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Starting Standup in Maine with David Walton
This is an audio journal of actor, David Walton (Fired Up, New Girl, About a Boy, Bad Moms, Power:Ghost) as he builds a standup comedy set in public with the help of comedians and friends. New episodes every Thursday.
Starting Standup in Maine with David Walton
#16- Walksauce42_ aka Walker Ward Interview
From getting fired on Wall Street to becoming social media's favorite country club satirist - Walker Ward (aka Walksauce42_) joins us to break down how he built a massive social media comedy empire by perfectly capturing the chaos of Rivian waitlists, golden retriever mishaps on private jets, and emergency board meetings about white jean violations. A hilarious deep dive into content creation, character work, and why you should never trust a Tommy Bahama client dinner.
Actor Jeremy Sisto and Walker's manager Fran Serratore sit down as well.
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It's all kind of plug and play. I was telling you guys last night the guy in Palm Beach who's renting in the Hamptons for the summer over Labor Day weekend has the same fucking problems. He's chomping at the bit to get a doctor to do a telehealth visit, to get his kids medical forms in for Palm Beach Day, just like the Greenwich dad in Nantucket is for fucking Brunswick. Just like the Palisades dad is for John Thomas Dye. Like it's all, everyone's got the same problem. The Palm Beach family who are all about goldens, their golden retriever sconce. It took a shit on the G650 ER on the way to the Yellowstone Club, just like the Greenwich family's labradoodle took a piss on the carpet on the citation flying to Sun Valley, idaho. It's all the same shit. Both families on opposite sides of the country are paying to have the fucking carpets of the plane shampooed. It's just what kind of dog took the shit.
Speaker 3:That was a clip from my very hilarious interview with Walker Ward, aka WalkSauce42 underscore. I sat down with Walker recently in New York City. I was doing some open mics there and I was with Jeremy Sisto and Walker came up for an hour or so with his manager, franz Seratori, and the four of us just shot the breeze. But it was so funny. We got into some really cool inside information about his origin story, about how this explosive growth on social media, how it works, how you start making money, what his inspiration is, all the different characters he plays. So if you haven't seen WalkSauce42's stuff yet, just pause right now, go watch a couple of his videos on his Instagram and then come back. It's so good. I fell in love with him. I got to thank Medora Westcott for putting us in touch and we hit it off beautifully. So credit where credit is due. The serendipity wheel of this podcast and social media in general is doing it right, and I got to meet and hang with this wonderfully talented, extremely funny man. He tells so many funny stories he had us howling with laughter, but also a lot of deep insights into how this weird game works, and really it was so cool because it was an origin story. It's his start and he still is. He's only a year in and so he's got this whole life ahead of him. He's early 30s, whole life ahead of him, and he used to be a banker and now he's kind of. People are taking pictures with him on the sidewalk. It's a really cool, fascinating story. So buckle up.
Speaker 3:If this is your first time here, this is a podcast called Starting Stand Up. I'm David Walton and it's really just a track my my journey trying to get good at standup comedy. So it's behind the scenes stuff, some open mics. To get good at stand-up comedy. So it's behind the scenes stuff, some open mics, all my failures, and mostly I just talk about, you know, feces and sex, and already you know we've got the word feces going, so we're staying on brand here already. Anyway, please enjoy and I'll talk to you after the interview.
Speaker 4:Oh man, that's rubbish, that's rubbish.
Speaker 1:I just. It's a pack of.
Speaker 3:Netflix. I want to say that throughout this interview, Sisto's not going to understand probably 50% of the terms. You need a poor guy in the group.
Speaker 1:All right, exactly, yeah, but we'll start. We'll talk about horse country and your club and all that kind of thing. Don't worry, we'll get into it. We'll get into it.
Speaker 3:I, we'll get into that, we'll get into that, I'm not worried. So congratulations. I asked you last night when we first met face-to-face, whether you were making some dough and then you immediately were like yeah, and I was so excited. I see all these influencers, you see these people explode. You see the hundreds of thousands and it's like I don't understand how people are making money, because I had a bathrobe company. We hired influencers to hawk our bathrooms and no one bought anything. So, yeah, I don't get it. Well, you saw you two take me through how people are making money in this game well, take my hand, let me take my little journey here, gentlemen, but, uh, you know, first of all, honored to be here, walks house 42 in the house.
Speaker 3:Underscore, bro, exactly, don't forget the underscore yeah, if you search walks house 42 in the house Underscore, bro, exactly, don't forget the underscore.
Speaker 1:If you search Waxhouse 42 without the underscore, you get some dude who's got at least 17 wives, all of whom are his sisters. Lives in deep Alabama somewhere, so don't go down that rabbit hole Anyway, can.
Speaker 2:I ask quickly about the underscore, please.
Speaker 1:The name was taken. Obviously the name was taken.
Speaker 2:Obviously the name was the numbers. The numbers were taken as well.
Speaker 1:The name was yeah, originally I was. I just wanted to be walk sauce. It was taken and then I was like, all right, I'm gonna be original and go with my college hockey number 42 okay, uh, you know I'm an athlete and uh hockey players through the 42 in there, and then the 42 was taken. So then naturally, the next next door down, pop the underscore in there. And then we were cooking with gas. We threw the underscore in there, it's like a hiccup.
Speaker 2:It's like saying your name with a hiccup. It is it walks?
Speaker 1:us forward. Anyway, when I made an Instagram, I was actually it was my junior summer in college. I was living in an NYU dorm, studying acting for film at the NYU film academy.
Speaker 2:So you already had an idea, because when I was talking to you, I've always known.
Speaker 1:I remember when I was like eight I saw Max Keeble's Big Move, the movie about the kid who like sort of runs the middle school. He's got like spiky hair. He like is the paper boy.
Speaker 2:Movie or TV show Movie.
Speaker 1:This kid. I resonate with this kid. I'm Max Keeble. I'm just a little bit doughier. I've got the energy. I'm not a paper boy, but I can make it happen. I want to be in movies like this kid. There was this kid who I grew up with named Connor Gibson. Connor, if you're watching this, how you doing pal? But he would every Friday get driven into New York to go on auditions for child acting commercials. Where were you? What's that? Where'd you live? Princeton, new Jersey. Shout out 609. Underscore, underscore. And he got in this Kids Next Door Cartoon Network commercial. I was like like this is sick. So I always loved the idea of entertaining, performing, trying to be in like television or film what did your parents think of that?
Speaker 1:I think they. I am basically my mom, without the Y chromosome, or no? I have the Y chromosome, she doesn't, so she they support it. They've always supported me, which I'm lucky for she would have wanted to do it kind of thing Probably. So now you know she's like the dance mom living vicariously through me making sure you know my outfit's all good and get out there on stage, kid.
Speaker 1:No, I didn't. But when I was, I got cut from the hockey team my sophomore year of college and I was like, alright, I'm going to start doing some live theater. So I started doing plays and that kind of thing and then it snowballed into me what was this? Hobart College baby, the Harvard and the Finger. Lakes, slo-bart, exactly, wow, exactly.
Speaker 3:I didn't see that coming. You're so smart to me. Yeah, and clearly Hobart baby.
Speaker 1:Hobart High-Loop.
Speaker 3:Come on come on Slo-Bart Come on exactly.
Speaker 1:We pay you to come here and uh, it was great, I liked hobart. Hobart was a good time it gets a bad rap.
Speaker 3:For sure. There's smarter people there depends who you are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah in the, in the um were you the smartest person there uh, it depended who you asked. If you asked me, I'd tell you yes. If you asked any of my professors, they'd tell you absolutely not. Um, but uh, you know, here we are. Everybody wants to be part of a miracle. I graduated in four years. The story actually of how I graduated was pretty funny, but we can get into that later.
Speaker 2:So third year of college, you started doing plays.
Speaker 1:Yes, I just love performing and like getting a script and finding a character and like putting my twist on it and then getting out there. I'm a little show pony. So, it was fun and I've always been outgoing one of the funny kids in class.
Speaker 3:Were you always hairy.
Speaker 1:No, actually the hair came later, really, when I started doing the nature walks with Walker. I see, but we can get into that later as well. I actually used to be very, not hairy, oh okay, I used to look just like a little baby's buttocks walking around every day.
