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Welcome creatives! These are discussions, thoughts, case studies, interviews, and lessons about how our creativity relates to life. The host, Mr Benja, is a former video game programmer / designer for Rockstar Games, Sony Santa Monica, The 3DO Company, and others, as well as a fine artist. -- Be sure to check out the website for more.
Yes, indeed.
Yes, indeed.
Here we are.
Creativity Threads Life with your boy, Mr.
Benja here to talk to you about
how creativity threads through life
through all parts of our existence.
And it's what I've been doing all my life.
So, hey, let's talk about
creativity in all the ways today.
Listen, Cat Williams, comedian
extraordinaire, OG in the comedy game.
Oh, man.
He's out here dropping some fire, dropping
some fire on these internet streets,
showing up on Shannon Sharpe's podcast.
Shay, Shay.
And it's just been wild.
I don't know what this is leading to.
I don't know what this is all about,
but this whole situation, and we'll
get into some of the little bits, I
suppose, as we go along, but some of
this reminded me of, of things that
I've seen before, just in the creative
realm, in the creative landscape.
In, in my time just going about things
now to be sure I've actually done stand
up comedy before for about two years.
I played around with being on stages, just
doing some hosting, being funny and being
a proctor and host certain little events.
I thought it was just a
fun little pastime to do.
Got me a chance to practice.
Standing on stage, talking to
people, public speaking, et cetera.
On top of that, I actually
spent three years doing standup
comedy, just, you know, in the
amateur, in an amateur setting, I
would do, I was doing open mics.
I was doing, uh, events, as I said,
and it was legitimate standup comedy.
And I really liked the art form.
In fact, I think standup
comedy is the purest.
Art form out there.
It is literally you with your expression
in the audience and the art is being
created, adjusted, digested in real time.
There's there aren't
too many arts like that.
And in fact, if your art isn't doing
well in the standup comedy world,
you get instant feedback right then.
And that's one of the key things
I think that differs from maybe
a live audio performance where.
Even if no one's listening or no one's
watching, it's still kind of can exist
on its own standup comedy has a different
relationship with the audience where
it naturally changes and is affected
by the audience by current events.
By things happening right
there, right then and there.
In fact, there's a lot of
interaction with the audience.
As things are said, things are brought up.
The audience may not like a certain vibe.
The, the style may need to change
depending on the room you're in.
Uh, what just happened that morning.
It's a very interesting,
interesting art form.
I suppose music, singing or something,
live dance may be a, a close second.
But even in those, there's There's no
prerequisite to touching an emotion
on, on whether you like it or not.
Like you may really like a performance
by a musician, but you don't have to
have that guttural reaction that you do
with standup comedy, which is laughter.
So it gets into an interesting
space and, uh, say that's, it's
just to say that I really respect
the art form and what it does, the
people that it brings to it, the.
The way that it goes.
So it's been, it's been a while since I've
done standup comedy, but I still feel a
lot of what Kat Williams was saying here.
And it brings up a lot of points.
I'm not going to go in depth
and just try to break down and
dissect everything he said.
His life, Kevin Hart's life, and all that.
That's, that's gossip talk, and
I don't really get into that.
I am here for the
discussion of creativity.
And one thing that happens in
creative circles, and anybody who's
catching me from threads knows this.
Your creativity will be copied,
or people will attempt to make
facsimiles of your content.
People will try to take what is
yours and put it out as their own.
Some may be more justified than others.
Some is straight up theft, some is
homage, some is just inspiration, some
may be intentional, others not, but
there's a whole thing with copying.
And I want to bring up the fact that
Kat Williams started talking about this
thing called, that I call joke repeating.
So I was at, I was at the 3DO company
around the years, uh, 2000 to 2003 ish.
And I was just getting my foothold in
the game industry, starting to develop
ideas, starting to develop my craft.
And I was just getting
around to knowing people.
And one of the weird things that
happened is there was this, there's
a guy that always followed us around
and I won't give him a name here.
Let's call him Jack.
There's a guy, Jack, they used to
hang with us and follow us around
and not everybody liked Jack.
I didn't understand why, but not
everybody liked Jack until one day.
I remember Jack said something loud.
He was like, Hey everybody,
what do you think about this?
It started laughing, just ha ha.
And my friend, Chris, Chris
Ferreira, shout out to you.
He turned around and said, damn it.
