KoojiVA

Hi, this is Alex Cantrowitz. I'm the host of Big Technology podcast, a long time reporter and an on-air contributor to CNBC. And if you're like me, you're trying to figure out how artificial intelligence is changing the business world and our lives. So each week on Big Technology, I bring on key actors from companies building AI tech and outsiders trying to influence it, asking where this is all going, to come from places like Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, and plenty more. So if you want to be smart with your wallet, your career choices, and meetings with your colleagues and at dinner parties, listen to Big Technology podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Because unfortunately as it is, it's always a fight on, do I want to be creative and do what I want, like, tell a story by how I like it or give something that the viewers want. Because it's always a fight between that. Hello everyone, this is very interesting people, an interview style podcast where we sit down with talented independent creators to talk about their craft, share some stories, and inspire you to get out there and create something yourself. I'm your host, Keith R. Camney, and with me today is voice actor, ASMR artist, and content creator, Kujee VA, or Zynoam Jesse. Hello. So for the people who don't know who you are, can you tell us a little bit about what it is that you do? Of course, I'm a contacutor on the YouTube platform. I'm part of the VA community or ASMR community same thing. There's a bunch of other channels like me out there. I do videos where I basically play an anime character or anything. I do voice acting, specifically, I play personalities, and then people seem to really enjoy them. I try my best to just basically do a good job at playing the character I play. I try to be as immersed as I can, and the viewer seems to be super immersed too. They enjoy them. Most of the time it's romantic based because I don't know, people really enjoy those, I guess. It's like drama cities, I guess. I'm known in the community because I have quite a lot of fat girls, I guess, you could say, I don't know. I have a, you know, whatever. I just like doing voice acting, I like doing anime, I'm a big weeb. So it really plays off in my favor and people really enjoy them. So yeah, I'm just a just a guy. So what got you into voice acting the first way? Is it something you liked as a kid? You said you're a weeb, so did you really like dubs and voice over an anime or just cartoons in general? What got you into that field? That's a good question. There's a lot of different reasons why, but it is true that I started watching anime very young. I was like seven years old. My first one was actually like a horror one. I will remember that my whole life. It wasn't dubbed too. I was with my uncle, and we were watching Degreyman the first episode. If you don't know what it is, just look it up. Just watch the first episode of Degreyman, and then like put yourself as a seven year old watching that. And it wasn't dubbed, and I will remember that my whole life because it in a way traumatized me, but in a really good way, because I was like, oh damn, this is this is fucked up, I guess. Or sorry, you know, it screwed up. That's okay. Dematization. We're big kids here. And then I like the performance of the voice actors and that. It was pretty good. And I just it has to do with that, but also with the fact that I really love characters. Like there are some characters. Like I would read books all the time when I was younger, and I just love the characters. And I was like, I wonder how they would sound. I wonder how they would act. Like I can read them, but I wonder how they would respond or just act and just, you know, and I just love acting a lot. I would watch a lot of movies. And I started watching a lot of English movies too when I was younger. Well, I was like, you know, I'm a I'm French Canadian. I speak French, but so I would watch a lot of movies in French back in the day. But then I started watching movies in English. I was like, oh, this is so cool. And I just love acting so much. It built up from there of movies and anime, of course, is really a big part of a quayon today as well. But I just, you know, just care, just just video game characters as well that just don't talk. Like, for example, Link, right, from Zelda. He doesn't talk. He doesn't really have a personality. His personality is the player. You do what you want. You do as you perceive them, you know? And that was also a big thing why I wanted to do voice acting too. I was like, you know what? How do I? How would I play Link? How would he sound like? What would be his personality? That was interesting to me. So that's why I made like a few Link videos on my channel too. But I just really like bringing up to life characters that either already exist or me coming, me coming up with or me coming up with how I would give life to this character or just me building a character from the ground and like or just play a personality. And I just wanted to give a good performance. And that's just all I really care about is the performance. And the viewer feeling immersed into what they are listening to or what they are being immersed into. Really? That's that's what I care about. Well, I've worked with you a long time ago of voice acting before and at that point still you're just a really fantastic actor. But thank you. That's really, that's really charming. But recently, fun fact that you're saying that our editor at the time Ben, who I'm still very good friends with, he just recently gave me back the deaf note episodes up to three. Three episodes. Can you give a brief summary about what it is we're talking about for basically all the people listening because no one knows what it is. All right. It disappeared off the face of the earth quite a while ago. Oh yes it did. But I still got the files. I got them my computer right now. I don't know if I should have pulled them one day. But I don't know. I guess I'll just mute the copyright music or something. So back in 2015 or 2014 around that time, that was my first experience as a voice actor. It was terrible. Oh my god. I was so bad. But whatever. You know, Keith here is like really, you know, he's really, he's being a sweetheart right now by saying that I was good. But damn, I was bad because I listened to it recently with my