Speaker 2:I remember I hated when they did shirts and skins because I was like I got a late armpit hair.
Speaker 3:I didn't know you were a late bloomer.
Speaker 2:Well, I was young for my class, I was a little late too, and I had no armpit hair. I don't know why that would be embarrassing now thinking about it, but it was really an issue for me.
Speaker 3:If you want to see embarrassing, you need to check out Jeremy auditioning for Titanic.
Speaker 2:I love that I'm not even in the part of the conversation.
Speaker 3:I'm just a guy. You're Jeremy. I need everyone to see this video.
Speaker 1:I really do it's incredible.
Speaker 3:It's so weird. We'll talk about it later. No, no, actually, this whole podcast is taking a right turn.
Speaker 1:Perfect. No, no Strap in. We're playing Jell-O.
Speaker 3:It's with Kate Winslet. It's a full screen test. It's amazing.
Speaker 2:It's on the set. I have a story, Okay.
Speaker 3:I just had to say that though. Anyway, okay, so we're starting to get the bug, we're feeling it. We're feeling the flow. You know you like to perform, you like to make people laugh.
Speaker 1:Didn't know how to really get into the world of acting professionally. Television film I saw an open casting call for once. Disney bought Star Wars. They were like come to Michigan. I was like no, I don't Wars. They were like come to Michigan. I was like no, I don't know if I can get to Michigan. I got the sides but then I just didn't end up going and doing it for like the first Star Wars that Disney came out with?
Speaker 3:oh yeah, no, like the episode one yeah, one with Jar Jar Binks. No, no, no that's Rogue One.
Speaker 1:You're thinking Phantom.
Speaker 4:Menace like Natalie Portman. Yeah, one with Jar Jar Binks. No, no, no, that's order of Rogue One, rogue.
Speaker 1:One. You're thinking Phantom Menace, like Natalie.
Speaker 3:Portman. No, I'm just getting very angry at Jar Jar Binks right now. He's such a meanie, it's so bad.
Speaker 2:It's aged better. You guys don't hate Jar Jar Binks, right no?
Speaker 1:I mean I love the Phantom Menace. You got fucking Darth Maul out there To.
Speaker 3:Jedi. We will not live to see another day. It was so bad, dude. Yes, because that's what they were doing. It was like racist aliens. They were doing like a bad Asian accent, it was terrible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, anyway, moving on.
Speaker 3:RIP Qui-Gon. We're going to stay focused on the starting.
Speaker 1:The theme of this conversation is starting, Starting starting, starting, so we're going to stay on track, Jeremy, all right.
Speaker 3:No anyway. So you're starting out. So you got this tickle, but then you took a turn. Did I remember correctly from last night, daddy was a finance guy.
Speaker 1:Daddy was a finance guy, so essentially what happened with Daddy- was he graduated? Sorry that I said that he graduated contrary to popular belief and worked at a restaurant on Nantucket for six months.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:Went back to Geneva, New York, to 315 G, Vegas, and coached a local hockey team in some ice hockey and then worked for a commercial real estate company. I worked for Cushman Wakefield in brokerage.
Speaker 3:Shout out to Cushman Wakefield.
Speaker 1:Shout out, cushman Still waiting on that commission check in 2016, but we'll you know well, it could come through, dude I hope so, but um did that for a year and then, uh, went back up there for one more year.
Speaker 1:I was basically just like trying to hold on to college as long as I could. I was coaching our club team. I led the Hobart club varsity club hockey team to the first ever UNYCHL Upstate New York Club Hockey League Title. I was the coach and then the idiot kid who was running the team, the manager, didn't fill out the forms at the beginning of the season for us to be eligible for nationals.
Speaker 1:So we're all celebrating, we're throwing this massive fucking party at Hobart and we find out we get an email that we're not eligible for nationals, even though we fucking won the entire upstate New York league and we were livid. So anyway, that high came to an immediate crash. And then I got a phone call from the father of a family for whom I babysat for a long time. Back in high school he was the head of sales at this company on Wall Street, this sell-side firm. He was like Walker, we're hiring a junior on the sales desk, would you be interested? I said say less, packed my bags, came to the Big Apple and never looked back. So I worked there for six years.
Speaker 2:So you were like, oh, maybe I could do this, maybe I'd make some money.
Speaker 1:Well, I was like look, I was held back in math in high school. If you ever told me that I was going to have a chance to work on Wall Street or do that kind of thing, I'd tell you you were an idiot. I never did the internships or anything like that. I mean, I could barely add one and one and get four, so I was like you know, let's make it happen and what a cool opportunity.
Speaker 1:And it allowed me to move to New York. I remember being told growing up if I wanted to live the sort of lifestyle that I was raised around, I was going to have to have a quote-unquote real job. And I never knew. I didn't grow up. I had some friends who knew I had this one kid I grew up with who knew he wanted to work on Wall Street when we were like 10. He was walking around with fucking business cards at the country club pool like handing. You know, just being like dude, like chill.
Speaker 3:I have a friend who's just a real thing. His kids are at Buckley, which is very prestigious, like a private school here in New York City.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm sure they speak Mandarin with their nanny while they're eating their dehydrated k.
Speaker 3:We were eating a burger at JG Mellon's, of course, and I look and you see all the little Buckley uniforms and these kids are in second grade and they're all tied together by leashes. And I'm just watching them slowly single file across. She goes look at all those little future CEOs.
Speaker 1:It was so douchey. They're in their Buckley incubation program, but yeah, so I took the job in New York and it was great.
Speaker 2:You didn't want to do the thing, but you were like which thing?
Speaker 1:The Wall Street thing yeah.
Speaker 2:No I was excited.
Speaker 1:No, I was excited. I came to New York, I interviewed. I was excited to get to New York try something new. I came to New York, I interviewed. I was excited to get to New York, try something new, have my first real job, be on a salary, live in the city, go to the office, that kind of stuff. So I was excited and that was you said six years, right, yeah, july 2018, five years actually, until I was rudely fired in cold blood in July of 2023. Is there?
Speaker 3:an NDA on that, or is that a story? The NDA?
Speaker 1:is up.
Speaker 3:It's a good story Spill it.
Speaker 1:The NDA is up. So what happened with that was we had a Tuesday night in Midtown, new York, the Tommy Bahama restaurant client event. Drinks were flowing, the atmosphere was buzzing, deals were being made, and I am chatting with a gentleman who was part of the C-suite at the company. I'm not going to name names and you could tell that he was pretty like racked, as the kids were saying, and he had a reputation for Racked, racked it's going to be R, as in Roger, a-c-k-e-d Racked, and so we were.
Speaker 1:The slang for he had a reputation for dipping into the bag and getting into the wrong sugar bowl, as they say. He was like oh, I'll be right back. And we all see him walk out the door and get into this like honda pilot, come back in, just beeline it to the fucking ladies room and then come back out and the guy is just like a fucking bull in a china shop, like all this is a client event at 6 30 on a tuesday. The guy's like 45 years old, he's got a pregnant wife at home in new jersey, like children. It's just he is I mean yeah, and he just doesn't know what, what, what the hell is going on.
Speaker 1:I was alright, I mean can we just all like this guy is fucking wrapped. I mean he's high on coke and it was just hysterical. And he found out that I was Talking about him and the next day I got hit with a team's message from him being like hey, can you click this link? This is weird. This guy never talks to me and it's just he and our head of hr and he's like walker, look, you haven't been performing, we're gonna let you go. I was like this is this is blasphemous did you see any proof of this stuff?
Speaker 1:I saw I mean I think everybody saw proof just sprinkled all over his fucking face but like yeah, other than that no he wasn't like walker into the Honda Pilot with me and watch the transaction. Other than that I saw the whole thing.
Speaker 1:And so he just heard that you were like hey yes making jokes yes and so he was like you know what this kid's a liability, his time's kind of run out. We're gonna get rid of him. So I got a lawyer and got like a little bit of a settlement. It's funny because I was like the culture guy at work. I was there, I was the fucking glue. Since I have left, the place is in shambles, which is hysterical. Everybody has quit. It's pretty funny. Where I'm going with this is my desk, to this day remains untouched, similar to that of Albert Einstein at Princeton University when he died. His office remains untouched, similar to that of Albert Einstein at Princeton University when he died. His office remains untouched. And when you take a tour of Princeton, I'm sure many of you academics on here watching this will- know, this.
