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The Highs And Lows Of Being A Viral Sensation - Max Fosh

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Max FoshguestAli Abdaalhost

Sep 29, 20221h 45mWatch on YouTube

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Transcript

125 min read · 24,889 words

0:00 – 1:01
Intro
1. MFMax Fosh
  I think I was known as for being quite a, an odd guy at uni anyway and just doing things because they were funny. And then I just got so lucky one day where I walked past Zak Alsop on the street, who was a fellow YouTuber at the time, who had about 30,000 subscribers at the time. And I, I said to him, "Look, mate, if you, if you ever need a cameraman for anything let me know." But I said to Zac, "Oh yeah, I make videos as well. I've got, like, 18 million views on my videos." And he weirdly said, "Yeah, actually, well, we're filming something tomorrow. Do you wanna come and help film?" So I helped film there, and then he had this idea to, to kind of break me into London Fashion Week dressed up as a model, and we did that, and then that's just kind of like, boom, just went stratosphere.
2. AAAli Abdaal
  Please welcome to the stage, it's me, Max Fosh.
3. MFMax Fosh
  I don't think I do enough to combat burnout. I do therapy. That was one of the first things that I bought with some YouTube money was, like, therapy. But then it all boils down to, like, ideas of, like, self-esteem. I've kind of got to a kind of a, a, an impasse where I know the things that make me feel bad when it comes to, like,
1:01 – 2:50
2:31 Doing stand up
1. MFMax Fosh
  negative thoughts when it comes to video making and, like, have big numbers, but the goalposts just move daily. I don't think I've ever said this publicly, but-
2. AAAli Abdaal
  Hey, friends. Welcome back to Deep Dive, the weekly podcast where every week it is my immense privilege to sit down with academics, and authors, and entrepreneurs, and creators, and other inspiring people, and we find out how they got to where they are and the strategies and tools we can learn from them to help live our own best lives. Now, what you're about to hear is an interview that I've just done with Max Fosh. Max is a YouTuber and standup comedian. You might have seen a video which now has 30 million views where he and our friends Zac and Jay, they faked him as a model to the top of London Fashion Week wearing, like, a garbage bag or something like that. Recently, he's also gone viral for playing a prank where he convinced people landing at Gatwick Airport that they were landing at Luton Airport instead. He famously ran for mayor of London a couple years ago. He has gotten an, an official presidential pardon for a crime that he committed in 2009, and he seems to have built a career off the back of being an internet prankster kind of vibe. Anyway, this is a sick conversation. We talk about how he became disillusioned with the world of corporations and, like, big corporate and a real job, and we talk about his journey through university, how getting involved in student radio ultimately led to him doing silly things on the internet and making silly videos now to the point where his YouTube channel is at nearly 1.5 million subscribers. He's building his own team. He's just done a whole standup pr- proper show thing at the Edinburgh Fringe and is performing at the London Palladium Theatre, which is this huge venue, in about two months, and me and the team are gonna be getting tickets to that. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this conversation with Max Fosh. By the way, just a flag, um, we actually had a bit of an audio issue for the first five or so minutes of this episode. We've kept them in because it's top banter, and Max is, like, really freaking funny, and, like, yeah, but please excuse the audio for the first five minutes. It gets really good beyond
2:50 – 4:09
How would you describe yourself?
1. AAAli Abdaal
  that point. You've been described as lots and lots of things.
2. MFMax Fosh
  I'm really interested to know what you're gonna describe me as, because is it gonna be prankster? 'Cause that's normally the number one that people go for.
3. AAAli Abdaal
  Oh, so I was gonna ask you how you describe yourself, but I ... The line from the video where I first discovered you was, uh, Zac and Jay's Fashion Week one-
4. MFMax Fosh
  Yes
5. AAAli Abdaal
  ... unsurprisingly, 30 million views. "We faked a model, fake model to the top of London Fashion Week."
6. MFMax Fosh
  Yeah.
7. AAAli Abdaal
  They described you as, "We need a confident, unfashionable, blank canvas of a man."
8. MFMax Fosh
  [laughs]
9. AAAli Abdaal
  [laughs]
10. MFMax Fosh
  Yeah, that was, uh-
11. AAAli Abdaal
  Do you feel like that's a reasonable observation?
12. MFMax Fosh
  I think that's probably, yeah, that's probably quite fair from, from Zac and Jay. Um, yeah, I think, I think I get a lot of, I get a lot of prankster, which I don't massively love. Um, I, I, I get a lot of, "What do you do?" That's mainly from my, like, close family and friends. A lot of my family and friends still think I make radio, like, still think I do radio, 'cause I started off, like, being a radio presenter.
13. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah, one of your, like, internet bios says broadcaster before YouTuber. When we were doing our research, it was like, "Max Fosh is a broadcaster."
14. MFMax Fosh
  That-
15. AAAli Abdaal
  Is he a broadcaster?
16. MFMax Fosh
  Yeah, I don't ... Yeah, I just don't think the kind of mainstream under- know what they ... They just kind of panic and they're like, "Okay, what, what do we call this guy?" So, uh, I think content creator is probably the, uh, the best, the best, best fitting one.
17. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah. So your, your story is, is, uh, somewhat circuitous and, like, interesting, so I wonder if we can just sort of start, start there. Um-
18. MFMax Fosh
  Sure
19. AAAli Abdaal
  ... you ... From my understanding, about 10 years ago, 2013, you
4:09 – 10:41
Your hatred for the corporate world
1. AAAli Abdaal
  started an internship, and that started your hatred of the corporate world.
2. MFMax Fosh
  Yes.
3. AAAli Abdaal
  What, what was going on there?
4. MFMax Fosh
  Yeah. I, I, I kind of grew up, um, in, in a very kind of s- a privileged bubble. I went to a school called Harrow School, which is a very well-known and posh private school here in the UK. And I, I don't wanna, I don't wanna say, I don't wanna kind of like badmouth the school. Um, and so they, they, they ... This wasn't something that was actively being kind of pushed, but there was a feeling I felt of, like, right, you go into certain avenues in a career. So whether that's law, or finance, or medicine. And finance definitely was one of the big ones, and my father worked in insurance. And so when I was 17, I got the kind of very nepotistic opportunity to, to go and, and sit and just, I observe, which I found is a really interesting way of, like, uh, prefacing a, an internship of going to observe. Like, you're 17, you have no idea what's going on. I sat there for a week and I thought, "Is this it? Is, is this ... Are we, we're all aware that this is the thing that everyone is so excited about?" And I kind of got very kind of disenfranchised with the idea that I was gonna go and work in the city or work in, in finance.
5. AAAli Abdaal
  So, like, I've, I've never worked a corporate job. What-
6. MFMax Fosh
  No
7. AAAli Abdaal
  ... what was it like? What-
8. MFMax Fosh
  It was everyone ... So you get in. Uh, you don't really, "How's, how's your evening?" "Yeah, good, thanks, mate. Yeah, nice." Uh, tap, tap, tap for two hours, don't say anything. One stale bit of banter gets flown around-
9. AAAli Abdaal
  [laughs]
10. MFMax Fosh
  ... about Greg that's come in 30 minutes late with some ketchup down his top. Little, "Big breakfast, Greg?" "Yeah. Huh." And then tap, tap, tap.
11. AAAli Abdaal
  [laughs]
12. MFMax Fosh
  And I was then sent, I was then sent to fetch the pies at lunch, and that was my favorite part of the day, 'cause that's when I got to actively do something. I got really excited to go get the pies. Um, and came back, and then some more stale banter about Greg.