Fucking joke repeaters.
And I chuckled.
I was like, what?
It's like joke repeaters.
He's like, that guy just heard a
joke, turned around and repeated it.
He's a joke repeater, like
you can't be a joke repeater.
And I was like, holy crap, somebody
has a name for this, where it's just
somebody who takes a joke and repeats it.
And it was just like, it's just
a scummy thing to kind of do.
You're taking credit for someone's
laugh, their ingenuity, their little
bit of, of clout credit or fame
or whatever you want to call it.
And they just run with it.
Like it's theirs and they, a
joke repeater, you get the point.
And so after, after that
episode with Chris, I started
watching out for joke repeaters.
I started watching Jack too.
Jack was continually repeating jokes.
And this is one of the most
unfunny people I knew of.
So maybe, maybe, you know,
Jack thought that was the way
that jokes were supposed to go.
You just hear something and repeat it.
I never had an inkling of copying
anybody's stuff like that.
It just didn't cross my mind at the time.
Like, I was thinking to myself,
why would people do that?
Why would people take your creativity
and try to recreate it like that?
Not even recreate it, just repurpose
it and put it out there as their own.
It doesn't that doesn't that take away
from the whole point of creativity?
I'm not even thinking about
art and developing a brand
or anything at this time.
I'm just like, yeah, I like to create.
So I create and put stuff out there.
Why would anybody take
and just run with it?
I knew it happened that I knew I
should watch out for it, but it
just didn't register in my head.
So I started watching out for this
thing called joke repeating and I
saw it pop up in a lot of places.
I saw it pop up in a lot of different
ways, and I saw it happen to me a lot too.
Cause I'm, I was a, I'm a humorous dude.
So I'd walk around and I'd say something
like, Hey, you ever noticed this?
Baha!
People start laughing and then
they go about their business.
Like an hour later, two days
later, you hear somebody,
Hey, you ever hear about this?
Baha!
And you're like, I said that.
I said that.
And they didn't.
But in this internet age, this
is what we have to deal with.
This is what we have to contend with.
Creativity being copied,
restructured, twisted.
reformatted, put out there
in all kinds of ways.
Even the machines are doing it with AI.
So at some point you got
to get up and call it out.
And this is where you have to
get into the dirt and the weeds.
And you have to just start being,
I don't even have a word for it.
I was about to say
asshole, but that's not it.
You just have to start protecting your
creativity from all the joke repeaters.
So this whole thing gets you into a.
Any creative who's been creating at
any high enough level will start to
understand what I'm talking about.
It's not something to be bitter over, and
I don't know if Cat Williams is bitter.
He's always kind of told the truth like
this, but as a creative, like if you're
a true creative, you've got something
special that other people just don't have.
The ability to really create
something original and Unique, which
are two slightly different things,
but creating something original
and creating something unique.
When you've got a situation where
you're a creative, at some point, you're
going to come to a crossroads where you
could spend more time being creative.
And you could spend more time pushing
out your creativity into the world.
And the person that spends their
time pushing their creativity out
into the world is not going to be
as creatively strong, usually, this
is just a generalization, as the
person who spent all their time
crafting whatever it is they create.
You've got some person in a lab somewhere,
in a dungeon somewhere, in a library
somewhere, banging away at something,
while you're out there spending your
time trying to spread that message.
And then there's a little battle and
contention going on, because what
happens is somehow, some way, magically
speaking, your creation starts to
enter other people's consciousness.
And once it starts to enter other
people's consciousness, whether
intentional or not, you'll start
seeing your creativity in the wild.
And this goes back to
all types of creatives.
You know, who copied from who,
and you'll see competitions over
the fame and the limelight where
there's usually a famous guy and then
somebody a little less, less popular.
More adept, more skilled
at that creativity.
And this is a hard place to deal
with because it puts you in the
mode of fighting two battles.
One fighting to stay number one in the
minds of the people and two fighting to
stay number one in your creative endeavor.
And it's very difficult.
And the people who can do both end
up going to the stratosphere because
they're out there with the message
and nobody can question whether
they are at the top of their game.
Like, was there a better dancer than
Michael Jordan, I mean Michael Jackson?
Yeah.
But was there a better dancer
than Michael Jackson that was also
doing everything he was doing?
And it's a very small number of people who
were anywhere close to what he was doing
in terms of getting out there in front of
the people and in terms of doing the work.