Speaker 1:when you take a tour of the good old Princeton University, they will walk you by his office, sealed off, untouched papers, askew equations on the chalkboard, you know brandy spilled on the table, etc. My desk remains untouched, with all my things my McDonald's coupons, my basketball hoop, my yearbook, my MCT oil multi-chain triglyceride oil from when I was going through my keto phase.
Speaker 3:Yeah, bulletproof.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're damn right, so anyway.
Speaker 2:I had a good run. You're a good company. I'm in a Hollywood version of Ron Hubbard. I had a good run, your company, a Hollywood version of Ron.
Speaker 1:Hubbard, I had a good run.
Speaker 2:They keep the door open and a cigarette lit in there for his Really.
Speaker 3:Is it because you have allies within the company that love you and want to keep your desk like that?
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, my friends have all been like like my old coworkers, like no, like hey Bob, like new guy, don't even fucking look at this desk Like get the fuck out of here.
Speaker 2:What about the coke guy? Is he like he's gone he?
Speaker 1:got fired, oh wow.
Speaker 2:Because of a lawsuit.
Speaker 3:Unrelated. Could I feel like you could have made some money on a countersuit or a lawsuit? He didn't sue you.
Speaker 1:We had a settlement. It didn't have to become a.
Speaker 3:You had a mediator or something like that. Yeah, we had.
Speaker 1:I just got a lawyer. We wrote a couple letters.
Speaker 3:So that was nice. You got some runway as you went into unemployment, a little runway going into unemployment.
Speaker 1:And what year was that? This was 2023,.
Speaker 3:July, which coincides with you already had an Instagram account, but when was your first video post-firing?
Speaker 1:Post-firing. It happened pretty quickly. My colleagues like Walker, we want to help you get another job. We'll get you involved with some interviews at other places, and I was like you guys. I don't know if the world of slinging data is for me.
Speaker 1:I might have a bigger purpose and they're like okay, we get it. And then so my girlfriend was like you've always talked about performing and entertaining and blah, blah, blah. Why don't you just start making? Just put your fucking money where your mouth is and this new settlement, where money where your mouth is and make some videos.
Speaker 3:Can I ask you a quick question about what it was like for those six years where you clearly have an itch and you are a performer by your nature? Is what you're now doing?
Speaker 1:like what's in your nature.
Speaker 3:Did you feel, when you were working, that there was a misery or there was a depression or there was any sort of like thing that was, you felt, blocked?
Speaker 2:And also just to add to that, from what? I know about that job at that time? Is they really push you?
Speaker 1:You're like grinding For sure I mean like look, let's be honest, I worked at like the teamu version of like a fucking real sales and trading shop. Like anyone who knows me, who knows where I worked, is like all right, yeah, like it's a fucking fund, like they've got employees in hr. But like I mean, okay, it's a teamu version of a real shop, but, um, so it's not like I'm like across the street here at goldman, you know, working into the wee hours of the morning really making bank. I was in sales. I wasn't like an analyst. You put a gun to my head. I can't even fucking operate a pivot table. I don't know anything about Excel, anything. I would just email my clients, call my clients. Hey, bill, how you doing, how's the wife, how's the kid? I know, let's. I was trying to think something funny to say, but I didn't.
Speaker 3:But, um, have you heard of amazon how's everybody doing?
Speaker 1:yeah something has just come across my desk okay um but anyway I um, but basically yeah
Speaker 2:it's called aerotime international two brothers out of a shed in oregon um, but anyway, I uh wait.
Speaker 1:What was I saying?
Speaker 2:Oh the itch, so that salesman show yes so definitely in sales.
Speaker 1:By nature, you get to be fun and clever and funny and interact with people, which was huge. I'm not joking when I say the culture guy thing I leaned into that hard. I would plan our holiday parties, I like. I would host our off sites like every. You know our h1. That's, that's first half. For those of you who don't know what the fuck you're talking, about.
Speaker 1:We would have like an off site and I'd get up there in a, in a tuxedo, pretending it was the oscars, and like host it. You know, I brought some levity into a dark world, especially post-covid. You're a good time guy, a fun hog, exactly exactly A fun hog a fog, as they say. But then I also. When COVID started was really where I upped my culture guy game. March 2020, the world's crumbling, everyone's falling apart, there are babies and women crying in the street, everything's on fire. I go back to Princeton, new Jersey. I'm in my childhood bedroom. I'm like shit. I have so much more free time where I used to have to look busy. What could I do with myself? And I decided to buy a raft on Amazon and sail it down a river in my backyard and pop it, and I was dressed in a full captain's suit and I started Nature Walks with Walker. So I was basically stranded in the woods and I had, just like Castaway instead of Wilson the volleyball, I had Tito the vodka bottle.
Speaker 1:And I was out there with like no clothes on, just like surviving for like a couple months, and I would do one episode a week.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's so great, and that was really fun.
Speaker 1:So that was really the first nature walks with Walker was the first real content I started doing and my company's company caught onto it and they're like Walker, will you like? We're losing people left and right here. Morale is fucking in the trenches Like what you know. We might as well have been in like trench warfare in you know, england in 1912. I mean, it was, it was dark.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Because in 1912.
Speaker 1:I mean it was dark Because clients were dropping, not just sure clients didn't, you know. No one knew what to do with budgeting because everybody was freaking out, but just employees. You're living at home on top of your spouse, who you can't stand and your kids shitting on the floor and your dog's got you know AIDS and it's just chaos.
Speaker 2:Did you answer the call?
Speaker 1:Of course I answered the call. So what I would do is each week I would recreate our morning Zoom calls, our morning sales calls, where everybody would come on. And you know, when you work with people it's like anything. Everyone has kind of their thing, their little mannerisms that they do and that sort of thing. So I would be like each little square of each person.
Speaker 2:Imitate, everybody I knew like this.
Speaker 1:One guy was always in Mets gear, so he was in his Mets set. This one dude would always stretch and be obviously flexing. But trying to make it subtle, I had a protein thing and I was flexing while one analyst is speaking. That would be me. Our CEO would be like he was fucking obsessed with Strava and would post his runs like on instagram all the time, so I had my like.
Speaker 1:I was like dying and like cut off like strava's the running app where you track, because naturally everybody gives a fuck about how your run went. So you're 5k, so, like you post your stats and people can follow along oh. I did 10 seconds better than my time yesterday. My resting heart rate is improving. I really care about that, so I was excited to see the updates. So I was like sweating after a run, so that was fun.
Speaker 3:That kind of stuff, and so I think about you doing that. When I think about doing that myself, I get I'm right now getting exhausted, sure.
Speaker 2:Do you, do you? Yeah, it's a big job.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like like when you wake up in the morning and you think about all the ideas for the let's let's just say the zoom Hollywood squares thing. Do you feel this like weight or do you? Does it energize you?
Speaker 1:It energizes me. I'm excited. I'm excited to like pull this thing together and then share it with an audience that I know is going to resonate with it. Yeah, he's like a real artist and it'll still get like. Sometimes it'll be tiring and I'll be like, oh God, like how many more takes do I have to do to like, nail this fucking eccentric Frenchman consultant we've hired and like, but you know what I'm going to make it happen.
Speaker 3:Do you still know the Frenchman consultant? Oh yeah, Gerard. How did he go? What was his vibe?
Speaker 1:Gerard was great, didn't speak a fucking lick of English and he actually got his like green card, like halfway through, or his true citizenship, whatever that is like halfway through his tenure at the company, and we threw him an America party and I got him some American flags and I've draped. You know it's basically he had just won the Olympics and uh, you know okay, so when you made these bonsoir, when you made these outdoor guy ones, yeah, nature walks with Walker you would write these out, or you?
