Andrew Callaghan of All Gas No Breaks Goes Independent

Andrew Callaghan is the force behind All Gas No Breaks, a hit YouTube show that featured Callaghan putting a mic in front of people and just... letting them talk. Callaghan's recently gone independent, taking his unique interviewing style to a new home, Channel 5 with Andrew Callaghan, and building a substantial following there. Callaghan joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss why his alternative to traditional news is hitting a nerve, what he's learned about the American people from his travels across the country, and the factors that led to his decision to strike out on his own. Check out Channel 5 with Andrew Callaghan: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-AQKm7HUNMmxjdS371MSwg Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Alex Kantrowitz?

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• 0:43Alex Kantrowitz?

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• 1:14Alex Kantrowitz?

  Hello and welcome to the Big Technology Podcast, a show for cool, nuanced conversation of the tech world and beyond. Joining us today is the man behind the hit YouTube series, All Gas No Brakes, which I found to be a fascinating look into the heart of America, and who recently set out on his own with a new show, Channel 5 with Andrew Callaghan. Andrew, welcome to the show.

• 1:36Speaker 01

  Thank you, man. I appreciate you having me on.

• 1:38Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, it's great to be back in touch. We were talking in the middle of, you know, the height of All Gas No Brakes, and it's great to see that you're doing this on your own, independent. And I'm excited to hear your perspective on what's going on with the new thing.

• 1:52Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 1:53Alex Kantrowitz?

  So before we get into Channel 5, I'd love to hear a little bit more about, or maybe you could introduce our listeners or, you know, or refresh people's memory about what All Gas No Brakes was, how it began, and sort of what you were trying to do with it.

• 2:07Speaker 01

  So All Gas No Breaks began as a kind of memoir storybook that I wrote about my experiences hitchhiking across America when I was a teenager, like when I was 19. I would just like hitchhike mostly in the south and in the west coast by myself with a recorder. I would interview like deadbeats, runaways, various like outlaw types about their life stories and, you know, triumphs and tragedies and whatnot. After a long time, I decided to propose the idea of an All Gas No Breaks video show that I would do on Instagram and YouTube. So I found a company, a production company called Doing Things Media. I said, yo, if you guys buy me an RV, I'll go out there and make like crazy. Honestly, I first thought it'd be like a road trip show. I thought

• 2:49Speaker 01

  it was gonna be like me focused on like gas station characters and landscapes. I didn't know what it was gonna be. Then we decided I was gonna go to all the craziest kind of events and explore different subcultures around the country like furries, flat earthers, Proud Boys, anarchists, all that kind of stuff. And wear an oversized suit for most of the time. So this company gave me a $45,000 salary and they bought me the RV. And I signed some paperwork and I had a great couple of years.

• 3:16Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, and it quickly became a hit. Yeah, we'll get to the falling out, I think, in the second half. But the show became a hit. And one of the really interesting things I found was that you moved beyond just going from the flat-earther conferences and started going to, you know, some real news events. Yeah, maybe you can talk a little bit about how you expanded.

• 3:42Speaker 01

  Well, I think right around the time of the COVID pandemic, I'd say around last March, when things really like kicked into high gear as far as the lockdowns, that's when I started covering things that were vaguely political. I started with the coronavirus lockdown protest video, which was my first political video. It was like I was covering a, it was the California State Capitol in Sacramento interviewing conspiracy theorists about COVID-19. That was a big hit. And I was like, damn, maybe I can do more than just funny Instagram and YouTube content. So then when the protest movement kicked off, that's when things really went to high gear. And it was during the protest movement after the George Floyd murder, I started covering protests and riots in Minneapolis, Portland, and then Seattle.

• 4:26Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, the show just took a political turn. It wasn't like I went out of my way to be like, I'm gonna make this a Daily Show style political show. I just saw things happening and I saw a lack of news coverage. So I said, why don't we use our platform to give people voices in different walks of life?

• 4:43Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. And it wasn't that the news wasn't covering these events. I mean, the news was on it in the way, you know, as much as it could be, but it was doing it in the way that the news was used to, which was with a little bit of distance. And I think what was great about what you did was you got right into the thick of things and you didn't try to constrain people into salad bites. You just put a mic in front of them and let them talk.

• 5:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that the mainstream American news cycle is locked in this just like horrible divisive cycle of punditry where they're like right wing talking head, left wing talking head. It's the same people who are gonna propagate the exact same narratives and sell ads and make money regardless of what's going on. You know, like if anything happens, you know what Anderson Cooper and Don Lemon are gonna say and you know what Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity are gonna say. And they propagate this division because, you know, it's profitable. They're all, all these news companies are owned by the same people. I mean, the same people who own Vice own Fox News. Basically just a news media matrix that is exists to drive us further apart while the rich get richer. So I wanted to kind of break that.

• 5:47Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, but I think what what happened with you was that you got into the thick of things and you came in with a different format and people really gravitated towards it.

• 5:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, and my format's actually the easiest format. I mean, just going in there and not saying anything is actually really easy, but no one wants to do that because they have people controlling their their voices. I mean, most journalists are controlled by higher forces, you know, higher ups who tell them what sort of narrative to push.

• 6:16Alex Kantrowitz?

