Vikkstar: What It Really Took to Build The Sidemen (we didn’t plan for anyone to leave)

Vikkstar opens up about the extraordinary rise of the Sidemen, the relentless work that built his YouTube career, and what happens when the group you built your life around begins to change. He reflects on KSI’s departure, the future of the Sidemen, and why they never really had an exit plan. Vik looks back on going from a quiet teenager who never felt like he fitted in to turning down a place at UCL and spending up to 16 hours a day making videos. He reveals how YouTube became his entire identity, why he sometimes went days without speaking to anyone in real life, and how seven gamers accidentally created one of the biggest creator groups in the world. He also speaks candidly about living with Crohn’s disease, the reality of having an incurable condition, and the impact years of relentless work had on his health and perspective. Vik reflects on criticism, success, money and the point at which he realised he needed a life beyond views, uploads and Vikkstar123. From scoring at Wembley after being the kid nobody picked for football to building businesses alongside the Sidemen, this is a conversation about obsession, friendship, reinvention and the hidden cost of turning your childhood hobby into your whole life. Vikkstar, We Need To Talk This episode includes discussion of mental health. If you’re struggling, remember you’re not alone. You can find help and resources at the links below: MIND: https://linkly.link/2dx8b Samaritans: https://linkly.link/2dx7Z CALM: https://linkly.link/2dx8H Follow us here: https://www.instagram.com/needtotalk https://www.tiktok.com/@weneedtotalkpod Sign up to our newsletter https://linkly.link/2eXHX Follow Vikkstar here: https://www.instagram.com/vikkstar https://www.tiktok.com/@vikkstar (00:00) Intro(02:18) Upbringing in Sheffield(09:39) Vikkstar’s Pet Duck(15:58) Identity as a Teenager(17:03) How Vikkstar Started Making Gaming Videos on YouTube(21:48) Why Vikkstar Started Appearing on Camera(23:31) Realising YouTube Could Become a Business(31:25) Shopify Ad(32:27) Reality of Growing a YouTube Channel(42:35) Paul Shows Vikkstar a Photo of The Sidemen(43:42) How The Sidemen Were Formed(49:28) The Sidemen's Goals and How They've Changed Over Time(53:14) What It Was Really Like Living in the Sidemen House(01:00:17) Dealing With Online Criticism(01:04:31) Inside The Sidemen Business Empire(01:08:50) How The Sidemen Handle Disagreements(01:12:23) The Sidemen's Latest Projects(01:17:00) Vikkstar's Music and DJ Career(01:23:50) Struggle With Crohn's Disease(01:33:32) Proposed Social Media Ban for Under-16s(01:36:18) Future Goals(01:38:01) Advice to His Younger Self(01:40:27) Most Memorable Conversation(01:43:23) Paul's Takeaways Sponsored by: Shopify: www.shopify.co.uk/needtotalk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

• 0:02Speaker 00

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• 1:00Speaker 02

  I have to ask you, obviously, about KSI leaving.

• 1:02Speaker 03

  At one point, we said, if one of us leaves, does that end the Sidemen? How long until this bubble bursts? Goes to show how powerful the crew can be. Legacy.

• 1:11Speaker 04

  Ultimately. This is honestly the hardest video I've ever had to make in my life.

• 1:17Speaker 02

  So you were Vic Star?

• 1:18Speaker 03

  One, two, three.

• 1:19Speaker 02

  One, two?

• 1:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, because Vic Star was taken by some girl called Vicky. She got the YouTube channel first. I'd be recording in this call with everyone, talking, having fun. Stop, turn off my computer. I'd be like just sat in my bedroom. I haven't spoken to anyone in the real world in days. But then I came to know the Sidemen. And we're seeing, if you want to go somewhere fast, go alone. If you want to go somewhere far, go together.

• 1:40Speaker 02

  But you must see the comments, and it must make an impact.

• 1:43Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:44Speaker 02

  But before we get to that, there's always tension in groups. How do you manage that tension?

• 1:50Speaker 03

  You can't see the illness. You can't measure the illness. But I was hospitalized. And there was a Sidemen video. We'd been running around filming all day. I'm just like, I'm in pieces.

• 1:59Speaker 02

  You've clearly become very successful. What do you believe you still have to prove, and to whom?

• 2:13Speaker 02

  Look, pause with me for just a second. Now, whether you've been with us every single week since day one or you just drop in when a guest catches your eye, I see you. I truly appreciate you. Every comment, every share, every time you show up, it matters. We're building a really special community here. If you want to support what we're doing without spending a penny, please, just take a second and click the subscribe button. It costs nothing, but it signals to the world that these conversations matter. Thank you for being on this journey with us. Now, let's get started.

• 2:53Speaker 02

  How would you characterize Sheffield for anyone who has not visited?

• 2:59Speaker 03

  Oh, that's a good question. It's very English. And it's smaller than London. So if people have been to London, you kind of get this idea that all of the UK is this huge sprawling city. But Sheffield was quite small. It felt, yeah, quite homely. The Peak District is nearby, which was beautiful. It was, yeah, it was a nice place to grow up.

• 3:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. I tell you what stands out to me about Sheffield is, I went, you probably know this place too, is, oh my gosh, I should have, it's a, it was like Fork or Spoon Hall or something along those lines, was it?

• 3:34Speaker 03

  Spoon Hall, in the city center.

• 3:36Speaker 02

  In the city center?

• 3:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, because they used to make all the cutlery, the steel, yeah, in, in the city center. So, yeah, I know where you're talking about, but I don't think that's the exact name, but I can't think what it is. But it's something to do with cutlery. Cutlass, Cutlass Hall.

• 3:49Speaker 02

  Cutlass Hall, yeah. That's what it is, yeah.

• 3:53Speaker 03

  There you go.

• 3:53Speaker 02

  And what blew me away was that was where, that was the epicenter of cutlery.

• 3:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:59Speaker 02

  In all of England.

• 4:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, Sheffield Steel's very, very famous, so.

• 4:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:03Speaker 03

  There you go.

• 4:04Speaker 02

  Yeah. So then, how do you believe that that history, right, impacted the community and the people who were there and their characteristics?

• 4:16Speaker 03

  Interesting, yeah. I think, that's a, people, they're almost like very, you know, salt-of-the-earth people. They just, everyone was quite genuine. They say the further north you go in England, kind of the more people will tell you stuff as it is. So I feel like you got a lot of that. Sometimes, you know, places were a little rough around the edges in that kind of slightly more northern way, a little less polite and reformed. Then things are down in London, less expectations of that. But, yeah, good people, friendly people. I had a good time there, yeah.

• 4:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. I thoroughly enjoyed it. And to your point is, I felt like there was a little bit more, I'm gonna tell you how it is.

• 4:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:54Speaker 02

  But I'm going to do it with a smile.

• 4:56Speaker 03

  Yeah. I remember when I first moved to Sheffield, I found it really difficult because I had to go to a new school, had to fit in. Everyone spoke differently. I distinctly remember them having different slang.

• 5:09Speaker 02

  Ah, okay.

• 5:09Speaker 03

  So in Sheffield, in, so I grew, I was born in Guildford, was there until I was kind of six or seven, moved to Sheffield. And it was the strangest piece of slang I remember is in Sheffield, they call an alleyway a genel.

• 5:23Speaker 03

  Right? Isn't that not just, you can't even think how they got to that slang term. But that was one that stuck out to me. And it just is so different to the word. When people would say it, I had no idea what they were talking about. So I remember the first few years that I was in Sheffield, it was kind of this, a bit of a shock. I'm like, okay, everyone's a bit different here. It's my first time in life experiencing change.

• 5:42Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 5:43Speaker 03

  So that was difficult. And I think possibly kind of knocked my confidence a lot. I went from being a very chatty kid to moving to Sheffield. And it was like, okay, it's different here. I don't really know what I'm doing. But as the years went on, I definitely kind of learned to, you know, understand people better. I developed a Sheffield accent. If you go to my early YouTube videos, I have the broadest northern accent, which is hilarious.

• 6:07Speaker 02

  So you think that your accent, though, has shifted over the years?

• 6:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, and then it shifted back pretty quickly after I started YouTube because I realized that people across the world watching the content, they wouldn't understand if I was using Sheffield slang and had that Sheffield accent. It's, yeah, it's funny. And I also was making a lot of videos with people from all over the world. There are people in Canada, people in Australia through gaming online.

• 6:31Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 6:32Speaker 03

  I had to make sense to them. So it was very quickly reverted back to the, to, yeah, I guess, neutral English. I wouldn't say I have a particular accent now. It's more southern, but it's just kind of neutral English.

• 6:45Speaker 02

  It's neutral English. It's interesting because I could hear the northern.

• 6:48Speaker 03

  Really?

• 6:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, I could, yeah.

• 6:50Speaker 03

  That's good, because most people can't.

• 6:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, I could hear, I could hear just a little bit up in there, yeah. And so, and I didn't realize that. So I didn't realize that you were, you were not born in Sheffield.

• 7:00Speaker 03

  No.

• 7:00Speaker 02

  But you moved there, you say, when you were six or seven?

• 7:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, six or seven, yeah.

• 7:03Speaker 02

  Okay. And how does that, you think, impact you, right? Because I remember moving when I was younger. Like, I moved from Jamaica, Queens to Long Island, which is outside New York. And then we moved from there to Virginia. And I remember how challenging it was, at least for me, to make my way into the social circle.

• 7:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:28Speaker 02

  So what was the impact to you?

• 7:29Speaker 03

  I would say it's something that I never really, truly recovered from, in a sense, of those years at school. I never felt like I properly fit in. But then maybe that's me as a person, which is also fine.

• 7:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. You know, I found that, I mean, you've clearly become very successful as an entrepreneur.

• 7:48Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 7:48Speaker 02

  I mean, extraordinarily successful as an entrepreneur. Let's just call it what it is. And we're going to talk about that. But I have found that most of the incredibly successful just people, whether it be in entrepreneurship, music, whatever it may be, is that typically there's this feeling of not feeling enough at a young age.

• 8:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:16Speaker 02

  You know, and there's, and then there's a drive that comes from that. So if you tap into that, what do you believe it was for you at a young age that you were not getting or feeling that then compelled you forward?

• 8:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think there was a degree of that in, you know, not being the most kind of popular person. You're always sat there thinking like, how could, as a kid, you're like, how can I be more popular? What can I do? And nothing really worked. And I think maybe that was part of the drive. But also, I think, honestly, I got lucky. I found that my hobby could become a job, and no one really understood that at that point. So I was lucky to, one, have this gaming and online world as kind of my escape from the day-to-day life and this place where I could reinvent myself as anyone. And then also the fact that I was sharing the videos and discovered other people online were watching the videos. It gave me this new, exciting project to pursue. But, I mean, I guess there was that drive, but it was never in my head formalized as a drive.

• 9:18Speaker 03

  It was just, hey, this is fun, this is cool. I'm gonna keep trying to do this and do this better. And that was it.

• 9:22Speaker 02

  Okay, okay. So then, before you even put a camera on yourself or your, or audio, right? When did you start gaming?

• 9:31Speaker 03

  Gaming, from longer than I can remember ago. Because I've got two older brothers. So video games, growing up, Nintendo 64, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Pokemon, GoldenEye, all these games. I was playing them. My older brothers would play them, so I would always want to be involved. And I guess the funny part is that they would never want me on their team. And they're playing like split screen. And that probably gave me another drive. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna get good at these games. And now I think either of them, I beat them, any day, any game.

• 10:02Speaker 02

  Now you're like, yeah. But that's interesting, though. So as the little brother, you want to play with them. You want to be on their team. And they're like, nah.

• 10:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. He has to go on your team for this game, like, yeah.

• 10:13Speaker 02

  Okay. So now, it's age 14. I think that becomes this major pivotal point in your life.

• 10:21Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 10:21Speaker 02

  But before we get to that, can I show you a photo?

• 10:24Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 10:25Speaker 02

  All right. So I want you to take a look at this.

• 10:28Speaker 03

  Aha.

• 10:29Speaker 02

  All right, so tell me, roughly, how old are you? What's happening for you right now?

• 10:34Speaker 03

  Good question. I've got, I'm probably maybe like eight or nine years old.

• 10:40Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 10:41Speaker 03

  And I'm holding our infamous pet duck. So, yeah, growing up, I'm not entirely sure why. I think my parents are not entirely sure why. But growing up, we had a pet duck and a pet chicken.

• 10:54Speaker 02

  Really?

