What Now? With Trevor NoahIs Marques Brownlee the Most Powerful Man in Tech? | What Now? with Trevor Noah Podcast
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
75 min read · 14,797 words- 0:00 – 1:18
TikTok ban story: algorithms reflect what you engage with + welcome to MKBHD
- TNTrevor Noah
So I'll, I'll tell you one of the funniest stories actually that I've heard from the halls of Congress. You know, in and around the TikTok ban, all these congresspeople, senators, and you know, cong- they're like, "We're gonna ban TikTok, we're gonna ban TikTok." And they have this huge meeting about TikTok, right? [laughs] Apparently what happens is one of the senators goes to, like, one of the people at TikTok and is like, "This app is, is disgusting. It's, it's making people hate other people, and it's, it's anti-American, and it's all of this." And then he goes, "And look at this. Look at the salacious content that it's showing people." And he pulls up his For You page, right?
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
And he goes, "Look at the things that it shows you. The, the children are seeing these images, are..." And then the person from TikTok very kindly-
- SPSpeaker
Mm
- TNTrevor Noah
... had to say, "No, uh, I'm sorry, um, sir. That algorithm is based on what you like looking at."
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
"And so all of these titties that you're seeing-
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
... are an indication of, like, how you live." [upbeat music] This is What Now? with Trevor Noah. [upbeat music] Uh, Marques, welcome to the podcast, man.
- MBMarques Brownlee
Thanks for having me.
- 1:18 – 2:58
From gadget nerd culture to mainstream power: the heavier ‘Publish’ button
- TNTrevor Noah
I'll admit, I've been a fan of yours for a very long time, so this is a selfish podcast.
- MBMarques Brownlee
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
This almost has nothing to do with anything except for my love of tech-
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
... and my love of what you do. If I think about what this conversation would've been, let's say, I don't know, 10 years ago, it would've just been about gadgets. I'd be like, "Hey, Marques, what, what, what do you think of the Galaxy? Which one do you think we should get? Uh, what do you think of the HTC?"
- MBMarques Brownlee
Yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
And then maybe, like, five years ago, I would've been like, "VR, uh, what do you think? We going with the VIVE? Uh, what do you think we're gonna do? Uh, how do you rate the Oculus?" I think that's what it would've been.
- MBMarques Brownlee
Mm.
- TNTrevor Noah
Now I feel like tech has become the forefront of everything that everyone talks about. Tech used to be the realm of, like, tech nerds.
- MBMarques Brownlee
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
And then now even, like, a, a mom who's not connected to tech, and yes, I'm looking at you, Christiana-
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
... is going, "What is AI? What is my phone doing? What is technology?" Maybe that's the first question I have for you, is, like, what has it been like being arguably the most influential person in the world of tech and watching tech go from being a niche conversation to something that even, like, senators and presidents are talking about now?
- MBMarques Brownlee
I've felt lucky, first of all, as, like, a content creator that the topic of my videos is ever-evolving and it's ever-interesting, so I don't have to be interesting. It's just the tech that always changes.
- TNTrevor Noah
[laughs]
- MBMarques Brownlee
But you're right. The conversations in especially our political atmosphere, like, the- there's way more tech on the tips of people's tongues. I just made a video about AI, and everyone's talking about AI now. It's everywhere.
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah.
- MBMarques Brownlee
So it is, uh, I think how I describe it is the weight of the publish button is a little heavier, but it's, uh, it's a good place to be.
- 2:58 – 7:08
AI hype vs reality: the steep curve, unknown plateau, and best-case uses
- TNTrevor Noah
So here's, here's, uh, what, what I think about AI, and I'd love to know, I'd love to know how you see it because you, you've had such an interesting journey with it. Like, I think AI is experiencing a weird PR nightmare because many of the people who make AI are trying to promise that AI can do everything and will do everything.
- MBMarques Brownlee
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
Partially because they want the value of their companies to shoot up-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- TNTrevor Noah
... you know, and they just want billions of dollars, and then maybe partially because they believe some of it, right? But then because they're doing that, people in the streets now think that AI is gonna do everything, can do everything, can think for them, and then is gonna come and kill them in their sleep. And I, I feel like ... And, and again, I, I, I'm gonna be wrong depending on time. I think in tech you're always wrong. It just depends on when you are saying the thing, or you're right. It depends on when you're saying it. I feel like most of what AI is gonna be is just, like, very good at doing stuff for you, assistant world-type thing, but I don't think we're getting the Terminator tomorrow. And I'd love to know what you think.
- MBMarques Brownlee
Yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
'Cause you, you play with it way more than I do, but I, but you're also, like, in the space, you know?
- MBMarques Brownlee
Yeah. Okay, so every tech has, um, every technology has a bit of an, a curve to start. It's this really, really steep improvement curve, and then it levels out, and then it sort of flat lines at some point, right?
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah.
- MBMarques Brownlee
Like, what's the difference between the iPhone 15 and 16? Like, not that much. So we're kinda, we're flattened out with the mature categories, if you will.
- TNTrevor Noah
I just felt Apple convulse as you said that.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- MBMarques Brownlee
Well, I mean, it's true.
- TNTrevor Noah
Marques Brownlee says, "Not that much."
- MBMarques Brownlee
But what's the difference between the first iPhone and the second iPhone? That was like, we've doubled the screen resolution. We've added a camera. Like-
- TNTrevor Noah
Man
- MBMarques Brownlee
... there's huge, huge differences, right? So every tech does this. EVs are going through this right now, and AI is doing the same thing, right? So it's going through this really, really steep improvement, and no one knows where the flat line is, which is the concerning part. Is it above human intelligence?
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah.
- MBMarques Brownlee
Is it right below? Is it way, way higher? Is it gonna take over? We don't know. We just know we're in this steep thing, and everyone's sort of projecting it to be this amazing future, and it could be an amazing future or not. We don't know. It's just up to the tech. It's up to the people working on it. It's also a little bit up to the people regulating the people working on it, but it is in that exciting, interesting, steep phase where everyone pays attention to it.