  Well, I mean, that might be one thing. I think another part of it is that our culture right now rewards certainty. You know, people don't like to live in the gray area. It doesn't get distributed the way that, um, you know, something with black and white, uh, that plays to identity might get distributed, you know, on social media. Um, and so generally people have found comfort in certainty and finding a worldview and then trying to look at everything through that prism. And I think what's interesting is that like, you know, we've talked in the past. Um, I think you've mentioned to me that you're left of center, but you're still willing to like, you know, hear people out, even if they don't agree with you. And I find that really interesting.

• 6:57Speaker 01

  Totally. I mean, it's too bad that, you know, like, if you are. It's hard to explain, but if you believe in one thing, you have to believe in a package of other things. Right? So if you believe, if you're pro-choice and you're pro-gay marriage like I am, then it's like boom, you're in like the Biden camp, like you have to vote that way. Then if you're, if you vote that way, you're also in support of like Middle East shit that Biden's into. And you're in support of mass incarceration and all that stuff that Biden and the Clinton camp do. So basically it just sucks. Like, yeah, I guess I'm center-left socially, but I'm definitely not in support of the Biden administration.

• 7:36Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. And yeah, and I think that it's interesting because we talk about certainty. Obviously certainty about the way that you view news events. But I also think there's been this other current that's occurred inside the US recently, maybe the globe, which is that we view people with certainty as well. You know, a Trump voter must be A, B, and C. A Biden voter must be D, E, and F. Uh, and there's complexity to people. I think you portray that really well. Where once you start to let somebody talk, you start to learn that they're not easily, you know, able to be packaged inside a box. And then you start to learn a little bit more about their life experiences and where they come from. And they don't fit neatly into this package. What do you think about that?

• 8:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I think that especially the, like I said, the way we consume media, it's easy to say to loop Trump supporters or Biden voters into a prism, depending on who's telling you about these people. But the reality is that people are complex and people are stuck in misinformation bubbles on all walks of political life. People are falling victim to fake information and they're surrounded and bombarded with propaganda at all times. Everyone. I think social media is destroying our society.

• 8:53Speaker 01

  Hopefully that we can last more than 50 years from now, but.

• 8:57Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. Why do you think that?

• 9:00Speaker 01

  It's just putting everyone in information bubbles, man. I mean, look at the way censorship has affected the way that people talk online. I mean, it used to be that you could argue with people online about, you know, people would act like they're just removing the fringes from the internet. No, they're removing almost a majority of Trump conservatives off of social media platforms, pushing them further into deep internet holes where they only see each other and they only talk to each other. Meanwhile, the same thing is happening, you know, with left-wing cities too, like echo chambers are just getting more dense and it's like this infinite mosaic of bubbles and echo chambers. And it's funny because I bet that when the internet first came around,

• 9:41Speaker 01

  they thought that it would make us a more well-informed public because we'd have exposure to so many different worldviews and pieces of information. I mean, you have the world at your fingertips if you have a smartphone. But it's actually, I think, made people like dumber and have less informational literacy. And yeah, it's just, it's troubling. It's like, you can, no matter what you think, there's a million people online who will validate what you think whenever you decide to think it. You know what I mean?

• 10:07Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, and I think that's sort of what, playing back to the original theme that I had with certainty. I don't think that there's a grand conspiracy to keep conservatives off of the social platforms or that, you know, liberals won't be willing to listen to anybody else. But I do think that it is very easy to get sucked into group think today. And the social media platforms definitely help propel that.

• 10:31Speaker 01

  Well, it's not even a conspiracy to keep conservatives on social media platforms. It just is what's going on.

• 10:37Alex Kantrowitz?

  Say more about it.

• 10:37Speaker 01

  If you go to a Trump rally, I mean, this is what I started noticing is that every person was like, I've been kicked off. Like, that's their main beef. And I think that this loss of faith and and tech as a social institution and free internet as an idea being a limited place. I don't know what the effects are. I mean, you know, for example, if you're involved in a, like, reopen Colorado, reopen California, Facebook group to end the lockdowns, you most likely get banned for medical misinformation. You know, do I think that harmful conspiracy theories? Like, you know, some of them, like, there's baby-eating pedophiles who drink children's blood to stay young forever and have lizard bloodline. But I think that limiting the reach of that.

• 11:20Speaker 01

  Is good? Yeah, probably. But if you believe that there's some big giant conspiracy out to silence you, and you get silenced, and so do all your friends, what are you supposed to think?

• 11:31Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, well, I do think that when the social platforms went to ban QAnon, for instance, that did sweep out a good portion of conservatives. So there's something to that.

• 11:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you wonder what the, I guess we'll see, maybe, maybe good, maybe bad. We'll see what the long-term impact is. Because I mean, if you get pushed off of mainstream social media platforms, I feel like that validates what you already think as far as the big conspiracy, and it might even harden your beliefs and make you more militant.

• 12:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, on the other hand, like-

• 12:01Speaker 01

  We'll see, we'll see.

• 12:02Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, but on the other hand, you know, the social media companies probably gave rise to the fact that so many people believe there is this cabal of pedophiles trying to take over the world. So it's a push-pull for them. But what happens is they often focus on the users and not on the product itself. And so the product keeps working the way that it's always worked, but then they end up suspending it. And then there you go, you're in that position.

• 12:28Speaker 01

  Right, there's no right position for those tech guys. You know what I mean? They just, everyone hates them.

• 12:34Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 12:34Speaker 01

  It's tough out here. Do you work in tech too?

• 12:36Alex Kantrowitz?

  No, I mean, I'm a tech journalist, but I'm in San Francisco.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  Oh, so-

• 12:40Alex Kantrowitz?