Speaker 1:know these would be improvised. I'm telling you I would be like so. I live in New Jersey, my parents have Jersey. We live on like seven or eight acres, probably half of which are woods, so like I would just go into our backwoods. But, like to anyone watching this video, I'm like, I'm deep. Do you think they believed you? I mean, they knew that it was a bit, although there were a couple people like this one girl who was an exchange student at Hobart DM'd me and it did not. It went right over her head and she was like hey, like, do you need help?
Speaker 2:like are you okay, like you? What like she thought that I she thought that I'd like cracked.
Speaker 1:I was like she was such a sweet woman. I just I didn't even have the heart to respond to her. I left her on read. You switched your text to read, by the way.
Speaker 4:You have read receipts on your text. By the way, I like it. I know what that means.
Speaker 1:I know when you're ignoring me.
Speaker 3:It means I know when you've read my text. Yeah, why would anyone turn?
Speaker 1:that on? I don't know.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it happens automatically, though. Why would anyone turn that on? I don't know you have turned it on. Sometimes it happens automatically, though it's weird, but I mean, why would somebody choose to do that?
Speaker 1:Well, if you're like trying to like get under someone's skin, or no, you could.
Speaker 3:It's a forcing function for half-received. Like I have 20 on, I don't respond to text well definitely a few weeks.
Speaker 2:I'm pretty good at responding.
Speaker 3:No, you've been great to me, but I'm sure there's a lot of people who are offended it was like a week ago that I was like no, I just got this. Yeah, yeah, oh yeah. Now you're caught in a lie.
Speaker 1:But that was the first bit of content, so tell me how many you went from. Let's say you had 500 followers of your friends.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when followers of your friends, yeah, when that started to hit. Talk to me about the growth of followership. Yeah, we went. We went from nature walks with walker and then my parents were like you guys pack up, pack up the car. We're packing up the car, griswold family vacation style. We're driving across the country, we're spending the summer in sun valley. I mean, you can tell, obviously there's some chad in me here there's some chad, but you know we're driving to sun valley.
Speaker 3:I was like mom dad jeremy, you have a good one man.
Speaker 1:Thanks for stopping have a good night. Um, you can't pull the rug from underneath me. I've got this massive production that I've I'm two months into, so I'm like, all right, if I'm gonna be on the open road, my parents suck, I'm gonna make content going across how viral did the walk nature? It was it stayed within the the friend group oh, okay yeah, and then I started hot dog boy. So every time we stopped at a gas station or a rest stop I'd review a hot dog.
Speaker 3:But anyway, so is that, borrowing from a barstool guide, a little similar to like I was gonna do it with french onion soup. Actually, I'm a french onion soup guy.
Speaker 1:You know, dave portnoy crawled so I could walk, he walked so I could run yeah and um a little of an all gas. No brakes, vibe as well.
Speaker 1:But anyway we did that, and then it was time to get back into the office. By the time the summer ended, we sort of got back to work, and so I couldn't do the content anymore. So then, fast forward to July of 2023, when the Tommy Bahama incident happened. That was when the content started. So late July 2023, I came out with the Wall Street Intern the kind of classic dipshit, clueless kid in the Hamptons.
Speaker 3:Go Google it, go find it.
Speaker 1:Backwards hat company vest Zinn just in line at Surf Lodge, ready to fucking drop the equivalent of Guatemala's GDP on a chicken tendie tower. Crush some diabolically crisp bottles of Whispering A and just hit on anything with a pulse Like that was their Super Bowl, and you either knew that guy, you were that guy or you were hit on by that guy.
Speaker 2:So he just worked and these ones you wrote.
Speaker 1:These ones I wrote. So it started with him on the train. Let's fucking go, boys. We're going out. It's going to be sick. Talking about the share house, we've got a three bedroom with like 30 dudes. It's going to be dope.
Speaker 3:And you have that little picture of the empty train behind you.
Speaker 1:The L-I-R-R in the background, and that was where it all started, and so that was.
Speaker 2:I probably went from.
Speaker 1:Was that one video? A little bit, but not see the thing about the wall street intern. All of those videos, if you watch them he's never in the venue. He's always in line. So the kid about the wall, the thing about the wall street intern is he never gets in where he's going different from chad, who is the nepo baby, born and bred with the silver spoon in his mouth.
Speaker 1:Chad is dangerous because he actually knows what to say, he knows what kind of wine to order, he knows what works and what doesn't work, and he's got the money. He'll weasel his way into the venues and then he's just a fucking nightmare for everybody within a five-mile radius.
Speaker 1:The intern is just a bull in a china shop and he's fucking clueless. He grew up kind of blue collar. It's just his first time away from home with a little bit of disposable income. Chad is just. I mean, he's flying on jets, he's got the nuclear codes, the dad's checking account, he's got Consuelo on speed dial whipping up quesadillas in the 30,000 square foot Palm Beach home, going for swimming laps in the Gannite pool with fillies just all over the place, like chad's, living his best life. The intern is just fucking clueless. So that's kind of the difference between the two. But which one was first? Chad came later.
Speaker 1:The intern is where we started, yeah yeah um, and I probably got like maybe 15 to 20 000 followers over the course of two months doing him. Okay, it was just that, it was a just the right time it was.
Speaker 3:We're gonna bring your manager into this because I want to know when he entered the scene. Right now, perfect timing right at the end of August so tell me when did you come across him and what made you want to be with him just like everybody else, be with him sexually. You guys are together right power bottom, just kidding, that's his fiance Romantically, be with him sexually. You guys are together right Power, bottom Just kidding Fi, that's his fiance. Congratulations by the way.
Speaker 1:Have we inflated her today.
Speaker 4:I saw the Wall Street Intern video and, just like he said, I truly was that kid. I was 18. I went out there after my freshman year of college and I was so enamored with the character because I know exactly what that feeling's like. You don't even know. You worked all week. Your parents gave you maybe 150 bucks.
Speaker 1:You're blowing it at your friend's place. Who happens to have a place there?
Speaker 4:you don't talk to any girls, maybe like one or two. You text. There's no cell service and I came up from like the entertainment world, starting the mailroom, and then a childhood friend of mine is actually a really similar kind of comedian to Walker, so I started managing a friend of mine oh, and the way that this sort of met kismet was. I was at business school looking to make some extra cash, as everyone does, and I'm like I'm pretty good at this managing thing and I just thought Walker had something that hits a nerve with people that have high disposable income and it's highly shareable it's a community of people that know what they're looking for and know how to spend money, versus people that just spray comedians and they're just for the mass audience.
Speaker 4:Walker had a really high wallet of his average viewer.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was niche, but it was also like some of your videos. I will say like I would say, 60 of the terms you're using I've never heard. But it was also like some of your videos. I will say like I would say, 60% of the terms you're using I've never heard of. But it's almost like when you watch ER, like you don't care what the doctors are saying.
Speaker 1:They're clearly in it, they know what they're doing and people will comment on some of the videos where I'm getting where I'm really drilling down as they say yeah, yeah, and they're like word he just said, but I couldn't look away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah yeah, common friend, like that kind of thing. So what was your sort of when you first came to it, when you came and said I've got some ideas for you how did? That work.
Speaker 4:I just said. I know you're doing something that people resonate with. Your following account is growing. I know how to monetize with brands and I'll be there, I'll be your Sherpa. I'll make sure you don't get taken advantage of by agents or other people. How do you monetize the friends you call the brands and you're like, yeah, like again I. When you have like a, especially like a manager, the incentive structure is he does well, I do well. Your agent is the money all goes into the agency pot and then you get your little piece and the rock is where your money should be, really your time be spent, because that's like a higher ROI of your time being an agent versus I can be one-on-one with Walker. If he's doing well, I'm doing well.
Speaker 4:I can go to bat for him in a way that an agent or some bigger company can't.
Speaker 1:And when we spoke, when we met, the thing that I liked about Fran, among many things, was that he and.
Speaker 1:I were both in a similar phase in our respective I'll call them careers. I mean, he was, you were in business school, I was just getting started. He wasn't some guy with 20, 30 years of experience in the industry with a bunch of different clients where I was like it just kind of worked Serendipitous has kind of been our word for the week and it was a serendipitous moment, I mean. I got on the phone with him and I was like okay, yeah, this guy sounds a little slick, he's in Costa Rica, he's calling me from La.