- SPSpeaker
In your, like, dream scenario, what do you think AI would be able to do for us? 'Cause right now, like, I, I hate AI.
- TNTrevor Noah
[laughs]
- MBMarques Brownlee
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
I'm sc- I think it's weird shit.
- TNTrevor Noah
[laughs]
- MBMarques Brownlee
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
I'm scared. I think we should shut it all down. But I'm curious about, you know, kind of like AI enthusiasts, like, what's the best case scenario in terms of this thing helping the world?
- TNTrevor Noah
This is your moment, Marques. Win her over.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
Win her over totally, please.
- 7:08 – 8:49
What AI regulation could target: harm, misinformation, and self-imposed limits
- TNTrevor Noah
If, if you were in charge of this, what do you think you would regulate? Because I, I'll be honest with you, I don't think most of the people in the government have an idea of what to regulate because they don't even understand what it is.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
And I mean this-
- MBMarques Brownlee
Oh, that's true
- TNTrevor Noah
... on, like, a rudimentary level. I'm not an AI expert.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
But I know I know a lot more than the people who are supposed to regulate AI.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
Do you know what I mean?
- MBMarques Brownlee
Sure. Yeah, I mean, I guess the whole idea is to prevent it from being able to do bad things or, or ever doing anything bad, and at, up until this point, a lot of the regulation has been in the hands of those making it. Like, I, I'll just use my recent example. Um, I made a video about Sora, which is OpenAI's video generation tool.
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah.
- MBMarques Brownlee
And they self-impose their own limits of, like, this will not represent people's likenesses. This will not generate, uh, anything with, um, you know, violent acts. It won't do anything with minors. And I think a lot of those very basic, obvious regulations, which is, like, okay, this should not be used to harm people. It should not be used to deliberately misinform people. Some version of that is what we're all after. I don't know. Again, I'm not a politician. I don't know how that ends up becoming a law, but we're all after that. We just want it to be safe and not hurt people but all preserve all the upside of being super useful, super convenient, uh, artificial intelligence.
- SPSpeaker
I, I, I guess I come from it 'cause, like, as a writer, and all this machine learning is taking-
- TNTrevor Noah
Mm-hmm
- SPSpeaker
... people's innate and creative thoughts. I think what they're feeding m- the machine kind of worries me. I, I, I think it's plagiarism, right? [laughs] Do, like, I-
- TNTrevor Noah
Uh-
- SPSpeaker
... honestly think-
- TNTrevor Noah
Actually, actually, this is, this is a great... Yeah, I mean, you, you experienced this head-on, by the way.
- MBMarques Brownlee
Yeah.
- 8:49 – 11:32
Creators vs training data: scraping, style replication, and the ‘Sora plant’ clue
- TNTrevor Noah
Like, no, no, Marques, you found out that AI models, they were basically, I wanna, you know, uh, stealing your content, taking your content without your permission, using your work to train themselves. Like, what, what, what exactly happened there? How did you discover this?
- MBMarques Brownlee
Yeah. Okay, so on a, on a basic level, these models, in order to be as intelligent as possible, need to know as much as possible. So the company is making them in this race to make them as good as possible. They're trying to train them on as much data as they can possibly get their hands on. Kind of just the entire internet, if they can. So if I ask it for, uh, a picture of a silver Porsche Macan, then it knows what silver is, it knows what a Porsche Macan is, and it can make that because it, it knows everything.
- TNTrevor Noah
Mm-hmm.
- MBMarques Brownlee
And it turns out these enormous data sets with billions and billions of data points, a lot of the pieces of data in them are questionably sourced. They'll come from publicly available but also just YouTube videos taken from creators. They'll, they'll just start scraping things from websites that, uh, that journalists have written, and they didn't really agree for their work to be scraped, but it's in there, too. Um, so I've come across several data sets that have been used to train these models that include hundreds of my videos. Hundreds of my videos. And that's concerning because now there is theoretically an ability for someone to ask for a video or a photo in the style of an MKBHD video, and it would actually be able to reproduce that. So I feel you. I, I-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- MBMarques Brownlee
... actually did a video with Sora where I asked it for a video of a tech reviewer.
- TNTrevor Noah
Oh, this was amazing, by the way.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- MBMarques Brownlee
And, uh, all I really asked for was a tech reviewer sitting at a desk with a phone in his hand, and it gave me a generated video of that, and without me asking, it put a little fake green plant on the desk in front of him. I didn't ask for that. That was Sora's own creative decision based on me asking for a tech reviewer. And I saw that plant, and I went, like, "I've seen that plant before," uh, because that plant has been in many of my videos and many other tech reviewers' videos. And Sora has seen that plant somehow, meaning it's been trained on some data that, that for some reason it thought that there should be one of those plants in that video. So yeah, I kinda have no choice but to believe lots of my work has been taken and is being used to train these models.
- TNTrevor Noah
It's like, it's like this type of thing, right?
- MBMarques Brownlee
Exactly.
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah.
- MBMarques Brownlee
So.
- TNTrevor Noah
It's like-
- MBMarques Brownlee
But it-
- TNTrevor Noah
I-
- MBMarques Brownlee
It's, it's so, it's so random. Do you know what I mean? Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
But it's not. That's what-
- TNTrevor Noah
No, no, what I mean is-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- TNTrevor Noah
... this is not the hallmark of tech reviews.
- SPSpeaker
No
- 11:32 – 13:59
Is MKBHD the ‘default’ tech reviewer? Identity, representation, and statistical averages
- TNTrevor Noah
I feel like you're skipping over one of the elephants in the room. You typed in just basic sentence. You said tech reviewer, right?