  You know, reporting on this stuff out here. And, you know, I-

• 12:43Speaker 01

  You see Salesforce, yeah.

• 12:45Alex Kantrowitz?

  Sorry, Salesforce Tower, basically from my window.

• 12:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. I was gonna ask you.

• 12:50Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 12:50Speaker 01

  Can you see Salesforce Tower from your window? Because that's a metric of proximity to tech giants.

• 12:55Alex Kantrowitz?

  If I lean all the way out, yeah, I can get almost a glimpse of it. And I do really find it to be a monstrosity. And there's a screen on top of it. I'm sorry to all the Salesforce listeners, but there is a screen on top of it, which they can customize and use to send messages out to the city. And sometimes they'll have the Eye of Sauron on there. And I think it's a little bit, you know, too close to science fiction. I'm not a big fan of it.

• 13:19Speaker 01

  I mean, San Francisco is dystopian. I mean, look at the inequality that's propagated, with the city failing to combat gentrification and provide for their homeless people. I mean, I can't think of a place where you can have the richest people that close to just like the largest homeless encampments in the country. It's fucked up, man.

• 13:35Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, no doubt. And it's sad. And there's also, there's a big willingness out here to say it's other people's fault, and a reticence-

• 13:44Speaker 01

  Of course, oh, I'm sure, dude.

• 13:46Alex Kantrowitz?

  -to actually come and jump in and help, which is an issue.

• 13:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, seeing those Black Lives Matter signs and pride flags on some of the, uh, what, six million dollar row homes in the Mission District, that's something out of a dystopian science fiction novel. It's depressing.

• 14:01Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, I mean, I would say, I don't think, you know, being wealthy should disqualify you from participating in social protests, but it can't just be, you know, holding that flag out the window. Like, if you want a more just society, you have to look for the economics as well.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  What I'm saying is if you're wealthy and you're from a rich family, especially if it's like Bay Area tech money, and you don't live in Walnut Creek, you don't live in Piedmont, you don't live in some of the beautiful suburbs that you could live in, Palo Alto, you decide you want a more urban living, so you move somewhere like the Mission District, which is a historic immigrant neighborhood, and you decide to take over the block, and then you think that the optics band-aid that you're gonna put is some kind of flag or signal in front of your thing. I don't really care what you're doing, you know? I mean, that's like, that's colonialism.

• 14:48Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, look, no, I think that, um, at the end of the day, we talked a little bit about how people are complex, right? And, um, you know, and there's the certainty that we use to judge people. But I would also say that, like, it's important in this world, I think, to be the full package, right? Like, it's about the sum of actions, not about a tweet that you put out there or a sign in your window. It's about how you live your life.

• 15:14Speaker 01

  I think they should move their complex asses back to Palo Alto then, right?

• 15:20Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, I think there's something to be said for that. Also, like, I think that one of the things that we, you know, we can also look at is the fact that a lot of our system, we've talked about this on the show a lot, a lot of our system is meant to preserve what those in power have. And and it's very difficult to crack through that because of the systems that you know have been set up so.

• 15:47Speaker 01

  I agree with that and that's the that's the depressing part is you can talk about it but a lot of this stuff that just it just goes and goes man. It's the machine and I'm not like some sort of like you know anti-capitalist like but I'm saying it is like this machine doesn't stop urban growth redevelopment. You know and once it goes it just keeps going. I'm from Seattle right now. I grew up in this neighborhood Capitol Hill and it's like unrecognizable. You know and it's like I'm not gonna.

• 16:08Alex Kantrowitz?

  It's gone through a ton of change. Yeah, and you did a great video from the Capitol Hill. It was Autonomous Zone, CHAZ.

• 16:17Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, CHAZ. That shit. I didn't even put out most of that footage because it was just too dark.

• 16:23Alex Kantrowitz?

  Oh, what did you see there that you didn't put out?

• 16:25Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, the main thing is like that, you know, the CHOP CHAZ had like, I think it was three and a half weeks and this is how most autonomous zones go from what I've heard. The first week is like everyone's got the spirit of the revolution, you know, there's like lots of seminars and reading and there's clear organization. The second week it has more of like a Coachella vibe, you know, it's like a festival, there's drum circles and fire spinners and it looks like a scene from Burning Man. The third week, and I'm not sure why this happens, it's just hella tweakers, like all like the meth smokers to set up tents and it's just like a shit show and then the drug dealers come and then.

• 16:57Alex Kantrowitz?

  And there was a couple of shootings out there.

• 17:00Speaker 01

  I was there for those shootings. It was really fucked up. I witnessed that and you know, and the day after the shooting, I remember I was walking back to CHOP and this like white girl like in full like anarchist gear comes up to me and she goes, "Don't go to the park." I go, "Why?" She goes, "There's a gang war going on." And I was like, "Oh, there's a gang war going on. Okay, where the hell are you from?" I go to the park. It was no gang war, but there was like dudes, fourteen year old dudes smoking AK-47s and people smoking meth on the street and doing heroin in the sidewalk. You know, and then the cops broke it up. But I think that autonomous zones need some sort of central leadership to to exist for more than their genesis provides because you know, you gotta have someone being like, "Yeah, we gotta figure this out."

• 17:41Alex Kantrowitz?