13. AAAli Abdaal
  [laughs]
14. MFMax Fosh
  And then, and then after work drinks where people would get, uh, pissed and, and they'd go home. Like, I'd just like to preface, this isn't the entire, uh, existence of people who live in, in the corporate world. This was just my, uh, experience of the week that I was working there at 17. And- That's-- I kind of realized I was much more-- I, I wanted something that was much more creatively fulfilling. Um, and so when I went to university, I, I changed my course within the first kind of three or four months from economics and finance to English literature.
15. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm.
16. MFMax Fosh
  And this is kind of the one of the first times I, I realized I was probably quite good at, at, at blagging something because I hadn't done English A level. And so-
17. AAAli Abdaal
  Oh
18. MFMax Fosh
  ... I walked into the English school and said, "Hi, I'd like to do your degree, please." And they said, "Okay, well, did you earn your A- English A level?" I said, "Oh, I didn't do it." And they said, "Okay, well then we can't offer you a, a, a, um, a place in the English school." And I remember I said for some reason, "But what if I get a two one in my first year in economics? That surely proves that I'm a good student, so I'd be, I'd be value to your, to your, um, school." I think she was so taken aback, the head of English, that she just said, "Yeah, okay, fine."
19. AAAli Abdaal
  [laughs]
20. MFMax Fosh
  "Deal." And I ended up getting a two one in my first year of economics, and so then that made me do English literature. And so that was suddenly... I was terrible. I was terrible at English literature, but it meant I was suddenly doing things that were slightly more creative.
21. AAAli Abdaal
  Okay. So at age 19, you sort of find your way into English literature-
22. MFMax Fosh
  Yeah
23. AAAli Abdaal
  ... as a degree.
24. MFMax Fosh
  Yeah.
25. AAAli Abdaal
  What happens next in the, in the Max Fosh story?
26. MFMax Fosh
  So in-- I was then just tr- I was just joining societies. I was just like super interested and excited going from this very institutionalized world of Harrow where you get up at a certain time every day and you do this, and then you do this, and you do this, into like meeting loads of different people from loads of different backgrounds and doing things that I never... I probably would've had the opportunity to do at Harrow, but it would've been very regimented. So I suddenly realized that I could have my own radio show.
27. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm.
28. MFMax Fosh
  Um, I joined the theater society. I joined something called the t- 20 Minute Society, which is where they take your number, and at any point throughout the week they'll text you with an activity, and you need to be there in 20 minutes. You have to drop everything you're doing. And I loved the, like, spontaneous, like-
29. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
30. MFMax Fosh
  ... nature of, of, of university life. And so I was trying loads of different things, and I understood, oh, I really like entertaining people, whether that's on stage with the theater society or broadcasting or basically just being able to talk uninterrupted for, for [chuckles] an hour, uh, on, on the radio. And so I did student radio, which then led me to hospital radio in Newcastle. Did that for three years, four years.
10:41 – 17:35
What is student radio?
1. MFMax Fosh
  a listener count. I found out there was a listener count about two or three shows in, and I logged on and I saw there were three people listening-
2. AAAli Abdaal
  [laughs]
3. MFMax Fosh
  ... and I knew that two-- I knew two of those people 'cause I'd asked them and sent them the link.
4. AAAli Abdaal
  Okay.
5. MFMax Fosh
  So, um, it was just an opportunity for me to try just being a radio presenter and-
6. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm
7. MFMax Fosh
  ... re- like coming up with your own show and writing your own show. What are the segments? Okay, getting some outcide- outside broadcast stuff and vox pops and, um... And so I did that for about a year and I realized there's no, there's no progression here. You're just... I'm just coming in and just doing the same thing every week. And so luckily, I looked into and found hospital radio, which, um, in Newcastle when I was there, or still is, the, the hospital station there called Radio Tyneside was really well run and it was quite well funded and-
8. AAAli Abdaal
  As in a radio station that's being broadcast in the hospital?
9. MFMax Fosh
  Yes.
10. AAAli Abdaal
  Oh.
11. MFMax Fosh
  So in hospitals you have five buttons, um, I think. Not in all hospitals, but a lot of them. So five buttons of radio stations. So there's Radio One, Radio Four, Classic FM, Magic, and then normally the local station, which is hospital radio.
12. AAAli Abdaal
  Oh, okay.
13. MFMax Fosh
  Um, and so we had Radio Tyneside was broadcasting to the six hospitals, I think, in the Newcastle and Gateshead area. So we had quite like a large listener base. Um, and-
14. AAAli Abdaal
  [laughs] I guess the patients in bed too are-
15. MFMax Fosh
  Yeah
16. AAAli Abdaal
  ... choosing to not go for Radio One or Radio Four.
17. MFMax Fosh
  Yeah. I mean, they're-
18. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah. [laughs]
19. MFMax Fosh
  I mean, it's quite slim pickings. It's kind of almost kind of this like hostage situation where you're almost forcing them to listen to you. But, um, I, I worked there for three years and started on the overnight shift of like 2:00 AM till 4:00 AM and then worked my way up. And when I left, my last year I was doing the breakfast show. So-
20. AAAli Abdaal
  What does that look like? Like w- what does your 2:00 to 4:00 AM shift in hospital radio look like?
21. MFMax Fosh
  Luckily, a lot of it could be pre-recorded, so you could, uh- They would like you to do a few live shows, um, but you could go in and rec- pre-record the entire thing. Um, and obviously there wouldn't be any int- interaction with the patients, but there kind of rarely was when you're in hospital. You're not exactly like picking up your phone-
22. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
23. MFMax Fosh
  ... and texting in to Radio Tyneside, so like-
24. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah, especially at 2:00 in the morning. [laughs]
25. MFMax Fosh
  Exactly. Um, so it's, it just kind of like was any other radio station in the sense the s- it was the same software, um, and you just kind of, you-
26. AAAli Abdaal
  So are you playing music or are you like doing-
27. MFMax Fosh
  Yeah, you're playing, yeah, yeah, so you-
28. AAAli Abdaal
  ... like just a minute or-
29. MFMax Fosh
  You're playing music.
30. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
17:35 – 19:20
How did you build confidence to make Street Smart?
1. AAAli Abdaal
  just, was it like just the way you were born? Was it the private school? Was it like, what-
2. MFMax Fosh
  I genuinely think it was everything
3. AAAli Abdaal
  If you were to connect the dots. Yeah.
4. MFMax Fosh
  Like I am inherently a bit of a show-off-
5. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
6. MFMax Fosh
  ... and very extroverted, and I like talking to people, and I was-- Yeah, I, I just saw what it was being done. So the Big Market Banter, I was watching this, and I saw there were 18-minute long episodes, these things, and I remember the first minute would be, "Hi, guys, welcome back to the show. Super excited. Um, Harry and Becky here. So today we're gonna be going out and interviewing..." And I'd be, I remember thinking, "I'm so bored already." Um, and I was watching at the same time people like Kassem G-
7. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm
8. MFMax Fosh
  ... um, uh, on YouTube, um, over in the States, and like this guy is really funny. I wanna make my own stuff like this. And so it was mainly just- The answer of how do, like how did I have the confidence to do it, I just, I just kind of didn't really think anything of it, and I think that's probably very lucky the upbringing I had. Harrow very much instilled this like confidence, this, uh, assumed confidence in, in ev- like things that I did and like ... 'Cause we- when you first get there, the first thing you have to do is like do a song in front of your whole boarding house.
