like it's not too much thought process of it but like you know it depends on what we're doing right like getting punched punch that subscribe button. It's just I just feel like it's just more wordplay and think of a creative call of ways for like caused action as opposed to like just straight up saying subscribe and I think that's like that's also important because when I'm watching something like that and let's say let's say like he filmed a short without me knowing I'll watch and I'm like oh like that didn't feel annoying that subscribe you make and vice versa like we're you know we'll watch and we're like okay that's more of like a self-aware sort of called action we're just kind of putting that word in her head and you know of course it definitely converts a bit better for us versus not saying it's not saying subscribe is not saying subscribe is like like five times difference yeah let's say typically you only earn like a hundred thousand subscribers yeah if you say subscribe it can be anywhere between five to ten times a difference oh wow literally just saying the word oh yeah oh yeah or I mean not just straight up saying the word but like if you find a really organic placement for it that is I would say yeah I pulled this video where I thought the intro was just a masterclass in getting people's attention I was wondering if you could play it pause it break down what you guys did and have the script in front of you guys as well today I'm voting a secret seven eleven in my room and hiding it from my twin brother he says we don't look like twins anymore because of my recent way game so he started a 90 day okay so first of all the intro shot right so we always think of a way to like all right like first off right when you click on a video like especially when it comes to secret room we always think of all right like what youtubers haven't done like certain like you know spots for example like the one we did with the five secret rooms we were no one's ever done one underneath the floor under a bed or at least to my knowledge so we wanted to do that so we're like okay that's not only does that fit like okay that's super visual and that's something no one's ever done and that was the same thought process behind the intro shot for the seven eleven where it's oh it's a Mona Lisa painting something everyone you know and that's a part that's super important to where it's like it's not just a painting of a random person it's also something that people worldwide know about so when we're like right off the bat you're like okay like what is this and it's like a secret entrance to a seven eleven and seven eleven is also super global as well so it's like we're combining these things and really thinking like okay how do we get the hook like I mentioned that secret entrance or oh my god okay that's super impressive and then seven eleven people are familiar with that and you know the weight gain people always comment about like okay Alex is gaining a lot of weight and yeah I was surprised you put that in the video like no there's the rumors you've been gaining weight also for like the retention jokes like is there there's been rumors I mean I think it's it's not a rumor it's all the comments it's all the comments I think I think it's the truth you're gaining weight I gain increased your YouTube retention yes no no of course not no it's just it's you know like that's a whole thing you know it's uh I definitely would say that it's really really um just the last 2020 2023 to 2025 now I you know when you're your own boss like you feel like you can never do enough work right and it's like oh I could work out or I could spend an hour improving my intro to my video or sitting over the editors yeah teaching them what I want um we're training up and someone new and help having them understand what it is that I do and it's just like a never ending um I feel like I never can do enough and it's like okay like I'm my own limit it that makes sense right however long I work however much I work is gonna be put back in a video it's gonna show in like the views it's gonna show in like in our business it's gonna show in all those aspects so um I've kind of my health has kind of been like a side hustle to me recently to where I just kind of eat postmates eat door dash it's just yeah it's just more convenient it saves me time I'm able to eat and talk as opposed to like cook my own food like I used to and obviously when we were homeless like there was no food to eat right so I was a lot you know skinnier than wasn't able to so I've been introduced to a lot of amazing postmates door dash food and throughout the years a lot of our fans have noticed that hey like they don't look like twins anymore like and I did hurt my feelings initially but now I kind of just play into it and I'm like hey like you know I don't you know I know I'm I know I'm fat now so might as well just play into it um you still look great man yeah yeah but tell me more about the intention meet time each of the words and each of the shots because I also saw this interesting post from Mario juice who worked with you guys oh yes yes he said that um in his post he said you guys had 18 page scripts for your videos where everything was thought out so I know we're talking about the intro but like what's in those 18 page scripts that makes your videos go so viral yeah I mean it's it comes ultimately from studying like our retention right with I would say our best planned videos the ones that have gone to most viral are the ones where we're able to like capitalize on multiple times right some videos are like one off uh you know if we film a video that's a one out of 10 or like a two or three out of 10 we're probably gonna plan like a part two or