So that's, you know, that's one
of those stratospheric things.
Michael Jordan, same thing.
There's probably, there's a couple
of people out there who could
have taken him out in his prime.
But, you know, they were probably off
in some, off in some basketball court
somewhere on some park no one knows about.
And even though they might
have been better, they couldn't
rock at Michael Jordan's level.
Same thing with Mike Tyson.
Uh, you know, and let's, let's
talk about the split, um,
where you have the two, right?
The one who's a little more famous and
the one who's a little more creative.
You have Tesla and Edison.
People usually count Tesla as the
smarter individual, but Edison
was the one who was more famous.
What's another example?
I don't even know right now, but it
definitely goes, Oh, um, you know,
in the, in the comedians, in the
comedian world, there, there are people
that are, you know, really slap knee
slapping, funny aren't as popular.
You may even apply this to Kat
Williams and say Kevin Hart.
Where Kevin Hart spent much of his
time getting out there as opposed
to making the craft stronger.
Kevin Hart's got a lot of irons in the
fire, a lot of different things going on.
He simply doesn't have the time to
work on his craft as much as somebody
who's not in the limelight as much,
who's not in the spotlight as much.
So now, you have to make a
decision if you're Cat Williams.
Do you spend more time out of the
spotlight and working on your craft?
Or do you take the Kevin Hart route
and spend more time in the public
eye, making sure the public sees
you and doing things that way.
There's no right or wrong to that,
but either way you work on your craft
and you will expect to, and you should
expect to feel this, this tension.
Cause either way.
Either way, what's going to happen
is this thing called joke repeating.
When you're more popular,
people will take your jokes.
When you're more quality,
people will take your jokes.
If you're a painter and you've
got an interesting style,
people will try to take it.
They see what works and they'll
use it to their advantage.
And then at some point, the
gossip problem comes into play,
where people just start talking.
And I'm really not a fan of gossip.
I would much rather just
go about and do my things.
I know a lot of creatives can
kind of feel me on that one.
You'd much rather go about your
business, just trying to build your
craft and build your enterprise.
And then someone's out there talking
and this is the problem with people
copying when something gets copied you
start to wonder Hey, wait a minute.
Where'd that come from?
I saw this style somewhere else.
It's like, yeah, it's all me
It's like yeah, is it really
all you where'd it come from?
Let me tell me more and then the
gossip starts who started this project
Who was the person who actually
did the work versus who was the
person who just talked about it?
Who was the person who laid the
foundation versus the person who
told somebody there was a foundation?
There is value in both,
but let me be clear.
I highly value the
actual creator much more.
And I think the creative should get
more credit than they usually do.
Usually it's the marketer, the
loud person, the one with the fan
base or the ear of the people.
Usually that's the person that
gets ahead to a certain extent.
As I said, if you, if your creativity
and ability is so far out there that
you just blow everybody else away,
sometimes you have no choice, but
to become that guy, that person,
sometimes you have no choice, but to
be on top of you for that good, but
that's not always, that's not always
going to be the case presented to us.
So for most of us, we have
to bother with Joker Peters.
And once Joker Peters come into play.
Then gossip starts to come into
play because people start to
wonder, Hey, wait a minute.
How did this guy get here?
Didn't you say that joke first
or who wrote this joke or who
put out this painting first?
Who started this graphical style?
And this is in every, this is
in every creative field from
people who developed race cars.
You know, you have the whole
Ford versus Ferrari thing.
Then you have other situations
such as hot wheels versus matchbox.
Later on, you've got
McDonald's versus Burger King.
Del Taco vs.
Taco Bell.
McDonald's vs.
McDowell's, for all of
you who know about that.
It's a weird, creative game.
But, here's the thing.
When someone repeats a
joke, you have an option.
Call them out.
Make sure important people know.
Let it be known you started that.
You can get to a point where you're
petty and nobody wants to deal with you
because they just think you're going to.
Shame them or speak ill of them.
That's happened to me before, but
at some level, you've got to have
the integrity to stop what you're
doing and deal with the nonsense.
It's a horrible, horrible process.
A lot of times you're in the middle
of creating something and you have to
stop and address, address nonsense.
And here's the thing, even if people
aren't doing it intentionally, you'll
see somebody come up and say, oh
yeah, I was just sitting around and
I thought of this song one day and
boom, boom, bop, bop, went like this.