9. AAAli Abdaal
  Oh.
10. MFMax Fosh
  So like you're 13, and you have to sing-
11. AAAli Abdaal
  So you sing a song?
12. MFMax Fosh
  You have to sing a song in front of 80 boys.
13. AAAli Abdaal
  What song did you sing? [laughs]
14. MFMax Fosh
  So it's the, the, the house song.
15. AAAli Abdaal
  Oh.
16. MFMax Fosh
  So-
17. AAAli Abdaal
  Wow
18. MFMax Fosh
  ... yeah, and it's-
19. AAAli Abdaal
  Like one at a time?
20. MFMax Fosh
  One at a time.
21. AAAli Abdaal
  Wow. [laughs]
22. MFMax Fosh
  And so even if you can sing or if you can't sing, like you're, you ... I was constantly being thrown into situations like that-
23. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm
24. MFMax Fosh
  ... where eventually you get very, very comfortable with like uncomfortable situations, um, getting thrown outside of your comfort zone, and so I guess that's how I had that confidence.
25. AAAli Abdaal
  Okay. Yeah.
26. MFMax Fosh
  And I was just a show-off.
27. AAAli Abdaal
  Fair play. And so what, what sort of stuff were you asking these people on nights out?
28. MFMax Fosh
  I was just copying what I'd seen on YouTube.
19:20 – 27:10
Starting to create content
1. MFMax Fosh
  So initially, I remember a video that I watched was one this, this, uh, antipodean news channel, um, did where they said, "Americans are not stupid." And they went out to America and asked them really easy geography questions, and it went hugely viral. I remember watching this, this video over and over again. Like, oh, this is amazing. It's my, like basically my first video.
2. AAAli Abdaal
  But why did it go viral, Americans are not stupid?
3. MFMax Fosh
  Because it was like ... Yeah.
4. AAAli Abdaal
  Was it like really basic questions?
5. MFMax Fosh
  Yeah.
6. AAAli Abdaal
  Okay.
7. MFMax Fosh
  It was like name a country beginning with U.
8. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
9. MFMax Fosh
  And it was like Yugoslavia, and they were like-
10. AAAli Abdaal
  [laughs]
11. MFMax Fosh
  ... "What about the United States of America?" Oh, goddamn it.
12. AAAli Abdaal
  [laughs]
13. MFMax Fosh
  Hadn't thought of it. And so genuinely my first video was me just asking those questions.
14. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
15. MFMax Fosh
  Um, and so that's ... And then, and I was thinking of like concepts. One was called Cards Against Humanity, where I was just taking the questions, the prompts from Cards Against Humanity-
16. AAAli Abdaal
  [laughs]
17. MFMax Fosh
  ... and just getting answers from people on the street. Like it wasn't particularly, uh, inter- uh, difficult-
18. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
19. MFMax Fosh
  ... um, like stuff.
20. AAAli Abdaal
  And how, how were you filming yourself? Did you have like a camera? What, what was the setup? Yeah.
21. MFMax Fosh
  I had a camera person. I just kind of like ... This is how I kind of got my first employee. She- a girl called Coco, like just friends of mine. It's like, "Does anyone want to go out and hold the camera with me for two hours on a night out?" And then I found this girl called Coco, and she was like keen. She was like, "Yeah, that sounds fun." So then she starts filming like all of the beginning, uh, bit. I wasn't paying her.
22. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
23. MFMax Fosh
  I wasn't getting paid. No one was getting paid. But it was just like, oh, we're at uni. This is a fun thing to do. Um, and so that's how I managed to get s- the first person involved. Um, yeah.
24. AAAli Abdaal
  Just a quick note from one of our sponsors, and we'll get right back to the episode, and very excitingly, this episode is brought to you by Heights. Heights is a braincare smart supplement that I've actually been taking for the last 12 months, ever since I became friends with Dan Morrisetto, who was the founder of Heights, and who we had on the podcast in season one. And this season of the podcast, we're also featuring Dr. Tara Swart, who is a neuroscientist and psychiatrist. So what is Heights? Well, it's a braincare smart supplement. Basically, it is a supplement. You take two of them every morning, like I do. It's like these two little capsules which have omega-3 oil in them, and they've got a bunch of multivitamins as well. They have all of the details on the website. It-- every single ingredient that they've got is super high quality, and the great thing is that just by taking two of these capsules every morning, like I do, you get all of the essential micronutrients that you need without having to deal with drinking sludge or anything fancy like that. So the great thing about Heights is that even if you don't have one of these absolutely perfect diets, at least you know you have your bases covered in terms of the micronutrients that you need. It's very easy to sign up. You just go to yourheights.com, and then you sign up to the thing, and it's a mail order they get to you every month or in three-month packets. And if you use the coupon code Ali15, that's A-L-I-1-5 at checkout, then you'll get 15% off your first three months of subscription. I've been subscribed to this for the last 12 months. I also happen to be an investor in the company because I believe in the product, and I love how they're fully evidence-based in absolutely everything they do. And if you're interested in the evidence base behind all, like, 20 different ingredients that they've got here, you can check them out on the website, and that'll be linked in the video description and in the show notes. So thank you so much to Heights for sponsoring this episode. You and Coco going on nights out-
25. MFMax Fosh
  Yeah
26. AAAli Abdaal
  ... sticking a microphone or like a phone in front of people-
27. MFMax Fosh
  Yeah
28. AAAli Abdaal
  ... and asking them questions-
29. MFMax Fosh
  Mm-hmm
30. AAAli Abdaal
  ... and then splicing it in together into like a-
27:10 – 32:40
What was it like going viral for the first time?
1. AAAli Abdaal
  then turned into summaries. For example, one of the book guides I read recently was How to Take Smart Notes by Sonke Ahrens which is a book that I've read in its entirety a handful of times, but I've read the Shortform summary of the book even more than that because I've been using that to revisit the key lessons from the book and that feeds into my own system for personal knowledge management. Anyway, if any of that sounds up your street and you would like to sign up to the world's best service that summarizes books, then head over to shortform.com/deepdive and that will give you a completely free five-day trial and you can try out the service to your heart's content. That link will also be in the video description and in the show notes, and thank you so much Shortform for sponsoring this episode. Okay, so what happens next? You, you're doing hospital radio. You're doing the Facebook video version of interviews.
2. MFMax Fosh
  Yeah.
3. AAAli Abdaal
  What's, what's ... what happens next?
4. MFMax Fosh
  I graduate uni. I went on a self-proclaimed tour with Street Smart, with this, this video series, um, and I thought, "Okay, this is my one chance. I'm gonna, like, go all or nothing."
5. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
6. MFMax Fosh
  So for two weeks I drove round the country with Coco, and every night we would go to a new university city. So let's say we started in Bristol, we'd film in Bristol-
7. AAAli Abdaal
  Yep
8. MFMax Fosh
  ... in the evening, go to bed. I'd wake up. I'd edit the Bristol video from the night before, uh, post it, drive to Exeter, film in Exeter, go to bed, edit Exeter. And so we did this for two weeks, so we did 14 cities in 14 nights.
9. AAAli Abdaal
  And at this point are you on YouTube or is this still Facebook?
10. MFMax Fosh
  All on Facebook.
11. AAAli Abdaal
  Oh.
12. MFMax Fosh
  Well, it, it was being posted on YouTube-
13. AAAli Abdaal
  Okay
14. MFMax Fosh
  ... but they were getting, like, 200 views on-
15. AAAli Abdaal
  Okay
16. MFMax Fosh
  ... on YouTube.
17. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
18. MFMax Fosh
  Um, and I was posting these on Facebook and I've ... I, I really thought right after this two weeks, like, things are gonna blow up-
19. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm
20. MFMax Fosh
  ... because of the consistency of it all, and here we go. And it didn't. And I'd, I'd done this two weeks, killed myself, like hadn't ... Lo- lost a lot of money on petrol-
21. AAAli Abdaal
  [laughs]
22. MFMax Fosh
  ... that kind of thing. And I was a bit dejected and I didn't really know what the whole ... I was like, "What's the point of this?" I kind of had this thing at university it was working, but it hasn't really, like, pushed on.
23. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm.
24. MFMax Fosh
  And I then worked in a pub for about three or four months.
25. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
26. MFMax Fosh
  I was still making the videos. I was still kind of, like, still, still going, and then I just got so lucky one day where I walked past Zac Alsop on the street-
27. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
28. MFMax Fosh
  ... who was a fellow YouTuber at the time, who had about 30,000 subscribers at the time.
29. AAAli Abdaal
  Okay.
30. MFMax Fosh
  And I watched him-
32:40 – 37:35
Evolving as a creator
1. MFMax Fosh
  up and with the same video at the same time. Um, and so from there I realized, oh, okay, I've suddenly got this audience.
2. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
3. MFMax Fosh
  Um, and did I-- and I didn't do anything different. I just went back to making the same street interviews and like, oh, great, I've got n- now, now more people are watching, but let's just do street interviews again, and that was really stupid.
4. AAAli Abdaal
  What was it about that video that you think hit it off so well?
5. MFMax Fosh
  The storytelling is phenomenal from Zac, like the edit that he made is absolutely incredible. Um, I think as well it's, it's the victim of the prank is the fashion industry.
6. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm.
7. MFMax Fosh
  And that's a, I think that's a communal, shared victim that people kind of don't feel too sorry about. Um, a lot of the videos I do, I'm always thinking, okay, is, is this punching up or is this punching down? Um, and I think it's really important to think about that when you are doing the kind of content that I make, uh, 'cause otherwise it c- can very quickly feel quite vindictive or, or, or just not very nice.
8. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm.
9. MFMax Fosh
  Um, I don't, and I, I genuinely don't know. I don't know why that video has done so well. Um, it's just one that just-
10. AAAli Abdaal
  And so how did it feel seeing the numbers climb on that video? What, what was yours and, like, Zac's reaction? Were you, like, on the phone to each other being like, "Oh, my God," like?
11. MFMax Fosh
  It, it was, it was dangerously addictive.
12. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
13. MFMax Fosh
  It was like, I remember like genuinely just like the ca- the, the rat in the experiment where like clicking for, for more food. Like I was just refreshing YouTube Studio every two minutes just watching the numbers. Um, and it was, yeah, it was incredibly exciting and awesome, but then it fades so quickly, like a week later-
14. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
15. MFMax Fosh
  ... and you're like, "Okay, now what?"
16. AAAli Abdaal
  Now what? Yeah.
17. MFMax Fosh
  Um, I'm just gonna make the same stuff that I have always done.
18. AAAli Abdaal
  And then, so like, while, while you were, while you were there in, in Fashion Week doing sort of holding like, uh, your, uh, uh, haughty pose and, and stuff-
19. MFMax Fosh
  Yeah
20. AAAli Abdaal
  ... what was going through your mind? Like how, how was that for you?
21. MFMax Fosh
  I was terrified. I was genuinely terrified because I gr- like I was a very good student at school. I always did what I was told, like I got my homework in on time. This idea of kind of breaking the nar- breaking the mold and doing something a bit cheeky or naughty was something that was like completely alien to me. But I was determined to do it for that video because I knew the opportunity it would be, it would bring by being on Zac and Jay's channel.
22. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm.
23. MFMax Fosh
  Um, so I was very... I was pushing myself outside my comfort zone massively. Also, um, the, the, the costume that we had made, we'd put together with safety pins, and one of the safety pins had come undone whilst we were filming. And so I genuinely had a safety pin in my back. So one of them was like stuck in me, and so I was in quite a lot of pain. So the faces of just kind of like total disdain towards everyone was purely because I was in quite a lot of pain. Um, so I think I was just, was like, l- let's just get this over and done with. It's nearly done. It's nearly over. Okay.
24. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm.
25. MFMax Fosh
  Um, and it's-- I've now come to, to view this, this feeling of like, I call it the 10 seconds of terror, and on the other side of 10 seconds of terror is, is something that's really exciting and really fun, um, and something that you, you couldn't possibly imagine.
26. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm.
27. MFMax Fosh
  So I always think if I'm ever-- I'm doing less and less of these, of these videos where I'm like pushing myself to, to go into extreme circ- circumstances. But if I am ever in that scenario, I just think it's okay, 10 seconds of terror, it'll all be done soon.
28. AAAli Abdaal
  Okay. So you've got, at this point, you've just exploded onto London Fashion Week. You've got your 80,000 subscribers. What, [laughs] what happens next?
29. MFMax Fosh
  I've, um, so that was in March 2019.
30. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
37:35 – 41:38
Running for London Mayor
1. MFMax Fosh
  lockdown bored, and I was like, "I wonder who she is. I'd love to talk to her. That'd be cool." So I then spent this series, this like three-part series of like trying to find the woman from the stock photo. And initially, I thought it was gonna be like a one-- I thought it was gonna be really easy, you know. I thought I was gonna put it in, reverse image search it. She's gonna be a popular model, reach out to her, see if I could talk to her. But it ended up being this like real goose chase. Like I was going, uh, it, it took me six weeks to, to, by talking to experts and stock photography, um, experts and, and like data analysts and, and people who worked in archives at Getty Images, and it's like, "Do you know who this person is? Do you know this style?" And I eventually found this, I found this, this model, and that really, people really enjoyed that series. And I realized, okay, maybe I can do more storytelling bits-
2. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm
3. MFMax Fosh
  ... rather than just shoving a microphone in some- in front of someone's face and trying to get them to say something silly. And that's where-- So, so COVID was kind of a, a blessing and was the best thing that could have happened. But although I totally lost my mind and was worried that it was the end of all YouTube, it meant that I, it forced myself to, to, to try a different angle of video making, and yeah.
4. AAAli Abdaal
  Okay. And so presumably you're living at home at this point, working in the pub part-time?
5. MFMax Fosh
  Well-
6. AAAli Abdaal
  But pubs weren't really a thing.
7. MFMax Fosh
  No, I was-
8. AAAli Abdaal
  Or-
9. MFMax Fosh
  I think I was furloughed. Uh, I can't remember. Had I left the pub at this point? I think I'd left the pub just before COVID.
10. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
11. MFMax Fosh
  I seem to remember, I think, I think, I remember thinking, "Okay, I've just got this situation where I've just, I, I can just about, you know, um, make this, make this work." I mean, I've also got to preface this as well, I, I knew that I would be okay if I failed as well. I came from, I've come from a background-
12. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
13. MFMax Fosh
  ... of, of immense privilege, and I knew that it will be okay, but I know that I need to work hard at this, so-
14. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah. The insurance company's always there if you- [laughs]
15. MFMax Fosh
  The insur- exactly. I can go, I can go, [laughs] go do a few internships, um, if, if I, if needs be.
16. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
17. MFMax Fosh
  Um, so but if anything, that, that kind of like, that was a real driving force-
18. AAAli Abdaal
  It does, yeah. [laughs]
19. MFMax Fosh
  ... to make me really want to go and work, work, work harder for it. Um-
20. AAAli Abdaal
  Okay. So you start this, th-this foray into the world of then storytelling-type videos.
21. MFMax Fosh
  Mm.
22. AAAli Abdaal
  Um, so what happened next? What was it?
23. MFMax Fosh
  I then just since COVID have just been steadily making more and more, and they're going bigger and bigger, and I've realized that with YouTube, you're often referred to as the guy or girl that does blank. So if people would come say hello in the street, and they're with their mate, it would be, "Oh, you're the guy that does X, Y, Z." And that would change like every three or four months.
24. AAAli Abdaal
  Oh, okay.
25. MFMax Fosh
  So previously it was, "Oh, you're the guy that interviews posh people."
26. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
27. MFMax Fosh
  And then I ran for London Mayor, and it was like, "Oh, you're the guy that ran for London Mayor." And it, it has-- I've realized it's, it's important that I think you, you change what that thing that people are referring to you as.
28. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm.
29. MFMax Fosh
  Not as frequently as possible, but it just showcases that you're still in people's consciousness. I mean, then, then there's a whole kind of deeper conversation about like relevancy and how important is relevancy and all of that.
30. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah. That was what I was gonna ask you about for-
41:38 – 51:10
What was your creative process for making videos?
1. MFMax Fosh
  applied. I, I, I gave my... I had enough, just enough money. I thought, "If I make six or seven videos out of this, I'll probably make my money back." Um, so I applied, and then I realized, oh, I need a story here. I need something that is entertaining because it's not gonna be funny for the six weeks or seven weeks of the campaign if you're just, just the YouTuber that's running for London Mayor. Um, and then I was given the gift of Laurence Fox, um, who was another candidate who was running, who was also went to the same school as me, not the same time. Um, but he had never, no experience in politics-
2. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm
3. MFMax Fosh
  ... but he had £5 million in backing.
4. AAAli Abdaal
  Oh. [laughs]
5. MFMax Fosh
  And, um, I just thought, amazing what happens if you just have two, two posh boys who have no int- like no history of politics, if they just run against each other. And then he was running on a, on a, on a quite a controversial ticket, um, of, of one of like, um, he was kind of going for a relatively f- like a, a right-wing, uh, left l- leaning kind of thing, and I just thought what, what was interesting is that- I then had an opportunity-- He was someone, he was an easy person to, to, to, to make content about-
6. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
7. MFMax Fosh
  ... because he was very polemic, he was very kind of m- in the media a lot for doing crazy things or-
8. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
9. MFMax Fosh
  ... saying silly things. And so I thought, "Okay, if I run against him, it will be there, there's potential."
10. AAAli Abdaal
  What do you mean by run against him? Like-
11. MFMax Fosh
  I just needed-
12. AAAli Abdaal
  You needed a baddie in the story
13. MFMax Fosh
  ... I needed a baddie in the story.
14. AAAli Abdaal
  Okay, fine. Yeah.
15. MFMax Fosh
  Um, and so it was just kind of like an opportunity to, to do that, and so that's what I did. I've, I, I, I challenged him to, him to debates and like for him, it wasn't a good look that I was constantly cropping up because he was like running on like a, a serious ticket.
16. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
17. MFMax Fosh
  My number one, um, my number one policy point was, "Don't vote for me." Um-
18. AAAli Abdaal
  [laughs]
19. MFMax Fosh
  And I was-- Because I wanted to engage-- I also wanted to engage young people to vote.
20. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
21. MFMax Fosh
  Like j- not, generally not for me, but for anybody.
22. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
23. MFMax Fosh
  Um, because I think we, we hear, we had a lot of like politicians saying, "It's very important to vote, guys. Always use your vote." But normally, if you're a young person, like th-th... So?
24. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
25. MFMax Fosh
  I don't care what you've got to say. Um, and so just having a horse in the race hopefully was going to galvanize more young people to vote. Um, and s- not for, but not for me. And I've released my manifesto, which included like things like, we have many parks in London, but no Jurassic Parks.
26. AAAli Abdaal
  [laughs]
27. MFMax Fosh
  I'm gonna change that. Um, I wanted to carpet the M25 to make it the smoothest road in the world.
28. AAAli Abdaal
  [laughs]
29. MFMax Fosh
  Um, so like I just came up with, I sat down with some mates like in a pub just to write my manifesto, and I made like a six, seven-part, uh, series about that. Uh, what was really funny at one point is that Laurence Fox, um, his campaign team were obviously paying for YouTube advertising.
30. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
51:10 – 53:30
Building a team
1. MFMax Fosh
  and understanding what works. And I, I very luckily am part of a, of a Discord group of creators that every Thursday we meet and we have an hour and a half where we can ta- each brings like a topic to discuss, and that can be whether like roasting thumbnails or roasting titles or content ideas.
2. AAAli Abdaal
  Hmm.
3. MFMax Fosh
  And it's got me much better at understanding how YouTube works and understanding that you ... the algorithm is just people, and that's w- I find really fascinating. That changed my perspective massively when someone says, "Oh, the algorithm hates me," or, "The video's been killed by the algorithm." It's like, no, it's been killed because people aren't watching it or people don't want to watch it to the end, so YouTube's like, "Ah, this is not one that, uh, the audience is gonna, gonna, is gonna like." Um, and so yeah, I ... if we wanna get very nerdy and talk about like CTR and AVD and things like that, then I do think about that a lot, and I'm editing a lot of the time to music. So I'll put ... I, I use classical music as kind of exclusive, my USP, and classical music is fantastic because it has a beginning, middle, and end in the pieces. So if it's like a three ... so let's say it's a 10-minute video, there's four two-and-a-half minute sections where I find pieces of music and they will come to their own natural crescendo, and then we'll go to black screen and that's the start of the next chapter. So we're thinking a lot of like, okay, let's keep the p- let, let's hold the hand of the vi- viewer all the way through this and try and-
4. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
5. MFMax Fosh
  ... tell the best story.
6. AAAli Abdaal
  So COVID happens, you've got ... and th- and then you get this Zac and Jay Fashion Week thing.
7. MFMax Fosh
  Mm-hmm.
8. AAAli Abdaal
  Now you've got your 80,000 subscribers.
9. MFMax Fosh
  Yeah.
10. AAAli Abdaal
  What was the growth of the channel like and what were the sort of main things that really made things take off?
11. MFMax Fosh
  So I, I went from ... so I got 80,000 subscribers in, uh, March 2019.
12. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm-hmm.
13. MFMax Fosh
  And until November 2021, so that is two and a half years?
14. AAAli Abdaal
  Two years. Two, yeah, two and a bit years. Yeah.
15. MFMax Fosh
  Yeah, two and a half years I went from 80,000 subscribers to 400,000 subscribers, right? In two and a half years. And in November 2021, I hired Aziz, and from November 2021 to now, which we are in September 2022, so 10 months, we're on 1.4 million. So-
16. AAAli Abdaal
  There's a lot of exponential growth, but yeah
17. MFMax Fosh
  ... yeah, so it suddenly just went boom, and that's because I think I had just genuinely somebody to talk to.
18. AAAli Abdaal
  [laughs]
19. MFMax Fosh
  Um, and somebody
53:30 – 54:22
How do you make money these days?