- SPSpeaker
And it showed him himself. [laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah, but it showed you... Yo, I thought this was amazing. It showed you a Black tech reviewer. Do you... I know the plant is, like, specific-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- TNTrevor Noah
... but I, I, I also think there's a level of, like, being the Michael Jordan of this shit that you, that you sometimes-
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
'Cause you're a humble guy, but I, I don't know, man. Was there a little part of you that went, "Huh, even AI, if you say tech reviewer, it's like, well, I mean, if you want tech reviewer, the def- the definition of tech reviewer- Is a person who looks like this
- SPSpeaker
A, a Black guy with a plant
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah, and I, and I'm saying this-
- MBMarques Brownlee
Man
- TNTrevor Noah
... I'm not even saying this for like l- like, you know, some people are like, "Oh, it's a race thing." No, no, it's not a race thing. It, it's, it's like because there is almost nobody in the tech game who is Black who is at your level-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- TNTrevor Noah
... it is only you. But it's crazy that you've dominated the game that much that AI goes, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, this has to be..." There must have been a little part of you that felt good.
- MBMarques Brownlee
[laughs] Maybe a little bit. I, I always have to be careful with that, because I can never quite fully attribute... Like, I hear what you're saying. I remember a long, a long time ago, maybe eight, nine, 10 years ago, I went to a conference, and there was a little billboard. And it was a tech conference, and there was a cartoon Black character with, like, this red-and-black striped shirt. And I, in my profile picture at the time, I w- it had the same hairstyle as me.
- TNTrevor Noah
[laughs]
- MBMarques Brownlee
It was a cartoon, and it had the same, I was wearing the same striped shirt, and I was like, "I, I think that's me. I don't really know-
- TNTrevor Noah
[laughs]
- MBMarques Brownlee
... if I can say it's me. I'm like 93% sure it's me." But, um, yeah, you know, it's... I think, again, these, these are models that are, like, using, uh, some form of a statistical mean to find what they end up creating. It's like-
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah
- MBMarques Brownlee
... if the thing that you feed it is common enough, it'll spit it out. So if there is enough videos of me in the training data, then you ask for things with keywords that relate to me, and it'll probably make something that looks like me, and I guess that's what it's supposed to do. Not great.
- TNTrevor Noah
I think it means you killed it.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
I, I understand all of the concerns and the privacy and the... But I think there's also a moment of being like, huh. Like, imagine if the machines do take over, the machines will be like, "Ah, Marques, you are Marques Brownlee."
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
I mean, that's a, that's a pretty cool place to be, I think. Um-
- MBMarques Brownlee
It's like when you Google something and you're the first result. You're like, "All right, that's good. I guess I made it."
- TNTrevor Noah
Exactly. Yeah, depending on what you're Googling.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
But yeah. [laughs]
- MBMarques Brownlee
Yeah.
- 13:59 – 17:17
Tech’s new reality: gadgets, social networks, and rising production expectations
- TNTrevor Noah
Um, let's, let's talk a little bit about, like, the world that tech inhabits now. Like, uh, you know, like, when you started off, I've watched that first video that you uploaded. It's, it's a young Marques, and you're just talking about, like, the devices that you like, you know, and, and you have-
- MBMarques Brownlee
Yeah
- TNTrevor Noah
... like, no great, uh, equipment. It's you and I think your bedroom.
- MBMarques Brownlee
All right, welcome to my first video. Um, bought a new laptop, and I, it's an HP Pavilion dv7t, so of course I got the Media Center remote with it. Quite a nice remote.
- TNTrevor Noah
You know, it, it's just a kid who likes tech.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
And that's what tech was for many people, and now you say tech, people are in front of Congress. You know, the European Union is making laws against it. You know, and, and maybe, maybe I'll, I'll clarify by saying it this way. There was a time when hip-hop-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- TNTrevor Noah
... was niche, right?
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
I- if you listen to hip-hop or if you performed hip-hop, people were like, "Whoa, what is this?"
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
"The hip-hop hip-hop. Whoa, very interesting."
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
And then now hip-hop is ubiquitous.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
Right? You watch a, a T-Mobile ad, and there's a hip-hop song playing. That was not a normal thing a very long time ago. I feel like tech is in that space now where it's sort of aged out of being this novel, new idea and has now become, like, the dominant force, almost to the point of being s- like, hated and people being afraid of it. When you think of, like, big tech or the idea of tech, w- like, where do you think we are from your perspective?
- MBMarques Brownlee
The word that comes to mind for me was saturated, but I, I also think there's a bunch of different parts of tech now. So when I was starting, when you saw that, that old 15-year-old video of me holding a little remote control up to the webcam of the laptop, that to me was gadgets, and that's a part of tech.
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah.
- MBMarques Brownlee
But, like, I've always loved gadgets. I've loved the little knick-knacks, little camera stuff, a little accessory to my phone that I'm plugging in. Like, gadgets have always been, they've always been tech, but that's a part of tech.
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah.
- MBMarques Brownlee
Another part of tech is social networks, right? So we remember the, the MySpace days, and then suddenly Facebook comes along, and now, oh, wait, you can have both a Facebook and an Instagram and a Snapchat, oh, and a YouTube channel. Like, there's, it's this sudden massive thing, and social networks is a part of tech and, but they've grown independently.
- TNTrevor Noah
Mm-hmm.
- MBMarques Brownlee
Then there's also, there's just production, too. Like, when I started with just that laptop on YouTube, uh, that was a good enough video for people to click Subscribe, believe it or not, 15 years ago. I upload that video today, and people are like, "What happened to you?"
- TNTrevor Noah
[laughs]
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- MBMarques Brownlee
Like, "What, what went wrong?" [laughs] 'Cause the barrier for entry is so much higher, or not the barrier-
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah
- MBMarques Brownlee
... for entry, but the expectations are so much higher, uh, in production and cameras and on YouTube, uh, as well. And I love that, too. I'm a video nerd, so I'm about that. But yeah, I kind of, I guess I'm, I divide tech into a bunch of different buckets, and then I have feelings about each of the buckets, if that makes sense.