girlfriend and she was cringing the entire time. So was I don't worry. But I still have the roasted glasses on from that because I don't remember what any of it sounds like. I just remember being really impressed with it at the time being like, wow, this sounds really professional. We can be famous from this one. Oh boy, that's sweet. But yeah, I was bad. So basically we did a deaf note of bridge where where like at the time of course, 2014, 2015 was the age of a bridge on YouTube definitely. It was huge on YouTube. It was like a big thing because copyright laws were not that strict back then and people could be created with it. Obviously nowadays there's not a lot of the bridge series because they get screwed over by copyright laws on YouTube now. It's almost impossible to get away with one episode of a bridge without like a company saying, no, you can't do that and give you a strike and you're like, okay, well, I guess I'm screwed. I can't do anything. So back in the day, of course, it would be way more you know, open to creators. So I was so interested in that because obviously a team 4 star was like out there with Dragon Ball Z, a bridge and it was huge. I loved it. I was hilarious. And other bridge series two were really great. And I was like, oh, you know what? I want to make one and I want to play a character. That sounds really fun and just make people laugh. And I guess feel immersed into this like version of this character that I'm giving. That's what I wanted to do. So we did that for like three episodes and it was very amateur, very, very amateur actually. But my friend Ben at the time, I still stand by that. He is an amazing editor. He was only 14 years old and he gave so many good edits in that and the show was really great. But whatever. And I had a really bad mic at the time. It was like a headset mic. I think it was by like Matt Katzer or something. Now they're bankrupt. I think they're bankrupt now. But they made like headsets. It was okay quality actually. You'd be surprised. It was pretty all right. But the quality was all right. So I was like, I'm going to use this script. And Ben had like, you had a guitar hero. That's what we would use for recording most of the time. It was really funny. What's funny? I still actually used that for a long time when I first started doing YouTube. I first started recording my voice for anything. I used my guitar here. I'm like, back then I didn't know the difference between like a microphone from a music studio or like a microphone I get from guitar hero world tour for Xbox. So I was like, oh yeah, this sounds great. Whatever. But yeah, eventually I found Jesse and Ben on some like voice actors for him. Yeah. And I want to be a voice actor. And I had just gotten my nice new USB microphone for a whole whopping $30 from Best Buy or something. And I was like, let's try it out. Let's do some voice acting. And they cast me as my I think 15 year old self as as the character in Death Note lights dad light dad. I think he's like his 50s 40s. Yeah. So there's just think of this 15 year old boy a barely hit puberty. And he's trying to play a 50 year old man. I definitely remember being a little strenuous in my voice. It didn't sound very convincing. It's pretty funny. It was, but it was pretty entertaining. But funny funny thing though. I remember watching it again like two months ago. And I was like, damn, Keith was pretty good. I was I was shit though. I was like, oh my god, this is terrible. But I forgot about some people that worked with us on it. I was like, oh my god, right. There was this guy that just played this person. And that's it. I completely forgot about them. Yeah, there were like a bunch of other people. I think there was this girl that played like the little sister of light. She was was like getting married while we were recording the third episode or something. I was like crazy. Yeah, I remember she was one of the people I met on YouTube and she was, she really liked anime and she voice acted in like an RPG maker game at the time and I was like, oh, she did a really good job. Let's get her on. A little did I know she didn't record it at home. She got sent to a studio. So she didn't have a microphone at home. So when she recorded, she was doing a really good job, but like a really bad microphone. So I was like, oh, it was a weird group of people. Like just you would not expect. Just a bunch of strangers gathering together just to do this weird project. It was really weird. That girl, I think she was like in her 20s and then like, you had like 15 year olds, 14 year olds, 17 year olds, grown adults. It was weird, but it was a really good experience though. It was my first voice acting experience and I got to bring a character to how I personally received them if it wasn't a joke. So like obviously I just exaggerated how he is and I still do through this day. I think it's hilarious to bring the edginess out into like, hey, look, I'm stupid actually because I'm super, super edgy and I have a really edgy ideology too. But that was the first experience I had as a voice acting. It was really cool. So after working on the death note of bridged, obviously now you work in ASMR. What was the kind of bridge between that? Why did you decide on doing mostly ASMR based content over just continuing doing random voice acting gigs or bridged series? For a very long time, I didn't want to do any kind of content because I didn't have the equipment for it and I knew that that would not give me anywhere because like it or not, if you're scuffing and you don't have any good equipment, you're not really going to go anywhere. Like if you want to do gaming, you have a terrible PC, it's going to be really hard to get something out there. So imagine doing voice acting if you have a potato microphone. It's not going to get you anywhere. So that's the first thing I knew that I needed to upgrade before I do any kind of content because at first I was like, okay, I'm going to do VA stuff. I love voice acting. So you know the Swarge Nigger story where you said that he came in the United States with like, I think it was Swarge Nigger for like $2. He only had $2. Now he's like a super fucking actor. My story is how I had nothing and I was like 15, 16 and I saved all of my money not through video games, not for a console, but for a microphone and a power supply with a Scissor arm stand and all of