• 10:55Speaker 03

  Genuinely, yeah. Strange one to have. I think my parents went to the, to the zoo, uh, to the farm to get rabbits for us, which would have been a sensible pet. And they said, we don't have any rabbits, but we have this duck and this chicken that are basically like the runts of the litter. So the smallest ones in their litter. So they won't be looked after very well in the zoo. Would you like to take them? For whatever reason, my parents said yes, and um, we, we had a pet duck.

• 11:22Speaker 02

  Vic, you had a duck?

• 11:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, called Chocolate, so.

• 11:26Speaker 02

  Okay, okay. Well, now, you know, so uh, so I'm a, I'm a dog dad.

• 11:32Speaker 03

  Same.

• 11:33Speaker 02

  Uh, and, and you know, and I'll hold on to that. And I, I, I think our, you know, they, our pets teach us things.

• 11:39Speaker 03

  So much.

• 11:40Speaker 02

  What, what, what did your duck Chocolate teach you?

• 11:43Speaker 03

  I don't think I was at the right age and I don't think I was really responsible for the duck. Uh, you know, it taught me that they make a complete mess of a patio. Cause you cannot train a duck or a chicken to go to the toilet in one place. You just can't do it. So, yeah, I, I remember I was in down the patio endlessly trying to just keep it clean because they, they do what they want.

• 12:03Speaker 02

  Oh my gosh.

• 12:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:04Speaker 02

  Wow, I, I don't know if I met anyone who had a pet duck. That's pretty cool.

• 12:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's, it's certainly a unique one.

• 12:10Speaker 02

  All right, so you, you mentioned your two older brothers there and your parents.

• 12:14Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 12:14Speaker 02

  What, what would you say at an early age, right? What, what do you learn about love from your parents? And I'm not talking about romantic love, right? I'm just talking about love in general.

• 12:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:27Speaker 02

  Um, and the reason why I ask that, and I ask that often, is because how we perceive love when we are at that age.

• 12:37Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 12:37Speaker 02

  Typically impacts how we then perceive love as an adult.

• 12:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:42Speaker 02

  So how did you view love from your parents at that time?

• 12:47Speaker 03

  It's a good question, really. No one's ever asked me a question anywhere near that. That uh, that requires me to kind of go back that far and think. Cause I guess when you're a kid, you're not even thinking in these, you don't, your thought process is not this. But I think it was very much that they were there for each other. So it was kind of acts of service for each other was their main thing. Making sure that we always were doing the best we could do. That was, that was the main thing that I saw is kind of they were working as a team to make sure that we could thrive as kids the best we could. And that's what I saw, I think.

• 13:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think, I think that's lovely. So you saw that teamwork between them and you did, and you felt like they were working in part for you and your brothers.

• 13:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, okay, okay. That's beautiful. So now, before we get to fourteen, let's stop at thirteen.

• 13:41Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 13:41Speaker 02

  Okay. The reason why I want to stop at thirteen is because, so I have, um, you know, I have a fifteen year old and then I have a twelve year old.

• 13:49Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 13:49Speaker 02

  And I feel like at that twelve, you're really starting for the first time to create an identity for yourself. And I always say, identity is the story we tell about ourselves that we believe. So when you think back to thirteen, what was your identity?

• 14:09Speaker 03

  It's a good question. I would say my identity was, so I loved video games a lot. That was my kind of, my primary passion. It was someone that um, enjoyed excelling at school. I'd been fortunately put in a position where I was able to really excel at school. So that was kind of a bit of a part of my personality at that point, or my identity at that point was that I could succeed in that environment and that was nice. Um, and I was, I was, yeah, my identity was that I was a younger brother. So I had these somewhat cooler, older brothers at the same school. So that was a bit of a part of my identity. There would be teachers who knew them before they knew me.

• 14:52Speaker 03

  So they kind of already had an idea of what I would be like, um, which was interesting.

• 14:56Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 14:57Speaker 03

  Um, and maybe I was possibly a little bit quiet at that point in my life. Which is uh, interesting because I was probably trying to work out what is my identity and a little bit afraid in social settings to put myself out there too much, kind of that fear of perception.

• 15:14Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 15:15Speaker 03

  So.

• 15:15Speaker 02

  And I think what's tough too is when you have older brothers, who you just said, cool older brothers.

• 15:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:21Speaker 02

  So they were cool.

• 15:22Speaker 03

  In my head, yes. In reality, who knows? Someone will probably call on me to go, no. But in my, in my world, in my world, they were. That's the funny part. There will be something, probably watching something like this, who went to school with them.

• 15:38Speaker 02

  They'll be like, they were not.

• 15:39Speaker 03

  I think you got the call. Yeah, you're cool. You're still cool.

• 15:42Speaker 02

  That's hilarious. But, but I, I think that's, that's so important because from your perception, they were. So I think a lot of younger brothers, when you know that you have a cooler, older brother, or at least two of them, you're always trying to be cool.

• 15:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:57Speaker 02

  Right? Uh, did you consider yourself to be cool?

• 16:00Speaker 03

  Probably not, no. I don't think so, just because I wasn't. I think I knew that from that point. Um, I was, I guess I was trying to be, but I don't think I was. And I think I knew I wasn't. And maybe that was, uh, well, I was a little more reserved. And it's, it's like chicken in the egg, almost to be cool, you have to think you're cool and then you become cool. So, you know, maybe that's a, a, a, a life lesson, right?

• 16:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, so interesting because you became very cool.

• 16:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, and very uncool at the same time. And, and I'm okay with that. So I think that's also part of the fun.

• 16:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. So, all right, so, so now, just so I can ask though, what was it about you at thirteen that made you believe you were not cool?

• 16:44Speaker 03

  I wasn't athletic, couldn't play any sports. Growing up, I would say at any point, but especially with going back seventeen years or so. Growing up at that age and not being able to be good at any sport, that's not good. There was not one sport I could do. And I think for some reason it was, everyone, every lunch, every lunch break, everyone plays football. I just never was able to. Um, yeah, so I think that was a big part of it. And also, I think also because I excelled in academic studies, that also was something that was not seen as cool. So I had those two things that I just knew, this is the way it is, this is who I am. It is what it is, kind of situation.

• 17:27Speaker 02

  I get it, I get it. I, I, I think you're, you're painting a good picture, you know, as to what life was like at thirteen.

• 17:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:33Speaker 02

  So, so then let's go into fourteen. Cause this is where I think your life just begins to take a whole nother uh, trajectory.

• 17:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:41Speaker 02

  So at fourteen, you then, is that the first time that you start recording yourself playing video games?

• 17:49Speaker 03

  Yes, it is, yeah.

• 17:50Speaker 02

  Okay. Now, why? What was the purpose?

• 17:54Speaker 03

  Genuinely, it was pretty much to share with some of my other friends I had that also played the same video games. And it was almost this, there wasn't anything in the games to show them. So it was like, oh, I did this, I recorded it, have a look. And they had their own YouTube channel that was actually much bigger than my YouTube channel and they were sharing clips. And it was kind of mostly to share with each other and show things that we were doing that we thought were cool in the game. It could be cool in the gaming world if I wasn't in the real world. That was the idea. And then other people was, other people started watching them, started watching me and it just opened this eye up to, hang on a second, there's people that I don't know, not, I, I sent this video to five friends, eight of them have watched the video.

• 18:39Speaker 03

  And it's just like, who are these three people? This is cool. These are completely unknown people. Let me see if I can make videos more of them we want to watch. It was more of a curiosity and a fascination that led to something that built over time.

• 18:52Speaker 02

  Ah, okay, I see it. So now, did you start though with the camera, with your face on camera? No, it was all.

• 18:57Speaker 03

  No. Yeah, and it's, it's almost funny to think back. I grew up in a time when it was like, protect your identity, do not talk to strangers, do not put your pictures online, do not put videos online, pre any of the social media we have now. Now it's very different. So many kids have phones with front-facing cameras, they start making social media content from a young age. And I think also in a lot of ways, because it's so widely distributed, it feels safer to do that. I think when I grew up, it was kind of be wary of strangers. There wasn't as much monitoring of those situations where kids would end up in bad situations, kind of contacting people they shouldn't have been contacting.

• 19:36Speaker 02

  Got it.

• 19:37Speaker 03

  But that meant that I was originally just the game and a voice, which is also how it was when I was gaming online. Which was quite nice because it almost allowed you to really reinvent your personality. Because I was Vikkstar123, this alias I'd thought up for myself that I thought was cool. And I was just the gaming ability and the voice. That was who I was. And I had all of these friends that I knew from online. Funnily enough, we'll get to it later, I'm sure, but the Sidemen, we all played video games before we met each other as people. And you think, you know, it just goes to show what that can be.

• 20:17Speaker 03

  But um, yeah, I was just, um, yeah, this, this username online when I started gaming.

• 20:23Speaker 02

  How, so how did the, so you were Vikkstar, it was?

• 20:28Speaker 03

  One, two, three.

• 20:29Speaker 02

  One, two.

• 20:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, cause Vikkstar was taken by, by some girl called Vicky. She got the YouTube channel first, so the username.

• 20:36Speaker 02

  So you had to be Vikkstar123?

• 20:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:38Speaker 02

  So how do you believe at, say, fourteen, fifteen, going into fifteen, how was Vikkstar123 different than Vic who went to school every day?

• 20:50Speaker 03

  Very, very different because again YouTube, social media is cool now, was not cool back then. So it was something that again, it would have been another thing for people to go like, they would say to me, they would like, why do you sit in front of a microphone and talk to people on the internet while you play video games? This is weird, man. This is not cool. And it's funny how that changed because kind of by the time I got to my A levels, doing sixth form at school, and all of a sudden my YouTube was a business and there were large numbers of people watching and kind of people would recognise me in public. That's when to the people at school, they were like, oh, I get this. This is actually quite cool. But until that point, that's what they say, right? When you start, everything is embarrassing. You just have to start.

• 21:35Speaker 03

  Because once you get past, you have to go through the embarrassing stage to make it anyway. So I learned that from that point. So yeah, very different people, but I guess they had their similarities because I couldn't, it wasn't acting. I wasn't inventing a persona. It was me on both sides, but maybe even allowed me to put myself out a bit more.

• 21:56Speaker 02

  Exactly. Because that's what I would imagine is that you didn't, you weren't two different people. You were just taking probably characteristics that you had and playing up certain aspects.

• 22:06Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 22:06Speaker 02

  Probably more of the social, front-facing, you know, charismatic attributes.

• 22:12Speaker 03

  That took time. If you watch my old videos, you'll realise that took time before it landed, but it's a skill you have to learn.

• 22:18Speaker 02

  Yes, yes. I mean, I've watched quite a few of your videos and I do think that you have changed. My impression is in confidence.

• 22:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:28Speaker 02

  You know, as you've gone through the years.

• 22:32Speaker 02

  At what point though, did you put the camera, did you put your face on camera?

• 22:37Speaker 03

  It would have been maybe like two thousand and thirteen or fourteen. I did like a little bedroom tour where I showed my setup. Originally shocked people quite a lot because they didn't expect me to look the way I look, which was an interesting time. I think the internet was very unhinged back then. And I think that's also part of why I was scared to put myself out there as a human entity that people could kind of judge rather than just based on a voice and the game I was playing. So it took a lot to do that. And even when I would be doing that, it took a lot of confidence and push from the other side men. So when I started living with them and they were all filming themselves without kind of any embarrassment

• 23:20Speaker 03

  or, you know, any reservations, that inspired me more to be like, okay, I need to be on the camera. People need to know me as a person, not just the game that I'm playing if I want to take this further down the line. That it made sense, but it was, it was super out of my comfort zone. And crazy to think that if I had just at that point said, I'm never going to be on camera. There's absolutely no conceivable, conceivable way I'd have this career now. So out of the comfort zone has to be done.

• 23:50Speaker 02

  There you go. I mean, these are great, just lessons, like life lessons, career lessons. So now going back to before A levels, right? At what point did you go from occasional, or did you go from, I feel like this is, this is fun. I'm Vic Star one, two, three, right? To this could be a business. At what point did you feel like this could actually be even a career?

• 24:17Speaker 03

  It's probably when I signed my first contract with this big American YouTube partner network called Machinima. I don't know if you've ever heard of them.

• 24:26Speaker 02

  No.

• 24:26Speaker 03

  They were one of the very early on the scene in the gaming space. And when we started making videos, you couldn't monetise YouTube videos. That's how early we were. If you think like now everyone wants to be a YouTuber or a content creator as a job. When we started, you literally couldn't put adverts on your videos or get paid.

• 24:44Speaker 02

  Ah, okay.