- TNTrevor Noah
Let's talk about, let's talk about some of those feelings, 'cause I feel like-
- 17:17 – 20:10
Section 230, platform accountability, and how YouTube recommendations actually work
- TNTrevor Noah
My belief is I think the biggest mistake the United States made was creating that law that immunized tech companies from being sued or held liable for the things that were held on their platforms. Because I think what they've done now is, what is it, Section 230? I am not good with numbers-
- MBMarques Brownlee
Yep
- TNTrevor Noah
... and remembering dates.
- MBMarques Brownlee
That's it.
- TNTrevor Noah
But I think, I think that's what it was, because what they've done is they've, they've abused that rule which was meant to encourage the growth of their business, and now they've made it so that they can push things on us as people-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- TNTrevor Noah
... and not get held liable. 'Cause here's the thing, a- and I think this is a key distinction for me. If somebody writes something on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, whatever, you put a video, whatever it is, okay, fine. You did that. I don't think that the company should be held liable. But if they push that video out to people- Because they think it's catchy and grabby. I don't understand why they're not getting sued, or why they're not-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- TNTrevor Noah
... being held liable. If somebody got radicalized by fake news that was pushed to them, and they act on that fake news, how are these companies not liable?
- MBMarques Brownlee
Yeah. Yeah, it's, so it's interesting what you said, was like social media's one of those things that's just simple and everyone understands it, but I actually do think there's a lot of nuance to it that people don't understand. I think something I learned about YouTube recently, a- and I literally learned that this year, is I think as a creator, I'm always, like, trying to make videos that YouTube will push out, and when I ask YouTube about things that I can do in a video to get them to push it more out, they said to me, "No, no, no, no, no, that's not actually how this works. YouTube doesn't take videos and push them out. YouTube treats every individual account logging in, and goes and searches for the things that they're most likely to watch, and brings it in for them."
- TNTrevor Noah
Oh, wow.
- MBMarques Brownlee
So it's, it's not-
- TNTrevor Noah
Wait, wait. Say that, say that all again. Say it, so YouTube doesn't-
- MBMarques Brownlee
Yeah
- TNTrevor Noah
... so it-
- MBMarques Brownlee
So YouTube isn't pushing my video out to as many people randomly as possible. YouTube is, for each individual that logs in, pulling videos that they think are good for them and relevant for them. So when you publish a video and it goes-
- TNTrevor Noah
Ah
- MBMarques Brownlee
... really viral, and you feel like YouTube's pushing it out for you, what's really happening is you've made a video that the first few people who engage with it really liked it, and then subsequent people who logged in that were similar, YouTube thought, "I've seen this type of person before. They're gonna like this video," and then it shared it with that type of person. So you're, you're creating a thing that people have engaged with, and YouTube is w- what feels like rewarding you by-
- TNTrevor Noah
Finding the people that connects with me
- MBMarques Brownlee
... hopefully other people, finding those people, exactly. So it does feel like YouTube does bear some responsibility for all of this, because they wrote those algorithms. They're responsible for this behavior inside of, of, of that sort of, um, microcosm.
- TNTrevor Noah
Mm-hmm.
- MBMarques Brownlee
But it's not exactly YouTube, like someone at the controls going, "All right. Push this video. Don't push this video."
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- MBMarques Brownlee
"Push this video." So it's complicated.
- 20:10 – 22:43
‘YouTube plants,’ Shorts-era growth, and why some celebrities win online
- SPSpeaker
So that means there's no YouTube plants, 'cause I know loads of people have that conspiracy that YouTube plants these creators, and that's why they're so popular. So you're saying that's, that, that-
- TNTrevor Noah
Wait, have you ever been called one of those?
- MBMarques Brownlee
I've never, no, 'cause I started from 2009.
- TNTrevor Noah
Oh, okay.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- MBMarques Brownlee
But I think there are-
- TNTrevor Noah
Okay, you got grandfathered in. [laughs]
- MBMarques Brownlee
But there are people... Yeah, but I've seen what you're talking about, which is-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- MBMarques Brownlee
... like someone shows up. What, what really happens is, like, someone will show up, and they'll immediately have, like, videos with a bunch of celebrities, and you're like, "How did all these people end up getting on this channel so fast?" And that feels like a plant.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- MBMarques Brownlee
But there are also channels, I saw a stat this year. The, the top three channels on YouTube, uh, of, for growth this year, each of them gained independently more than 60 million subscribers each. So their videos were so successful, and were engaged with so much-
- TNTrevor Noah
Sh- wow
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- MBMarques Brownlee
... that of the people who watched them, 60 million people subscribed in a year. So, yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
What are all those videos? Do you know offhand?
- MBMarques Brownlee
Oh, there's a lot of shorts. So the number one channel is MrBeast. He gained like 110 million subscribers this year.
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah.
- MBMarques Brownlee
There's another channel that does a lot of shorts. Again, they've got billions of new views this year from the stuff that they made. Um, and actually, the third one was Cristiano Ronaldo joined YouTube this year.
- TNTrevor Noah
Oh, yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
That makes sense.
- MBMarques Brownlee
68 million subscribers, yeah.
- SPSpeaker
That's so interesting, 'cause normally, like people that are famous, like outside of the realm of the internet, don't necessarily have much success on the internet itself. 'Cause I think like-
- MBMarques Brownlee
Right
- SPSpeaker
... on, the online space is filled with people like you, like disruptors, people that are like, no one knew of before they picked up a camera and they blew up on, whether it's Instagram or Twitter or YouTube. And so to hear, like Cristiano Ronaldo, of course, he's one of the biggest athletes in the world, but all athletes don't have successful YouTube channels. So there must be something about him.