1. MFMax Fosh
  to just, "Is this a good idea?" Um, someone to edit the videos with, just g- genuinely just sharing the, the successes and the failures with somebody else was so much like more enjoyable than, um, uh, like anything I'd done previously.
2. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
3. MFMax Fosh
  And it showcased in the, in the ... like in my SocialBlade, if you don't know what SocialBlade is, you can check your numbers and that kind of thing.
4. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
5. MFMax Fosh
  Although your audience will definitely know what SocialBlade is. Um, you could see like the [laughs] it was just like a massive spike almost like two weeks after I hired Aziz.
6. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
7. MFMax Fosh
  And so that made me realize, okay, I can, I can make this thing that I'm doing but with a, with a team. Not necessarily a massive team, but like two or three people. I'm really interested in the idea of just having a small team, um, who can just help me create these, these videos.
8. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah, I think it was, it was exactly the same for me. So I f- I first, um, got an editor, uh, Christian, who was our, our first
54:22 – 1:00:50
Do you worry about the future of your career?
1. AAAli Abdaal
  I guess employee, um- To about two and a half years into my YouTube journey, so like late 2019, and there was an immediate spike in everything on the channel, 'cause now all of a sudden I didn't have to do the editing, which meant I could spend more time making videos, and we released courses, and just revenue skyrocketed, and then we were able to build more of a team around it. Um, and I think that's like when you get to that point where you can then start working with someone, even if it's a part-time thing, even if you're just sort of outsourcing a bit of editing here and there to a friend, it just completely changes the game.
2. MFMax Fosh
  Mm. Absolutely, and I think I'm, I'm still very scared of hiring someone else as well, because I'm not very good with like committing to be like, "Okay, this is a good idea." Even with like Aziz, not necessarily it was about Aziz, but I was trying to find an editor-
3. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm
4. MFMax Fosh
  ... for like nine months because I was like, "This person needs to be like absolutely perfect. They need to be another version of me and know exactly my thought process." And then I realized that just comes by working together over long periods of time. Um, and so I am-- I've got someone who's starting in two weeks' time to, to help make videos for China. I do... I've got a lot of-- I've got a, um, a platform on China that does quite well, um, an audience over there, which is, which is cool. Um, and so it's just kind of building-
5. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
6. MFMax Fosh
  ... a team and working together.
7. AAAli Abdaal
  So how, how do you, how do you make money these days?
8. MFMax Fosh
  I make money from, uh, so ad revenue, which, um, it ve- like since November 2021, the video has been doing really well. Um, ad revenue kind of changes quite a lot, but that's kind of like 10 to 20 grand a month. Um, and but that almost all goes into my wage, Aziz's wage, the, the... and, and also just the cost of the videos. Like the, as we're doing more and more, um, the videos are just getting really expensive.
9. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
10. MFMax Fosh
  Um, like this, I'm doing, there's currently a treasure hunt on to find a $100,000 fish. That was not, that was not cheap, as you can imagine. Um, so and then the other comes from brand deals, um, as well, and the, that rate changes and fluctuates as the videos do better, 'cause they look at your kind of average for your last five videos. And then I do stand up as well, so I've just done, uh, I did a tour last year, a stand-up tour, just been to the Edinburgh Fringe for a month. I'm doing the London Palladium in November, um, with my stand-up show. And-
11. AAAli Abdaal
  Oh.
12. MFMax Fosh
  Yeah.
13. AAAli Abdaal
  Have you, have you got spare tickets for that?
14. MFMax Fosh
  Yes. I-
15. AAAli Abdaal
  Oh
16. MFMax Fosh
  ... yeah, we've still got about two, 200 tickets left, it's like-
17. AAAli Abdaal
  Oh, amazing. We should-
18. MFMax Fosh
  Please, please come on down
19. AAAli Abdaal
  ... we should, we should do a team trip to-
20. MFMax Fosh
  Yes
21. AAAli Abdaal
  ... to the show.
22. MFMax Fosh
  Please do.
23. AAAli Abdaal
  That'll be sick. Yeah, let's do that. That'll be fun. [laughs]
24. MFMax Fosh
  Please do come down. Um, and that's like, that, look, stand up, um, isn't something that, that makes a huge amount of money, something that I found really interestingly whilst actually doing it, because there are so many people that are taking like slices of the pie. Um, so yeah, mainly it comes from just brand deals and, and, and ad revenue. Um, but I am, I'm now looking more to diversify by watching a lot of your stuff actually, and like, yeah, th- this needs to... Although my, my whole niche is the silly guy doing silly things, that doesn't mean that I can't also make, um, a business, and so hence The Silly Company is being born.
25. AAAli Abdaal
  The, it's, it's called The Silly Company.
26. MFMax Fosh
  It's called The Silly Company.
27. AAAli Abdaal
  Nice. I love it. [laughs] That's good. That's like the boring company.
28. MFMax Fosh
  Yeah, exactly.
29. AAAli Abdaal
  Um, one thing I often worry about is what does my career look like when I'm 40 or 50? Am I still gonna be a YouTuber giving productivity advice?
30. MFMax Fosh
  Yeah.
1:00:50 – 1:22:20
Therapy and hedonic adaptation
1. AAAli Abdaal
  a chat to a YouTuber who I met over the weekend who has, like, 20 million subscribers, and I asked this question of like, "How do you balance the kind of education value of the video with the money, with the s- with the growth?" And he was like, "Mate, it, it changes depending on the day of the week." And I was like, "Oh-
2. MFMax Fosh
  Mm
3. AAAli Abdaal
  ... that's reassuring."
4. MFMax Fosh
  Mm-hmm.
5. AAAli Abdaal
  Because I definitely have that, and even a guy with 20 million subscribers, he was like, "Yeah, this is, uh ... It depends how I'm feeling, depends on if I've had enough sleep, depends on, like-
6. MFMax Fosh
  Yeah
7. AAAli Abdaal
  ... sometimes I'm very money motivated, sometimes very status motivated, sometimes I just really wanna make a really good video, and that it changes every day." And I wa- I would ... That was so refreshing. I was like-
8. MFMax Fosh
  That is refreshing, actually
9. AAAli Abdaal
  ... 'cause I was just like, I, I feel like there, th- surely there must be an answer to this, and everyone I've asked is always like ... I mean, uh, Marques' thing was very much like, "I just wanna make a really good video."
10. MFMax Fosh
  Yeah.
11. AAAli Abdaal
  I was like, "That sounds simple enough." I feel like my own motivations are a bit more dodgy, where it's like to what extent do I wanna be a b- inspirational teacher to people because I want the status versus 'cause I actually think it's a-
12. MFMax Fosh
  Absolutely
13. AAAli Abdaal
  ... all of those things.
14. MFMax Fosh
  No. I c-
15. AAAli Abdaal
  Like, it's a ... Yeah
16. MFMax Fosh
  ... and, and, and I always, I always quite f- I find it quite hard to, to comprehend that people, like when Ma- when Marques says that, that, that there are people who actually are that kind of like vindicating their own, in their own self-belief, that that is all they're, they're making the videos for, is 'cause they just wanna make a good video.
17. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
18. MFMax Fosh
  I do sometimes go ... I like going back and watching videos of mine from, like, two years ago of, like, experiences that I've had, and be like, "Oh, that was, that was a really fun time," or, "I enjoyed ... That's, that was a fun video. I liked watching that video." Um, and so I find myself sometimes creeping into a, uh, into a world of like, "I'm making this video because I know it's gonna do really, really well," and-
19. AAAli Abdaal
  How do you feel about the, the process when ... Uh, so I, I generally find when I'm chasing numbers, it feels bad, and I-
20. MFMax Fosh
  Yes
21. AAAli Abdaal
  ... burn out very easily.