• 24:44Speaker 03

  So before you could even monetise your own channel, they came and they had their own channel that they had monetised. And they said, we'll pay you if you send your videos to us. We'll post them to our channel and we'll pay you two dollars per thousand views or whatever it was. And I couldn't believe this. I was probably fourteen or fifteen years old at the time, had to get my parents to sign this contract for me as my legal guardians. And at that point, I'm not going to lie, I probably thought I was a bit of a big shot. I was like, hang on a second, got my first, got my first contract. Okay, gonna make a couple of dollars a month. But you know, I think that's, but when that's the point where I realised, hang on a second. This thing I've been doing purely as a fun experiment, someone's going to pay me for this now. Okay.

• 25:29Speaker 03

  This could theoretically be not even a job at that point. I was like, this could be a really good side job. So I'm not going to have to go and get another job somewhere else. I could do this potentially as my side job. That was the idea at that point.

• 25:41Speaker 02

  Wow. So at fourteen, fifteen, you thought, okay, YouTube could be at least a side job.

• 25:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:47Speaker 02

  All right. So now I would imagine you're still doing well at school.

• 25:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:51Speaker 02

  Parents, family think you're going off to university.

• 25:56Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 25:56Speaker 02

  Right?

• 25:58Speaker 02

  But you don't.

• 25:59Speaker 03

  No.

• 26:00Speaker 02

  So walk me back to that because you did quite well at school and your A levels, right?

• 26:07Speaker 03

  Yes. Yeah, yeah, I did. Yeah, really well. That was always the deal with my parents. You can do your YouTube hobby thing, we'll support it, we'll, you know, help you out where they can. I mean, they couldn't, they didn't really understand what I was doing, but they were like, do your thing. They weren't against it. But the trade deal was all the exams, the studies, that can't slip away. So I pretty much also at that point became very unsociable in the real world. Because I was doing all my studies, then I was doing all my YouTube stuff. And I used to run home from school at lunch to set videos to upload or set videos to render out the editing software.

• 26:46Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 26:47Speaker 03

  Because computers and upload speeds were so slow then. If I wanted to post a video every day, I would have to edit it in the evening, set it to export and render all the clips together overnight. Sometimes I'd wake up before school and it would still be going, or it would crash. That was the worst. You'd wake up and the editing software has crashed and you're like, well, okay.

• 27:07Speaker 02

  I gotta go to school.

• 27:08Speaker 03

  Yeah. So you set it to export again, go to school, run back from school at lunch, set the video to upload. And then maybe seven, eight hours later, it would be uploaded. And also during the whole time it was uploading, uploading, the family internet was.

• 27:24Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 27:24Speaker 03

  It was gone. It was completely overloaded by the fact that I was uploading this video. So I couldn't even game and record another video until that process was done. So yeah, I was kind of running around the clock and that made me a little kind of busy with those things. But the deal was do well at school, do your YouTube thing. Keep your, and I think this was one thing my parents always taught me that I think was a good thing is the saying, you know, don't keep all your eggs in one basket. So I was kind of doing the YouTube thing and also keeping my university open. My university options open. So I got a place for natural sciences at UCL,

• 28:04Speaker 03

  which I think would have been really challenging to do. I couldn't decide which science I liked, so I said I'll do all of them. As a degree, which when I went to all the universities to do open days, they were kind of saying, this is going to be tough. You're not on one course here. You go and do modules from three different university courses.

• 28:21Speaker 02

  Right.

• 28:23Speaker 03

  Which I think would have been really tough. And maybe in my head at that point, I was thinking, well, I can just maybe make this YouTube thing work at least for a few years.

• 28:30Speaker 02

  But UCL, so according to what I have seen is UCL, and I wasn't, I wasn't familiar with it, is that consistently ranked as one of the top schools in the world.

• 28:42Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, I think so, yeah.

• 28:43Speaker 02

  Yeah. So you are offered a place.

• 28:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:48Speaker 02

  At UCL. Your parents must, I'm a parent, I would say, you're going to school.

• 28:55Speaker 03

  They did want that. Yeah, they did. Yeah.

• 28:57Speaker 02

  So how did you compel them, convince them otherwise?

• 29:02Speaker 03

  Well, I think it just fortunately for me, it landed at this great time where I could do this gap year. And I was in my head, I was thinking, okay, if I can make some okay money doing this, balancing it with my studies, let me give it one year to really go for it. And it actually worked quite well because I was like, I'm going to put my all in. And it's almost I had that insurance policy. It's, you know, let's say I get nine months into this year. And either one, I don't enjoy doing it anymore. Two, my audience has disappeared and abandoned me because I got boring. Or three, even at that time, it's funny to think, I was sat there looking at it and even my parents are the same. And we were going, okay, so I'm earning money, playing video games and posting it to the internet. How long until this bubble bursts?

• 29:47Speaker 03

  It didn't make sense at that time. You're thinking, okay, you've been doing this for a year or two. It feels a bit too good to be true. When is this all gonna? And I guess theoretically, potentially it could have ended. One of the game publishers could have come in and said, hey, YouTube, you're not allowed to monetise any content on our game. And for me, if it was one of the big games I was covering, theoretically it could have all gone. So that's why I had to keep the options open.

• 30:12Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 30:12Speaker 03

  But luckily the gap year was this perfect way of saying, I'm not saying I'm not going. Just like, give me a year.

• 30:17Speaker 02

  Give me a year just to put my head down on YouTube, right? So now roughly, how much were you making though at that time?

• 30:25Speaker 03

  Oh, I would say probably between like twenty and thirty thousand a year, a year.

• 30:34Speaker 02

  Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Okay.

• 30:36Speaker 03

  Identifiable as a job at that point.

• 30:38Speaker 02

  That, I mean, that's substantial.

• 30:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, definitely.

• 30:41Speaker 02

  That's full-time income for many people. All right. So and you were how old at that time?

• 30:45Speaker 03

  I would have been eighteen, so just finished my A levels, yeah.

• 30:48Speaker 02

  Okay. So now I can also appreciate you not, you saying that I didn't have, you didn't have a social life. Right? Because you were, because at that time.

• 30:57Speaker 03

  It was a full-time job.

• 30:58Speaker 02

  It's a full-time job.

• 30:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:00Speaker 02

  When you reflect back though, do you think you missed out on any of your childhood?

• 31:07Speaker 03

  It's a good question. I'm gonna say no because for who I was, it was what I wanted to be doing. And I think actually maybe I would have ended up chasing something else that wasn't for me had I not had this gaming and online career kind of building for me.

• 31:24Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 31:25Speaker 03

  So I don't feel like one thing, I guess if I had to pick one thing I maybe missed out on, it would have been going to university itself. I never got that experience. I got a completely different experience, which was amazing. But I do, a lot of my friends, I do talk very fondly about their time at university. It's this twilight period between being a kid and being an adult where people have a lot of fun. And actually, again, we'll get to it later. But the only times I've been to universities in the UK now is to DJ. A lot too impressive. And I'm like, I see these people having so much fun. I'm like, I missed this, but it was all worth it.

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• 33:36Speaker 05

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• 34:06Speaker 02

  So then you just go all in, right? Can you talk about what all in is? Because I've had the privilege of talking to folks like Dan TDM, Tommy In It, Tal Yamar, people who have done very well with YouTube. And the commonality, and I know this is your story, too, is that they were relentless in posting.

• 34:29Speaker 03

  You live in it.

• 34:30Speaker 02

  You live it. So describe to us, what was that year like for you?

• 34:35Speaker 03

  It was an interesting year. And at the start, so in terms of just hours, genuinely, we're talking 15, 16 hours every single day, working on something to do with the content, whether that's recording it, whether that's editing it, whether that's speaking with other people, doing content about what is working, what isn't working, how it can be better. I think I was probably posting two or three videos a day.

• 35:02Speaker 02

  A day, okay.

• 35:03Speaker 03

  At this point. And I kind of made a deal with myself when I started the gap year. I said, okay, I'm potentially giving away a great opportunity at university, having a good degree, going and getting a good job. So I said to myself, I'm going to upload a new YouTube video to my main YouTube channel every single day without fail for as long as I possibly can. And I think probably for seven or eight years, maybe a few hours I missed it by, but the cadence of one video every single day, I stuck to that. And that's, and again, I didn't know at the time, but I realize now, that's how you get good at anything. It's reps, putting stuff out, not worrying too much about it being perfect. They say like, build it first, make it perfect later. And that's kind of how it went.

• 35:47Speaker 03

  But it was also great because the space was not so saturated back in 2014, this is. So I could cover loads of different games, genuinely was having fun playing the games and the challenge of making it entertaining to view, doing it with some of my best friends, who I'm still friends with loads of them today.

• 36:05Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 36:06Speaker 03

  Which is great. So while I sit here and say it was every waking hour was working on this YouTube channel, this wasn't against my will. This was like, I love it. I can't wait to find out what's next. That's not to say it wasn't tough at times.

• 36:19Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 36:20Speaker 03

  The biggest challenge was when we would go away on a trip. If I'd go away for four days, I would make double the amount of videos. So I was thinking, I don't want to give these people four days without my content. They're going to go and watch someone else.

• 36:30Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 36:31Speaker 03

  So it was completely, yeah, nonstop. But the thing that was interesting is back in Sheffield, I had a few friends, but they then left to go to university. And I did realize that I was staying up all night, pretty much recording with people in Canada, America, Australia. I'd go to bed as the sun was coming up at 5:00 or 6:00 AM some days because that was how I was recording with people from overseas. You just had to be available and around at those hours. And it would be like, I'd turn off my computer. I'd be in this call with everyone, talking, having fun. I'd like stop, turn off my computer, and I'd be like just sat in my bedroom. And I haven't spoken to anyone in the real world in days that isn't my parents, who

• 37:13Speaker 03

  I'm annoying by yelling into my microphone at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning. I think they put up with a lot of that, honestly.

• 37:19Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 37:21Speaker 03

  So it's almost hilarious when you think back to it. But then the flip side of that was three or four months into my gap year, maybe actually more like four or five months in, I came to know the sidemen, three of them wanted to move out from where they were moving in, from where they were living. So we all moved into a house together and that was probably the most pivotal change. Everything changed at that point.

• 37:45Speaker 02

  Everything changed. All right. So that we definitely have to talk about. But even in that, because I could, you painted a great visual. I could see you yelling into a microphone. The sun is coming up. Your parents have been sleeping.

• 37:57Speaker 03

  Or they're waking up to go to work.

• 37:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're waking up.

• 37:59Speaker 03

  They would see me in the hallway and they would just be like, what are you doing?

• 38:02Speaker 02

  What are you doing, right? So now, help me understand, though. So I mean, your parents are professionals. Your brothers, your older brothers, did they go off to university?

• 38:12Speaker 03

  They're both, yeah. One did computer science and one did medicine, so.

• 38:17Speaker 02

  Okay. And here's Vic.

• 38:19Speaker 03

  I was born to be an academic, but I missed that one.

• 38:20Speaker 02

  But this is what I'm saying. So here's Vic.

• 38:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:24Speaker 02

  Who had an offer to UCL, who now is in his bedroom, probably in his pajamas. What were you wearing?

• 38:31Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, yeah. Probably, yeah, tracksuit bottoms and a t-shirt that I'd been wearing for two days.

• 38:36Speaker 02

  Right? Not even taking a shower, right?

• 38:39Speaker 03

  Honestly.

• 38:40Speaker 02

  What do you truly, did you feel as if your family were on the same page as you? Did they see the vision that you had? Or were you the only one?

• 38:55Speaker 03

  I think they didn't see the vision. And I would often try and explain to them, but I think that's just because it was so, you couldn't have foresight on what the space was going to become. So I had to try and persuade them, this could become this, I could be doing this, I might get this. Parts of it, they just didn't physically understand because it was numbers online. And I think when we started running events like, you know, or when we started running events like meet and greets and our charity football matches, then it became much more tangible to them because it's kind of a visual thing that they could see.

• 39:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:31Speaker 03

  Whereas when it wasn't numbers online, it didn't make so much sense. So they could see I was clearly excited about it and it was, I was earning money from it. So it wasn't a complete waste of my time at that point. So from their point of view, they couldn't see the vision and I often would try and explain it to them. But I think also I was just, fortunately, childishly optimistic about the whole thing. And I think they've lived their whole life of things, things were not always easy for them. So they would look at it and think, can this really go the way he says it's going to go? So they were always there giving that resounding. But it also was good because it gave it this grounding sense of, and it made me also fortunate to be in that position. I was like, I have to keep working in this position.