- TNTrevor Noah
I find it fascinating.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- MBMarques Brownlee
Yeah. Well, I mean, he's literally one of the top five most famous humans alive, but it is always fascinating to me to see people who are famous outside of the internet attempting to sort of own their own personal image by running their own YouTube channel, and that's what it's for, I think.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- 22:43 – 30:38
Authenticity vs curation: deeper parasocial connection and the ‘audience of one’ future
- TNTrevor Noah
Actually, I actually wonder if that's why some people aren't successful on YouTube, like some, l- if we call them legacy famous.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
Because, you know, if you look at celebrities from a bygone era, you know, like the real era of movies and TV and, before social media, before any of this, their image was so curated.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
Their image was so insulated that we didn't know them. We thought we knew them.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
But we didn't know them. Like, I, I love visiting, um, game companies, like video game companies, right? And then I'll ask them, I'm like, "Oh, who you working with?" And they're like, "Oh, we got this new campaign," and they'll say some celebrity. And I go, "Oh, wow. They game?" And they're like, "No, they don't game at all, but everyone thinks that they game, and everyone feels like they're a gamer."
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
And I'm like, "Huh, that's interesting." And I, I feel like the reason a lot of those people can't be successful on YouTube is because there's a realness to creators online that hasn't necessarily been what you needed to be successful in, in legacy-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- TNTrevor Noah
... m- media. Like, I, I... Like, would you agree with that? 'Cause I, I feel like you are the most you person I know, and I don't even know you, by the way.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- MBMarques Brownlee
[laughs] There, there is a type of, of, uh, I guess it's access to the person that this sort of social media grants you that would maybe ruin the illusion for a lot of people who are curating their image. You think of someone like some, I'm, I'm just using examples. I don't know these people, but, like, Beyoncé, Taylor Swift. Like, I don't know anything about their personality, but- I think a lot of people have this really, really pristine image of them because of what's been curated and shared that might be ruined if they started to share way more pers- of their real personality.
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- MBMarques Brownlee
The only reason they appeal to 500 million people is because they have this really nice, bright, shiny thing that they've created. And I think for, for YouTubers, for Twitch streamers, for social media personalities, you may inherently have a lower ceiling because it's just you, but it is a way stronger depth of connection, I think. Like, you can't ... This is what people say about going on, like, The Joe Rogan podcast. Like, for four hours, you can't fake a four-hour conversation.
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- MBMarques Brownlee
Like, it's you after a while.
- TNTrevor Noah
It all falls apart at hour three.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
Uh-huh.
- MBMarques Brownlee
Yeah. [laughs] So I, I, there is a depth of connection there that, that really makes it different.
- SPSpeaker
I wanna go back to something you said earlier about, like, if you did the video you did 10-plus years ago today, you probably wouldn't break through, right? So now we have, like, this higher bar to just get through the noise. Do you think that's, like, really impacted the type of content creators that we actually now get to become famous?
- MBMarques Brownlee
Oh, 1000%. So here's, here's the way I've described it. Is when I started in 2009, I was one of a few tech channels, and that was enough to stand out, which was I log in, and I'm interested in tech videos, so I'll find, like, a dozen channels that do it. Fast-forward a couple years, and a bunch more people are starting to do it, so now you have some software tutorial channels. You have some hardware channels, some people who just do unboxings. You might have seen those.
- SPSpeaker
I love unboxings.
- MBMarques Brownlee
So now there's a couple-
- TNTrevor Noah
Oh, yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, like-
- MBMarques Brownlee
You like unboxings?
- SPSpeaker
Handbags, though.
- MBMarques Brownlee
They're fun.
- 30:38 – 36:20
Creator saturation and the pressure to ‘one-up’: why MKBHD avoids stunts
- TNTrevor Noah
Do you, do you think that's part of the reason that you haven't had to resort to crazier and crazier methods of getting views? 'Cause this is something that I've noticed, not just for big YouTubers, but I've also noticed for, like, let's say, kids jumping on YouTube now. We've noticed a shift from passively consuming to joining in and creating, to now trying to outdo people. So now it's like, it's not enough that you s- threw a pie at your dad by mistake. Now your whole life has to be, like, pies everywhere in the house, and now we're the pie family.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
And do you know what I mean? And then it, it, it culminates, you know, and, uh, I f- I remember when I was on, on The Daily Show, I, um, I spoke to, I always forget which brother, Paul or Jake or...
- SPSpeaker
One of the, one of the-
- TNTrevor Noah
I always forget, it was Logan or, or Jake.
- SPSpeaker
One of them. What? It's the one that punches and the one that doesn't.
- TNTrevor Noah
They both punch.
- SPSpeaker
Do they both punch?
- TNTrevor Noah
That's why it got confusing for me.
- SPSpeaker
Okay. All right. Never mind. [laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
But anyway, he, he was talking about the video, and he was really... I loved how he broke it down, but he was saying, like, "This thing became a monster that was pushing me, and I couldn't stop it." And he said, "I, I had to do a crazier and crazier and crazier thing, uh, until I was... I even didn't realize why I was doing it." But it, it, the, it's all about the views. Do you think you've been immunized from that? Like, like, why haven't you had more fireworks in your videos? Why aren't you, like-
- MBMarques Brownlee
Yeah
- TNTrevor Noah
... driving tanks over phones? What... You know?
- MBMarques Brownlee
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
Is that 'cause you don't have to, or it's because you, you don't want to?
- MBMarques Brownlee
No, that's... I, I have an exact answer for that. The star of my videos is not me. The star of my videos is the tech. I'm pointing the camera at the tech, at the gadgets, at the thing that just came out, at the Sora announcement, whatever it is. And I'm a face that happens to walk you through it and guide you through it. But it's, the pressure is on the tech industry to get more and more interesting, and advance and advance, and I point the camera at it, and that's the subject of the video. For a lot of creators, the subject of the video is them or their life or their family or their stunt, and once you find success with pointing the camera at that thing, the pressure is now on you-
- TNTrevor Noah
Oh, yeah
- MBMarques Brownlee
... to one-up-
- SPSpeaker
Mm
- MBMarques Brownlee
... the last thing you just did. And so if you're Jake, if you're Logan, if you're MrBeast, if you're, if you're pointing the camera at yourself, and... Or I see this a lot with family vlog channels, where it's like the kids are in it, and now you have to do a crazy thing.