that. I saved all my money from Christmas and my birthday to buy that equipment because I wanted to invest in my passion instead of just, you know, I could have just bought a PS4 at a time and say, fuck it, you know, but I didn't. I bought a microphone and when I bought my microphone, I was like, I need to make videos. At the time, I had no idea what ASMR was because nobody knew it started like, it was very strong in like 2017. That's when it blew up for sure. That's when I started funny enough. But I had no idea what it was. I had no idea, but I remember like, I saw this video and what it wasn't my, sorry, it wasn't my recommended. It was a chick who played as, I don't remember what it was. I know her name though. She played as a, I think an anime character or I think it was a Yandere video. I can't remember it, or it was a serial killer video. I was like, oh, this chick is real playing as a serial killer. I'm interested in that. So I watched that. I was like, oh man, she's actually really good. Damn, she's a good actress. I enjoyed that. And I thought that ASMR was not like the whole like, oh tingles tingles and shit like that. I thought it was just like immersion and like you talking to, not not talking, but the character speaks to you. The viewer, like you feel like you're in it. So I really like the immersion part of it of ASMR. I was like, oh, damn, this is really cool. I felt like closer to the character, I guess you could say, or I felt like the character was talking to me. I felt like part of the video. So I relicked that aspect. So I was like, oh damn, I want to make more of that. So I was like, oh man, I want to do that. It sounds cool. So I got heavily inspired from her by doing the channel. She's pretty much the reason why I made a channel. My first video was a French butler because I was like, oh, what am I good at that not a lot of people could do? You know, because that's the first thing that came to my mind when I was going to make a video. Like I can't do the same thing everyone did. I need to make something that people would enjoy that I am specialized in that I know that I could do better than anyone else. Not at anyone else, but you know, like I could do a better job than most people. What am I good at? That's the first thing I came to my mind. I was like, I'm going to make a French accent video because I speak French because that's part of my kit, my starter pack. I started with that. Not a lot of people can do that. So I'm going to bring something different on the table. Something that is rarer, like there's more rarer on the table so people can enjoy it. I'm going to get, you know, that's the first thought I had. So I did my first video where it was just me hitting recording. I had like a $20 mic, but like the whole kit cost me like $160 because the power supply, the scissor, I'm standing there, the XLR cables, all of that. So I was 17. It was, I think it was a Wednesday night. I had school the next morning. It was like nine in the afternoon, like no, 9 p.m. So I just started recording and I'm just like, I had no script, nothing, no idea what I was going to do, nothing at all. I had no plans. It's like, okay, play this character, French butler, whatever, right? So I guess try to give it anime kind of sound and I was, okay, I'm going to do this. All of it was unscripted. All of it was not, like, you know, I just did, um, what do you call that? Yeah, damn, I'm losing my invulcan. I'm losing my improv. Improv, thank you. I can't believe it. I forgot that word. I forgot the whole thing. All improv and I just, I just kind of put it together like a Frankenstein monster and some of it doesn't really make any sense because some of the lines I said before are not the end and the end are now in the beginning. Weird, weird Frankenstein monster and I put all of that together. I was like, okay, boom, released. Got a little bit of attention. I was happy about it. I think I got like a hundred views. I was like, holy crap. Damn, that's insane. And then immediately after breath of the wild was going to come out soon or it came out and it was huge. I was like, oh, I want to do a link video. I want to play link. That sounds cool because he doesn't have a voice. He doesn't have a personality. I want to give him one. My voice doesn't sound too far off from what he would sound like, I think. That's what I thought at the time. And I was like, oh, I'm going to do that. I played link and then I released it. Got a bit of attention. And then I played a Yendidae. I think it was the Yendidae before, but I don't remember. And then I did a Yendidae video because what's so interesting about Yendidae is I know it's like a G now and I understand like it's fucked up right. The real Yendidae's RL are not good. I'm not saying otherwise. It's it's no don't be a Yendidae. It's fucked up. However, in fiction, it's fine. In my opinion, because it's interesting and it's not real. That's the point of it. It's exaggerating. It seems like an a villain in a movie. It's like you don't condone their behavior, but it's interesting to watch him do what they do. Exactly. And it's interesting, especially when you're the subject, you're the main focus. The viewer. So you're as immersed as you could be. So I wanted to play Yendidae because I always wanted to do a crazy character. Mental state is changing over the time and I want to really do that and give that impression on the viewer. And of course, the whole point of I'm a disgusting person, yet I love you so much and that this is how I think I give love to you and affection is really interesting to me because they do exist. People like that. It's interesting. It's interesting to me. So I was like, okay, I'm going to do that. And I did. People really enjoy that. It blew up. That video absolutely blew up. And one day I just had like two K subscribers in a day. It was insane. Absolutely crazy. I woke up when I was like, oh my god, all of that in one night. It was insane. It was crazy. They really loved it. And keep it in my ASL. I was like, at its peak at the time, it was crazy big and I just got really lucky. There's no way. That's where I was like, okay, people really enjoy this. I can voice act and people enjoy them. And I enjoy myself playing those characters too. That's great. So I kept doing that for a very long time. And here I am. And I still do it. Here you are. I quit for a while, but I'm