  What do you think, you know, so people point to things like CHOP or CHAZ or Autonomous Zones, some of the rioting that you've documented and they say that, you know, if this is coming from the left and there's a message of overhauling the system, it's not going to win many allies. And what do you think about the fact that that can turn people off? And how does that sync with the political goals of the movement?

• 18:07Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, first of all, I just want to say the cops really gave the precinct to the protesters in Seattle. They gave it on purpose. They wanted people to do that. I mean, that was the most fortified, strongest police station in the city. They gave it to them.

• 18:21Alex Kantrowitz?

  Did you have, were you able to find that out through reporting or how do you know?

• 18:25Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. All of my, everyone I knew who was there, everyone screaming, even the city reported it. I mean, the cops purposely abandoned it and were like, take this because they want people to do some dumb shit. So they can be like, look, they're looting and burning. And, you know, only a small percentage of protests have that element of destruction. But, you know, you know, on one hand, I understand it. Like in Minneapolis, I understood it a lot because it was like, this is the expression of the people. This is the first time they're seeing this, this imagery. And that's what you gotta do to get people to listen initially. I understand the purpose of it, you know, just as many people came out to protest the Trayvon Martin murder, but there was no looting and no damage and no one gave a shit because the reality is that the mainstream consumer public

• 19:10Speaker 01

  seems to care more about property damage than lives lost by police. So initially, I think that it can be a good tactic to get people's attention. But I think that if their attention is already gotten, I don't see the point of continuous destruction. You know what I mean? Like months after the murder, shit, the shit going down in Portland where they're just breaking everything, talking about the militant decolonization of the American plantation. It's like, you know, you guys maybe can do this shit here, but you leave the city, go 15 minutes outside of the suburbs. You're in the hotbed of militiamen and all that shit. So I have, I have mixed opinions on it, like a lot of people do, but I'm not like in support of. Fucking up small businesses or anything like that.

• 19:52Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right, right. And not only that, it becomes very easy to clip, you know, just the actions of a few people, put it on TV and use it to discredit a full movement, which

• 20:01Speaker 01

  And that's exactly what happens.

• 20:03Alex Kantrowitz?

  And I did like your portrayal of what was going on in Minneapolis. Because, you know, I think instead of running away from what was going on, you stuck a microphone in in front of people's faces and said, what do you feel? And we don't even hear your framing of it. So I kind of like that.

• 20:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:21Alex Kantrowitz?

  I think that like

• 20:22Speaker 01

  Thank you. Appreciate it.

• 20:23Alex Kantrowitz?

  You juxtapose what you do with the news clips a lot. Oftentimes, there's like somebody in one of your video, I think it was Minneapolis one, where there's a news camera that's far away from the action. You were just inside. And you start filming the news camera and you're like, what are you doing? He's like, oh, hey, hold on one second. I'm filming the burning. And you never quite get a chance to hear from people. And I think this is

• 20:49Alex Kantrowitz?

  I'll just just wrap this in what you respond to. It's one of the plagues we have in the country right now. Well, there's a lack of empathy. You know, I'm not saying people need to support one another, you know, in terms of every single cause, but you know, we we very rarely will put each other, put ourselves in each other's shoes and would much rather demonize. And I think that's an issue. Sorry. Go ahead, Andrew.

• 21:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I agree with you a hundred percent. You know, and I, you know, I feel the same way about almost all political causes. I mean, just common ground and mutual humanity seems to be something that we've lost in a very short period of time. And it's social media propagates that.

• 21:26Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, I'm right. Exactly. And I'm writing about this this week. It will be out on Big Technology. But the social media does have a way, again, of taking a multi-dimensional person, turning them one-dimensional and having everybody believe that they know everything about them. And generally, it's just wrong. And, you know, people don't care about the cost of being wrong about that, which is an issue.

• 21:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, and people are people are scared to have differing opinions than than the hive that is around them. I mean, for real, like, as much as Trump supporters talk about, oh, cancel culture, you know, left-wing group think, a lot of them like are scared to have different opinions from like the Trump crowd. I mean, if someone in there, they they don't really have disagreements. I feel like they'd be scared to be like, I actually do support abortion or like, there's tons of shit that they would not be able to like say without being ridiculed and ostracized from their community. And we're like, that's why I like That's why all these like gentrifier like white people are so scared of like not not appearing like as radical as possible like you know what I mean like in San Francisco and Seattle.

• 22:27Alex Kantrowitz?

  Oh, there's a disconnect there for sure.

• 22:29Speaker 01

  They just want to like they they feel so guilty about what they're doing because the deep down they know like in places like Bushwick and the Mission District and and West Oakland, the people who are moving in and gentrifying the area, they know like what they're doing. So they feel like they have to be like super hardcore on social media with the infographics and with the just trying to look as hardcore as possible. It's crazy, man. And ah, man.

• 22:53Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, we talked about that in some degree in this show where the Democrat coalition right now is, you know, in some ways, the people working in Amazon fulfillment centers, you know, who are who are judged by automated systems and fired, you know, if they have too much time off task, they're voting in blocks together with the people who they're delivering packages to. And something about that feels unsustainable.

• 23:19Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah, I agree.

• 23:21Alex Kantrowitz?