- SPSpeaker
Or they keep having babies. Every time the views go down-
- MBMarques Brownlee
Exactly
- SPSpeaker
... they have another baby, 'cause views.
- MBMarques Brownlee
That's a real thing.
- TNTrevor Noah
Oh, that's a real... Wait, people do that?
- SPSpeaker
Yeah. My favorite-
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah
- SPSpeaker
... genre of family channels is, like, people that have over seven kids. I just, I'm obsessed with them.
- TNTrevor Noah
Wait, so people have more babies to get more views.
- SPSpeaker
Oh, ba- babies are great for views. Gender reveals, you know.
- 36:20 – 43:25
Screen time for kids, then a turning point: MKBHD controversies and public accountability
- SPSpeaker
You know, I'm, I'm really curious, 'cause there's always, like, this kind of trope of The people that run these tech companies, they have minimal tech in their personal lives, and they're very keen that their children have no exposure to tech, right? So there's a story about Steve Jobs, and, you know, all these people, they don't let their kids have iPads, and-
- TNTrevor Noah
Most, most of the people who, like, work high up at Facebook, when they throw birthday parties and those types of things for their kids, they have a sign that says, "No social media, no phones, no posting, no collecting, no..." Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, and it, it's always been, like, this interesting paradox, 'cause they, like, they sell this stuff to other people, and a lot of, like, worn-out parents, you know, you... The iPad kid is kind of a trope [laughs] of being in the restaurant and just, like, swiping on the iPad, right? And-
- TNTrevor Noah
Cocomelon for the win.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, I'm curious about your thoughts on it, about how much should children have access to whether it's iPhones, The Gab, which is really popular, that I know a lot of kids have these watches. What, what are your feelings on it?
- MBMarques Brownlee
That is such an interesting question. So I don't have kids, so I, I... This is, I'm gonna have to come up to this decision at some point, where it's like, how young are we going to let them use the internet, or a phone or a screen at all?
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- MBMarques Brownlee
And, and we've all seen WALL-E. We've all seen that, that, like, um, you know, the dystopian future where humans are just blobs sitting around in chairs watching screens all the time, and that feels like the if you let it go too far, where we'll end up. But yeah, I just, I think there is, there's obviously a healthy balance you have to try to strike to not just be constantly on your screen. And everyone's gonna draw that line in a different place. I personally try to put my phone away by a certain hour. I try not to... I try to s- actually start my day hopefully by getting all the way to work without looking at my phone. Which is hard. It's really hard. [laughs]
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- MBMarques Brownlee
So yeah, there's, the line's gonna be a different place for everyone. But I, I suspect that those people draw the line as conservatively as they possibly can, because they've seen, they've seen the other side.
- TNTrevor Noah
Speak, speaking of, um, like, just ramifications in general, I wanna go back a little bit to the personality of everything. I feel like this year was an interesting year for MKBHD, like, for you as a person, right? Because in all the time I've been watching you and following you, you have been, and I mean this in the most, like, respectful and loving way, you've been, like, non-offensive, non-anything. And then this year was the first time where it felt like people started having different types of opinions about MKBHD. One was when, when you launched the, um, the app, the Wallpapers app, right?
- MBMarques Brownlee
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
And people were really angry, and they were coming at you, and, and, and my question is not so much about the incident, 'cause I think everyone in life is gonna have some sort of, if you're in public, and maybe even in private-
- SPSpeaker
Mm
- TNTrevor Noah
... there's gonna be something you do that people don't like, right? And there's degrees of this. Some people it's a Wallpapers app, some people it's a war crime, all right?
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
We have degrees.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
But, like, you did this, and then you had another video where you were driving, uh, I think it was a Ferrari, uh, very fast, which I-
- SPSpeaker
Which are what Ferraris are for.
- TNTrevor Noah
Which I-
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
Can I, so can I tell you something? Just, can I just say this just, just as an aside? Just as an aside.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- TNTrevor Noah
This is my thing. I feel like it's all a trap. I'll tell you why. Cars are governed, right? Cars are limited at a certain speed. They, they literally do this to cars, and it like, it'll be a law sometimes, but they'll say, "This car cannot go over this speed." The car can go over that speed-
- SPSpeaker
Mm
- TNTrevor Noah
... but they'll govern the car. I'm always like, "Why do they give us the car? Why don't they just put the governing at the speed limit?" That's just my conspiracy theory.
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
And I'm not bringing anyone else into it. But going back to everything, so you drive the car. You have the Wallpapers app. What really fascinated me w- was how you handled it. No PR team, no crisis response, no l... I'm gonna paraphrase your tweet, but basically you came out and you were like, "Hey, guys, I messed up. Uh, I didn't explain what I was trying to do here. Uh, I was trying to create this app for creators where they can actually earn money so people are not just downloading stuff online and they don't get the money, and this is what I was trying to do. I, you're right, I messed up with the ads and this thing, and I'm gonna figure this out. We're gonna tweak it. We'll put it down. We'll t- we'll change... Yeah, my bad." And you're like, and, and that was that.
- SPSpeaker
Mm.
- 43:25 – 55:24
Outrage vs criticism: staying truthful, reviewing broken products, and ‘ending’ companies
- TNTrevor Noah
I ... So here's my thing. I hope you don't change too much, and I'll tell you why. Um, I say this because it's something I've grappled with. I, I actually think that there's a, a fake outrage machine that oftentimes feeds on some real outrage. Don't get me wrong. But I think there's like a fake outrage machine that we've encouraged too much, right? And, and the reason I say the fake outrage part of it is, like, sometimes people can be outraged in a fun way, and I think we all, we should all be allowed to do that as human beings. I do it with you, Christiana.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
I hope you do it, you know, Marques, with your friends. Sometimes it's fun to be like, "I can't believe they did that. Ha ha ha."