Speaker 1:Selva, tropical as they say and I was like, all right, and he sounded over the phone, you got a little bit of the accent and I was like, alright, maybe this guy is going to totally just wax me for all that I've worked, but no, it worked out. I mean, you get a little bit of the New York.
Speaker 2:I feel like, since I hadn't met him, I wasn't sure if he was going to sell me a used Nissan.
Speaker 1:Leaf or something.
Speaker 4:New York and LA oh cool, LA is where I went to. I showed up at LA when I was 17.
Speaker 1:I left when I was 26.
Speaker 2:Very formerly you were shaped. Do you make because quantity is important in this game right.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Volume how often do you feel like not in the mood? Maybe you didn't love that one, but you have to push that out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I sort of like go through phases with like when it comes to the log, like the backlog of videos that I have, where it's like. You know, it's not like I'm waking up every day and I'm like shit, I have to film a video today that goes out today.
Speaker 3:Like this podcast, like that.
Speaker 1:That's when you get it Exactly, yeah we're getting the light all right one second yeah, this comes out at 8 pm every wednesday night eastern eastern do you try to do every day?
Speaker 1:yeah, I try to post every day. In the past couple I would say month or so I've started to steer away from that a little bit. Like my first. My main goal for the first year of doing this I've been doing it for about a year and a couple months it was just. You know, it's like going to the gym, I mean, clearly I know what the fuck I'm talking about here. You got to be consistent. You got to go every day. If you go once or twice in a week and then you just stop, nothing's going to happen. You got to show up every day. You got to fucking hit the same spot every day and then eventually the tree is going to, you know, fall down, like with this. That was my goal for the first year. Every single day I wanted to post a video, whether I loved it or thought it was decent. I'm not going to post something that I think sucks.
Speaker 2:But like, and I'm trying different things. How long was that period where you just stayed in the friend group?
Speaker 1:That was like March 2020 until July 2023. But I wasn't really making content.
Speaker 3:No, he got fired and then he was like but I wasn't making content when I was like 2021, 2022.
Speaker 1:No, I wasn't doing characters, but I guess.
Speaker 2:I put that out there in the sense that people are doing this and they're like there was a period of time where it was incubation, where you were trying to find organized.
Speaker 1:Definitely the first. Like July, august, september, the fall of 2023, late summer and fall. I tried all different kinds of stuff. I put a bunch of other characters out there other than the Wall Street intern. I mean I had like moms checking into resort you know, resorts for vacation with like a towel on my head.
Speaker 3:I love your female work. Actually, you're incredible at female. The Get Ready With Me was the first thing I saw and I immediately followed you.
Speaker 1:I had no idea my friends will sometimes say that I have a little bit of a cam from Modern Family in me.
Speaker 2:Basically.
Speaker 1:I'm just like I've got a 35 BMI and I'm gay. Anyway we digress.
Speaker 2:Lily.
Speaker 4:That was great, though Longs, I will say. When I reached out to him, this is August of 2023. By January 1st of 2025, he had gone from about 18,000 followers to about 45, just shy of 50. And then from 50,000 followers, which was basically Jan 1, 2024, by the time we hit June 1, 2024, so six months later, I think we had eclipsed a quarter. You had eclipsed a quarter of a million people following you on just Instagram. The get ready with me's were big.
Speaker 3:The get ready with me were In.
Speaker 1:January of last year. A year ago, I was sitting on my phone and I was watching some fucking eighth grader talk about how she was pissed that they were going back to school after the holiday break and there was a new rule that the kids couldn't have phones at school. And she was in shambles, freaking out while just dousing a gallon's worth of drunk elephant foundation on her face. And then the professor or teacher, miss williams, is gonna take my phone from me. I'm not gonna text anybody. Like when we're with my boyfriend, jason, like oh my god, it's gonna suck, like all this shit, and it's just like, all right, this has to be addressed because it's all over the internet and it's not just, it's not kids. Most of the time when I'm doing the videos I'm making fun of like, like grown ass women and men Like it's like, get ready with me to get fired from my job, get ready with me to go to jury duty, get ready with me to like just be a fucking human.
Speaker 3:Tell my boyfriend I'm pregnant.
Speaker 1:That one, that one caught on. I did it. I would. I would just search in Tik TOK like G R W M and see what would come up and what was the most popular and one of them was get ready with me to tell my boyfriend that I'm pregnant, and so I did a video where I broke the news to my boyfriend.
Speaker 1:It was a three-parter or four-parter that we were with child and no, it was like a fucking. We rode the pregnancy for two trimesters and people were like we need this, like what's up with the baby, daddy Jason, what's going on? And it was pretty funny and I people are, I think, are kind of pissed at me that I didn't ride it the whole way, because the baby was due at christmas and he was gonna be named jesus and it's gonna be a whole thing. But I, just I, I I got pulled in other directions but um puts you.
Speaker 3:You haven't seen any of this, which is so funny to me.
Speaker 1:But like I've seen some of it.
Speaker 3:Yes, he puts like whipped cream on his hands. Like whipped cream peanut butter he gets the tongs that you like, flip steaks with, and that's for the hair.
Speaker 1:You're always super late. You're always late. You're always late. If you're making a get ready with me and you're on time, you've already fucking lost you don't make a get ready with me, unless you're at the boyfriend.
Speaker 3:She tells him he's pregnant and she just like lightly says that he goes and doesn't talk to her and passes out.
Speaker 1:He's just like literally out cold and the parents hate her. The parents hate her, the boyfriend, it's like a whole. She's like I think it's going to be dramatic. It was a whole bit.
Speaker 2:So these start as one thing About a year ago. Yeah, you write a thing the Get Ready With and then that character kind of hits and then you're like, oh, let me expand on the story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally Expand on the story.
Speaker 2:Have any of these been more fully baked when you produced that first video where you're like I can?
Speaker 3:see the whole character.
Speaker 1:Or you've mapped it out, or you're just kind of like serendipitously, like just rolling and flowing, like you mean like sort of premeditated, I have the story all set up. Yeah, yeah that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah yeah boyfriend and the parents, or whatever.
Speaker 1:I would say I mean something like the Wall Street Intern, something like the David Goggins impersonations that I do. Oh, I haven't seen those yet oh, dude, I'm like running shirtless all over the all over America screaming on the camera.
Speaker 2:David Goggins is an ex Navy SEAL motivational speaker super intense.
Speaker 1:The guy runs 100 miles in the desert. He basically tells you to get in pain for your whole life and it's just a funny juxtaposition to see me running with my shirt off versus him running with his shirt off. But I do a good impersonation, it sounds like him.
Speaker 2:Are they all? I'm going to watch these as soon as we're done. Here You're doing different voices and stuff yeah, I mean to a certain point.
Speaker 1:I mean I would say like the, the get ready with me. Girls are super girly, kind of sassy, like yeah like no hey guys, get ready with me to go to dinner at the club with my mom and dad. I'm so annoyed because my mom got me this super cute maxi but my dog took a shit on it and now I can't wear it.
Speaker 1:And then David Goggins will be like I'm running with my shirt off. You have to know him, but it's like I see it all the time, motherfuckers being little bitches, just screaming, just cursing, yelling. I broke my femur back in North Carolina. He's fuckers be little bitches, just screaming, just like cursing, like yelling, and like I, you know, I broke my femur back in north carolina and like he's just still running.
Speaker 2:He's still running and like that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:And then you know it, the emergency board meeting, the old board member character folks, and we want to thank you for coming to the annual meeting of the board. We have a lot we have to talk about here. Chauncey Stilton's grandson wore white jeans in the dining room last night, so he's been dinged from the club. Jim, would you please remove your hat. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Anyway, so if you have a problem.
Speaker 1:You know that kind of shit. There's like different voices and things like that. I can do accents and whatever. A lot of the characters I don't have a premeditated thing. I know that there's runway with them. If nothing else I can just do, insert XYZ character over this, Like Pookie and Jet, for example. I don't know if you know who the Pookinator and Jet are no no.