part three to that video right but if it's like a obviously 10 out of 10 like you know we're gonna kill it off we're not gonna do part two to that yeah but with the secret rooms like I mentioned that was such a huge one out of 10 for us where we were like okay like we're gonna have to make multiple series of this um and from there we're kind of just able to see like what people enjoyed in the video what they didn't enjoy and when you're able to study like a video and able to do it like five six times you can kind of the next by the time we do the next one like I want it as perfect as possible yeah and from because I'm able to see exactly what the audiences enjoying what they're not enjoying a word or clicking off at we're able to write like the perfect script where it's okay maybe they didn't care too much when I'm not making progress in finding my room if I'm making a joke too many jokes back to back I got to cut that out so when I walk in I need to have intent on okay this is where I'm gonna look first and when I go and look for it here's why it doesn't work as opposed to just you know a lot of times when we like find these rooms I genuinely want to be able to see a room in a pool yeah but I'm not gonna do that because it's too cold and I'll say down the video okay I'm not gonna do that it's too cold and you can see right through it yeah so like from there I'm like okay like I'm peeking the audience and just like is he gonna be able to see a room in a pool that would be really really cool and we do a graphic of it and everything but then not able to do it so I settle for a kind of a cool spot underneath the floor here which that was a hole like cut into marble all that stuff very expensive to talk about the construction and like set building you guys because it's insane but tell me about like like this video can you show me the retention graph yeah so so this is the retention graph for the seven yes yes but it definitely looked a lot different when we first posted it but I want it's like reaching a hundred million views sometimes like the graphs aren't I thought the whole video set top moment but then you know when you check back months later sometimes you know the intro shot people are you know I mean this is 94 million views it's getting 226 thousand views every 48 hours 41% retention on a video that's about 20 minutes long can I see how much ad sense they got or can I scroll or like I mean you can okay like yeah you're holy shit on one video I can't say this number out loud wait can I I don't even know what I don't know I don't see what I mean this is probably pennies for you guys but that's a lot of trips to Costco yeah that's a lot of a lot of yeah it's a lot of a phase yeah yeah what's your video with your best retention or what's like most subscribers or like any other videos that have like an interesting I mean which videos this is our most viral video yeah as like a hundred I think 170 wow yeah 168 million views Can I scroll to the add sense on this? Yes. This one is definitely a lot better. Oh my God. Well, first off, can I say the subscriber number you got from this? Yes. On this video alone, you guys got 924,000 subscribers. Wow. Oh my God. That's how much you guys made on add sense from this video. Yeah. How much was it? Let me see. Oh, wow. Okay. That was a lot more than I thought. You guys don't look at your numbers like this. Well, I mean, we're like, we're brushing reflexes. We check it in the first week. I just don't want to dwell on it. Yeah. And like a lot of times it goes down as it reaches more people. No, the ads lots aren't don't get filled up. So how long ago was this video posted? This has been like 10 months or 10 months. Wait, really? No way. We're in 22. Okay. That's wild. But I mean, that's a lot more renovations. Yeah. A lot more construction costs. Yeah, that's insane. If you made it this far, it'd mean the world. If you could hit the subscribe button and ring the bell as we try to hit one million subscribers this year, plus we have so many big videos coming up from studio tours to behind the scenes to interviews that you won't want to miss. And just thank you for everything, guys, to be able to do this full time has been a dream come true. Yeah. What does that do when you clap? Like, you're able to sink all of them because you see like that huge spike. Yeah. Yeah, you didn't know that. That's why they do the things so they can find it too in the clip. Wait, you knew it. No, you knew that. Come on. No, I knew it. And you don't know it. You're kidding me. No, I didn't know that. I actually didn't know that. I thought it was for like a visual thing. But the clapping, like, I put that together, but I've never done that. I've never seen people do that because we don't we don't hang around other creators. If they don't do behind the scenes stuff like this or like, I mean, we've never been, we just up until like two months ago, we just hang out with creators. Like Jimmy was the first creator we hung out with in the last three years. Wait, right. Wait, shoot that. So wait, when you guys got video with Jimmy, he was the first creator we hung out with in three years. Jordan matter came. He was the other only other creator and Fede. Yeah. The way they just came and like, we just filmed a video. But Jimmy was the first one that we, I would say Fede to like we hung out with them a little bit. But Jimmy was the first one we actually got to talk to as like people. Right. Like there was a little bit of a language barrier at Fede. But we're three and a half years. Jimmy was the first creator we got to talk to. And he really opened up my eyes on a lot of stuff. So well, wait, there's so many. Why why did it take three and a half years to like hang out with the creator? I mean, you guys are one of the biggest ones on YouTube. I mean, like what just happened recently, I guess. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I mean, the growth was recent too. No, you guys have been big for a while. This is just another level. I mean, he reached out. And then we talked on the phone and, you know, I feel like I learned a lot from him. And surprisingly, he like, he mentioned like, oh, my God, like you guys are a little bit or he mentioned that we were smarter than like what he initially thought of us. And I was like, really? Like what's people's perception of us? Like I didn't ask him that, but I'm thinking down my head. I was like, if this is all they see of us, they don't know like our lives, personally, they don't know our operations. Like anytime I tell anyone up until recently that our team is only this many people that we had five employees that was it for like the last like six, seven years. And we didn't even get those employees until three years ago. And it's everyone goes, how in the hell did you scale up to this? And I would definitely say it's because like we're super obsessed with what we do. We really, I pretty much can spend all day on YouTube. And it's just also because I love it. I love every step of what we do. So I'm constantly, I just see that's oh my god, like I can't wait to like, you know, look over my video, can't wait to like see how I can improve it. Can't wait to look over to analytics. And I just love every moment of it. So that's honestly like how we do it. So I just love being involved every step of the way. Given that it has kind of fell with a great weight gain. Yeah. I was going to say like come with like a little bit of a weight gain, but that is not for the videos. That would be crazy. I actually gained weight. So like the fat jokes made sense. I think you have a lot of confidence to self-depregate like that. What else did Jimmy say? Because it's an interesting moment. I was actually surprised to see that you guys collaborate because for a while, it's like, you know, you guys had put out similar stuff. It's like what's the relationship like? So to see you guys collaborate. I mean, that's another full circle moment right there. Yeah. Yeah. It was, uh, it was definitely like very, very refreshing, like seeing another creator who like loves what they do. A lot of creators that we've met and, you know, part of part of like our past, everyone almost feels like they hate what they do and they just kind of feels like a job to them. And I was like, it's almost like they're only doing it because they're like, I need to do this to make money. Yeah. So like seeing him like we were going to Walmart and he was just smiling the whole time going, Hey, let's go do something fun. We went to Walmart and he was like, uh, looking at his chocolate bars, organizing them. And I just thought it was like the like coolest thing ever. Like someone who was like that in love of what they did and like cared that much, that passion about everything. I was, oh my god, like, it was just so nice to see. And it was just very, very like a huge like, I don't know, like a huge like, um, I don't know. I wanted to cry when I saw it, honestly. So it was very, very like special to me. Yeah. Like someone like that. Yeah. I had a chance to go with Jimmy to a grocery store and seeing him like go down the aisle and like analyze the product YouTube thumbnails was fascinating. Uh, uh, uh, uh, whole another side to it. Yeah. Yeah. No, there's, yeah, it's beyond the videos. Yeah. Looking ahead, where does the Stokes twins empire go from here? Like, are you guys, I mean, you guys are so huge. I'm actually shot. Do you guys haven't launched a product yet? Like, it's done something like a lot of other creators have Ryan Tran, enjoy ride, Jimmy obviously with festivals. Um, are you guys thinking about like other business moves, just doubling down on content? Like, where do we go from here? Yeah. I mean, that's one of the things that I wanted to kind of free up my time for, right? I feel like there's only a certain cap that I can like, you know, 100% of my time going to the videos, I would only maybe get like 10, 20% more return for like my videos. Yeah. So if I'm able to free up 20, 30 hours a week to where I'm able to like, you know, start my own product and learn more about the business world, that's also where I'm also super fascinated as well. That's definitely next for us. I, I mean, the reason why it's taken so long is we want to create that perfect product, right? Like the product has to be good in our eyes. And it's just these things take time. And right now our time is really tight ups, which was the whole purpose of hiring the people you see in there, like half of them weren't even here, like a few days ago, even. So right now it's just um, figure out a way to free up a portion of our time so we can dedicate it to building something else like this. Yeah. And yeah, we definitely just want it to be good. Not just something like one and off. It's has to make sense, has to be good, has to fit what we do and what we're also passionate about. So we're definitely close. I would say maybe in a few months, sometimes this year, very close. What definitely have something exciting. Yeah. Do you think you'll age up your content as you guys get older? Like right now, what's the primary demographic of your content? I would say 18 plus for it. Yeah, I would say at the core, our fan base is definitely around like preteen, I would say. It's definitely, it's not even like a calculated effort or anything. It's definitely, I just think subconsciously we try to like deliver and make videos where I feel like I was on YouTube the most as a kid. And