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
Whatever. Great. But I've noticed there's this weird, like, tail wagging the dog effect that's happening now in life, where the, the news, and I've, I've watched this happen, right? We'd be at The Daily Show talking about these things. A few people online would say something, and when I say a few, I mean a few. A few hundred-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- TNTrevor Noah
... right, would say something online. The news, like, as in, like, mainstream-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- TNTrevor Noah
... you know, like, let's say CBS and NBC and CNN, they would report on it, and they would say, you know, "This person taking flak from social media"
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- TNTrevor Noah
... and then they'd start posting the things up. "Many people commenting on how they're putting people in danger."
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
And they put those things up, and they put, and then they start putting up the post, and they're putting up the post, and then they talk about it like it is news, but I'm like, no, no, you're also making news.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
This is a very sinister thing that you're doing.
- SPSpeaker
For sure.
- TNTrevor Noah
And then the thing gets bigger online, and so the news reports it.
- SPSpeaker
Kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
Right.
- TNTrevor Noah
And then there's, there's a part of me that goes, and please don't get me wrong, I, I'm not, like, bandwagoning. I'm, I'm not even, like, trying to gas you up. I go like, "Yeah, okay, you screwed up," but I just feel like there's, like, a level of outrage that's not real.
- SPSpeaker
That's, like, disproportionate to what actually happened.
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, like-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- TNTrevor Noah
... people made it seem like you drove through a playground-
- MBMarques Brownlee
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
... is, is the way I'm saying it.
- MBMarques Brownlee
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
All right?
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- 55:24 – 1:02:31
The ‘shitification of everything’: unfinished launches, subscriptions, and Apple’s AI pressure
- TNTrevor Noah
Don't go anywhere, 'cause we got more What Now? after this. The, um, thing I wanna talk to you before we go is what I've been calling with my friends the shitification of everything.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm. [laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
I mean it in every field. I mean it in politics.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
I think politics has become shitified in a way where it, like, it's so broken that people don't like it.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
But it's supposed to be for the people, right? You know, you feel like this with, like, products. Tech is one of those areas where, I don't wanna sound like a grumpy old man-
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
... but I feel like we're living in an age of shitification, you know? So you talk about the Rabbit, you talk about the Humane, right? I pre-ordered and bought both of those. I love gadgets and I love tech. When I look at the amount of tech that comes out now that isn't ready, I'm like, how are you allowed to sell something to somebody and then tell them after they've purchased it that they have to wait for the thing to work? I'm just like, what? Because you can't do that the other way, right?
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
I can't go to the store and buy the phone and be like, "Hey, I know the money I gave you right now is Monopoly money, but in a few months it's gonna update into real dollars."
- SPSpeaker
[laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
"And then you can, you can use this."
- SPSpeaker
Oh, what I hate is the printers that you have to subscribe to for them to print.
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah, that's the shitification of-
- SPSpeaker
Like [laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
... like everything has become a service now.
- SPSpeaker
It just feels scammy and weird and like-
- TNTrevor Noah
It's the shitification-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- TNTrevor Noah
... of everything, right? And even, like, a company like Apple that's been above it for a long time, like, I want Apple's phone to work, right? I want the iPhone to work. But, like, they were like, "Apple Intelligence, Apple Intelligence." And then the phone comes out, there's no intelligence.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
And then they're like, "And now the next update," and there's still, like, not the intelligence. I'm like, wait, wait, wait. So you held a launch telling us what it was gonna be. It wasn't.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
You then released a phone where all the billboards were advertising the features of that phone. It wasn't.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
Right? You told us what the phone can do. It cannot. At what point do we go, "This is a scam"? I, I, and I, I wonder, like, because you live in so much more tech than most of us do, I, I wonder if you've, A, experienced it the same, if you, if you think there's something there, and then, B, what you think is driving it, maybe even just through the lens of tech and everything you've seen.
- MBMarques Brownlee
Totally. Okay, so I think with most reasonable things, there's two sides of, of every coin, right? And we are both mostly experiencing it on the consumer side. So we are trying to spend our money on something that is hopefully good, and there are lots of things that you can buy that are fine, and you don't really think twice about it. It's like I, I j- I just bought these headphones. They were 90 bucks. They showed up on Amazon. They were fine. I plugged it in, whatever, great. I'm not gonna remember that. And then every once in a while there's a couple that really suck, and you have a really strong reaction to that. As a consumer, we feel validated in that. I, I can't believe you're advertising this thing is gonna be good, and it doesn't even exist yet. This seems horrible. Let me just flip that coin real quick. If you work for any of these tech companies, there is an immense pressure to make something that is leading and that is incredible, that stands out, and that is very, very, very, very hard. I mean, every, once every decade maybe we get something that kind of feels that good, like we, the original iPhone maybe was one of the last ones-
- TNTrevor Noah
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm
- MBMarques Brownlee
... that we remember in our lifetime. And a lot of these, these companies and these people that lead these teams and that work on these projects and that engineer and that do these things, they all feel this pressure. And whatever opportunity they feel like they can latch onto to maybe have a shot at making that next big thing, they're gonna try to take it, and if they d- if they appear to be lagging, they have failed again. And so AI comes along, right? Okay, so I'm a startup. I wanna make something. Maybe I can make kind of like the next iPhone, but it's AI in a box. And maybe it's not a phone, but it's a pin. And they try to put this thing together. Oh, but I see that company over there is working on something too, so I gotta rush and put mine out, and it's out. And it's out way too early, and it's not done yet. And you see the promises they're making earnestly. They're like, "I promise in a year this will be the greatest product you've ever bought. Just give us more time to work on it." And again, on the consumer side, I'm like, "Bro, we don't care. I gave you real money today. Why is this thing so bad? I'm returning it. It's too expensive. It's a subscription."