back. I guess. He's back, everybody. I guess. Well, I quit because it's a funny story, right? I told you about it. I quit originally because I was on a burnout. I was burnt out. I kept like releasing videos all the time and they would get demonetized and I would get no profit out of my work. And that was really bothering me because working on a video is probably like nine to ten hours. Like the whole thing, the whole process because I know a lot of, I guess I'm going to rant a little bit. A lot of voice actors that do the same thing as me. Like I'd say at least 70% don't make their own scripts. They don't even edit themselves either. I know there's like bigger ones than me out there. They don't even do their scripts. They don't even edit their own videos. All they do is push recording and they're like, okay, editor, you do the rest. That's it. It's and they they they are provided scripts by their fans most of the time. And I'm against that idea. I'm against that ideology 100% because in my opinion. If you want to do a voice acting video, if you want to build a character, if you want to interact like if you want to play as a character, the best way to do it is you write your own lines by how you believe the character would say things. You know what I mean? It's like it feels like you're playing someone else's character by that by their ideology. And it feels wrong. I don't like that. So I've always made my own scripts. Sometimes I've been helped by my girlfriend. She helps me sometimes with some scripts because sometimes it gets really tiring, but she does she never does the whole thing by herself. I always help. Here and there. I probably do like 60% she does like 40% sometimes like at least on three videos I think in total I've made like 60 videos I think if like if not 65 something like that And then all of them at least three videos she's helped me with and that's it and nothing more than that But every single video I do the script I record I edit I do everything I will never let someone else do it for me because it's It's lazy it doesn't feel like if I did that it would not feel like it's my video anymore It would feel like it's someone else's I'm not saying that oh no one should have their own like editor You know no one should have editors to edit the videos for them. That's all I'm saying like scripting Come on dude at least do it by yourself. That's the least you could do it because The fun of it for me was always I play my own character Because I wrote about the character and I'm bringing the character I created to life and I want to share it How do you guys like that? Did you guys enjoy that? Did you and my good at doing character to build development? You know kind of kind of stuff like that. It's bringing a character to life and I love doing that It's fun if someone else was to do it for me. I would not enjoy it It's a lot of it being your own creation right like with working with like actors in general when they work on a Screener just character. They're usually working with the screenwriter on well, I think the actor would probably sorry I think the character would probably do this or I think this is how they would react because if you're the one Voicing the character bring it to life you have to have some involvement and how they how they work Because if not you're just kind of you're not really acting you're just reading. It's not you anymore It's it's them. That's what they want. It's not you and it's it's something as like that something else I've been debating a lot on Because I've been asked a lot like hey, could you how do I start a channel? Would you have any tips and stuff advices? I'm like on voice acting most people ask me advice on voice acting and I always say no I don't I don't have any tips. I don't I'm not a professor. I'm not a teacher I don't know anything about voice acting. I was never taught anything about voice acting. I was never told anything I just starting doing what I do nothing else. I was I never had classes and The reason why I don't give any tips either is because I don't want to give you one of mine because I'm not in a good position to give you advice I'm not I'm not qualified for that And I always answer this to I say however I can give you tips on YouTube YouTube tips are editing tips and what software you should use and how with videos you should make and what you think should be out there And what you think should not be would not be relevant to people because unfortunately as it is it's it's always a fight on Do I want to be creative and do what I want like tell a story by how I like it or give something that the viewers want Because it's always a fight between that is like it or not. That's like every YouTuber out there You you want to give something that you want to give but you got to balance it with what the viewers want if you're gaming channel and you suddenly start doing like I don't know vlogs not a lot of people will care unfortunately for you because they didn't subscribe for you They didn't start sorry they didn't subscribe to you for that they subscribe to you because you do gaming, you know? So if I started doing like what I want on my channel I can understand why people not watch it or not like it is because it is subscribe for that Or if I made a whole like Ro play video about me playing a character that you know, let's say I played snake right like what if situation? I please snake from middle gear saw in the video middle gear solid ASMR roleplay snake, you know I would understand why no one would give a shit about it because it's what I want it's what I wanted to do and Not a lot of people shared the the passion they have for middle gear like I do So it's understandable that it was a video for me and not a video for them Mm-hmm And of course you want to succeed on YouTube as well. So you always got to balance What do I want to do that they also want and if like and of course if you end up not doing what you want and you End up doing what they want you're gonna get burnt out and you're gonna end up not liking what you do like I did Having these problems with the YouTube platform if you ever thought about branching off of it and doing whether it's a professional Voice over work or working on other projects that are just outside of YouTube in general Is that something that's ever interested you or something you've done before every single content creator on