  What have you learned about the American people? I mean, one of the interesting things that I find, again, talking about how people are complex, people are multifaceted. It's interesting how often people contradict themselves on your on your videos. So it when in your new channel, it's called Channel Five with Andrew Callaghan, you can watch it on YouTube. You went to a White Lives Matter rally and you asked some guy, you know, what's a great white food? And he goes fish tacos, totally unironically, you know, not understanding, come on, this isn't Mexican food. And then there was somebody at the you went to the courthouse with the while the Derek Chauvin trial was going on. And

• 24:02Alex Kantrowitz?

  there was somebody who told you, they told you, I am against the prison industrial complex, but I want Derek Chauvin to rot in jail for the rest of his life. So I'm kind of curious what you learned about the American people and their their complexities.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I don't even know. Like, I wish I could tell you, like, I I I just I document so much and I travel so frequently that I've never really had a moment to uh sit down and think about a lot of this stuff. I mean, I think that like after I'm done filming for like in six more months, I think I'm just gonna like go into the desert with like a little laptop, like a Dell laptop and just write about all the things that I don't know. It's it's hard for me to process. I'm twenty four. I've been doing this since I was twenty, you know, and

• 24:49Speaker 01

  yeah, man, there's so much going on, so many different currents running through, but

• 24:54Speaker 01

  I will say that uh people seem afraid to connect with one another, you know. It's feel I feel like propagated by news media and social media. There's just this people are just are trying to get one one another to demonize the other side of the political spectrum so bad. And it's so sad because the real life implications really mean disunity. You know, and I know that we weren't ever really unified. Why does it have to be fifty fifty? It doesn't make any sense. Like, I'm not I'm not trying to sell you conspiracy theories, but why is it like this?

• 25:28Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. Well, I also want to ask Yeah, I want to ask you a question because you you're you're among the people. How you know, we've talked a lot about how you know, we can blame the news and we can blame social media, but how much of this is people's responsibility on their own? You know, it's at the end of the day, it's not the social platforms or the news uh media that's making statements or, you know, demonizing each other. Although I guess they play into it, but oftentimes we end up getting sucked into it. Not you and I. Um, but you know, the people and I'm curious, you know, is there a level of personal responsibility here as well?

• 26:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I think there definitely is, is, you know, and I think about that all the time. You know, are are you were to just are you supposed to just say that people have very poor information literacy? Or are you supposed to say that they are bigoted and they're just dumb? Or they are? I don't really know. I think it varies from person to person. I mean, I think certain people certainly are hateful and they latch on to hateful ideology that that they because they don't like people. But I also think that most people think they're doing the right thing. In the world, most Trump supporters think that they're saving America. Most people in the streets, like rioting and destroying shit, believe that they are ultimately

• 26:42Speaker 01

  creating a sort of space for conversations that will better the country. I think there is, I just don't think there's that much hate. I think that there is a lot of brainwashing, but I think people, people in their day to day actions think that they're doing the right thing. Everyone, not everyone, but I would say maybe eighty to ninety percent of people do believe that they are doing something that will be for the common good eventually.

• 27:07Alex Kantrowitz?

  Is there's anything that gives you hope?

• 27:09Speaker 01

  No.

• 27:11Alex Kantrowitz?

  Just flat out, no? Okay.

• 27:15Alex Kantrowitz?

  Wow. So where do you think this goes?

• 27:18Speaker 01

  I don't know, man, but I'll be there.

• 27:20Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, you for sure will. Okay, why don't we take a quick break and then I'd like to talk to you a little bit about your new channel. This episode is brought to you by App Point. Everyone's racing to roll out AI right now. Co-pilots, chatbots, agents doing real work. But here's the part nobody loves talking about. All that AI runs on your data, and most teams have no single way to see it, secure it, and prove it's under control. That's exactly what App Point does. For twenty-five years, they've been the trusted layer beneath the world's most demanding data, now extended across your entire AI estate. Your data, your cloud, and the agents acting on your behalf. It's how more than twenty-eight thousand organizations deploy AI with confidence.

• 28:06Alex Kantrowitz?

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• 28:28Alex Kantrowitz?

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• 29:13Alex Kantrowitz?

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• 29:28Alex Kantrowitz?

  And we're back for the second half of the Big Technology Podcast with Andrew Callahan of Channel 5 with Andrew Callahan. Andrew, welcome back for the second half.

• 29:38Speaker 01

  Thanks. Glad to be back.

• 29:39Alex Kantrowitz?

  I want to talk a little bit about the business side of things and what it's like for someone like you who's just starting out and sort of the potential landmines you might encounter. So we talked a little bit in the first half about your relationship with Doing Things Media. They gave you $45,000 a year salary. They gave you the RV and they said, "Go have at it." And why don't you pick up the story from there?

• 30:04Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, first, I just want to say that I have no problem with Doing Things Media. You know, I don't want people to go out and say, "Fuck them," or whatever. It's like, just follow what I'm doing next. Because at the end of the day, yes, I signed a really shitty full-management deal that limited my creative freedom. Not creative freedom, yeah, fucking limited my freedom as an individual. Everything I did was owned by someone else for a long period of time. And even to this day, I can never access any of it. It's not mine. I put my heart and soul into something for two years, and still someone else owns it and someone who I have disagreements with and I'm not friends with.

• 30:37Alex Kantrowitz?

  So they own all gasoline brakes?

• 30:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 30:39Alex Kantrowitz?

  What does "everything" mean?

• 30:41Speaker 01

  Everything I've ever done during those two years, they own.

• 30:45Alex Kantrowitz?

  Wow. Doesn't extend beyond all gas, no brakes, or?