• 40:15Speaker 03

  I can't say, oh, I'm making some good money. I've made it now, kick my feet up and let it fall apart. It was almost, they'd instilled on me that whatever you do, you have to work hard on it, do it to the best of your ability. That's how you succeed, so.

• 40:28Speaker 02

  Okay, okay. How does? Before you move in with the Sidemen, right? So you're still in the home, you're waking up all the time. Or actually, I don't even know, how many hours are you sleeping at that point?

• 40:39Speaker 03

  Not enough. Probably some nights, five hours, and then some nights I would. The weirdest one that I remember so distinctly is some nights I would end up recording really late because it's going great, these guys are making so many videos, I can't miss out on going to bed while the Americans are recording these big videos. So I'd stay up till sometimes nine AM. I'd go to sleep and I'd be so frazzled, I'd wake up. And in the winter, the sun had set again at like 5:00 PM when I would wake up and be like, it's dark. I'm just gonna go back to sleep. And then I wake up at 10:00 PM. It was not healthy. It was.

• 41:14Speaker 02

  No, no.

• 41:14Speaker 03

  It was a degenerate cycle.

• 41:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, and when you now think about that time period, how did that impact your mental health?

• 41:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, it probably wasn't great. And I realized that maybe eight years into this career that, okay, this is all your life is at the moment. It's chasing these uploads, it's chasing these views, it's chasing these subscribers, this revenue. And I did have to kind of make a big shift in my life to finally step away from that. But the sad reality is also that's how I got to the point where I could make it so successful. It's like the 10,000 hour rule. You have to get to 10,000 hours in something before you've mastered it. I got there very quickly by doing 16 hours of it every single day without fail. So it was a trade off, but one that I did have to change.

• 42:08Speaker 03

  And it wasn't a healthy mindset, but that's not to say I wasn't having fun throughout the whole process and generally very excited and optimistic about it. It just couldn't last long term.

• 42:19Speaker 02

  Okay, and what was it that you were excited about, right? What was it that was lighting you up? Was it the follower count? Was it the money? Was it the access to other people online, you know, that you maybe looked up to? Was it all the above?

• 42:37Speaker 03

  I would, yeah, I'd be lying if I didn't say it was all of the above. All of these things are positive for me and it was almost, it was almost we were proving ourselves in doing this. And I think one thing that was, that has always stuck with me is I remember when I was 17, I went to a gaming event and I'd been covering Call of Duty nonstop at this point. And Call of Duty had this event and technically I was invited to it, but because I wasn't 18, I wasn't able to go to the event to play and record the game. And I was like so devastated that I couldn't like get this really cool access to cover this game that I loved early that everyone else was doing. And there were other situations where we were just desperate to get access to games to make content and we were kind of told no.

• 43:22Speaker 03

  So it was almost exciting every step of the way, saying, hang on, all of these people who said no to us early on, they're turning around, coming back to us, offering us more, wanting our help and kind of value in what we've built. So it was almost a nice part also just to kind of prove people wrong, which I think is kind of what you said is, if you do grow up in a situation where you do feel like you're not appreciated or cool, you want to kind of prove people wrong to a degree, so.

• 43:46Speaker 02

  Yes, yes.

• 43:47Speaker 03

  So that was part of it, yeah.

• 43:48Speaker 02

  Because I can, I can feel along your journeys that there's this hunger.

• 43:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:53Speaker 02

  You know, that I can even still see to this day, you know, exists. And so now, tell me about this. Here's another photo.

• 44:00Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 44:00Speaker 02

  All right, you ready? All right, I want you to tell me about who's in this photo.

• 44:06Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 44:06Speaker 02

  All right. And these guys.

• 44:10Speaker 03

  Ah, the boys. Iconic picture.

• 44:14Speaker 02

  All right, so who's in that?

• 44:15Speaker 03

  This is, this is the Sidemen way back when as genuinely as, we're little kids effectively.

• 44:22Speaker 02

  Exactly. And how old do you think you are in that?

• 44:25Speaker 03

  It's a good question. I was probably either 18 or 19, so this is very shortly after I've moved away from home for the first time and I'm living with these completely, you know, who were at the start unknown guys.

• 44:38Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 44:39Speaker 03

  But we were having, just having fun. It was amazing.

• 44:42Speaker 02

  And you decided, so how did you come about? How did the Sidemen form?

• 44:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, the Sidemen came together pretty much by accident, which is why I think it works so well. We all had our own YouTube channels that we'd all had the kind of, we'd all jumped out of our comfort zone to make ourselves. We'd all seen this, we were all into video games, wanted to put ourselves out there playing them. And then social media started coming onto the scene, 2010, 2011. And the main one we were all about was Twitter back then. That was kind of where you could find the YouTube community at that point. It was, again, very unsaturated, it was just us on there. And we would all follow each other just to kind of, it was, you were watching to see, hey,

• 45:31Speaker 03

  what is everyone else doing in the YouTube scene? Who's doing the same as me? Who could I collaborate with for videos? And so we'd seen each other doing that. And then the big moment without us realizing it was when Grand Theft Auto V came out.

• 45:45Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 45:46Speaker 03

  In 2013, we all decided to start playing the game together just because we thought it'd be fun to make content together. I actually, funnily enough, happened to know a lot about the technical side of YouTube, so all the, how the algorithms worked and how the systems worked and when things broke. People would often be like, Vic, this is broken, how do I deal with it? How do I make this do better? And Josh from the Sidemen happened to be asking me about some YouTube issue where I joined their call. And then for me, the reason I'm in the Sidemen was they said, hey, we're recording some GTA next. Do you want to join? And I said, yes. And we were just recording as independent creators together to all make videos for our own channels.

• 46:31Speaker 03

  And funnily enough, Ethan had made us a Grand Theft Auto crew so we could all just join the lobby together. It was kind of, it wasn't really much more than just a way of all joining the same game. And as a bit of a, bit of a laugh, a bit of fun, he named the crew the Ultimate Sidemen, which is peak English, I'm sure you know.

• 46:50Speaker 02

  It is.

• 46:51Speaker 03

  English, English, you know, you was firing shot at yourself. We're the Sidemen, we're just the ultimate.

• 46:56Speaker 02

  The ultimate Sidemen. You're not the main man.

• 46:58Speaker 03

  No.

• 46:58Speaker 02

  You're the Sidemen.

• 47:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, so he made this GTA crew and that's how we joined the game, thought nothing more of it. And we started making these videos together and people online loved them. They thought that we got on well, they enjoyed what we were doing. And they started commenting under the videos, I love Sidemen GTA videos. When is there gonna be more Sidemen GTA videos? And we, without realizing it, had created a group, a brand effectively. So we just kind of carried on that process. We then went on to meet up in real life at gaming events. Like, okay, we all seemed to get on, we're all, we all had the same mission effectively, but we're all very different people, which is fun because we're learning from each other.

• 47:44Speaker 03

  And that's how it started. And then four of us moved into a house together. The other three guys moved into an apartment building not too far away. And then we transitioned from the video games to the real life cameras, which again, for me, was so out of my comfort zone and I would have never have done it without them. Would have never had the confidence to do it or felt the need to do it. And that's when we combined all of our audiences of a few hundred thousand subscribers each to this kind of group that had maybe a million followers and then as time went on, it became bigger and bigger.

• 48:19Speaker 02

  Can you unpack some of that for me, right? Because that is, I think, an incredible story. But you have seven different personalities, right, in that. And there's many people who would be, who I'm sure has, you know, you've built up an audience and you think, okay, well, I'm not going to join another group. Like, I'm not gonna join a group, I'd rather be a solo act.

• 48:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 48:45Speaker 02

  So what do you think it was about the personalities, even about yourself, because this is about you, that allowed you to join a group opposed to continue on solo? Because you were doing fine.

• 48:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 48:59Speaker 02

  Solo.

• 49:00Speaker 03

  So I think it was a handful of things. I think it was the scene in general at that point and always has been something that we've always tried to push forward is, collaboration is more exciting than competition. Realistically, it opens a lot of doors for you. We'd realized that people tended to enjoy us coming together in some instances more than the stuff we were doing alone. And also, we would just work harder, so we would do both. We would do videos on our own and then we'd do videos as a group and it kind of worked. So I think it was that mindset, it's that you can build something better together. It's like, yeah, I think we just realized that early at that point. And also, we were having fun and we got on.

• 49:45Speaker 03

  And that was a real kicker and we were there to kind of help each other. As is saying, and I really like it, I think it fits the Sidemen perfectly. And it's if you want to go somewhere fast, go alone. If you want to go somewhere far, go together because you're gonna need to rely on each other at different points and you can get a lot further. It might be slower, it might take you longer, but you have something much more stable, so.

• 50:07Speaker 02

  Absolutely, yeah. That's a profound African proverb right there.

• 50:11Speaker 03

  There we go.

• 50:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, and so.

• 50:14Speaker 02

  Also, what I'm beginning to see now in your story is that was your first, that was your college. That was your university.

• 50:21Speaker 03

  Yes, but it was not like any other university because there was no partying. It was like we were sat in our bedrooms yelling into microphones and that was it. Like, we didn't leave the house very much at all. We would all be in our bedrooms making videos around the clock. So it wasn't this, you know, this, this partying, celebrating culture. It was like, okay, everyone, let's lock in.

• 50:43Speaker 02

  Right, but what, what was, what was in the goal? So, once you all kind of assembled and figured out that you can go farther together, right? What became the goal of this group?

• 50:55Speaker 03

  This is my favorite thing about the Sidemen's whole career and my whole career. There is never once really been a hard set tangible goal. It's always just been, how can we take it a bit further?

• 51:08Speaker 02

  Really?

• 51:09Speaker 03

  What's gonna be fun? What can we do next? What's gonna work? And that's allowed us, one, to be very fluid in terms of the direction we take. Because we haven't been, I set on one target. We've kind of always tried, there's a lot of trial and error. But we've never, we never even set out to make the group into a group. It was, okay, we're a group, we make videos together, this is great. Then YouTube asked us to make an original series for them when they were trying to become a paid, paid video streaming platform.

• 51:38Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 51:39Speaker 03

  They made a service called YouTube Red in an attempt to compete with Netflix and paid streaming platforms.

• 51:44Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 51:45Speaker 03

  And we made a series for them, realized very quickly that we didn't like working under their production team and their creatives. We prefer running our own. And that woke us up to think, okay, let's just try and make, I guess, the goal that we set when we started making Sidemen content formally together was let's make the best video we can once a week, every week. And we haven't really missed a week properly since we started doing that six or seven years ago. But these goals aren't so much, you know, wider, yeah, long-term plans. It's just, let's build a system, let's trial and error. Let's, let's host a charity football match and see if we can sell 10,000 tickets. Let's see if we can sell it bigger next time, bigger the time after.

• 52:28Speaker 03

  But there's never been any long-term aims. It's how do we keep this fun? How do we keep this authentic to ourselves? And how do we make it more interesting and better content for more people?

• 52:39Speaker 02

  That's fascinating. Because I think there's so many people who probably think that, you know, you all come together and very methodically have laid out, okay, in three years, this is what we want to be doing. We're going to launch this in the fifth year. But you're literally saying it is, how can we just, the next?

• 52:57Speaker 03

  Next few months.

• 52:58Speaker 02

  The next few months.

• 52:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's always been that way, which is, yeah, completely different to kind of these corporate environments. And I think also it speaks back to how our career started. In a sense that when we started our careers, we were just messing around, having fun. We weren't sat there thinking, okay, how can I start making a thousand a month, 2,000 a month? How can I get to 20,000 subscribers, 50,000 subscribers? Because if we would really struggle to get there, it would dishearten us. And we'd be like, I've been trying so far to get to this point and, and you can almost let yourself down. Whereas it's just, okay, can I take this a bit further? Let's see where it can go.

• 53:38Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 53:38Speaker 03

  Feels, it's how our career started and it's kind of how we've continued it. Not to set these really tough, hard aims for ourselves that we'll feel a failure if we don't reach them. It's just like celebrate every step of the way and every step in the right direction.

• 53:51Speaker 02

  That's mind-blowing, that's mind-blowing.

• 53:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:55Speaker 02

  The house. Can you tell us about what was it like to live in that house? Because I remember talking to Tal Yamar.

• 54:03Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 54:03Speaker 02

  About visiting. And I was like, Tal, because I want to know, like, did the house smell? Like, were they, were they cooking together? Like, so what was it, what was the living dynamic in the house?