YouTube right now as I'm sure at least mostly gaming and stuff. I'm sure everyone has thought of moving to Twitch or branching after Twitch And that's a really good platform too. I am on Twitch actually. Yes, but I have like 2k followers on Twitch I think something like that. Nah, I don't really I haven't been on it in like three weeks now I don't really stream on it. I'm pretty late. I'm pretty lazy because I get like I don't get a lot of viewers obviously because they didn't Subscribe to me on YouTube for gaming to subscribe to me because I do character voice acting and I don't know how to branch that off Because I do audio specifically. It's very hard to do so Imagine like branching off from like doing audio to like something like twitch or something It doesn't work unless you're like on soundcloud or something, but I don't like soundcloud So I don't want to branch off on that either. It sounds weird. It doesn't I'm not comfortable with it I'm just comfortable on YouTube when I do voice acting and when I do any kind of project. That's fine But I've been on casting call club before I've tried out I tried that a little bit. It's never good I never see like any good like worthwhile project on CCC well at CCC is a casting call club obviously is Is very community based, but unfortunately of course again. I don't really blame CCC because the copyright laws are really bad on YouTube right now So it's very difficult to start a project from scratch I guess if you make a video game yeah, but those Threads on CCC are always bombarded and it's not even the worthwhile because the guys who actually do audition on that on those threads are probably like People that have like 50 other projects on their belt, you know what I mean? It's like okay if you're new you're just gonna eat shit Like I can't just go in there and throw my YouTube channel be like hey guys look. I'm flexing look at my 70 72k subscribers. I can do that. That's just scummy. I wouldn't do that and I don't know I don't really have any kind of experience under other than just me doing YouTube videos As a voice actor. I can't just be like hey guys. I'm the ultimate actor look at me have all these subs That's that's fucked up. I had this I guess I'll share a story I did audition for one thing because my friend Nick showed me a thread about These people that were doing Automagame which is like, you know, it's a reversed Rm Automagame so it's a girl as the protagonist and then she has multiple love interests. It was an anime game and The developer was a Japanese woman So I was interested in that so I joined with this cord and I started talking to the creator Which is of course again a Japanese woman who speak pretty good English and she was like oh Why are you interested? I was like oh because I I don't know I thought I would really fit well in your game because it looks like something I could do very easily because I do romantic Based videos a lot and I play characters might be you might be interested in what I do. Okay. What did you work on? Well, I mean I make I make YouTube videos you want to see my channel? She was like oh, yeah sure I showed her my channel. I will never forget this. That was probably one of the most embarrassing things I've ever been told in my life and I will like that's when like it snapped in me I was like oh my god. Is that really what people think of me? She said oh you make porn It broke me into like five billion pieces my ego was gone my pride was gone I had nothing was like that was the most hurtful thing I've ever heard in my life as a Contecator you make porn that's when I was like why would like the first thought was no I don't why would she think that I? Don't understand how she could think that and then I was like oh, it's probably because she knows because she told me She knows what ASMR is and like most of the time it's always like erotic I was like yeah, I'm against that. I'm not I'm not part of that community though But she kept like jokingly say that I make porn like I felt super super insulted That's like I'm not like a sensitive person in general. I don't get insulted that easily But that broke me so bad. I felt awful. I was like really because I started wondering is that really what people think of me Like they just think I make porn is that it? I'm am I just like I just I just make audio porn no I Don't I know that for effect because I just don't I think that's definitely a problem with with ASMR as a whole There's a big stigma around it because when I first before even knew it was I thought oh it seems like some quarter people say Oh it makes you feel tingly and stuff but okay, it's maybe it's relaxing stuff and then I see a lot of the you know ASMR that gets on trending. It's you know It's if it's sexualized and then to get some of it gets pretty niche and fetishy So there's a stigma around ASMR and then like voice it's especially your ASMR Which is more voice acting than making tingly noises. It's it's hard to you know a differentiate yeah to be honest ASMR should not really be in the title to begin with But it's just because I can't really put it in any other category because it's not it's not loud enough to be voice acting It's not entertaining enough to be voice acting. It's like it's just it's quiet Soothing enough to be relaxing in my opinion. So that's why I put it as ASMR and I Dare I need one to fucking tell me to put it in another and any other category because I don't see any other category That would fit better. I don't I don't whisper. I don't do tingle stuff I don't like do triggers or anything like that. You don't cut straws with scissors Yeah, I don't want to see in a lot. It's like that Like what yeah, true. I to be honest. I did that once that was like in my first or second year of the video That was like over a year ago, but that's the only time I did that. I don't do anything else It's just immersion. That's what I do. I try to be To give the viewer immersion that that to me is the ASMR I guess I don't know. I don't have any explanation through it. Other than that. Yeah, ASMR is very sexualized now It's actually so bad. I think it's because the contributors are seen as like idols more than you know what I mean It's like I'm an idol look guys. I'm an eboy and I make Anime voices or the girls are more seen as e-girls, you know, it's more like an or idols kind of thing I don't do it's weird more than just like you