that was around 12, 13, 14 and watching creators that, you know, I which made me fall in love with YouTube more. And that kind of inspired us to like make content like that, deliveries like that. And I think that's more so like when we have like these jokes and our videos, I would definitely say it's more cater towards like like preteens, teens. And yeah, I wouldn't say it falls under one specific age group. I definitely would say, especially this year, we've built like a huge reason for our success is also because we tried to make our not age up, but I would say we definitely made it more where everybody can watch it, right? Like you could watch it, you know, with we've had parents come up to us and say, hey, like I watch a lot of your videos like by myself to older brothers, older sisters. And it's just, yes, it's just like sometimes like, you know, we have some of these jokes where they're like, oh, like, I can't let them watch that. So I watch a lot of sexual innuendos. No, we do not. No, you have a 30 month. No, no, no, no, that's you. You got the 30 month. Not us. Come on. I mean, are those you do put those jokes in there deliberately to try to h up your content? Or do you think about the response? I feel like we're content for kids. I feel like we've just been doing that since like ever since we started YouTube, I feel like it's just no, we when we first started making YouTube videos in elementary school, we literally those were the kind of jokes that we did in our videos as well. So it's almost like being able to like relive that as well, like a huge part of our childhood, like being able to have those jokes. And obviously we were very, very inspired by the YouTubers we watched at a time. And it's almost like a huge part of our humor comes from YouTube. Like, you know, a lot of people, their humor comes from shows, movies, our humor comes from YouTubers. We watch when we're younger. So a lot of that is tied in with like those other YouTubers. And given that like, so like we're not on YouTube kids, I know a lot of people think like, oh, our views are from YouTube kids. We don't yeah, the app YouTube kids. We don't have a single view from YouTube kids. And see like the direction that like, you know, that's a very interesting question because now you're like, do you want to age up your content or because like, we almost want to age it down and make it a lot cleaner. So we can be on YouTube kids because I've recently found out a lot of all the creators who are on YouTube kids and the views that they get from it. I'm like oh my god like this is a whole untapped market for us I just can really help us compete with like you know a lot of these like top views top to most viewed videos if we are on YouTube kids So like it's like a whole another market that we're really trying to tap into given like we're gonna have to do like a whole revamp on Like some of the jokes in our videos, but at the same time too like a lot of people watch your videos for that as well and Yeah, no, it's just super interesting like the different age groups that we get depending on where we go like Yeah, I would say definitely globally we have way older especially like you know, Southeast Asia Primarily those regions. They're all like I would say around our age They're like, you know definitely a lot older than the US your typical like US fans But yeah back to his point of saying like you know Kind of like aging up our content and all that I just feel like at the same time. It's uh Primarily, it's like people on YouTube YouTube at its core like primarily. It's going to be People around like the age of like 10 to like 15. I feel like 10 15 male and it just so happen like we don't like try to target that But that's this we were that like typical YouTube viewer consumer at the time And I think that's just kind of a lot of where subconsciously when we're like thinking of scenes thinking of jokes It's just we just default back to that because it's yeah, like I said It's just when we spent the most time on YouTube back then because now it's more so like for research purposes Back then I used to consume YouTube for like entertainment watching all these like um Big like YouTube channels, but But no, that's interesting comment thread throughout all of this is like you create what you consume Mm-hmm. Yeah, so whether it's for research purposes or not As we wrap up here, you know, the sun has gone down You guys have opened up about so many things. I say one of the most touching videos that you guys have put online was the video about your grandpa Because most people may not know you guys were born and raised in China Will go there and you would you know raise you guys and spend a lot of time with you guys um I'm wondering what What were your parents and so is like what would your grandpa say about what you guys are doing now today Well, it's just right off the bat like you know He raised us when we were little kids and we would go back every summer So he was technically we saw him as our dad or our parents. So um A lot of like The kind of people who we are today um a lot of like you know who we are like personally and What now was heavily influenced by him like I definitely tried to I Try to be more and more like him decisions where it's like hey like don't be angry be more patient things like that because of him right and I know he At the time we were so like nose deep on youtube and super Extremely busy to the point where we used to call our grandparents like every week over um This is a checkup on them and I think There was a time where we didn't speak with them for like a whole month because we were just so busy Just figuring out the videos because we finally had like you know We were re monetized. We