Speaker 1:Pookie and Jet are this couple from. They live in Atlanta. They're so over the top. I mean they're cute, they're in love, I get that. But he's the guy who's like they do these fit checks where they're standing together side by side, so I make them. Where it's a split screen, I'm the guy and I'm also the chick and they've got these southern accents and Jet starts every video with like good lord, babe, that outfit is a knockout 10 out of 10. You're going to look even better on my floor. You thought I was on a business trip. Last week I actually flew to Palm Beach where I secured you a new push present for because we're having our baby paloma and he buys her like a fucking fifty thousand dollar birkin and she's wearing like a million dollars worth of jewels and it's like so over the top but like people have fallen in love with them and I get it. They're great and cute, but they're also I mean you can't not fucking make fun of these people like they're out of control.
Speaker 3:They're all based on people that you really do see. I was talking last night, and what was fascinating to me was that you seem to have almost a photographic memory of the details of human behavior.
Speaker 1:I think that's actually true. I haven't thought about that.
Speaker 3:You sort of see someone. I remember.
Speaker 1:I will see something unfold in front of me, whether it's something big and memorable or something minor, like someone's mannerisms or whatever, and I will remember either how they sounded, the inflection in their voice, what they did, and I can picture it when I'm then trying to regurgitate it in my own thing.
Speaker 2:It's incredible. It's an incredible talent. What's the future? How do you see it? It's all good.
Speaker 3:It's all good Take over. I met him this morning. We gave him a hot meal and he hasn't left. It's called starting and not finishing.
Speaker 1:The future I would. I mean I was saying earlier the for the first year, which we just kind of wrapped up, my goal was just to be consistent and kind of not to sound dramatic but kind of show up every day and just make a video every day process over results. See what happens exactly now that we're entering year two, or, as my the suit here likes to say, that was was year zero. This is year one.
Speaker 3:Atta boy, I like year one.
Speaker 1:I'm going to be a little bit more targeted in building out characters that have worked. So being intentional about storylines when does Chad go? What happens to him? So we build a story. Palm Beach Dad, all of these different characters that I'm doing. So I'm going to have some build out some storylines for them. I'd love to get involved in some scripted stuff, tv or film. Somehow that was the impetus for doing this in the first place, rather than 10 years ago having to kind of wait tables and go on auditions. You can kind of get your name out there and build a brand with social media. So that was kind of the original what do you got right now?
Speaker 1:point for this instagram it's a little over 600 000 between instagram and tiktok instagram 315 000 supposedly. It's going to go away this sunday on the how do you feel about that?
Speaker 3:is that panicky for everybody? I?
Speaker 1:I think it is panicky. I was just with a couple people in Palm Beach who were talking about their content creators but mainly their followings are on TikTok and they were genuinely freaking out.
Speaker 4:Yeah, your lifeblood. But.
Speaker 1:I've never liked or trusted TikTok. There was a massive shift from COVID, like 2020 until recently, where brands used to allocate all of these marketing dollars to TikTok because of the sheer volume and usage on the app. But then people started to realize 95% of TikTok are children under the age of like 14, who, who don't even have you, don't have a dollar to spend, so people weren't buying on tiktok. Like on instagram you have, like every middle-aged woman across america is not has an instagram account following her friend who's married, who she envies, and goes on. Like every talk show and like sits in the crowd. They call them the talk show cohort. Those are the people you want to tap into. Those are the people I don't mean this from like a salesy, skeevy way, but like those are the people who are spending money.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Adults, kids don't on TikTok, are learning dances.
Speaker 3:The TikTok live shopping is massive, that's true, that's true.
Speaker 1:It's a demo from Walker. It is.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, but you could do some parodies of live shopping, I would think Totally and actually sell things while you're paradise, the parodying. I like doing the parody stuff Because there's a great bathrobe company that I think they do what's it called again Wakanichi. But anyway, this isn't about my bathrobes, guys. It isn't about the softest cotton terry in the world that we're not talking about. Just relax. No, no, we're massive. No, no, no, we're selling out, we're sold out. Look, we're not going to talk about my incredible business. Go ahead.
Speaker 1:You go ahead. You didn't hear about their deal with Four Seasons.
Speaker 2:No, I just wonder about your observation of social media world and what it is. You talked about this aspirational thing where people are jealous of each other. There's arguably some unhealthy stuff about that's going on there that some people are into, some people aren't. Sure, is there some level of commentary about your observations of this, or is it all kind of a good-natured sort of? Is there any cynicism behind this, or is it pretty?
Speaker 1:You mean social media in general?
Speaker 2:Yeah, kind of like these characters that you're. Oh the characters no, the characters Not just the characters, but the fact that you're imitating them doing their social media.
Speaker 1:My goal is for my page to be a place not to sound cheesy, but where people can go.
Speaker 1:Obviously, 99.9% of the world or America, america have iPhones now and you're on your way to work, you're sitting in the bathroom stall avoiding your boss, you're going home, you're in bed, you just whip out your phone and you can scroll and see whatever you want. So the accessibility is crazy. My goal is for my page to be just a brief respite happy place, be just a brief respite happy place where people can go and kind of escape whatever is going on in their life at the moment, whether it's dramatic or something very simple, simple and I um, there's no the characters that I do. People will ask me, especially when it comes to some of like the one percent humor making fun of like wealthy people and country clubs and that like how do you know all of this stuff? And it's definitely a world that I grew up around and in a little bit and like so I'm directly making fun of like myself and like my peers and my family and my friends and it's not at all like.
Speaker 1:It's not like me throwing fucking cheap shots from you know across the bow, being like jealous or something of a world that I don't know. Some of the reason that I think it works so well if I do, it will toot my horn, I guess is the specificity that I drill into. People are like wait, yeah, like that's exactly it yeah, that's exactly what happens, and he's sort of right, so like it it's a joyful spirit.
Speaker 3:People are good at making fun when there's like love underneath and there's just love underneath and he's a big-hearted guy and so you haven't watched it yet. But it's like you know, you haven't watched any of it and and no but, I but it, but it is. It's just that thing. It does make you feel good.
Speaker 4:The nuance of the references lead people to feel like he's talking directly to you. It's like my club that I go to in Palm Beach.
Speaker 1:Your golden retriever sconce at eight. You swallow your wife's bangle and now you're on I-95 on the way to the animal hospital. I've got to get the stomach pumped and your kid's late for lacrosse practice at brunswick and it's just fucking chaos, and you know and have you gotten any flack for?
Speaker 1:uh, kind of talking about these proper nouns that people are protective of, like certain clubs, private clubs once in a while people but like no, for the most part people who are in the thick of that world that I'm making fun of enjoy it. They laugh at it and I think it's fun Because it's not like I'm attacking, as long as I'm not using specific names, and this is the person who this happened to. You can kind of laugh in plain sight. Hide and laugh in plain sight. There was one time I went to lunch with a good family friend at the B&T in Palm Beach.
Speaker 2:It's a bathroom tennis club.
Speaker 1:for those of you less cool, bath and tennis. Bath and tennis in Palm Beach and we had lunch. It was crazy.
Speaker 2:This one woman. Bathrooms and tennis.
Speaker 1:Basically, basically my bath and tennis bathing pool, so your restaurant should be called a bathroom, restaurant yes. Yes, yes. We gave this guy one hot meal this morning and he hasn't laughed like if you give a mouse a cookie like you know.
Speaker 1:But anyway, we'll. We'll address that in a second. But we're at the b and t and we're having lunch and, like, this woman comes up to me and she's talking about how they just sent their nanny over to stad to pick up her 12 year old from boarding school. I mean, the amount of material is phenomenal and I intentionally left my phone at home just so that there wasn't even a problem, because you can't film at these places. You'll get in trouble and I'm a guest. Fast forward, a week later I make a video. Chad goes to the B&T Generic green screen. Nothing related to anything I saw. I just made up my own stuff. Someone at the bnt, some member, drove over to the bnt, manually flipped through the fucking guest book to find who I was and what member brought me. Had the club call the member and demand I take the video down. The only reason I took the video down was because I didn't want my good friend to have to deal with the bullshit that this fucking person was putting them through.
Speaker 1:But like other than that I mean. No, it's no. One usually has a problem.
Speaker 2:What about the influencers? What about the wake eyes?
Speaker 1:No, no no, no, they don't.
Speaker 2:Like, have you from the, the couple that you talked about, oh, that's actually true.