know, hey guys. I sound good That's my thing. I sound good and I play and I play character well for like I don't know gamers It's like oh guys. I'm funny. I'm entertaining right they're more entertainers than e-boys or anything else You know for example C dog right he's very much He's a mix of both actually it's weird. I he's like a dream like To me at least to what I would want to be because he does be a stuff But at the same time he doesn't retaining stuff and he's like really good at it and he's successful Mm-hmm. I want to be that but it's gonna be really hard to branch off of that So it's a big jump in the big gamble and I refused to take it because I've built this off way too much You know, I mean I put way too much effort into this so I can't just make the jump It's it's it's so scary making the jump or branching off is is terrifying Especially if you want to abandon what's behind? It's terrifying. I would I'm super glad and thankful that you know, I was welcome back When I came back on my channel and ever since I quit back I came back in March and March at like 52K Not back at 71 or 2K for God me you know how many I have I think it's tough 72K I got again like 20K and like three months, which is insane Absolutely crazy. I never got this many subs in a short amount of time if not I'm doing way better than before Yeah, so what's it been like you so you have this audience of like 70,000 plus people It's got to be kind of a roller coaster dealing with fans because I'm sure there's some that are super chill great to talk to and then There's some that are a little over the edge as far as boundaries and things like that And you have a discord so and you also social media see you reach out with people a lot What's it like interacting with that massive amount of people and you know What have been some of the highs some of the lows with dealing with a fan base that is a booming? Okay, so At first when you start it's always like this you're super excited when you start and you're like oh my god This is amazing. I love the attention obviously and The love that I'm getting and then you know you're not that you're not that That big yet, so you're enjoying it. You're like oh man, that's really cool people enjoy my content They tell me that they love it. That's really cool. It feels it feels good. It feels thank you that feels like you know It's warm to the heart to the heart, you know, it's it's really it feels really good and then over the time Of course when you get bigger you don't really learn what I call the spotlight. This is a term I use I don't know if anyone else uses it. This is a term I use for Basically you're the big guy content creator and no matter what you do There's some people that are gonna look on you on this stage. They were gonna look at you constantly what you do What you say because you're always on this stage and you have this spotlight on you So no matter what I say if I'm shit posting if I'm talking if I'm typing anything in a chat If I'm just like you know my discord server just hanging out with people There's always people that will look at me no matter what because I have this spotlight on me And I gotta be careful what I say or what I do or anything like that because it could be taking out a context It could just be Used for to hate me just because I have an opinion that they don't agree with they will use it against me For example if I say I don't like a movie and they really love that movie It could just simply say I fuck you could you your piece of shit and just hate me from there. It's insane Some people really don't need a lot just to hate someone you would be you would be amazed I learned that the hard way if I had if I dare to have any opinion People will say that I use my platform to spread my opinions to fucking brainwash people people will say that definitely So it's something that I try not to show too much when I'm interacting with my community or when I'm interacting with fans I can't have an opinion or at least if I do it can't be something I guess too heavy I guess on anything kind of subject especially not politics You do not want to have a political opinion you don't because the second you do like at least half your fans will not agree with what you say Or with the way you perceive it or whatever and they'll just say fuck you could you just because you have a different political belief than I do I will now hate you and I will now cast you away or you know I will think you're an asshole now do you find it stressful having to balance your personal life and then doing stuff with the community like this Do you ever feel like you wish you could take a step back or just kind of separate yourself from the community? Or do you feel like it's an important part of you know being a content creator and Having that audience. It's always essential for a contecutor no matter who you are no matter what content you make Never get too close. I'm not saying you shouldn't be like you know You shouldn't accept like I'm not saying like you should never be close to your fans I'm saying that don't be too close. It's actually gonna hurt you so bad You're gonna feel like you have no privacy anymore like when your fans know everything about you and they spread it around And you feel like you have no like you know privacy anymore It's awful don't do that. Thankfully. I've never done anything like that. That's why I refuse to show what I look like That's why I refuse to tell my fans anything about my personal life like you know like for example like you know Whatever my political beliefs is religion good or bad and all that stuff. I don't talk about that I just meme around I like to talk about anime which anime do I like oh cool nice What I think about voice acting my favorite movies what I think this movie's not that great my different opinions on that That's fine, but I don't talk about I don't talk about for example I have a girlfriend right and there's some people that really don't like my girlfriend Just because she's my girlfriend and that pisses me off. I had an episode about that on Twitter. I'm sure you saw that maybe But there's some people that legit like bash to my girlfriend Because she's my girlfriend and they started to like share her Instagram around and be like, how has she so ugly and shit Yeah, that's toxic. I hate that. I had that episode and that was really disgusting And that's another