22. MFMax Fosh
  Yes.
23. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah. [laughs]
24. MFMax Fosh
  Yes.
25. AAAli Abdaal
  [laughs]
26. MFMax Fosh
  And how do you, how have you stopped chasing numbers, Ali?
27. AAAli Abdaal
  I do journaling sessions basically every month where I'm just like, right ... Where I, I have to reaffirm to myself that chasing numbers is not the thing that I actually want to do, because it's just so easy. Like, you see the numbers just there, and it's just like, "Oh, fuck. Eight. This was an eight out of 10 video. Damn, view-to-subscriber ratio is going down. God, like, Max's videos are doing really well. Yes, Theory's doing real-" And it's just the whole comparison trap of-
28. MFMax Fosh
  Yeah
29. AAAli Abdaal
  ... and, and then it's like, "Okay, no. Hang on. Let's take a step back." Do a lot of journaling, write fucking five pages about why I'm doing this thing and why this is good and why, why I don't need to worry about money, and all this kind of stuff.
30. MFMax Fosh
  Yeah. No, I'm-
1:22:20 – 1:24:57
How does stand up compare to video?
1. MFMax Fosh
  got them to just act in a short film.
2. AAAli Abdaal
  [laughs]
3. MFMax Fosh
  So I, I hired porn stars to act in my short film and so like that was-
4. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah. [chuckles]
5. MFMax Fosh
  'Cause the... And it was great. They were-
6. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
7. MFMax Fosh
  ... they were great actors and, and we had a great time and it was, it was a fun video to shoot that.
8. AAAli Abdaal
  How, how do you hire a porn star?
9. MFMax Fosh
  That was hard.
10. AAAli Abdaal
  [laughs]
11. MFMax Fosh
  That genuinely, that was the hardest part of that video was trying to, just trying to get in contact with like porn agents because I don't know any. Uh-
12. AAAli Abdaal
  [laughs]
13. MFMax Fosh
  Um, not in my, not in my current days. Um, and so I, the best way was, was generally was Instagram, shout out. That's where I find a lot of like my videos happen-
14. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
15. MFMax Fosh
  ... because someone on Instagram knows someone, so-
16. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm
17. MFMax Fosh
  ... it was a, it was a difficult day when I was like, "Hi, does anyone know any porn stars?"
18. AAAli Abdaal
  [laughs]
19. MFMax Fosh
  Genuinely just like for a, for a video. Not that kind of video, but does anyone know any porn stars? And we got, yeah, uh, some, some really, really cool people who came down and, and were, were great actors.
20. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah. I think the, the specificity point is really like our-- the th- thinking back to the start of our conversation when you did your, uh, impromptu bit about Greg-
21. MFMax Fosh
  Mm
22. AAAli Abdaal
  ... and like the accent and the, the, the ketchup stain. [laughs]
23. MFMax Fosh
  Yeah, the ketchup stain.
24. AAAli Abdaal
  Ketchup stain down the front. It's just the, the, the, the specificity is what makes that story like really funny.
25. MFMax Fosh
  Yeah.
26. AAAli Abdaal
  Um-
27. MFMax Fosh
  If you just talked about guy coming in, he'd spilled something on his, on his shirt-
28. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
29. MFMax Fosh
  ... that's not funny. But it's, yeah, the more specific I think often is-
30. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
1:24:57 – 1:25:20
What’s it like working with a director to produce a show?
1. MFMax Fosh
  into Boris, so well, yeah, fantastic. Um, so I, [chuckles] I like, I like South African, I like, um, I like posh, um, and just American is fun 'cause American is just, like, quite difficult to do-
2. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.
3. MFMax Fosh
  Because you just very easily just go into Southern and Texan, which becomes a stereotype. But I, I've just been doing them my, my whole life really.
4. AAAli Abdaal
  Nice. Um, how does standup compare to the, like,
1:25:20 – 1:37:16
What are the economics of being a standup comedian?
1. AAAli Abdaal
  doing stuff on, on video? Like, is it very different or-
2. MFMax Fosh
  It's completely different.
3. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
4. MFMax Fosh
  Yeah. It's completely different because it's, you get that immediate feedback, number one, but also the kind of con- the way you present the content has to be completely different. So I've tried in the past, like putting on like two or three-minute videos during my standup set, and it just feels like you're putting-- my director calls it, you're putting on videos for the kids. So it's like you're-
5. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah. [chuckles]
6. MFMax Fosh
  Like you're in, in class and you're like, "And now here we're gonna watch this, uh, this video."
7. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
8. MFMax Fosh
  So they've got to be really short, sharp, and just almost responding to whatever the joke was or whatever you've just said on stage.
9. AAAli Abdaal
  Right.
10. MFMax Fosh
  Um, so it is very different. You've got to th- you're thinking much more about the idea of liveness-
11. AAAli Abdaal
  Okay
12. MFMax Fosh
  ... than you are, uh, when you, than you definitely don't think about that with YouTube. But comedy is at its best when the audience feels like it's the first time the comedian has ever said that. And-
13. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm
14. MFMax Fosh
  ... so there are lots of times when you have audience interaction. That's why audience interaction works so well, is because the audience feels like, oh, this comedian is being really funny in the moment-
15. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
16. MFMax Fosh
  ... and is doing something that hasn't been rehearsed and hasn't been planned. And there are, there are different tactics that you can use that you can almost fake that, or not fake that or, or facilitate that feeling. Um, so there's some audience interaction work that I do where I know there's only a very finite number of answers in which the question I'm asking the audience member can give me back.
17. AAAli Abdaal
  Okay.
18. MFMax Fosh
  And so I've got in the chamber three or four different responses-
19. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
20. MFMax Fosh
  ... that I know work and know are funny.
21. AAAli Abdaal
  So what's an example? [chuckles]
22. MFMax Fosh
  Um, oh God, you're putting me on the spot here. Um, right, I'm just trying to think back to the show. Okay. Right. Yeah. This is gonna slightly ruin the, the fact if you come to the, uh, the Palladium show, but whatever. Um, there's a bit in the show where I try and play a game of, uh, find a posh person in the audience.
23. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
24. MFMax Fosh
  And I call it Guess Whom? Um-
25. AAAli Abdaal
  Nice
26. MFMax Fosh
  ... board game. So what I do is I put, ask everyone to put their hands up in the air.
27. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
28. MFMax Fosh
  And, um, I say, "Right, keep your hands up in the air if you've ever referred to your parents as mommy or daddy." Right?
29. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
30. MFMax Fosh
  Okay. So you keep, everyone has their hands in the air, some people like drop their hands. And then I will pretend on stage that there are more hands up on the right than on the left. So I'll say-
1:37:16 – 1:40:05
What’s your relationship with burnout?
1. MFMax Fosh
  and do you-- Is that the same with in the book world, that people with, with audiences are kind of like their books are like- Looked down on by traditional-
2. AAAli Abdaal
  Yes, very much so
3. MFMax Fosh
  ... big, big publishing
4. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah. So there's a, there's a lot of sort of insider baseball type stuff around The New York Times bestseller list-
5. MFMax Fosh
  Ah, yes
6. AAAli Abdaal
  ... and how if you are an academic, uh, then you don't need to sell as many copies to get on the bestseller list as if you are a YouTuber, for example, where they're like, "Oh, screw that," you know, and you have to really, like, sell loads of copies for them to not, not even be able to justify not having you on the bestseller list.