And it was great.
And people were like, Hey, Shakira,
what are you talking about?
What are you talking about, Shakira?
You got to call it out.
Sometimes it's like, oh
yeah, I came with this.
I came with this crazy musical style
and nobody's ever heard of it before.
And.
It's going to be awesome.
It's like, um, I'm sorry.
Uh, what are you talking about?
Again?
That was, that was the
style of, of rap in Florida.
That what are you, what
are you talking about?
How did you just find that?
Columbusing.
That was the word I was
trying to think of earlier.
People go around Columbusing, acting
like they discovered something
and putting it out as their own.
This is a problem.
And sometimes you have
to go to war for it.
Example.
I was at a.
I was in a meeting with a group of
creatives and we were all working
on things and it got, it was one
of those creative meetings where
we're trying to decide what we
should do, where we should go next.
And what ended up happening is while
all these ideas were getting thrown
around and people were arguing, I
noticed the shift in the room where it
stopped becoming about the idea and it
started becoming about, I'm going to
run this my way and I'm going to beat.
And you started seeing camps
form within the meeting.
Where it's like, we're going with
this and we don't like those guys.
And the other group was like,
we don't, we're going with this
and we don't like those guys.
Now I'm over here with my notepad,
actually thinking about the
creativity of the situation and
thinking, you know, what we could do
is something completely different.
Alright, so I'm over here with my notebook
trying to, trying to think of ways to
get out of this problem while they're
spending their energy fighting each other.
This was, this was young, you know, this
was young me not understanding how these
political and social games are played.
So in the meeting, there
are two camps fighting.
Much of the room is just kind of
looking around hearing the different
cases, the two different sides.
Some people are disinterested and I
don't know who else was doing this, but
I was over in my own little world trying
to figure out an actual solution that
would work for us because once you're
once you stop with two options and then
you're starting to, you're starting to
stagnate a little bit or you're either
getting towards a really good answer
or you're starting to stagnate a bit.
And I thought we were stagnating.
I was like, no, there
are really more options.
There are better options at play here.
These aren't the best two options.
It's just what this
discussion has turned into.
It's turned into a nonsense battle
between egos, two egoing parties.
So what I was doing, writing stuff
down, figuring out, sketching out ideas.
And what I decided is that, you know
what, I really do have a good idea.
Let me see if I can slow this meeting
down a little bit and put out my idea.
So in the meeting, I kind of
interjected myself at one at an
opportune point and said, you
know what, Hey, think about this.
If we've got these two options, there's
also something else we can consider.
We should do X, Y, and Z
it'd be able to bring about.
You know, we should do a, B and C,
it should bring about X, Y, and Z.
It'll be awesome.
And people were kind of like, okay,
we'll take that into consideration.
But what I really want to focus in on is,
and they just kept with their arguing.
If you ever known a situation like
this, it's really hard to stop people's
trains of thought when they're in a
tense, high energy argumentative state.
So I wasn't part of either camp.
So what I didn't realize at the
time was that my argument wasn't
going to go anywhere because
I wasn't one of those camps.
And I just threw an idea out and they were
like, okay, and kept about their business.
So I was like, huh?
All right.
So while I went back to my notes and
started trying to figure out how to
present my idea a little better and
stronger One of the people from those
camps from the two warring camps in
the meeting room said hey, you know,
it'd be really cool Is if we did a
B and C and we got result X, Y and Z
that would take that would take this
to a really awesome level and it's
pretty much what we're already saying.
And but we can do it
this way and that way.
And ABC X, Y, Z.
It'll be awesome.
And people looked around at this person.
And they were kind of
like, Hey, you know what?
That's a really good idea.
I'm glad you're part of our camp.
What do you think of this?
And one camp decided to use this guy's
repeat of what I said as ammunition.
This guy was a joke repeater,
except it wasn't funny.
He was taking my content, what I said
exactly, put it out there as part
of the ammunition for this one camp.
And it totally blew the other guys away.
They were like, yeah, yeah.
Okay.
Well, right, right.
That does work.
And the other camp started to back down.
They were like, that
really was a good idea.
And I'm sitting over there thinking,
okay, I may, I may not have been assertive
enough or may have been too assertive.
I may not have been going out to, to
have beers with these guys as much.