thing why I don't share about my personal life to other people is because they're they're free to do really toxic stuff like that And I don't agree with that at all. It's stressful. Yeah, especially when um I see people like threatening me with doxing me because I've had that before and that's really scary There was a guy that that um Threatened to dox me because he got my IP or something or whatever. I don't know how he got it, but he got it He had a house that was Three streets away from where I live. So first of all scary a shit, right? I plead the big IQ man right there because I I made him believe that it was actually my house Because I was like begging. I was fake begging to him saying like, oh, please don't do that It was actually not my house, but I wanted to make him believe that it was it's pretty fucking scary though He's still got like my region which I don't know how he got it, but he threatened to Dox me and just post my private information around and um He got three streets away really stressed out I remember once I got like a DM on discord about a girl saying like where I was at and I was like what you talking about I know I did what this was they were just saying where you at I'm at the airport and instead of picture of them at the airport I was like what what the hell and they said like what you said you would be here What I got creeped the fuck out and she said she was like in the airport of Montreal I was like oh my god Hell no like I had a stalker and that was really fucking scary I know I'm just like going like through it really fast But I'm just telling you TLD arc is there's way more details, but whatever they're not important. They're just like build up Yeah, main point. Yeah, someone showed up in your province and they were not invited Scariest shit. I was terrified. Uh, same thing when I got doxed. It was really bad. Well, not I didn't technically get dox But oh my god, the funniest part is I'll never forget this This because I was like okay, what would the desperate person do in this situation? Oh, call the police. He was like okay, good day And he left and he fucking blocked me on discord and he never came back after I mentioned the police The second I mentioned the police he pushed out that was great. I was like really? So does it comes into the real world it gets a little too real for them. They're like yeah, no I'm not committed enough. Nah, he's just a sr man. Fuck no, but you know, yeah, it's true though that you can't be too close to your community Although, why is they're gonna They're gonna feel like they are super close to you and that's where like a close idea. They feel entitled to your privacy And that's that's where someone should never cross that's some that's something you should never cross never What closing on a lighter note you attended film school in the past and we were just talking about the before I started recording But I guess the last question for you is Why did you choose to go to film school kind of obviously love movies But is that something you ever wanted to tie your voice acting experience and your storytelling into? Yeah, I would agree with that It's you got it on point actually. It's exactly why I went to film school. I love movies And it's all about acting and praising act, you know, you praised the movie for its good acting for its good Camera shots for delivering like even the camera shots even the position of camera is character development believe it or not Just anything like that gives you exactly What the character is like or what the character sees what the character what's what the character's environment is and it's very very important to know It like anything like that just shots just camera placements is it's character development It's part of it no matter what you do because it's storytelling through the angle of it, you know what I mean I'm probably sound woke as fuck right now, but you know what I mean. It's just it's part of it. So I it was I just really wanted to take film school because I wanted to do either acting or voice acting and that was perfect for me and it it really made me understand more about characters and how you tell a story and how you You immerse the person and the view the viewer into the movie It's I learned a bunch of stuff that I'm really glad I learned in my four months at film school It was very very valuable for any actor or any voice actor you know, even if it's not audio it's completely fine to learn It's very useful to me every day I there's some there's some movies That you don't notice but shots like especially standing Stanley Kubrick movies. They're all about Every scene, every shot is about what the character is feeling or what's going on and what I want the viewer to feel through it It's all about that. Almost every movie is all about that and it's very important for acting That's why I really enjoyed going to film school and I don't regret it at all Even if I dropped out, I don't regret it. It was very very useful. I'm very grateful for it. Do you see yourself going back in the future? I would. I would go back if I didn't have the same issues I had before Which is two time, it was too far away and it cost me too much money to travel there And it cost me too much time to go there too. So yeah, if I could, I would definitely take it again. It was very good. Very good experience for me. But if the opportunity comes, if I have time, money to do so, definitely Definitely but for right now, doing what I do right now, YouTube, because I don't have a part time job This is my part time job. Doing content on YouTube is my job right now. It's my student job I guess until I go back to school again. Right now, I feel very lucky to have what I have right now To be a contécutor, to sit on my ass every day on my computer and just make videos and stuff I feel very lucky to have that as my part time job because I have friends that actually have real jobs They work at McDonald's, they work at restaurants, waitress, waiter, McDonald's, you know, whatever They work, they have actual real part time jobs and they tell me about like how they hate it, how they're like, oh God I gotta go to work again. I'm like, whoa, I gotta sit on my ass and make YouTube videos And I'm very grateful for it every single day. However, here's the thing. They have an advantage that I do not have Their money is consistent. Mine is not. You can have a