were things were vamping up. We kind of got like soapy read in the work And we kind of lost touch with like what was important and we You know, we had the opportunity to pick up a phone call that night when we were outside like planning out this next video and You know the very next day like we got news that he passed and You know, it kind of just made us realize like I I feel like to this day if Apart of me thanks if you know, we would have picked up he would have been in a better mood. He would that what situation would have happened but Yeah, so it's definitely um He is the reason why like we work so hard to I feel like I Because like to ignore like What we did because we re-sacrified so much. I don't want it to be in vain now Where it's like we just like give up and quit It's just kind of like okay. So what was all that hard work for like what was the purpose behind all this and of course I we love what we do but Obviously there's moments where you know, we're working 18 hour days we get stressed out and Having a reason to do it like I I'd never reason. I'm able to go push myself is because I ultimately don't do it for myself I do it for others so I think it's just um He's definitely provided that uh That stuck with me and I would like to say I know he would be proud, but I definitely Feel like there's better ways I can grow and me as a person and whatnot just In everything we do is just try to like honor his legacy and Yeah, I'm not sure if you want to add anything to it, but yeah, it's uh No, it's very very touchy for Um Alex yeah, I mean that was um Yeah Um, so like Obviously like a lot of people don't know about her background, but like, you know We come from like a super struggling In China and like we're originally from Tennessee, you know We keep the store sales, but we come from like you know very very struggling background where like Some days like we want to eat And that was like the case with like our grandpa and like our family here as well, but like You know when we were younger he always made sure like we ate Even you know if they didn't eat and Our family didn't know that we were homeless We're even up until recently because like I just don't want to stress them out more than like And they need it to be right like And it really helped us, you know push through everything because You know, we are family in China. They were sick and you know, they raised us They're a core like, you know, they're our parents and We wanted to be able to take care of them because you know, they were sick And like At a time we could help out it was too late so like Between like being demonetized those days when we stayed up super late trying to figure it out trying to get furniture revenue like Was so we could pay for those things and I had an opportunity to pick up his call and I declined it And he called late 20 more times and then three hours later. He He passed So I was doing it all for him And to take care of those close to me and I wasn't even there And the final moments so I'm sorry It is a huge part of why we do what we do and why we push through because I feel like everything would have been for nothing if we just Never quit or ever get into arguments or ever do things that could put our business in jeopardy. Oh He used reason why we do everything so That's why it's very important to us to take care of those close to us and Off camera on camera like you know I just want I don't want anyone to go through anything they shouldn't have to especially if I have the power do that because I wasn't able to At a time that I wish I could have so I just always want to make sure that's something that never happens again So that's a huge motivating factor for us Yeah I'm so sorry I'm sure you'd be so proud of like What you guys are doing now and even to have that attitude throughout to take care of everyone. I mean Yeah, I appreciate you opening up like that Yeah Is there anything else like on your mind? I mean, that was so beautiful. I think that's a you know Like anything else that is on your mind or like things that you guys want to talk about. I mean I appreciate you guys being so open throughout this interview Anything else that you guys wanted to share or Put out there before we wrap Not there I can think of I mean we do have a present for you Yeah, can I see what it what what what is it is it a uh it's probably something we should have given you at the start of the deal But you know retention something to look for to add down down. Yeah. What what what what are we talking about here? Oh God Oh god that's okay. Oh, I don't know, but I think it's your size. - Look at this, a Tuxedo. - So we can be triplets. - Yes, it's so triplets. (laughing) - All right guys, skinny fit, I love it man. I love it, I love it. Well, I'm gonna have to wear this next time. Like there's so many more things I feel like you guys are building that entire space over there or the warehouse, I feel like there's endless things to talk about, but I just wanna thank you guys for your time and your openness. And I mean, we've talked now since the sun has gone down and it just means a lot that, the trust you guys put into this interview 'cause I know you don't. I mean, you guys, it's not even that often. Yeah, I know this is the first time you guys have sat down. So thank you so much for everything. And yeah, I'll give you guys a final word, but thank you for the gift as well, it's crazy. - Yeah, well thank you so much for coming out and interviewing us. This was very, very fun, very glad we got to talk. - Thank you. - Yeah, thanks for giving us the opportunity to share all of this as well. - Thank you. - All right guys, all right, cool. Let's find a prom or somewhere to go to the rash. (upbeat music)