• 54:16Speaker 03

  It was interesting because it was a place to just, the primary vision was make the best YouTube content you can. And then everything else hopefully works. I wouldn't say that it was particularly messy, also wasn't clean.

• 54:33Speaker 03

  The guys would sometimes cook together. I never cooked a thing. It was oven food or just pre-made sandwiches and, and cereal. That was what I lived off. So again, we go back to this unhealthy period. I was very unhealthy, but I was just making it work myself, which was interesting. But it was, I mean, it was a fun environment though. It was just so, the times will never be like that ever again. In the sense that the expectation of content compared to now, the quality standard expected was so much lower. Which was so, so much fun. We could pick up our phones and walk around the house and film things in each other's rooms. And there wasn't anything like it on YouTube. It was, that was the cutting edge at that point was doing that.

• 55:17Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 55:17Speaker 03

  So it was very easy for us just to mess around, have fun, be stupid and form it into this content that people really enjoyed, so.

• 55:25Speaker 02

  So, and I, and I understand the, the fun nature of it, right? But you're also a business at that point. You're, I would presume you're starting to make significant income.

• 55:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:35Speaker 02

  At, at that time. Now, so can you give us roughly what was being made at, at that early stage?

• 55:42Speaker 03

  I mean, between all of us in the house, maybe a year or two into it, it's, the house is generating kind of way in excess of a million a year in revenue between all of us. So we're making serious money at this point, but it's the opposite where you wouldn't think that. Because I'm sat there in my pajamas, eating a, a, a sandwich from Tesco's and, and like sleeping on my mattress that's on the floor.

• 56:07Speaker 02

  Right.

• 56:07Speaker 03

  You wouldn't tell. So we were doing really well at that point and that's what made it exciting.

• 56:12Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 56:13Speaker 03

  But I think, again, we just were so new to the space. Especially for me, it was like, this is all just sitting in the banks. Save it, save it, save it. Because we don't know how long this is gonna last. We're, we're doing great now, but, and at that point, even maybe four years into our, four, five years into our careers, we'd seen people have meteoric rises, huge, huge declines. And we were sat there thinking, okay, our time, our time will come. Fortunately, it didn't really, which was great. And that's because we were constantly reinventing and we had each other to kind of support each other.

• 56:47Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 56:47Speaker 03

  And we did just reinvent so many times. We pushed ourselves out of our comfort zone so many times. But, yeah, everyone was doing great at that time. And that, and that did also make it kind of fun. Because some of the boys, they were buying chrome-wrapped Range Rovers, KSI's, purple Lamborghini parked up outside the house. So you had this complete polar opposite where it was, it was hilarious.

• 57:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it's incredible. Like, I think to your point is like, that will never happen again.

• 57:15Speaker 03

  No.

• 57:15Speaker 02

  It, it'll never happen again.

• 57:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:17Speaker 02

  You know, what, what you, what you lived through there. Was there any danger? Because I've read stories about people egging the house.

• 57:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:25Speaker 02

  Was there any real danger?

• 57:27Speaker 03

  I don't think there was any real danger, but there was consistent disruption, disturbance from people around the house just because people wanted to come and see us. And that wasn't something that we thought forward ahead to. Especially when we moved into the house, we had millions less subscribers we had than we generated in the house. So I would say it was more of an annoyance. You've got people opening the letterbox on Halloween shouting.

• 57:51Speaker 02

  Oh, really?

• 57:52Speaker 03

  Can you guys come downstairs and make a picture? And we, we turned off all the lights, we're pretending we're not in. And we would duck under the window to go to each other's rooms.

• 58:01Speaker 02

  Really?

• 58:01Speaker 03

  Because we would be in a tricky position. Because effectively, you want, I mean, one, we understood that that's a complete violation of privacy. Someone shouldn't be doing that in the first place. But two, we realized if they know we're in the house, they're gonna continue to do it. And then three, we also know, let's say we were feeling nice and we went down and said, okay, let's take a picture. Then people know that that's something that can happen and it's gonna multiply the problem.

• 58:26Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 58:27Speaker 03

  So we were sat in this, I mean, again, you look back in hindsight and it's kind of hysterical. Because we were like trapped pretending we don't live in our own house. Because we were in this situation, we couldn't really, there was no solution to that problem.

• 58:38Speaker 02

  No, and you created it for yourself.

• 58:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. So we couldn't blame anyone else.

• 58:42Speaker 02

  Yeah. So if I can check in, in on how you perceived yourself, right? Because you described how at 13, you know, you felt uncool. The identity was really one of being the younger brother.

• 58:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:01Speaker 02

  By the time, so you're in the house, you were how old, early twenties?

• 59:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:05Speaker 02

  Okay. What is your identity in your early twenties and how do you view yourself?

• 59:11Speaker 03

  My entire identity is, my identity was Vic Star 123 at that point. It was.

• 59:16Speaker 02

  No more Vic?

• 59:17Speaker 03

  No, that was just, it was, all I did every day was something YouTube-related every single day of the week.

• 59:26Speaker 03

  And it, but it was cool because it was working for me. It was my job, it was my identity. Everything was kind of growing. I was having fun with friends, so that's who I was. I was just someone who was enjoying doing what they were doing and could do it every day. So that's, it was, yeah, I was just celebrating that fact. And I didn't see anything else being important at that point.

• 59:47Speaker 02

  Okay. What, for example, what was your biggest purchase at that time, early on?

• 59:52Speaker 03

  So I did purchase myself a very nice car. I purchased a second-hand Aston Martin Vantage V8. And that was, that was maybe the first time I felt cool. So I was like, I've got this thing that is just undeniably cool. So that was probably, yeah. And actually, yeah, to this day is one of the biggest purchases I've made.

• 1:00:15Speaker 03

  But yeah, that was, yeah, that was something. But then the majority of the money was just in savings.

• 1:00:20Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:00:22Speaker 03

  So.

• 1:00:22Speaker 02

  All right, so, so big, big pro there, big pro. All right, so what about on the con side? What about, if we can talk about criticism, as much as you want to talk about the criticism. But this is something that everyone online has to face.

• 1:00:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:00:37Speaker 02

  However, I think that you were the Sidemen, you were growing at a point where.

• 1:00:47Speaker 02

  In my opinion, you tell me, but trolling really became a thing.

• 1:00:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:00:52Speaker 02

  Like it almost trolling feels like a profession now.

• 1:00:56Speaker 03

  People are good.

• 1:00:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:57Speaker 03

  I have five years in the arts.

• 1:00:59Speaker 02

  Very good, right? And also you had a massive profile.

• 1:01:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:04Speaker 02

  And so I would imagine each of you have been targeted. And that you must see the comments and it must make an impact.

• 1:01:14Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:01:15Speaker 02

  What has that impact? What was that impact on you then?

• 1:01:21Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, it was it was forever tough. And I've always read a lot of the comments on my own content, just because I feel like that's how it started. It was this relationship between us and the viewers in this real time. I post a video, they comment the same day. The next day I make another video, having seen the comments of the day before. I think it's why YouTube is gone so far. And we've been able to do so much that traditional publishers haven't been able to do.

• 1:01:45Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:01:45Speaker 03

  Because it's that real time relationship. Some people call it parasocial. I don't think of it as that.

• 1:01:51Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:01:51Speaker 03

  I think it's it's community. It's a real time community that you're building. And I think that meant that I would see a lot of it. And honestly, the majority of it was just kind of hating for the sake of hating. And I wouldn't feel that it was particularly true, which would make it very easy to disregard. And I think also important to have, I guess, build a strong self esteem. Because if your self esteem is low, you're going to start reading people saying negative things and almost start to that maybe, you know, I mean, maybe they are true. But it's sometimes it's safer to say, no, that's not true. That's not right. I'm going to ignore that.

• 1:02:27Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:02:27Speaker 03

  Um, so that was the easiest stuff to ignore. Sometimes stuff would hit on the nose and be like, I can see why you think that and why you don't like me because of that. And I think it was, yeah, it's not nice. No, no one's going to sit and say it's nice. But I think little by little, you you microdose that negativity and you learn to just let it kind of wash over you. And I think also the more I grew up, the more I realized that actually everyone in life struggles at times, even people who seemingly are doing fantastic. And that can cause people to say things that they don't really think or feel.

• 1:03:03Speaker 03

  And I almost a lot of the time my mindset, when people write stuff that's completely horrible, I just have to think, I feel bad that you're in a position where you have to say these things. And I'm just going to try and ignore it and just hope that it all works out for that person. It's, I guess that's one mechanism, but I think it's also true to a point. It's just, and also you can't please everyone. You have to, you have to have that mindset.

• 1:03:26Speaker 02

  This is true. This is true. When you think about the criticism, then was there any criticism that upon reflection, you thought, wow, they they were right? And then you actually adjusted as a result of it?

• 1:03:41Speaker 03

  I think there have been so many of these over time. It's so strange actually having hours and hours of your social interactions be analyzed by people sat at home, all with their own kind of psyche and mindset towards it. Then they have the power to tell you what they think.

• 1:03:55Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:03:56Speaker 03

  But also I think it's been great. I think it's rounded me as a person. I think, yeah, sometimes I talk too much in some environments. Sometimes I'm too quiet in other environments. People will comment that like, really quiet this video. Why didn't you feel the need to say anything or get involved in this moment? You kind of killed that moment. And sometimes I'll watch and be like, you know what? Maybe I did, maybe the next time in that situation, I give it a bit more, or it can be the opposite. Sometimes you do a bit too much and and you watch it back and you're like, or it's the way the edit lands. You're like, oh, okay, yeah, I, yeah, that was a bit, I can see why. And I don't mind it. Sometimes I can try and skew some of it as self improvement. And that's what it is at the end of the day is, you know, you think in your head what you think to do is right.

• 1:04:41Speaker 03

  But every person is different. And when you've got millions of people commenting on the things you do.

• 1:04:46Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:04:46Speaker 03

  It would be almost arrogant to ignore all of it and view all of it as unnecessary criticism. And sometimes often it's not written in the nicest way. And that's where I think everyone can be better because I think everyone's entitled to their criticism. But, um, yeah, it's, yeah, it's not something that I, one, pretend that doesn't affect me at all. Or two, I pretend that I completely ignore it because I don't think there's any person that truly can just completely ignore it.

• 1:05:14Speaker 02

  No, no. Can we talk about all the incredible things that the Sidemen have built? Because I had to go through the list and it's, I was like, you guys have chicken shops, vodka brands, television production company. It's like, do you, do you know all, you must know every, the whole list? Do you have the whole list?

• 1:05:35Speaker 03

  I, I know the whole list, but honestly, I couldn't reel it all off because we're so scatterbrained in terms of like tapping into everything that's going on. Fortunately, we have a big team around us and they're helping to keep all these things going.

• 1:05:51Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:05:51Speaker 03

  You have the list.

• 1:05:52Speaker 02

  So, so I, I have just some, right? So you've launched a clothing brand.

• 1:05:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:05:58Speaker 02

  Sidemen Clothing, all right. Launched a vodka brand.

• 1:06:01Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:06:02Speaker 02

  A fried chicken chain.

• 1:06:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:06:04Speaker 02

  Right, five outlets currently in the UK, one in Singapore.

• 1:06:07Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:06:07Speaker 02

  Fifteen more are opening this year.

• 1:06:10Speaker 03

  That's gonna be fun.

• 1:06:11Speaker 02

  A documentary, obviously, the Sidemen Show, right? A cereal brand.

• 1:06:16Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:06:17Speaker 02

  Two seasons so far on Netflix with a new season coming.

• 1:06:21Speaker 03

  I think we're at two in the UK and one US season of Inside, so three.

• 1:06:25Speaker 02

  Three.

• 1:06:25Speaker 03

  Going on four. Yeah.

• 1:06:28Speaker 02

  Sidemen Productions.

• 1:06:29Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:06:30Speaker 02

  Which now is, is another entity. I mean, it's just, it, it's so interesting because hearing you say this was not premeditated.

• 1:06:40Speaker 03

  Not at all. No roadmap whatsoever.

• 1:06:46Speaker 02

  So are you, are you all building Sidemen to outlast Sidemen?

• 1:06:53Speaker 03

  Yes, partially. And also just, just to be always bigger and better. It just, just the things that we've done, selling out Wembley Stadium for a charity match two years in a row. That's testament to the hard work and raising all of that money for great, the great charities that we support and bringing all of those people out to have this fun experience.