• 30:49Speaker 01

  I mean, that's all I did for two years. So maybe if I would have made a song and put it on YouTube, they'd have it too, but you know, they had everything. So yeah, they gave me the RV.

• 30:59Speaker 01

  Let me do whatever I want. I mean, experience wise, up until things really took off, it was fantastic. You know, it was almost fully funded by Patreon for a long time. What was your question?

• 31:11Alex Kantrowitz?

  My question is, yeah, what ended up unfolding with your relationship with them? Okay. And why are you on your own now?

• 31:18Speaker 01

  So basically, you know, it was great for a long time. I wasn't getting any percent of the profits from Patreon, YouTube, merch, anything, up until the show went into, out of the red and into the black or the green. The show started making money about six, seven months into it. So for a while, it was them coming out of pocket. They took a gamble in the first place, started succeeding, started coming in. So then they offered me a, you know, 20%. Bear in mind, I was producing the show almost entirely by myself, filming, researching, editing. They were just assisting with, you know, some feedback here and there, but mostly merchandise,

• 31:59Speaker 01

  customer support is what they offered. And obviously promotions through their various pages. They repost me and that would drive traffic to the all gas, no brakes page. So after a long time, you know, things took off. I was only making 20%, but I was happy with that because we were making a hundred thousand dollars a month on Patreon and the merch drops would make coupled 250,000 in a day on a merch drop. So for me-

• 32:24Alex Kantrowitz?

  Were you selling merch wise? Were you like selling replicas of your big suit or?

• 32:28Speaker 01

  No, it was mostly t-shirts, hoodies, action figures, stickers, that kind of stuff. So dude, I was making like 25,000 a month. You know what I mean? So from where I was standing, I was like, dude, this is awesome. I mean, I was 22 years old and I was like, this is great. You know, I didn't need more. Then I would say around last November, December.

• 32:50Speaker 01

  We started working on a movie and uh this movie hasn't been announced yet, but it's with absolutely, which is Tim and Eric's production company, plus a couple of other partners have yet to announce the movie, but I'm excited to announce it. But I was work started working on the movie, started working on the movie and that that required, you know, seven days a week. I had to work on that movie all the time. We had a new RV. I mean, we had no free time.

• 33:13Alex Kantrowitz?

  Was it like a long form format of what you were doing for YouTube?

• 33:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, a little more upgraded, a little more serious, a little more political, but it'll be announced soon. We'll talk about that when we get there, you know, because I can't say much without being under fire.

• 33:27Speaker 01

  The movie, people, people were really selective. So basically, uh, I'm working seven days a week doing this movie. And of course, the movie is going to come out in a year or something like that. That means I can't make as much content for Instagram and YouTube and Patreon. So that means doing things media got less money. Patrons started dropping, views started dropping, simply because I could not make any more content. I was too busy. I was overworked beyond belief. After two years on the road, segueing directly into a seven day shoot schedule for a movie.

• 34:01Speaker 01

  You know, and I'm only telling, I'm only saying this all because, you know, these details leaked in the New York Times and everything like that. I don't want to disparage the company, but uh, you know, they started pressuring me more and more to make capital C content, make this, make that. So I said to them, hey, listen, man, I'll make more content, but I need more money at this point. I mean, you know, I was happy with 20% when I was living on the road, but I'm working on a movie full time. If you want me to work two jobs, I can't be getting this low amount of money for, you know, and plus their partners on the movie. So I'm like, I'm making money for you. And they explained that, you know, it was more lucrative.

• 34:35Alex Kantrowitz?

  Were you getting paid anything extra for the, for the movie?

• 34:38Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, but you know, nothing like I was making for the digital show, but for me, it's not about the money.

• 34:43Alex Kantrowitz?

  It's amazing, by the way, that the YouTube was and Patreon was making more than a feature film.

• 34:47Speaker 01

  Right, but that maybe the future film will make more money when it's released, but at this point, I mean, I was making, I didn't care about the money, man. It was a passion project for me and making a movie with Tim and Eric. I was like, this is amazing. I mean, I want to devote all the time that I have to this, you know, and the digital show, obviously I love it, but I've been doing it for years. Um, I don't. I don't know. I wanted more if I was gonna be twenty percent is not good, man.

• 35:10Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, it's not about getting rich. It's about being compensated fairly for the work that you're doing.

• 35:14Speaker 01

  Right, and twenty percent is not fair. So I said, hey, I, you know, I'm happy to keep making the show, but I, I need more. I needed something like fifty. They said, nope. Uh, things got, they just wouldn't budge on that. And, uh, you know, so I, I stopped making digital content. I, I stopped, but I also really couldn't. I mean, I could if I tried super hard, but I mean, I don't would need to be compensated fairly and incentivized to do that, which I wasn't. So I'm, you know, making the movie all the time and I'm not making content. And, uh, you know, eventually they fired my two best friends, Nick and Evan, who started the show with me and filmed, you know, remember they fired them and then I was like, I got out of my contract and then they

• 35:59Speaker 01

  told me that if I didn't produce two pieces of content by a certain date that I would be fired. And they'd find a replacement host to carry on what I built. And, uh, yeah, I just got, got terminated. And that was it.

• 36:13Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. And I mean, I looked at the page before we recorded, there hasn't been a single video on All Gas No Brakes after you left.

• 36:20Speaker 01

  Right.

• 36:21Alex Kantrowitz?

  I don't think you're easily replaceable, Andrew. I think you have some real talent and, uh, it's difficult to, you know, just substitute anybody in and try to have them, you know, immediately adopt the format.