So they didn't know my position.
I might not have said it.
In their particular lingo.
I'm thinking about all these
things, but I'm like, no, no, no.
This dude just took what I said pretty
much verbatim, aligned with the camp.
And when he repeated it, people took it.
And I learned from that.
I said, okay, he was aligned with the camp
and was able to get the message across.
I had no camp and couldn't
get my message out.
And I'm watching the meeting and I'm
starting to see the whole thing congeal
and I had to stop it for a second.
I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah,
but I just said that and
everybody was like, oh, okay.
And I was like, no, no,
no, stop the meeting.
I just said that.
And this is when I turned
into asshole mode, right?
Asshole mode just turned on.
It's like, no, no, no.
I just said that.
That was my idea.
That's what I proposed.
That's the same thing I said.
I just said that.
And it didn't even matter
whether it was good or not.
Right now, I was just fighting for credit
and making sure that, you know, nobody
came with some punk move like this again.
And this is going, this is the
going to war part because now the
entire camp that accepted that idea.
Had to stop and recognize that,
Oh, maybe I didn't hear it.
Or they had to come up with some story
in their head to justify what they did.
The guy who took my idea, he was like,
Oh, well, I guess I didn't hear that.
And he just kind of faded away.
And what ended up happening, I really
wasn't aligned with that camp, even though
they got my idea and they took it and ran
with it, I kept saying that was my idea,
I got put on another part of the project.
They acknowledged it was mine,
reluctantly, begrudgingly,
but I got moved to a different
part of the project after that.
I was like, this is my thing, I came
up with it, I have an idea for it.
They were like, we don't care,
we're playing a social game, you
were playing a creative game,
you go work on something else.
And I kind of nodded and was
like, huh, this is how it goes.
Now this took place over the span
of a few, a few weeks, I'd say it
didn't happen just like right away.
Like they didn't just come out of the
meeting and say, excuse me, uh, Benjamin,
you're going to go sit over there now.
It didn't happen like right away, but you
could see the ramifications of it because
we were making big moves in this game.
And I won't name the company I was
working for at the time or the project.
It was just like that.
Where I actually shook people to the
core because I wouldn't let my idea
get stolen, and I had to go to war.
And I don't like going to war, this
is the term I call it, going to war,
when you've got to start playing
on social fronts, you've got to
start playing on mental fronts, the
physical landscape that you've built.
The realities that you've constructed
where you have to start defending
your territory and going to war
to make sure that whatever other
idea was out there that was on
some bullshit has to get put down.
It has to happen once in a while.
And that's what Kat Williams did.
Now, he's always been a
truth speaker, his own truth.
But when he put it out there this time,
the world noticed he took that shot.
Now what happens now is
going to be interesting.
I'm not sure whether it's
going to be good for him.
It's going to be bad for him.
I don't know.
It's totally unclear,
but this is not a bad thing.
Yes.
Going to war will cost resources.
Yes, and I'm talking about
a creative ideological war.
We are not talking about war,
war, which is completely different
subjects, but I like the war
analogy, so we're going with it.
You'll find war in a
lot of creative arenas.
And there's a bit of
healthy competition to it.
Kanye West versus Drake back in the day.
There was LL Cool J versus Cool
Modi, Joe Rogan versus Carlos Mencia.
We know who won that one.
And it's a strange thing.
People like to see a battle.
People like to see the
whole platform get raised.
They like to see drama aka dramatic
tension leading to a result
Usually someone not making it.
Tesla versus Edison as we said before.
East Coast rap versus West Coast rap.
Marvel versus DC.
We can go on and on.
There's always these creative
battles and you know what?
I think it's good.
I think it's healthy.
I think it gets creatives like
Down in the dirt creatives.
I think it gets them outta their
funk and causes them to rise up and
craft a message or be left behind.
And I think for the loud, outspoken
ones, the marketing minded
creatives, I think it forces them
to actually look at what they're
creating and wonder, you know what?
I'm out here being creative,
but do I have the creative chops
to go against real quality?
I know I have creativity in talking
to people, but does my creative
stand strongly enough to a product?
Where it stands on its own
and is the decided choice.
Coke versus Pepsi.
Everybody said Pepsi tastes
better, probably because it wasn't
as spicy and was more sugary.
Nevertheless, Coke beat them out.
Good marketing, some secret formula.