7. MFMax Fosh
  Yeah.
8. AAAli Abdaal
  Similarly, the way they do it is like, it's not r- it's, it's, it's like this weird secret formula, um, kind of which is closely guarded like the Co- Coca-Cola recipe of there are certain Walmarts in random places of America where they sample those to see how many people in Texas in this random Walmart in this random town bought your book in real life.
9. MFMax Fosh
  Mm.
10. AAAli Abdaal
  Because the people with online audiences drive everyone to the Amazon pre-order page, and so that's an unfair advantage that people like you and me would have if we were to write a book. But a, quote, "normal author," they would weight the Walmart Texan sale way har- way higher than the Amazon one.
11. MFMax Fosh
  Yeah.
12. AAAli Abdaal
  And so there's all this stuff around how do you actually get on the bestseller list beyond actually selling books because that's not really how it works.
13. MFMax Fosh
  Mm.
14. AAAli Abdaal
  But there's a lot of random faffery around that with similarly with music publishing, there's all sorts of stuff that is a bit weird. It sounds like comedy is similar [chuckles] in that the-
15. MFMax Fosh
  Yeah, it's, I think it's-
16. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
17. MFMax Fosh
  ... almost exactly the same. And I was talking to a few people who have been nominated for the award up in Edinburgh, and, like, that's, that's the one of the mo- it's probably the most, um, coveted award in comedy or, or, or thing in comedy, and, and a lot of those people on that list are like, "Oh, I'm g- I'm probably gonna have to quit comedy in the next, like, year and a half 'cause I just can't afford to keep doing this. It's just too-"
18. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
19. MFMax Fosh
  ..."it's too expensive."
20. AAAli Abdaal
  So what do you, like, I, I, I guess coming full circle to the career question that we talked about at the start, like what do you see your career as being over the next, like, [chuckles] months to years?
21. MFMax Fosh
  I really don't know. I think my, my, my next goal is to, to build, build a team, and that's not necessarily a huge team, but a team that I'm really proud of and really, like, just I could trust implicitly. Um, and that's hard. That's really hard to do. Um, I think I'd still like to be telling stories. I think I'd still like to be entertaining people. I'd still like to be doing silly things 'cause I think there is a gap in the market for just doing things that are inherently silly and fun for the sake of it, and-
22. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah
23. MFMax Fosh
  ... that's one of my biggest bugbears with TV. I've had a few kind of conversations with big producers, and I'll pitch them some ideas. They're like, "Yeah, we like it, but, but what's the why? Why are you doing this? Why, why-- what's the deeper meaning here?" And I often say just there isn't one. It's just because it's something that is just inherently silly and fun. It's like, "No, there needs to be a why here." And so I really like this i- this, this, this USP of like just doing something silly for the sake of being silly. As long as no one's getting hurt and it's a bit of fun, I think there is a, there is a place
1:40:05 – 1:45:29
Advice for aspiring creators
1. MFMax Fosh
  for that. So I'm-- I think I'm gonna try and kind of market myself as, as the USP, as the, as the silly guy.
2. AAAli Abdaal
  The silly guy.
3. MFMax Fosh
  The silly guy.
4. AAAli Abdaal
  The posh silly guy?
5. MFMax Fosh
  Posh silly guy. Yeah. I mean, that's probably what will be said behind my back. Um, but, uh, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm the posh silly guy.
6. AAAli Abdaal
  Nice. But I'd love to ask you about, um, burnout. A lot of creators talk about kind of burnout. Um, what's been your relationship with burnout?
7. MFMax Fosh
  Uh, I have burnt out a few times. Um, I think during lockdown was a f- was, was, was a bad, like, it, it, it showed it, reared its ugly head physically. Like, I felt I was, I was, I was inherently just very depressed, and I don't think I do enough to combat burnout. Again, it's like it's okay. Like I know, I know I shouldn't do this 'cause I'll probably get burnt out, but it's fine. I'll do it on this occasion because when I get burnt out, that's fine. It'll be over in two weeks, and then I'll be, it'll be okay again. So I would love to say that I sit here and get up early and journal, and I go for a run every morning to clear my head before I have my iced latte and, you know, set, set the day straight. But that's not true. That is, uh, purely because I've listened to too many podcasts, and I know what's the right thing to say is. Um, so I think that I don't have any good structures to avoid burnout. Um, I have been burnt out in the past, and I probably am going to be burnt out a few more times in the future. But I'm still... I think I'm too focused on that first mountain analogy that we're looking at. I'm too focused on the summit of that first mountain, and I've got blisters all over my feet, but my, my, uh, eye shoes are, are determined to get to the top. Um, which again, is probably a very worrying thing to say, and I'll probably look back on this, this interview in like three years' time and just be like, "You were an absolute idiot."
8. AAAli Abdaal
  That's a sign of growth though.
9. MFMax Fosh
  Um-
10. AAAli Abdaal
  That's good. [chuckles]
11. MFMax Fosh
  But I am constantly looking for-- I think I just don't prioritize the, the, the things that will stop burnout. Um-
12. AAAli Abdaal
  Why?
13. MFMax Fosh
  Because I don't think that... I don't, I don't value them, and I don't value them highly enough. I don't think that they have-- I can't see the objective value of, of them, so therefore-
14. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm
15. MFMax Fosh
  ... I don't think that they are worth the time-
16. AAAli Abdaal
  Okay. Yeah
17. MFMax Fosh
  ... which I know is-- And then, but then the vague things like taking time off.
18. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
19. MFMax Fosh
  I then just like I, I took, I went on holiday for two weeks after I did the Edinburgh Fringe run. I was like, "Right, let's take some time off for two weeks." And I was just thinking about the channel the whole time. I was like, "Well, what am I... Like, this is, this is rubbish. Like, I've gone away to, like, have some time away."
20. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
21. MFMax Fosh
  "But no, I'm not enjoying this time away." I was most happiest when I was doing the Fringe actually, because I was like, I wasn't thinking about the channel. I was just thinking about every day I need to do my show, and that's it. And, uh, and I could, I could compartmentalize things a little bit better.
22. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah. Yeah, I find the whole sort of taking time off thing is als- also massively overrated, um, in that whenever I take time off, I'm like, "Great, the calendar's empty. Now I can write the book properly," or, "Now I can, like, plan out this video that I've had in my mind for ages and haven't had time to, to, to think about." Um, the way I, I do, I do holidays is usually trying to, trying to do something that looks like work for at least a few hours 'cause then it gets it out of my system, and then I can enjoy the sunset cruise or the hike or the whatever-
23. MFMax Fosh
  Yeah
24. AAAli Abdaal
  ... rather than feeling like-
25. MFMax Fosh
  Mm
26. AAAli Abdaal
  ... haven't thought about a video for a while. Any, any advice you'd give to aspiring creators?
27. MFMax Fosh
  Yes. Get good at making videos, [chuckles] which is that you think is like be good at it.
28. AAAli Abdaal
  Yeah.
29. MFMax Fosh
  Um, or at least be good at what you know you can be good at. Um, because I think often people are so determined to find hacks and cheats with YouTube and just any job. But ultimately, it comes down with Can you provide value through a video to somebody? Are you making them laugh? Are you educating them? Are you entertaining them?
30. AAAli Abdaal
  Mm.