Speaker 1:I don't think they love me too much we actually we actually well, yeah, they don't love me a whole lot how do you know that? I don't know it the reason. I think it is because for two reasons. Number one they will usually repost people who are doing their their stick, their stuff, and I do their stuff on like a nuclear level. Like I have sent probably half a million followers their way. People thought that I made up pookie and jett people were like wait, we didn't realize they were real people.
Speaker 1:So anyway, I know they've seen my stuff. Campbell pookie, the wife, if you're watching this, hi, I don't have a problem with you. She dm'd me once and like sent me a heart. I thought my thing was cute, but then I started talking about how Jet's always horny and wanted to sneak up to the primary suites 2025 and douse her in Chick-fil-A and show her the Continental 48, something inappropriate like that.
Speaker 2:They're like Christian.
Speaker 1:They're kind of over my thing now but, I just when I do those videos, just visually, it's funny because a lot of people think I have an identical twin. I'm like are you guys fucking touched? No, it's me doing two different characters on the same screen. People are like, oh my god, they're so good, they're so funny. I didn't realize there were two of you and I'm like that's great. Thank you for the support.
Speaker 2:But it's just me.
Speaker 1:And so those videos are kind of an automatic viral video. They're funny to watch, they're funny to kind of, and Pookie and Jet are hot right now.
Speaker 2:How big is this? Excuse my ignorance about all this stuff, but how how big is this genre of a parody, sort of things like this?
Speaker 1:I don't not, not very, I don't really know. I just started doing it with some parody and because like it it worked, and like I've kept doing it like um I think there's a point where a lot of people imitate one specific thing yeah, well, they'll make fun of like you're the corporate guy, yes, or? You're the country club guy or you're the fitness guy, but like, like my page will say walker's world, like you're gonna get a little bit of everything yeah, you have a huge range.
Speaker 3:Do you have characters in the quiver that no one's seen? That you're excited about?
Speaker 1:we're gonna tap into, like the at home, like cooking influencer people who like cook we've got a lot of fun stuff we're tapping into, like the boating and yacht world. Um, we're doing a lot of we're branching out good for sure that's exciting. Um, which will be fun, and we're bringing the emergency board member back, the old stickler I like board guy, I like soft, he's soft, yeah, he's soft.
Speaker 3:And even ke he's soft, and stern, even keeled, even keeled Exactly. That's nice. I'll be in the grill room with a fresh cup of gazpacho.
Speaker 1:What were?
Speaker 2:you saying you do do TikTok as well, I do TikTok.
Speaker 1:I put whatever I put on Instagram on TikTok, but I don't put much. I've never really trusted TikTok. Because, it's not like there's no. Can I ask?
Speaker 3:something this is my own neuroses when you post and you see there's immediate data, right, and you see that one gets like 6.9 million views and one stays in the low 100,000 or one's like 40,000. Do you have any emotional reaction to that? I mean?
Speaker 1:yes, in the sense that I'll be like oh, I thought sometimes I'll post a video that I think is going to be like just a killer and it gets 100,000 views yeah and other times I'll post a video that I think eh not great and it fucking blows up so like you just don't know how people are going to react and what I mean.
Speaker 1:We're at the mercy of these goddamn algorithms I know they're annoying um, so whatever that, you know, whatever the fuck zuck feels like that day, we'll see what happens with my videos. But yeah, I'll be like damn. Of course I want each video to get as many eyeballs as possible. So when I, when one doesn't do as well as I hope it does, I'll be like, you know, it doesn't bother me. But I'll be like like damn, I wish it had done better, I guess, but I don't. Yeah, it doesn't bother me.
Speaker 3:So I have to talk a little bit about stand-up, because we saw a show last night together. I've been hanging out at the Cellar, as the listeners know, and one of the things that sort of blew my mind is that even the top comedians, like Dave Chappelle was there last night, yeah, but he and all of them will say like you just don't know, you think you have a good joke and then you do it and you just don't know. Yeah, and it's like at that level really, you just don't know, and so it just applied to like these videos.
Speaker 1:I've noticed any off that night, or in my case the video doesn't go as viral as I hope. My whole philosophy is. I believe in like what I'm doing and like what I put out there, and I know that this is like a quality video yeah, so I don't really care what people say to it or how big it gets out there.
Speaker 2:How does it this idea of using response to gauge what? You want to put out is one that's really irritating to me he made me do this writing course that you have to write every day, and the whole thing was write a thing, put it out and, based on exactly what these people are saying, figure out how to do the next one.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Which is challenging creatively for me, because I think there's a part of creativity, a big part of creativity, where you're asking yourself what you want to do, a part of creativity, a big part of creativity, where you're asking yourself what you want to do. So do you look at a video that does really well and how much does that motivate you to continue down that road?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it definitely does. If I make a video that goes viral, I'm like, okay, this was great, people enjoyed it. I'm going to do it again. But I'll tell you now that I've kind of lapped a year of doing this. I've gotten so many of my newer followers haven't seen so much of my original stuff, so I spent like a week between Christmas and New Year's posting videos that I posted over the, you know, six months ago or eight or ten months ago, so like and they're still on your page.
Speaker 2:Totally, they're still down there, but a lot of people just missed them.
Speaker 1:So you know I posted. There's one video. The Chad goes to Vail Four seasons. They're still down there but a lot of people just missed them. There's one video the Chad Goes to Vail four seasons.
Speaker 3:I posted that last.
Speaker 1:February, when I posted that, it got a million views. When I posted it a week ago, it got like 100,000. It depends on how it gets pushed. Same video.
Speaker 3:That's a very good data point, yeah, and that happens all the time.
Speaker 1:I also post, do you?
Speaker 2:know how many hours you have of stuff on your internet.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 2:God.
Speaker 1:It's a lot A shit ton I would love to know that's that too. Yeah, a ton.
Speaker 3:And now from a manager's standpoint is there, what's the game? Feel like you have to protect it in any way. Do you feel like just keep blasting? Is there a strategy involved now for you, or is it just like get this horse running and doing what he loves and we'll sort of make it up as we go along?
Speaker 4:I'll say the strategy is actually to convert some of the characters from the short form into a long form entity that has actual IP that we can license.
Speaker 3:Who is a model of that? It's done it in this world.
Speaker 4:Hot Ones. Hot Ones just had that huge exit.
Speaker 1:He's not a character, but he has his own smaller thing.
Speaker 4:Friday Beers, I think, is a great example of somebody who took a page that he doesn't even have a character. It's a meme account that developed a media company and this whole ethos of what they do has become, spawned, this massive who's the guy?
Speaker 1:There's the dude who was doing videos and now he has the Netflix show the Teacher. He's the teacher.
Speaker 2:Whatever, no, no, he's got a legit Hulu show.
Speaker 3:He's like a scripted Hulu show. Yeah, he's, and he's like in the classroom. Yeah, he had a character. Yeah, this guy.
Speaker 1:That kind of thing.
Speaker 3:That stuff's really powerful. As you go and this is just me being an older kind of unsolicited advice thing, just really having a specific model and seeing that it can be done- and obviously you'll do new ways, but that guy.
Speaker 1:He's a perfect example. That'd be something I would want to do your characters are so deep.
Speaker 2:How to show based on a character. Do you have ideas of how to get the order? Are you mainly right now either thinking about what some of these characters go longer in different forms and also just getting money for products?
Speaker 4:I had the pleasure of getting to know Bruckheimer pretty well and he said I know that my taste resonates with a large mass of population. I feel like my sensibility and taste is that way. If I give Walker the thumbs up, it usually means that he has my stamp of approval. Do I specifically come in and hammer creative ideas to him? No, I leave that to him. But I have a really strong sense that if I like something, mass audience likes what I like and that's my sort of North Star.
Speaker 3:Does Brookheimer know he plays hockey?
Speaker 4:I mean I would love to Get back on the ice here Please let's get him Swap a fucking GoPro.
Speaker 1:I played in that.
Speaker 3:I was in a hockey league in LA and I don't know if the Brookheimer League is still going, but it was a fun time.
Speaker 2:So just real fast the money, part of it. So you will take okay, here's the overall account and you'll go to yeah, I mean it's like a whole you have like underlying, of how many people are engaging with this content.