• 1:07:18Speaker 03

  Being able to do stuff like that, that's, you know, if we talked to say, what's the, the best thing, the best fruits of your labor you've seen? It's that event in itself. So, yeah, it's the vision is to just keep building towards stuff like that. And there's never, there's no roadmap anyone could have drawn, you know, thirteen, thirteen years ago when we started making Sidemen videos. No human alive could have possibly brainstormed a way to selling out Wembley Stadium.

• 1:07:44Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:07:45Speaker 03

  And even if they did perfectly, we would have looked at it and laughed and said, I think that's a bit ridiculous, so.

• 1:07:50Speaker 02

  And, and look at this, and, and the last game you scored, didn't you?

• 1:07:53Speaker 03

  I did, yeah, thank you. I did not expect it as well. I was just in the right place at the right time. I was like, oh.

• 1:08:01Speaker 02

  Look at this, the, the one who was never selected.

• 1:08:04Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:08:04Speaker 02

  For any team sports.

• 1:08:06Speaker 03

  Last pick for football every lunch at school, pretty much.

• 1:08:10Speaker 02

  Scoring at Wembley.

• 1:08:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:08:12Speaker 02

  Look at this.

• 1:08:13Speaker 03

  That's testament to the journey. And I think that's what makes it so exciting and also so special. You can't, you can't write moments like that. You can't manufacture moments or journeys like that. They just have to take their natural course.

• 1:08:25Speaker 02

  No, no, not at all. What, at what point do you believe your parents were?

• 1:08:37Speaker 02

  At what point did they finally grasp the, the vision, right? Because they, they didn't when you were still in the home.

• 1:08:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:08:44Speaker 02

  At what point did they, they grasp it?

• 1:08:46Speaker 03

  I think it started to kind of tick over when I would be out with them in public and people would come and ask to, to say hi. And I think that gave it this very real tangible point. But I would say that first kind of real big moment was probably the first Sidemen charity match at Southampton Stadium. And I mean, for them, it must have been very bizarre because I'm like the, yeah, the kid they took to football training that clearly wasn't, wasn't getting anywhere. Clearly wasn't doing well, but trying his best. So I think maybe for them, that was like a culmination of, wow, there's all of these people, these 12,000 people who've showed up to a stadium to watch him and all these guys play football. So that might have been the biggest visual representation of like, that is what 12,000 people looks like.

• 1:09:31Speaker 03

  Now it makes more sense.

• 1:09:33Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:09:33Speaker 03

  So.

• 1:09:34Speaker 02

  Yes, yes. One question that I'm dying to ask too is that. When you have so many personalities, right? Big personalities and you're growing in brand, in recognition, in income, right? How do you all, or actually I shouldn't say how do you all? How do you deal with feeling as if maybe, for example, like if a joke is over the line? Right? Cause there's always tension. There's always tension in groups. How do you manage that tension?

• 1:10:09Speaker 03

  I think we're all pretty open, which is nice. I think, yeah, we all like to, you know, poke fun at each other. It's the nature of the, the, the business, funnily enough, and it's very English in its nature. But I think, yeah, we've, and especially as we've grown older, it's become a lot easier for us to come in and say, this was a bit far, this made me uncomfortable, this needs to be removed from, you know, the video or don't, don't do stuff like this. And I think we've all learned to kind of respect that and that's been really important. We have a lot of mutual respect for each other and that's allowed, you know, any disputes to, you know, be solved fairly quickly. And most of us will just sit and talk with each other and that's how it works.

• 1:10:52Speaker 02

  And, and do you go directly to the person, have a conversation? Do you, do you all sit down as a team and say, you know what? This was over the line, this needs to be removed?

• 1:11:01Speaker 03

  I think it's, we have a group chat and kind of anything, anything that we're discussing just kind of gets discussed in that. Oh, we might, we used to have more meetings where we'd kind of all sit down together. But I wouldn't say there's been many things, you know, so big that they felt they needed kind of a full boardroom meeting over. I think we know each other super well. We've grown up together, so we kind of, we get a feeling for when things are not right. Maybe someone will step in in the middle and just be that middle point. And, and it's nice because there's so many of us, you know, depending on the issue, someone can step in and be that correct person to just kind of help the situation mellow over and work through. So, uh, yeah, I think it's just a mutual respect and understanding and knowing each other well.

• 1:11:44Speaker 02

  Okay. Has there ever been content that you have regretted?

• 1:11:49Speaker 03

  Oh, that's a good question. I don't think so really. Maybe I, again, I watched something back and I think I didn't act in the quite correct way. But also that's part of why our content, I think, is so interesting is because it's so real. It's not scripted. Reactions are genuine to how I as a person will react to a situation.

• 1:12:10Speaker 02

  True.

• 1:12:11Speaker 03

  Sometimes people don't like how a person reacts. It might be doing a cheap versus expensive holiday and I've been on the cheap side a bunch of times in a row. So I'm gonna, you know, have a bit of a rage, which is great because it's, you know, it's human and it's, and also I'm usually kind of giving it a bit more. And then some people will say, oh, the way he acted there was so ungrateful for the experience he's having. But then also people will say, I find that so funny. Look at him crashing out. This is hilarious. So I think sometimes you, I think about how I acted in certain situations and whether I would change that or not. But there's never been something, um, that I've done in content where I've like, I, I wish that never went out or happened. So, yeah.

• 1:12:51Speaker 02

  How much pressure do you feel today for content to perform? Because when I look at the budgets of some of the content that you're producing, it's, it's, I've seen that you're sometimes spending up to half a million pounds.

• 1:13:05Speaker 03

  That's our most expensive one.

• 1:13:07Speaker 02

  Is half a million pounds?

• 1:13:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:13:10Speaker 02

  Do, do you feel pressure for this content to perform?

• 1:13:13Speaker 03

  I think being honest, yes, which is tough. We've been trying, especially in the last year or two, to reduce that expectation within all of us and make sure that primarily the content we think is fun and engaging. Cause we always think that comes first. You can build content to be kind of mass attention grabbing and it can perform better, but is it better in the long run? It's like, it's like a sugary sweet. Some content's a sugary sweet and we, you can get lost chasing the sugary sweet. But I think, yeah, what we try to do as best we can is put the content first. But you're right, we have, I mean, including freelancers, over a hundred employees.

• 1:13:56Speaker 03

  So big overheads, big video budgets. There has to be a balance between, okay, we need these videos to perform. But I think at the moment we're at a fair enough sweet spot where we can go and have fun on our shoots. And we've got a lot of people helping us kind of elevate them from a production quality standard.

• 1:14:15Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:14:17Speaker 03

  But like you say, it's a, it's always a bit of both.

• 1:14:20Speaker 02

  It, it, it is. And, and, and so what I like, what you're, what you're describing here and what I feel like you're describing is you've emerged from a creator to an entrepreneur.

• 1:14:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:14:31Speaker 02

  Right? You are a shareholder of a large business. We just painted how big the business is.

• 1:14:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:14:37Speaker 02

  So when you view yourself today, your identity.

• 1:14:42Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:14:43Speaker 02

  And I know there's music that we're going to talk about as well, but what would you say your identity is today?

• 1:14:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's, it's several things, um, which is nice, which is fun. It's diverse. It's, I am a content creator, more than even a YouTuber now, I would say, which is kind of cool to say. I don't love the term influencer.

• 1:15:06Speaker 02

  I don't see you as an influencer though.

• 1:15:07Speaker 03

  But I think also, I just think, yeah, I think, yeah, it's the, it's just, I create content in any way I can. And I think influencers sometimes devalues is talking purely about the byproduct of the content. It's like, oh, this content gets lots of views, so it has lots of influence. You're an influencer, whereas for most of us, it's the creative process comes first. It's us, how can I create something good? And if I create something good, then it has influence. And I feel like, yeah, it's just an interesting one that I don't particularly love is people jump on the, the influence side as opposed to their creative side.

• 1:15:42Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:15:43Speaker 03

  In a means to kind of devalue, I think, anyway. But I see myself as that as one thing. I see myself as a, as a partner, as a dog dad, as someone who loves to travel and is lucky to have friends all over the world that I've met through this career, that I want to go and spend time with. As a business owner, responsible for employees, as an investor. We also have, one thing you missed on your list is we have our own venture capital fund that we started just over two years ago.

• 1:16:16Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 1:16:17Speaker 03

  Where we're investing into startups, seed and pre-seed companies that we believe in and also using our, fun of our influence to support those, um, companies as well as our cash investment.

• 1:16:30Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:16:31Speaker 03

  So that's also another job that I kind of lead on, um, which is funny that I ended up in finance. From, from playing video games in my bedroom.

• 1:16:41Speaker 02

  That's wild, yeah.

• 1:16:42Speaker 03

  That's one part of it. And then also there's this new facet, which is the music and DJing side, which was another hobby that has turned into a, a side job for now and we'll see where it goes.

• 1:16:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:16:52Speaker 03

  But I'd like to think now a lot of different things, which I think is healthy and good and I'm happy with that.

• 1:16:58Speaker 02

  Yes, yes. I could see that you're living a life that you probably never dreamt.

• 1:17:03Speaker 03

  Not even, I couldn't have imagined 10% of it, let alone the rest. So, yeah.

• 1:17:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:08Speaker 03

  Very fortunate.

• 1:17:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's incredible. I have to ask you, obviously, about KSI leaving.

• 1:17:15Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:17:16Speaker 02

  But, but here's what I want to know. I would have, well, you, you have to tell me if operationally anything changes.

• 1:17:24Speaker 03

  The six of us have said that we want to carry on making the content and we have the same team that we've built to help us deliver the content. So we are continuing making content and having a great time as a six of us, which is amazing because we did always say at one point, we said, if one of us leaves, do then others leave? Does that end the sideburn? We, that was a complete unknown that arrived on our doorstep and there is no roadmap. There was no, there is no off-ramp. We'd never built an off-ramp. There was no on-ramp for the sideburn, so to speak. So, uh, yeah, fortunately, um, yeah, operationally, uh, the sideburn is much the same, which is, uh, which is what we wanted.

• 1:18:05Speaker 02

  Hey there, I just want to say thank you for choosing We Need to Talk. Doing this podcast is one of the greatest joys of my life and I want to continue to share it with you. So hit follow and the bell icon. It takes just a second and it helps us to continue to grow this podcast.

• 1:18:25Speaker 02

  So now with music, here's my biggest question is that,

• 1:18:33Speaker 02

  do you feel as if there's extra pressure placed on you? Because you're coming into music as a creator first?

• 1:18:45Speaker 03

  Definitely, yeah.

• 1:18:47Speaker 02

  And what is that pressure that you feel?

• 1:18:50Speaker 03

  Oh, I think it's I had to, well, I'm still learning the art in front of a large audience of people, which is a challenge. I, again, as I said earlier, everything comes with a trade off and that is part of my trade off is that I wasn't able to kind of start DJing smaller rooms and build up and kind of, you know, really build up my skills as I kind of went on. I was thrown straight in the deep end. My first show was sold out Ministry of Sound London, when I'd only ever DJ to myself in my bedroom. So I was horrified at the worst like imposter syndrome ever thinking, what am I doing? This is gonna be a mess. Turned out fine, was great, great vibes.

• 1:19:34Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:19:35Speaker 03

  But yeah, I think I will always have that slight, yeah, people will always have somewhat of an opinion that I've got to go a bit further to kind of, to make it work. And that's what I'm trying to do because I genuinely enjoy it.

• 1:19:51Speaker 02

  Okay, so when did you first fall in love with DJing?

• 1:19:55Speaker 03

  So I first fell in love with EDM music. So a record label called Spinning Records, and it must have been 2015.

• 1:20:05Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:20:06Speaker 03

  Invited me to Miami Ultra Music Festival. Have you ever been to, have you been to Ultra?

• 1:20:11Speaker 02

  I've never been to Ultra, but my brother went to University of Miami. So I've been to Miami a million times, but yeah.

• 1:20:17Speaker 03

  Have you ever been to like an EDM festival, EDC?

• 1:20:20Speaker 02

  No, you know, in full transparency is EDM is a genre of music that I only have heard after I've like gone to the after, after, after, after party. Like I've never just listened to it.

• 1:20:38Speaker 03

  Interesting.

• 1:20:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. So tell me about it.

• 1:20:41Speaker 03

  So I went to this festival and my job was to film it for my YouTube channel, which I did. And I had this artist kind of backstage access that the record label had set up for me. And I was, I'd never seen anything like it in my life. This big Miami park, these huge stages, fireworks, DJs playing music that I was like, I really enjoy this music. I just completely fell in love with the scene and that music then.