Everybody talked about great distribution.
They whipped them.
They're still whipping them.
Nintendo versus Sega.
You know, that was one of the,
that was one of the classic ones.
PlayStation versus Microsoft.
The PlayStation versus
the Xbox, if you will.
I think that one worked out for everybody.
We got much more quality products out of
it, but you have to be willing to go to
war in these situations as a creative.
And as I said, I'm not here to
get into Kat Williams gossip.
I'm just here to talk
about the creative angle,
but you can tell that he is one of those
creatives that is more about getting
in, doing the work, practicing the
craft than he is marketing and selling,
which is where I'll put Kevin Hart.
No shade to Kevin Hart.
I'm not taking sides in
this or anything like that.
I'm just saying.
Another thing that this story
has brought up is being truthful.
Now there's a lot of truth in creativity.
The creative sees something in
their minds and their souls.
They have a certain feeling,
certain way of understanding life.
And they express it as
truthfully as they can.
This truth, their truth
may upset a lot of people.
And if it's really good, it probably
will upset people because you have to
make a delineation between what you're
saying in your head and what reality
is actually confronting you with what's
really going on in your life, in other
people's lives, in your audience's
life, in your opponent's lives.
What are you developing?
That is going to move the
world and change things.
As a creative, you really
have to ask yourself this.
And you'll start getting into this
space of having to confront old
ways of thinking, or new ways of
thinking that aren't fully fleshed
out, that just don't hold up.
You're gonna have to confront things.
And this is the
confrontation of a creative.
It is not for the faint of heart.
And it's not just for the loud.
You actually have to have the credentials.
You have to actually have gone to boot
camp, put yourself through training
to where no matter what happens, my
creativity is going to shine strongest.
Can your creativity do that?
Can whatever you're creatively building
stand on its own and weather the storm?
At the end of the war, you're like,
yeah, yeah, I lost this, I lost that, but
we're coming out stronger because of it.
Or will you have been
broken and come out weaker?
If you haven't had any kind, any fight
like this, you haven't been around
long enough, or you haven't been to
enough places that really matter,
or you've just decided to try
not to fight, and at some point,
the fight will come to you.
I was hosting an art show at one
time, doing a very good job at
it, and the people who owned the
complex had said, you know what?
This guy's putting on an art show.
It seems to be getting a
lot of, a lot of acclaim.
People are starting to talk about
the art show that's coming up.
And it was a video game
based art show, right?
Someone had had one of their
friends and they're like, Hey,
my friend is very awesome.
He's got all this.
He's got all these people behind him.
He's got these paintings.
He's very cool.
He's going to be bringing
some paintings by.
And I was like, Hey, listen,
we made an agreement.
I'm running the art show.
I need to have a say in this guy's art.
I'm like, okay, that's fine.
And this guy started promoting his
art already, unbeknownst to me.
When it came time to see this person's
art, it was all based around Star Wars.
And I'm thinking, this is a
video game art show, what does
Star Wars have to do with this?
And why would you present this to me?
And the person kind of shrugged their
shoulders like, Hey listen, I don't
know, you're doing an art show, and he
has art, I figure he'd be a good fit.
And I'm looking at this person like,
you know, good and well, and they
just, and people will throw these
problems in your face or at your feet
and just be like, you deal with it.
So now I've got this person
with the reasonable following a
reasonable amount of clout behind
him bringing me Star Wars art.
And I'm thinking, Oh God, how do I
integrate Star Wars art into this?
First thing a lot of people
started to tell me, Well, they
have Star Wars video games.
I'm like, yeah, yeah.
A big picture of Star Wars characters
or locations or vehicles or whatever.
None of that has anything to do
on face value with video games.
This is a video game art show.
That's all it's about.
You're messing up the vibe
and the person didn't take what I said
very well, and I wasn't being mean.
I was just like, Hey, man, uh, you can
maybe display your art somewhere else.
We'll work on getting it.
As I said, it was an entire building.
I said, Hey, listen, we'll,
we'll put it up somewhere else.
Make sure people go out and check it.
We'll make sure it gets a lot of play,
but it's not going to this gallery show.
Uh, it just doesn't fit.
I even said it much nicer than that.
That didn't go over well with the
person, but they didn't tell me because
a lot of people, when they go to
war with the true creative product,
they will not go to war directly.