• 36:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I was trying to say that, but you know, you know, I, in a way, you know, for a long time it was really painful, you know, to not to be so disconnected from something that I, when I walk in the street, people will look at me and they say, All Gas No Brakes. And it became like a second name for me.

• 36:50Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 36:50Speaker 01

  And just to know that that's something that I worked so hard on and put everything into that is not mine and ever will be. It was hard, but it gave me more incentive to be like, okay, now I'm gonna make my own thing. Using some of the e-commerce knowledge that I learned from working with doing things media and at All Gas No Brakes. To make a sustainable, completely independent show. So now like. We're fully like I own one hundred percent of the the rights and the masters to everything that we make and everything goes back.

• 37:16Alex Kantrowitz?

  At Channel Five.

• 37:18Speaker 01

  At Channel Five, yeah.

• 37:19Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right, and I I love the I did love the title All Gas No Brakes because essentially it's let me put a microphone in front of somebody's face and just let them go all gas and I won't put the brakes on on like typical news, so.

• 37:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally, and I I like Channel Five even more though because it's like it's it's kind of an evolution of what we were doing like I'm not trying to make a bunch of videos of people screaming anymore. I want to like have like a news vibe to it.

• 37:41Alex Kantrowitz?

  Exactly.

• 37:42Speaker 01

  I'm gonna get a news van like a decal old school NBC van.

• 37:45Alex Kantrowitz?

  Oh, amazing.

• 37:46Speaker 01

  I'm gonna I'm gonna like change up my outfit a little bit, get like rain jackets with Channel Five on them. Like I got a lot of stuff planned to make it feel different. A lot of the videos right now are just kind of like all gas no brakes videos because I'm just trying to like retain the whole audience and bounce back, but I'm gonna try a bunch of new shit. I'm gonna do streaming and like TikTok and all that.

• 38:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, it wasn't lost on me, by the way, that the name moved to Channel Five because I saw that and I was like, oh, Andrew wants to do, you know, more news and I think that's a good direction. I love how you you run by another news a reporter and you go, hey, are you Channel Six? We're Channel Five.

• 38:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, in the Miami video, yeah.

• 38:20Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, and so so you when did when was the termination from doing?

• 38:27Speaker 01

  Uh, I think it was last March.

• 38:29Alex Kantrowitz?

  And so you pretty quickly ended up getting your crew back together. Are you working with your friends again?

• 38:35Speaker 01

  Well, they're my best they're my best friend.

• 38:37Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 38:38Speaker 01

  The people who made All Gas No Brakes, we lived together and we were best friends since we were kids. So it's like firing them isn't gonna do anything and like we are we are the heart of that show and we will be the heart of whatever we do next. So.

• 38:52Alex Kantrowitz?

  You're working together again.

• 38:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, lesson learned, but lesson had to be learned. I mean, I don't blame doing things media at all. I have nothing I have nothing against those.

• 39:02Alex Kantrowitz?

  No doubt. Well, it it does. I mean, you know, I think it's classy of you to to say that, but it also this goes to show sort of what it's like to go out and start and the different road roadblocks that could occur for someone who's talented and wants to go out and make it on YouTube.

• 39:20Speaker 01

  Right, and there's no checks and balances when it comes to the ownership and management of all these new digital platforms. Like you see all these TikTok kids get exploited way, way worse than I did.

• 39:29Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 39:29Speaker 01

  I mean, it's not like the the movie industry where you have overtime sheets and you have stuff to really compensate you. You can be worked to death if you're owned by a Instagram talent management company. I was not worked to death. I I worked myself to death. You know what I mean? They didn't they didn't make me do anything.

• 39:46Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 39:46Speaker 01

  Creative wise, they let me do whatever I want, you know, but they are a company and they have to make money. And they make money by other people making, like I said, capital C content. And I think that that that idea that art and creation is another person's capital C content income creates a fundamental problem for independent creators.

• 40:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. And so, so tell me a little bit about how you get the crew back together. So you called your friends up and said, I want to do this, this, you know, something similar. Uh, but on our own without a management company. And then, you know, I imagine you're going to have to get cameras and a new van. So how does that operation come together without the support of an established company? I guess you

• 40:27Speaker 01

  Well, we already

• 40:27Alex Kantrowitz?

  Some of your personal money into it.

• 40:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, the thing is, we already had a lot of money. We had some money left over. I probably had like fifteen thousand dollars left over by the time all gas and the brakes ended. So we just went to B and H Photo in New York, which is a really awesome store everyone should check out. It's in Midtown. It's amazing. And we just spent ten thousand dollars. We got cameras, microphones, and it wasn't like I even had to call up. They're sitting right next to me. And they were like, let's, let's do this. And then we booked the flight to Miami and just got it in probably a month or two later.

• 40:58Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. And that's your first video on Channel Five is of Miami Spring Break.

• 41:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 41:04Alex Kantrowitz?

  It is amazing what happens when you put a microphone in front of those spring breakers. They do self-incriminate quite quickly.

• 41:10Speaker 01

  They really just go for it. Can't stop them.

• 41:13Alex Kantrowitz?

  They do. And so I think one of the interesting things is that you were able to build back your following fairly quickly. You look at All Gas No Brakes YouTube page is followed by one and a half, 1.7 million people. I last check, I had Channel 5 is over 500,000 people that have followed you.