Speaker 4:And then you go to the companies and you say you pitch them. Yeah, I pitch Walker and I say like again, there's data on about people are really surprised to find out that actually he has more of a female following than a male following. I'm not surprised. And then those little notes that I can bring to sort of help the brand understand how that we can activate together. Activate just means post and have it be a partnership. That's what my goal is. But one thing I wanted to come back to that you brought up was about the TikTok ban, and TikTok followers are what I call cheap followers. There is no sense of community that you have with who you follow on TikTok. So about a million followers on TikTok is probably worth about the same as 100,000 followers on Instagram. So Walker's Instagram following in that community. When you follow somebody on Instagram, you've got to manage that ratio of followers to following and that's your own personal persona. So an Instagram follower is a more expensive follower. Truly, they care to show you. Hey, I'm part of this WalkSauce42 underscore community.
Speaker 4:When you see somebody, now that follows him, you automatically have that kismet moment of like oh my God.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I like. When I see liked by a friend, I'm like, oh, we watch the same thing. That's the value that.
Speaker 2:I can see how much message board interaction do you feel is necessary and do you do. That's the value that I can see. How much message board interaction do you feel is necessary and do you do, like in the DMs and stuff? Yeah, like hearty comments.
Speaker 1:I try to respond to every DM that I get, which takes a while that's crazy and then commenting I'll get in, and I'll get in there sometimes and I'll engage, but sometimes it's fun to just kind of watch it unfold.
Speaker 3:Wait, every DM.
Speaker 1:Caesar vibes with the Coliseum. Play it out. Yeah, I mean not in the hidden section.
Speaker 3:Oh, oh oh.
Speaker 1:But like in their suggested DMs and the primary DMs I'll try to get back.
Speaker 4:So that just means you have like a mutual follower, hidden DMs is where, like, the full crapshoot is.
Speaker 3:Anything from spam to A lot of spam.
Speaker 1:Now Some 40-year-old dude in Milwaukee who liked my bit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and he's rubbing one out to him.
Speaker 1:Meaning the people you respond to are people that you know. Either know or have mutual friends with A little bit closer proximity.
Speaker 4:There's a filter. There's a filter on it. It has to be one degree of separation.
Speaker 3:We got to wrap this up because you got to go and this has been so good. But I had one question that I want to kind of end with and it's about serendipity, because we kind of are doing this in a beautiful way. We got introduced through a friend barely because I'm putting stuff out, and he obviously is putting stuff out and these social media engines, which I've resisted for a long time, but they do feel like just serendipity flywheels. So I was curious if there's something that sort of pops out for you as you've been on this incredible meteoric rise, which I think is super cool.
Speaker 3:It really is Like last night at the thing like someone saw me from New Girl. I took a picture and then like eight people were like dude, I love you, and I was like oh, yeah, yeah, like a picture. And then like eight people were like dude, I love you, and I was like oh, yeah, yeah, like it's, it's the. The game is completely changed. So serendipity highlights is what I'm asking. Do you have any some fun flow you've had in the last year that you that pops?
Speaker 1:out in your head like stuff that's kind of yeah, just like weird, yeah like you mentioned molly's, like the yeah, you know, yeah, molly people wanting to like do stuff with me in person, I'll get people. I got invited to perform and go to this lady's 50th birthday luncheon at Round Hill in Greenwich. It was 75 Greenwich moms all over the place. They paid for this. I didn't pay to go there although I would have you guys were great, but I was there.
Speaker 1:They hit you up, but then I got back for this and I didn't pay to go there, although I would have. You guys were great, but uh, I, uh I was there for that.
Speaker 2:They hit you up actually, but then I got back.
Speaker 1:I have never. I have a very high social battery and like I get charged by being with people, that fucking sucked the life out of me I got home at like midnight I was like oh my god, I was like I can't even move.
Speaker 1:The next morning I got a phone call from this random like 310 number and it was like, hey, this is molly sims's assistant. She wants you to come to her fashion week event. I was like, oh, like molly sims, it sounds so familiar. So I googled it. I was like, oh yeah, I had a poster of molly sims on my wall like growing up, like totally. So I went there and she was so nice and great, she's like come to my house in la someone, you're out there next. And I went there and then I just like the, the snowball effect of just kind of saying yes to these opportunities has brought me to cool places. I had never even been to palm beach, florida when I started doing the palm beach dad.
Speaker 1:That's crazy now I when I walk around palm beach, like not to sound arrogant, like I'm basically like the fucking Pope. It's insane. I have people like 60-year-old women dragging their 20-year-old kid out of their Ferrari being like this is my Chad, this is my husband. I'm like, hi, how are you? Nice to meet you guys.
Speaker 2:That's been really cool. How did you know the specifics about the place? Chad GPT?
Speaker 1:Yeah, a little bit of Chad GPT. But I have friends who grew up going there and it's all kind of plug and play. I was telling you guys last night.
Speaker 3:Yeah, say that this is good.
Speaker 1:People in Palm Beach. The guy in Palm Beach who's renting in the Hamptons for the summer over Labor Day weekend has the same fucking problems. He's chomping at the bit to get a doctor to do a telehealth visit, to get his kids medical forms in for Palm Beach Day, just like the Greenwich dad in Nantucket is for fucking Brunswick, just like the Palisades dad is for John Thomas Dye. Everyone's got the same problem. The Palm Beach family who are all about goldens their golden retriever sconce. It took a shit on the G650ER on the way to the Yellowstone Club, just like the Greenwich family's labradoodle took a piss on the carpet on the citation flying to Sun Valley, idaho. It's all the same shit. Both families on opposite sides of the country are paying to have the fucking carpets of the plane shampooed. It's just what kind of dog took the shit, or what school is the kid going to.
Speaker 1:You know so it's all this plug and play. So people are like, how do you know? And it's really, it's the same attitude, it's the same tenure or tenor mood. You just gotta know. Like, what are the cars these people are driving in the different towns? What are the rest? I mean, every fucking dad in Greenwich right now has a Rivian on back order.
Speaker 2:That's just like a fact.
Speaker 1:You meet any dad who works in Wall Street or lives up in Fairfield County. He's got a Rivian on back order and he's fucking pissed about it. So you know you just got to plug in and ask some questions and then take some notes.
Speaker 3:That is the strongest ending I could have ever imagined for this podcast hey, this is WalkSauce42. Underscore what a treat this has been.
Speaker 1:Let's go Truly truly.
Speaker 3:Thank you, you ripped. And anything you finally, anything we want to plug as we head out here.
Speaker 1:We're just getting warmed up. Yeah, year one, this is just the beginning.
Speaker 3:Year zero is over.
Speaker 1:Year zero is over. We're going to get our colleague over here at the north end of the table a hot meal and send him on his way. And thank you for having me.
Speaker 3:All right, good man Bye. Oh man, that was a treat to revisit. That is our conversation with walker ward uh, who somehow managed to turn getting fired over a cocaine fueled tommy bahama client and are into one of the best things that has ever happened to him. If you enjoyed this episode, you could find find Walker on Instagram at walksauce42 underscore the underscore matters. A very special thanks to my homeless friend, jeremy Sisto, my comedy buddy, my brother. Thank you for being there, for pushing that, for making that happen Wouldn't have happened without you, big boy. I really do appreciate it. And thank you to Fran Seratori for discovering the talent that is Walker Ward. I wish both of you extraordinary success.
Speaker 3:If you enjoyed this episode, go ahead and comment. Show us some love, like, subscribe, share, share with people that are fans of Walker or you think would be fans of Walker. I hope you will. I hope to show this episode and get it into as many eardrums as possible. So whatever help you can, I would very, very much appreciate it. Also, if you think that I should be interviewing anybody, this happened because someone reached out and said I think you two should talk. If that tickles you too, please do not hesitate, do not. I would love it. The serendipity wheel is turning and I want more. I'm addicted to it. I love me. The serendipity wheel is turning and I I want more. I'm addicted to it. I love me some serendipity. So I thank you in advance. I hope everyone has an incredible week full of love and adventure, venery and hugs, kisses, all the good things in life, and I'll see you next week. Bye.