- 1:02:31 – 1:05:09
Practical tech that actually improves life: health metrics, smart scales, and everyday utility
- TNTrevor Noah
Christiana, do you have any, uh, Luddite questions for Marques? 'Cause I know-
- SPSpeaker
My, my questions are so basic, bitch.
- TNTrevor Noah
No, can I tell you why I think they're amazing?
- SPSpeaker
I don't even know-
- TNTrevor Noah
And I mean this honestly 'cause our friend David is also-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- TNTrevor Noah
... mega Luddite. He said something to me that I, that has resonated with me. He said, "The stupidest p- people in tech are the most important ones because that's who everyone is," 'cause you represent the people in this.
- SPSpeaker
Well, my favorite video of his, you wore, like, four watches, and you did the step count.
- TNTrevor Noah
Mm-hmm.
- SPSpeaker
Right? And I currently use a step count for my phone. I use my iPhone. And I know that's not that accurate. So I love that video of yours. I wanna know, like, your most practical tech product that you think, like, boring Luddite moms like me can go and buy and be like, "This is actually making my life better."
- MBMarques Brownlee
Yeah. Wow. I mean, there's so few things [laughs] that are truly-
- TNTrevor Noah
[laughs]
- MBMarques Brownlee
... like value add in life.
- SPSpeaker
No, 'cause I like that step thing because it's just like, I do like to know how many steps I'm getting in. Like, it's a thing that-
- MBMarques Brownlee
Sure
- SPSpeaker
... people do like to know, like 10,000 steps. I know it's a myth, but be like... But I'm like, what is the product that you'd be like, "Buy this."
- TNTrevor Noah
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
"It is gonna make your life that bit better." It's what technology-
- MBMarques Brownlee
You know-
- SPSpeaker
... is supposed to do
- MBMarques Brownlee
... so I could go on the theme of that 'cause, like, everyone cares about different things.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- MBMarques Brownlee
And if you care about the step counter, to me, there's a theme of, like, I care about the metrics in my life.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- MBMarques Brownlee
Like, I have the Apple Watch, and it tells me all sorts of here's what your heart rate, resting heart rate-
- SPSpeaker
Yeah
- MBMarques Brownlee
... has been for the last month.
- SPSpeaker
How I'm sleeping and, you know, stuff like that.
- MBMarques Brownlee
How I'm sleeping.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- 1:05:09 – 1:08:23
Advice to young creators: the athlete analogy, time investment, and why it’s worth it
- TNTrevor Noah
I, I, we'll, we'll, we'll all look out for that. The last thing I have to ask you, 'cause I, I, I know, uh, my brother and his friends and a whole bunch of people would be, would kill me if I didn't, is, um, if you were talking to a young Marques today who wants to get into the game, 'cause back in the day, people would wanna get into, like, the TV game.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- TNTrevor Noah
Before that, people wanted to get into the radio game or whatever. You are now that, that, that step. Like, you are the thing that a child in school says, "I want to be a Marques Brownlee."
- MBMarques Brownlee
Mm.
- TNTrevor Noah
Why would you say they should do it, and why would you say they shouldn't do it?
- MBMarques Brownlee
Hmm. I would say being a, a social media person as a career is very similar to being a professional athlete in that you really have to like doing this to be able to put in the number of hours and the amount of work required to actually make it your job. Take basketball. Basketball, you could play in the park. You could play for free. You could play against your friends. But if I wanna be a professional basketball player, there's some level of, first of all, luck, but dedication, hard work that goes into hopefully getting you over to the next level to actually be able to make it your job, and it's very competitive even while it is your job. And so think about, before you start, if this is something that you actually like doing enough to be able to put those hours in. 'Cause people see the final result, but are you willing to put in those hours?
- TNTrevor Noah
How, how long does it take you to make a video just so people g- 'cause again, some people watch the video, and they're like-
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm
- TNTrevor Noah
... "Well, I watched the video, and it was 15 minutes."
- SPSpeaker
Took 15.
- TNTrevor Noah
It took you 15 minutes.
- MBMarques Brownlee
Minutes.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah.
- MBMarques Brownlee
Yeah, exactly. [laughs] Yeah. Uh, maybe... So we're working on a, a smartphone awards video right now, which it's gonna be a 30-minute video when it comes out, but it's gonna take a week to, to edit this video.
- SPSpeaker
Wow.
- MBMarques Brownlee
A lot of them take a week to write before they take a week to edit. A lot of them take-
- TNTrevor Noah
Damn.
- MBMarques Brownlee
We just had a call today of a video we're planning that should hopefully come out around May, so four to six months. So it de- it's, it depends on the video, but they don't take no time.
- TNTrevor Noah
Cool.
- MBMarques Brownlee
I'll put it that way.
- TNTrevor Noah
Okay.
- SPSpeaker
Mm-hmm.
- TNTrevor Noah
So that's, that's why you shouldn't, and why should you?
- MBMarques Brownlee
You should because if you do enjoy playing basketball in the park, you're gonna love being a pro bowler. So if you enjoy making videos, if you enjoy tech, for example, even though it comes with more pressure, even though it comes with more scrutiny, you're going to enjoy the, the privilege of being able to share tech with the world. So, so do it. [upbeat music]
- TNTrevor Noah
Marques, uh, I cannot thank you enough. You have, uh, not only kept me entertained for many hours, you've saved me and millions of other people lots of money. Can I just put that out there?
- MBMarques Brownlee
That's great. [laughs]
- TNTrevor Noah
Because of you... No, really. I think before you-
- MBMarques Brownlee
Yeah
- TNTrevor Noah
... we only knew something was bad when we bought it.
- MBMarques Brownlee
[laughs]
Episode duration: 1:08:24
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Transcript of episode pNDidttHP9M