• 1:21:07Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:21:08Speaker 03

  And again, I thought, well, okay, I'm gonna try and go to as many of these as I can. So I went to Miami Ultra again the next year. I went to EDC in Las Vegas, went to Tomorrowland in Europe. And a Norwegian legendary producer and DJ by the name of Alan Walker, became good friends with him. Also DJs couldn't tour during lockdown. Very strange time for them. We could still just about make videos, but their entire livelihood was closed.

• 1:21:35Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:21:36Speaker 03

  International travel was gone. That was what they did. They were in a different country every day.

• 1:21:41Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:21:42Speaker 03

  And so they turned to video games. And I was gaming with Alan during lockdown. We got to know each other through that. Then lockdown finished, 2022, I was going to Tomorrowland. He was playing a sunset slot on the main stage in front of 80,000 people.

• 1:21:58Speaker 02

  Wow, that's incredible.

• 1:21:59Speaker 03

  Which is just amazing. I think it was like my third or fourth time at Tomorrowland. And he sent me a message and he said, hey, I get one special guest on the main stage with me. Would you like to come and join me? I'm thinking, what? Of course, but why? Sure. And we met with him at the festival, got to know him a bit better. He took me on stage with him. There's all these people with the lights up and I'm looking out at a stage that I've stood in the crowd of four or five times, thinking, how on earth am I here behind the decks? Really special, cool moment. And then we came off the stage and Alan basically said to me, he said, you clearly love the music. I see you've been coming to these festivals. You've met up at them over the years. You've already got

• 1:22:43Speaker 03

  an audience of people that will support you in what you're doing. So if you can learn to DJ and you can start learning to produce and work with some good people to make your own music, then you can see where it goes.

• 1:22:55Speaker 02

  Wow, look at that.

• 1:22:56Speaker 03

  And I couldn't say no. It was one of those moments.

• 1:22:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, but how in the world, Vic, do you balance now DJing and that career? I can see that's growing and I can see the passion you lit up when you talked about being on stage. So I can see you're in that zone. You're basically running a VC firm, right? You have all of your other obligations with the Sidemen, content creation. How do you balance it all?

• 1:23:19Speaker 03

  So I think a big part of it is huge props to everyone that works on our team. So I've got Ryan, who manages my music project. And the Sidemen, we have a big team that manage different areas of all of those projects. So that's really important. Something that I didn't understand early on and the Sidemen were very much, build your team bigger, go further vibes from early on. And I was very much in the mindset, I need to save all the money I'm making here. I can't be paying out all of this. But obviously it lets you build something much more impactful and cool.

• 1:23:51Speaker 02

  Great advice, great advice.

• 1:23:53Speaker 03

  And that's a big part of how it's possible. And then also, I'm a bit obsessive with details. So I've been trying to line things up. So for example, I had a friend's wedding in Australia. And then the week before, we had Sidemen filming in Southeast Asia in Thailand. So I booked a show in Thailand while I was there with the Sidemen. Then I carried on to Australia and played four shows during the F1 while I was over there. So with a bit of kind of strategic rooting.

• 1:24:24Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:24:24Speaker 03

  I can make it work. And also, I'm only taking DJ shows that I'm kind of excited to do rather than taking shows, multiple shows a week and kind of running myself to the ground, doing it. I'm trying to just keep it majority as kind of a passion project. And yeah, that's kind of how I'm doing it. But so it's a lot of balancing and when it's stuff you love, it never feels like work. I'm sure it's the same for you with the podcast.

• 1:24:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's the same. You know, with all the projects I do, I'm with you. But at the same time, the balance is so hard. Because for example, last year I was running around doing a million different things. And I went to the dentist. The dentist was like, Paul, your molar is completely cracked and it's because you're stressed.

• 1:25:12Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 1:25:13Speaker 02

  And I realized that I was not managing my stress well. And this is where I wanted to get into. If we can talk about Crohn's disease.

• 1:25:22Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:25:23Speaker 02

  Because one thing that I've noticed about in my research with Crohn's is how fatiguing it can be.

• 1:25:33Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:25:34Speaker 02

  So I'd love to hear from you. How do you manage Crohn's with everything that you're doing? And also, for anyone who's unaware of what Crohn's disease is, what is it?

• 1:25:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, so Crohn's is an autoimmune condition where, for whatever reason, the immune system attacks cells in the gut that it thinks are foreign. So it kills them and it can cause a lot of damage. It can cause a lot of knock on symptoms that are not pleasant at all. And it's kind of like the food you eat is the fuel for your body. So if you're not digesting it properly, if you've got issues with your gut, it can have all these knock on effects, the kind of fatigue, nausea, gastrointestinal discomfort, bleeding, all of the unfortunate symptoms. And yeah, it's tough, I'll be honest. And I think especially

• 1:26:24Speaker 03

  because it's an invisible condition. That's one of the most challenging things. And also it's a lifelong condition. There's no cure for it. So those are all difficult things that were difficult for me to process. I was kind of in denial for quite a while. It's something that's difficult to get fully diagnosed because it's not properly understood yet.

• 1:26:48Speaker 02

  Could I ask, how old were you when you were diagnosed?

• 1:26:51Speaker 03

  It would have been around four, well, I, my symptoms started four or five years ago and I was probably formally diagnosed around three years ago.

• 1:27:02Speaker 02

  Oh, wow. So this is recent.

• 1:27:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, it's, and that's how it works. It can come on at any point. It can just, and maybe, I'm also thinking back, maybe I always had some slight issues, but it became a real problem. I was hospitalized. I was, I had a few months where I, or like about a month or two where I really couldn't eat very much.

• 1:27:24Speaker 02

  And so you were hospitalized, hospitalized for what?

• 1:27:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, for a few days, just, just from just intense pain and I couldn't really eat without feeling pain. And that was not great. That was kind of a, and it flares. So it can kind of come and go. So that was really difficult. I think there was a Sidemen video shortly afterwards where we were doing a traveling video and we'd been running around filming all day. I'd been like living off snacks and we arrived in Istanbul and I just said, I cannot, I'm just like, I'm in pieces. And so we kind of stopped our video there and flew home the next morning. One, I do have to kind of try and look after myself more. So in the early years, I was super unhealthy, but I do try and make sure I'm getting enough sleep. I exercise well. I'm trying to be really careful with my diet.

• 1:28:11Speaker 03

  Medication is super helpful. And I think for a lot of time, I was kind of in denial and I was like, do I really have this autoimmune condition? Maybe if I just eat a bit cleaner, maybe if I just sleep a bit more, rest a bit more, it's gonna go away. You kind of, it's you hang on to like that hope.

• 1:28:28Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:28:28Speaker 03

  And it's bizarre as well because it's not like when you get a stomach bug or like I broke this collarbone. It's like.

• 1:28:37Speaker 03

  Okay, it's gonna suck for a while, but then it will get better and you're fine. It took a while for me to get around the head sense of there is no known cure for this. So I need to kind of address it, tackle it, deal with it. Um, and fortunately, it took a few medications. I found one that did work, um, and it controlled the majority of my symptoms of the illness. But also horrible side effects, which is, and it led me to kind of think, okay, maybe I'm gonna stop taking this because of the side effects, this is quite recently. And then all of the illness symptoms came back. And it's, it's, it can be super frustrating because you're kind of thinking, there's no, there's nothing perfect for this.

• 1:29:21Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:29:22Speaker 03

  I'm gonna go on to a new autoimmune medication, hopefully soon, which hopefully works better. That's the nice thing is the science is developing, they're starting to understand it more, they're developing more immune therapies. And I've kind of accepted, I need some sort of medication because I've tried everything I can, which is also so frustrating because you think, I'm gonna live and eat so clean, so healthy, and it's not enough. And I think a lot of people suffer with Crohn's or ulcerative colitis or other autoimmune illnesses, and they all tend to be pretty invisible. It's stuff inside you that's not working. So, one, it's very easy for people that aren't you to look at you and go, why are you being so lazy? Why are you sat down? Like, why are you not giving it a hundred percent?

• 1:30:07Speaker 03

  And sometimes in your head, you think, what, actually, yeah, I am just, like, maybe I didn't sleep enough last night. You kind of almost want to give yourself excuses that aren't the illness. And you can't see the illness, you can't measure the illness.

• 1:30:21Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:30:22Speaker 03

  So, I think.

• 1:30:23Speaker 02

  And I would imagine too, for Vic, one thing that I've definitely picked up in this conversation is you have prided yourself on productivity.

• 1:30:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:30:31Speaker 02

  So, for you to be taken out because of this illness.

• 1:30:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:30:37Speaker 02

  That must be even more excruciatingly hard for you to deal with.

• 1:30:42Speaker 03

  It is, but kind of a few years ago, I realized that I had to take some of the focus off my work and build stuff that wasn't my work. And if I was solely focused on my work and going through, when I was going through the worst of my Crohn's, it would have, I don't know, I would have really struggled to deal with that, at the point where I was working twenty-four seven around the clock, had I had my worst symptoms then. You get dealt the, the hand you're dealt, but I guess what I also want to show and why I talk about it is because I think you can still continue to achieve. Sometimes you feel defeated by the illness, but I've learned I have to do the testing, I have to try different medications, I have to deal with side effects of medications. And it has got better and it can get better. Not entirely, maybe, maybe one day.

• 1:31:26Speaker 03

  I'm hopeful for science and, you know, maybe, maybe that's the one thing I'm rooting for AI, to, to crack the code on.

• 1:31:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:31:33Speaker 03

  Sooner or later.

• 1:31:34Speaker 02

  But I, I think what's, uh, what's important about you talking about your Crohn's is that you're admittedly saying, hey, I'm still trying to figure it out.

• 1:31:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:31:43Speaker 02

  Just like your music, you're like, I'm, I'm going to learn in, in front of you.

• 1:31:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:31:47Speaker 02

  And I think there, uh, there's a level of courage that you have to have in order to, to do that, so I applaud you for that.

• 1:31:54Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 1:31:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:31:55Speaker 03

  But also, again, it's, yeah, I think it's important for people to, also, a lot of people don't even understand what an autoimmune illness is. That's what I might say, they have Crohn's, they go, oh, you've got a bit of a bad stomach, is, is that it? And it's like, hospital trips and, uh, can often lead to bowel cancer as well. And we're seeing a huge rise in young people with, uh, bowel cancers. Actually, a, a, a good friend of my wife, twenty-eight, was recently diagnosed with an early stage bowel cancer. Fortunately, they caught it early, she's had surgery to remove that, uh, the, the tumor and is in remission of the cancer now.

• 1:32:36Speaker 03

  But I, I guess it's another reason to talk about it is, you know, it's something that a lot of people, they don't talk about gut issues, but I guess it's also, this is my chance to tell people, if something is not right, have it looked at and make sure that you're, you're kind of fine, because it's, it's also, it's, it's sometimes inappropriate to talk about toilet habits and your gut and what's going on with food. And people don't want to go and talk to a doctor about it, but if you do have a condition, an autoimmune condition, or you do have a, a cancer or, you know, early stages of a cancer.

• 1:33:08Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:33:08Speaker 03

  It's something that is so preventable if caught early, so.

• 1:33:11Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:33:11Speaker 03

  I feel like, given my experience, I need to talk about that.

• 1:33:14Speaker 02

  Uh, this is so important because also, before you were, you know, in preparation for you coming here, I thought to myself, you know, how prevalent is Crohn's? You know?

• 1:33:25Speaker 03

  Massive.

• 1:33:25Speaker 02

  And from the research, I see one in every three hundred and fifty people.

• 1:33:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:33:30Speaker 02

  You know, that's, uh, that's prevalent. And I would suspect most don't know.

• 1:33:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:33:37Speaker 02

  You know?

• 1:33:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:33:38Speaker 02

  Because, to your point, it is, there could be bleeding or a pain that they're dealing with that they don't verbalize.

• 1:33:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:33:45Speaker 02

  And so I think your story is, is very compelling in that, no, talk to someone about it.

• 1:33:51Speaker 03

  Hundred percent. And also, I think, I think it's a weird thing to say, but don't be afraid of going on to medication, because for so much time, I wanted the mildest of medication and I thought, I'm gonna, I'm gonna beat this myself. And it kind of, I mean, took a long process for me to kind of realize, no, I need the medication. And it is, it did treat my Crohn's symptoms, so.

• 1:34:15Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:34:15Speaker 03

  Uh, and, you know, it's, can be wrong for some people, it can be right for other people. It's not a perfect science, so to speak, and often medicine is given in cases where it isn't needed. And that was always my concern, because I was like, I don't want to be given, you know, a hugely biologically altering medicine that I don't need. But clearly I did need it, but I just didn't want to hear what the doctors were saying. And I was like, maybe it's something else, maybe it's, um, so that's just my experience. And, yeah, I don't, I'm, I'm not a medical advisor, obviously speak to your medical people first.