• 41:32Speaker 01

  Right around 500,000. It's been a month and a half. So yeah, I think it was a pretty, pretty good comeback, given what we.

• 41:37Alex Kantrowitz?

  Oh, my God. Yeah, it's amazing. How, what was it like to see everybody start to come to your new channel? I mean, I recently discovered it, but I imagine you to the YouTube algorithm had, you know, played some role in getting people back to it, but it.

• 41:52Speaker 01

  Dude, I'm not even gonna lie. It wasn't even the YouTube algorithm. YouTube has been like censor. I don't know. People just saw what happened to me and they wanted to see what I, what I. People were like rooting for me like an underdog. They wanted to see what I would do next. And I, you know, I wasn't gonna lose.

• 42:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. And so with the new channel, are you, are you making money on it now? Or what's your, what's your plan? Or you're making ad money? Is there any other way that you're?

• 42:16Speaker 01

  No, no. All of our stuff demonetized. We only make money through Patreon.

• 42:20Alex Kantrowitz?

  Wait, you're demonetized through YouTube?

• 42:22Speaker 01

  I mean, most of our videos get demonetized. Yeah.

• 42:25Alex Kantrowitz?

  And that's, that's where YouTube says basically this video goes against some of our standards. We're not gonna allow creators.

• 42:31Speaker 01

  That's almost every video we have ever made is been demonetized. YouTube.

• 42:34Alex Kantrowitz?

  I mean, I, I think that some of the things that people say in the videos are ridiculous, but it doesn't mean that you're going out and reporting on them should be demonetized.

• 42:43Speaker 01

  Our first video.

• 42:45Alex Kantrowitz?

  Something that's not brand safe.

• 42:47Speaker 01

  That first video Miami Beach Spring Break was taken down for medical misinformation for an entire week because someone said fuck COVID.

• 42:54Alex Kantrowitz?

  What?

• 42:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. And because they didn't want to get vaccinated, it got taken down for a whole week.

• 42:58Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. There was a whole group of people saying they didn't want to get vaccinated. It's like, if these social media, I mean, I, I understand, look, I understand where social media companies sometimes need to draw the line. But the thing is, when you don't allow viewpoints to be represented, you just play into the conspiracy theories that, you know, that, you know, and have people go, like you mentioned, to places that are even worse and more group think oriented. And then you, you end up creating an even bigger problem.

• 43:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's like, you know, QAnon came from 8chan. People only went to 8chan because 4chan started censoring the political boards.

• 43:36Alex Kantrowitz?

  Hmm.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  You try, if you follow the rabbit hole into the, the internet's darkest, most unhinged conspiratorial corners.

• 43:44Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 43:45Speaker 01

  You can trace places along the way they got censored and, and basically kicked off of different social media platforms.

• 43:53Alex Kantrowitz?

  But Andrew, even the creator of, of 8chan wants 8chan to be moderated in some way.

• 43:59Speaker 01

  Right. I agree with that.

• 44:01Alex Kantrowitz?

  All right, Andrew, let's wrap on this. We talked a little bit about how social media has, you know, divided people, media has, but it's also, um, the social media algorithms in particular have helped you, you know, reach so many people with your message, which is different. So, you know, I'm curious how you think about that, you know, do these social media algorithms have a point of view, given that they've helped you rise? Or, um, you know, are we now finding that they actually do have some room for some more nuanced takes on what's going on in the world?

• 44:31Speaker 01

  That's a good point. I mean, I think that social media knows what you like, obviously, like, I, I think that's how it's helped me, you know, especially because I started pretty non-politically with entertaining content. I think people that like similar stuff like maybe Sacha Baron Cohen or Nathan Fielder or Daily Show stuff, there'd be, or Tim and Eric or whatever would be kind of directed my way based upon their preferences. So in that way, I think the social media algorithm is great because it allows you to find so much stuff that you think is hilarious that you may have otherwise not been able to find or have access to. Like I, I'm happy for the algorithm and the way that it's made me been able to find other creators and link with people across the world. Like, I, I don't think social media is bad. I think that when you get locked in a social media news bubble and become politicized, that's when it's bad.

• 45:14Speaker 01

  And I think that's when the algorithm needs to be worked on. Otherwise it's very helpful and you could say transcendent.

• 45:20Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, for sure. And that's a, that's a word I would use to describe your show. So thank you again for making it. It's, uh, you can find it by searching on YouTube, Channel 5 with Andrew Callaghan.

• 45:31Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, you can. So, yeah, Channel 5, uh, on Patreon also. Five bucks a month is where we post all of our stuff early. And if you want to fund the project, get some uncut, uncensored episodes, you can check it out there. But for most stuff, yeah, just YouTube. Channel 5 with Andrew Callaghan.

• 45:49Alex Kantrowitz?

  Terrific. Well, Andrew, it's always great to talk. Thank you for being a friend of the show, friend of Big Technology, and I can't wait to see what you do in the future. It's been wild so far, and I think you're really hitting a nerve, so.

• 46:01Speaker 01

  Thank you. I appreciate you having me on, man.

• 46:04Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, looking forward to seeing what's next.

• 46:06Speaker 01

  All right, till next time, my friends.

• 46:07Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, all right. Thanks, everybody, for listening. Thanks to Nate Guatney for doing the editing, Road Circle for hosting, and selling the ads. We will see you next week here on the Big Tech Podcast. Bye, Andrew.

• 46:29Speaker 02

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