night. You can have like a, you can gas, but you have no idea. It's never the same. It's, it's never consistent and that's why I don't think I'm gonna do this rubber, but if I do, I guess I achieve the dream I guess it's been a dream since I was like 10 to make YouTube videos and you know, be a YouTuber like most Z generation You know, like you and I and everyone our age are even younger than that. It's a big dream to do what your passion is and make money from it And spread it to people and they enjoy it. And I'm very grateful that I've succeeded to be where I am to this day And I know that I will go further than this, at least I believe I will. And I don't know where it's gonna take me, but it's not like I had any ideas to begin with It's been a pleasure talking with you. Thank you very much. It's been some really great interesting stories for sure Especially hearing about your little odd stock here experience, but I guess before we close out, yeah, the floor is yours, anything you want to promote You want to give a last word of advice to everybody listening. It's all you. Subscribe to Kif and the Uncarnival. Really good guys. Cool, cool guys. Cool guys. They're putting way too much effort into their videos. It actually blows my mind how they are devoted into their work. It's amazing to me. And what blows my mind even more is that they don't even get that much attention compared to what they should actually deserve. That's how I came into contact with them again. And I highly suggest you watching their content. They put a lot of effort into it. They invest so much money into what they do. It's insane and blows my mind. It makes me wish that I was as devoted as they are into my work, but I cannot. Because I don't know. They're just that passionate into what they do. And it's very admirable to see and watch. You can't do this. You're making me blush. You're making me embarrassed. I don't care. You take it. And I don't know. I don't really need that much attention myself. So if you really want to, I guess my videos are my channels in description. I guess if you wanted to go check that out. I just, my guess is not a lot of you will be interested anyway. I just do like enemy voice acting and I play characters. And it's like kind of ASMR-esque and I roleplay as characters. Sometimes most of the time it's romantic based. Sometimes I'm it's like it's just, you know, your character and sometimes just whore, which I love a lot, but it doesn't get that much attention compared to romantic stuff. Well, give it some attention. Check it out. It's a KU-GVA on YouTube or is it just KU-G? KU-GVA and my second channel is just KU-G. Where I just upload like gaming stuff, I guess, or just random videos that I don't think should belong on my main channel. Because I know people wouldn't really care about it that much. Just for stuff that I want to work on, but I know that not a lot of people would really pay much attention. As I'll put on a second channel where I believe that people who subscribe to it would care because they subscribe to it in the first place. Well, go check them out. He's interesting. He deserves your love. And thank you so much for coming on the podcast. And yeah, my pleasure. My pleasure. Subscribe to KU-GVA. And he deserves the attention from the amount of effort he's putting into this. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, that's all. Have a good day. Take care of yourself. I know that maybe some contributors are going to watch this. Take a break. Don't be afraid to. It doesn't make you weak. It doesn't make you a bad contributor. If you want to take some time off, it's perfectly understandable. You can't just be on there with the spotlight all the time. Take a break. It's annoying. It's going to blind you over the time. It's annoying. You don't want that. Be part of the crowd. Get off of your stage. Be in the crowd. Screw it, dude. I don't know. Take a break. Take care of yourselves. That's my message. I guess I don't know. Well, thank you so much. And we'll talk to you later. Of course. Again, thank you all so much for listening all the way to the end here. It was a bit of a longer episode, a lot longer than usual. Normally, I aim around for like the 20 to 30 minute mark. This episode actually ran about 60 minutes. I had to cut a few sections altogether just to keep it below the hour mark. So if you are interested in listening to more of this podcast, the full unedited audio file is available on our Patreon, patreon.com/keyforcampany. That's where I do this show in a few other projects. So you can go check it out there for free. Absolutely free. Anyways, please, if you're at all interested in this content, I know it seems a little unique and different, but you know, Jesse's actually a very talented voice actor. So please go give him some support. Cougie V.A. on YouTube, Cougie on other platforms. Check him out. Give him a try at least. He deserves it. He's a great guy. If you want more of this show, very interesting people. We're on pretty much every podcast platform you can imagine. We're on Google, Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher, the other ones. So if you want some more, go check him out. If you did enjoy the podcast, please consider subscribing on the platform of your choice, as well as leaving a review if you are an iTunes user. Or if you're not, you can just log in and make an account. You probably already have one because someone's had an iPod at some point in their life. Give us a review. It really helps us out. Other than that, you can check us out on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at the VIP cast. And if you want to support the show even further, like I mentioned, we have a Patreon Patreon.com/keyfercampany. It helps support the show, as well as some other creative projects I'm working on. So thank you so much. Stick around. There are plenty more interesting people coming your way. [Music] Hi, this is Alex Cantrowitz. So each week on Big Technology, I bring on key actors from companies building AI tech and outsiders trying to influence it. Asking where this is all going, they come from places like Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, and plenty more. So if you want to be smart with your wallet, your career choices, and meetings with your colleagues and at dinner parties, listen to Big Technology podcast or ever you get your podcasts.