• 1:34:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, I think the message here is, is, is, is talk to someone.

• 1:34:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:34:50Speaker 02

  That's the key.

• 1:34:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:34:51Speaker 02

  Is don't keep it to yourself.

• 1:34:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:34:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Can I ask you, I have to ask you, about the social media ban?

• 1:34:58Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:34:58Speaker 02

  Right? And, and the reason why I, I ask you about this is because there, obviously, the UK's instituted a social media ban for ages sixteen and under.

• 1:35:08Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:35:09Speaker 02

  And what I realize, looking at your career, is that if that ban was in place, quite potentially, you would not be where you are today.

• 1:35:19Speaker 03

  Correct, yes.

• 1:35:21Speaker 02

  So, what's your opinion on the ban?

• 1:35:24Speaker 03

  It's actually, funnily, a mixed opinion. And that is because, yes, on the, on the positive, there's so many great young people doing fantastic stuff with social media, but at the same time, it's changed so much in the life that I've lived on social media since its inception to where it is now, to where I can understand why they think the solution is to ban it. I don't think the solution is to ban it, but the way the algorithm feeds short-form content based on scrolling patterns, it's own idea of your interests, you know, I think it's, it's not a healthy form of content to consumers. And I say that myself as someone who's, yeah, uh, uh, an, an adult, but as a young

• 1:36:09Speaker 03

  child consuming that content, I can't imagine, for a lot of people, it's very good. So I understand that maybe an extreme system needs to be put in place to protect those people who are gonna fall victim to it being bad for them. But, ah, where do you draw the line? I, I don't know the answer, I don't think it's good or bad. And I'm saying that as someone with this huge UK audience under the age of sixteen, so potentially a massive, massive, you know, dent in career and earnings, but at the same time, I can understand why the government want to put it in place.

• 1:36:48Speaker 02

  Right, right. No, no, I, I, it's interesting, I didn't even think about that piece as well, the fact that you have a massive audience under the age of sixteen.

• 1:36:56Speaker 03

  Correct, yeah.

• 1:36:57Speaker 02

  So that is going to definitely impact.

• 1:37:00Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:37:00Speaker 02

  Your business.

• 1:37:01Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 1:37:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:37:03Speaker 03

  Um, but I mean, yeah, it's, it's a tricky one, because I do think it's, and it's changed so much even from when we started making content. We, it, all you had was long-form content, that's where we told our stories, that's where we became who we were. And now there has been this pivot to, our long-form content should really have short-form clip-able moments, because that is what is so much in demand. But at the same time, I think how long this podcast is, you tell a real story in time, you can't tell it in seven seconds, and I do worry, you know, where short-form content is gonna take us in general.

• 1:37:39Speaker 02

  Yes, yes. What do you believe you still have to prove and to whom?

• 1:37:46Speaker 03

  I'd like to think and say nothing. I don't know if that's, is that ever the case? You always want to prove something, but I can't tangibly think of like, I wanna, I really, you know, I wanna tick that off, I would absolutely love to do that. It's kind of almost, at this point, I try and look at everything, everything's a blessing. Every next step I make, I feel like I'm happy that I've achieved enough with what I was given and been able to have so much freedom and do so much fun and cool stuff, that now every next step is just, just a blessing. So, I don't have anything where I'm like, I wanna go and make that happen. It's never been kind of my, my mindset, really.

• 1:38:23Speaker 02

  So, I wanna show you this one last thing.

• 1:38:25Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:38:26Speaker 02

  All right, you ready for it?

• 1:38:27Speaker 03

  Another.

• 1:38:27Speaker 02

  Another.

• 1:38:28Speaker 03

  Another photo.

• 1:38:28Speaker 02

  Okay, you're ready, yeah.

• 1:38:29Speaker 03

  I like the real photo as well, you know, every, so much of stuff is on screens nowadays.

• 1:38:34Speaker 02

  The real photo, what I've noticed is, a photo in your hand, um, allows you to reflect in a way, and slow down in a way that we just don't do enough. So that's exactly what I want you to do.

• 1:38:48Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:38:49Speaker 02

  This photo.

• 1:38:50Speaker 03

  Ah.

• 1:38:52Speaker 02

  I want you to describe what's happening in this photo.

• 1:38:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:38:56Speaker 02

  And then, I want you to tell me the message.

• 1:39:02Speaker 02

  That you now, as a thirty year old man.

• 1:39:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:39:06Speaker 02

  Have for this little boy.

• 1:39:07Speaker 03

  Okay, here's a fun one. So yeah, this is, this is me, I think, at a school assembly, playing the violin. And this is probably, yeah, the, the, the younger Vic that we talked about, who's just, he's just trying his best, you know? He's not playing the coolest instrument in the world. I did learn the piano and drums, so they were, the drums was the one that was cool. Violin.

• 1:39:30Speaker 02

  Violin.

• 1:39:30Speaker 03

  Not very cool, but I was trying my best. It was a challenge, but I was learning it. And what would I tell this Vic? See, this is tricky, because I think my genuine, I think it would be nice to say all of the lessons that I've learned, which is get out of your comfort zone, be confident, um, take risks, learn as you go, trial and error. But at the same time, I feel like giving myself that might have changed everything. I think everything worked out well. So my genuine advice to myself would be, keep doing what you're doing. It's, it may, I mean, maybe just it's gonna work out, and then I would end up hopefully here. But isn't that crazy, the butterfly effect, right? I could tell him something and he could, he could send it all west.

• 1:40:14Speaker 02

  He can go off.

• 1:40:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:40:15Speaker 02

  Is, is, is there, is there something, though, that that little, that little Vic?

• 1:40:20Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:40:21Speaker 02

  You think needed, that could be just, you could, just a little whisper to him?

• 1:40:26Speaker 03

  Again, I, I'm gonna say no, because he, he, he made, he made it work.

• 1:40:31Speaker 02

  He did.

• 1:40:31Speaker 03

  That's the thing. So he didn't need anything else. And anything else may have potentially led him astray, a different path that wouldn't have worked out so well. So I'm, yeah, I'm very fortunate to be sat in a position where I can say I wouldn't give myself too many words. And I think the, the things that I said, or the lessons that I've tried to say that I've learned, I would apply them to anyone else, but not myself, because it seemed to work.

• 1:40:56Speaker 02

  That's interesting.

• 1:40:56Speaker 03

  And maybe you have to learn the lesson yourself. Maybe, maybe being told the lesson isn't enough. Maybe that's what life is. You have to experience the lesson to really learn from it. And that's where you grow. That's it. So.

• 1:41:07Speaker 02

  All right. That I'll take. That, that I'll take.

• 1:41:10Speaker 03

  There we go.

• 1:41:10Speaker 02

  So I, I appreciate it. Can I have this?

• 1:41:13Speaker 03

  You can have this back, yeah.

• 1:41:15Speaker 02

  He's like, I don't want that. I'm doing festivals right now. Right? All right. So the last, last question, this is, everyone gets this question.

• 1:41:23Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:41:23Speaker 02

  It's my favorite question, is if you think through all of the conversations you've had in life.

• 1:41:29Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:41:30Speaker 02

  I know you've had some incredible conversations. Tell me, which one stands out to you the most? Who was the conversation with?

• 1:41:39Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:41:40Speaker 02

  And what did you learn?

• 1:41:42Speaker 03

  Okay. You're gonna have to sit and think for a minute or two. I've had a few conversations. Just a few in my life.

• 1:41:48Speaker 02

  Just a few. I can imagine.

• 1:41:48Speaker 03

  Just a few in my life.

• 1:41:49Speaker 02

  I can imagine.

• 1:41:50Speaker 03

  Oh, one, if I could pin it to one conversation, wow. I'm gonna have to, I, I've got too many boxes to fill with kind of different ideas. My life has so many different areas. But I think, given that we've talked a lot about my career, if I had to think about one conversation that I had about my career that was really important, was, um, interestingly, it was a conversation with my mom. And when I wanted to start my gap year, she made me almost write a little contract to myself, just saying that I would kind of continue to make videos every day. I would continue to enjoy. I would try and make it work. And

• 1:42:33Speaker 03

  I think that conversation was really important to kind of have that as I started this chapter where I was taking this risk, to be given that accountability to continue to show up and force it to work at some point. So in terms of my career, I'd say that was maybe one of the most important conversations. But in reality, it was a string of conversations across months. But I do remember that moment where I kind of said, I'm doing this. I'm gonna continue to enjoy and make videos every day.

• 1:42:59Speaker 02

  Yes, yes. I love it. I love it. I find this question so interesting, because typically, people go to, they've had lots of great conversations, right? They'll go to a conversation with a loved one, like a mom.

• 1:43:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:43:14Speaker 02

  Or a grandparent.

• 1:43:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:43:15Speaker 02

  And just recollect something so simple, but yet profound, you know? And I really enjoyed this. Uh, there's lots of nuggets that I'm taking personally that have inspired me. Uh, definitely just looking at the next level, opposed to ten levels.

• 1:43:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:43:33Speaker 02

  Uh, down the road. I love that. But to me, your story stands as this fourteen year old boy who was really searching for identity.

• 1:43:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:43:46Speaker 02

  And I can see that your identity has been forged through your success, through all of your challenges.

• 1:43:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:43:57Speaker 02

  Right? But most importantly is, you have had to live through them.

• 1:44:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:44:02Speaker 02

  And that is exactly the advice that you, in essence, gave your younger self.

• 1:44:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:44:07Speaker 02

  Uh, and, and, and that, to me, that's what stands the most. And it's interesting, because you're thirty, you're a young guy, like you are. And so I can't imagine what, I know you don't wanna think about the next thirty. You just wanna think about thirty one. But I can't imagine what the next thirty is going to be.

• 1:44:25Speaker 03

  There's lots of learning to do.

• 1:44:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, a lot. Um, so Vic, I appreciate it. Thank you.

• 1:44:30Speaker 03

  No, thank you. And I've also learned about myself through your questioning, because these are so many thoughts that you never have to put into words. So thank you for, uh, yeah, you're exploring the story with me.

• 1:44:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're welcome. You're welcome. Thank you.

• 1:44:44Speaker 03

  Appreciate it.

• 1:44:48Speaker 02

  Vic Star, one, two, three. I respected that Vic came here during this time where a lot of people have questions, especially around KSI, leaving the Sidemen. But he did a great job of holding to his boundaries, but at the same time, explaining to us that this was an unplanned event. However, they have now created a plan to continue. And so for anyone who ever had a question around, will the Sidemen continue? Vic answered that today. He seems to me to be highly disciplined. And I think that's the secret to his success, is how disciplined he is. You know, when you think about how many, how consistently he

• 1:45:33Speaker 02

  said, you know, when he was, when he passed on, uh, on university, how he committed to doing a video every day. And he went eight years doing the video, sometimes multiple times per day. That requires a level of discipline of showing up that many of us can't do.

• 1:45:52Speaker 06

  I was sixteen, made like a million quid.

• 1:45:54Speaker 02

  Tommy, in it, you are one of the most followed people in the world.

• 1:45:56Speaker 06

  It was the most amazing thing, and then it really backfired. We had the police around, and my mom was crying. That was very scary.

• 1:46:06Speaker 06

  Start making these videos. I got a taste. And I was like, oh, I'd want more of that. That was genuinely the last moment in my life that things felt like real. And I was like, just watching myself make the most money I've made, keep it a big secret, and no one at school knows.

• 1:46:19Speaker 02

  So the day of reckoning came.

• 1:46:22Speaker 06

  All of my self-esteem was leaning on this thing that I'm the most popular person ever. That was the worst feeling in the world, because I'm still on this treadmill, but I'm not really rooting for nothing anymore. And at this point as well, I'm finding it really hard to navigate. So every week I'm having a call with a different YouTuber, KSI, Mr. Beast, Logan Paul.

• 1:46:40Speaker 02

  It appeared as if there was this brotherhood.

• 1:46:42Speaker 06

  Well, because we're all misfits. We don't fit in, and then we're all helping each other. At night, I had a call that like, Techno had died. I loved him. He was a hero of mine, and he was a friend. At that point on, the world lost some of its color.

• 1:46:58Speaker 02

  Thank you for being a voice that says it's okay not to be okay. On that note, I have a little surprise for you.

• 1:47:09Speaker 01

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• 1:47:38Speaker 07

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• 1:48:39Speaker 01

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