They will start going behind your back.
They'll start playing the gossip game.
They'll start playing the social
game and people who can't win.
Face to face will oftentimes
take the social route.
They'll take the backstabbing route.
They'll take the,
they'll take the more sniveling route.
To
me, if your creativity is strong
enough, it should be able to stand
on its own and do its own thing.
And you shouldn't need to go around
talking to people, about people,
trying to garner favor that has
nothing to do Or undermines the actual
art that's trying to be created.
My art at that moment was that
well curated video game show.
It had nothing to do with star Wars and
nothing to do with quite honestly, the
reason why the person created the art.
So weeks passed.
I mean, the show wasn't happening
for a couple of weeks, but time
passed and I start hearing rumblings
like, well, yeah, I heard your art
show is not going to be that good.
And.
You know, this other artists is got really
good art, but he's not going to be in the
show because It doesn't, it doesn't show
off good art and he's not going to be.
And it's like, wait, what?
And all these stories were
coming out and I'm like, just
hearing it from random people.
So this is me learning that even without
you, a story is going to get told.
There's some stupid narrative
out there that's happening.
So I'm like, there is a narrative
going on and it's on some BS.
How did this happen?
I let it happen.
That's what happened.
So now it's like a person's
inviting you to go to war with them.
Where people just aren't content with
going about and doing their thing.
They feel they have to, they
feel they have to throw stones
at the giant to get a reaction.
They feel they have to go in and
take a few coins from the dragon.
Just to get a reaction out of that person.
They can't just leave well enough alone.
Nevertheless, it continues.
So what I had to do, of course, was make
the show bigger and better and brighter.
And I even put that
person in a good light.
So I was like, hey, make sure you go
check out this other person's art.
They're here as well.
So even before that person's
narrative could get around,
I cut them off at the pass.
I was like, hey, listen, we're gonna have
our photographer come up and see you and
take pictures of what you've got, your
art, Our photographer is going to do that.
So we had a professional photographer,
two of them, in fact, at our show, taking
pictures of all this video game art.
And we still took the time out to
go take pictures of this non video
game art that was trying to socially
muscle this way into the show.
I didn't think that was cool the
way, the way they went about it.
I didn't think that was nice.
So I had to take the bigger road and
ultimately, you know, people remember
what, what we did with that art show.
And there was not much
of a downside to it.
There wasn't much of a, there
wasn't, there wasn't much dirt on it.
I'll put it that way.
And when it went over very well, this
doesn't always happen when you go to war.
Sometimes if somebody comes to
steal the coins from the dragon,
villages get burned, hideaways get,
get melted, castles get destroyed.
Not this time, thank goodness,
but that's happened in the past.
And this is what creators have to
be ready for, ready to go to war.
What's up Roma dome from Instagram.
What's up nerdy beads from
Instagram, Logan B acting.
Always good to see you around.
Thanks for stopping through.
Shout out to everybody on Facebook too.
And don't worry.
These are all going to be
on the podcast stream later.
So you'll be able to
watch them at your will.
But yeah, it's an interesting thing
that creators have to go through when
you're, when you're being dragged into
these, these discussions and these.
Arguments.
And for a long time, it was very confusing
to me, like what it actually meant.
And people will get mad at you,
mad at you for calling them out.
You can't, you can't just, you can't
just have an idea and not let me take it.
I can take any idea I want.
It's mine to take.
Like, um, all right, dude,
that's what you think.
Now, let me be clear.
You know, I'm not saying that there isn't
such thing as inspiration, homage, putting
your own spin on something, whatever.
We can discuss those in other forms.
But I'm here to talk about
going to war creatively.
Sometimes you got to
do a cat Williams, man.
Sometimes you got to
start bombing on people.
Sometimes you got to wreck them.
We used to call it wrecking
them back in, back in the day.
When you publicly wreck somebody
and then everybody looks up and
knows, yeah, yeah, they got wrecked.
Yeah, yeah, that they, they took
it to the chin and knees buckled.
They couldn't take it.
They got wrecked.
And sometimes you have to do that
and you have to be ready to do that.
Bill Gates versus Steve jobs.
They went at it and the computing
industry is better because of it.
I'm glad neither of them
got completely wrecked,
but sometimes people do get wrecked
and you got to be ready for it.
You got to be ready for the subterfuge,
the attacks, the theft, the blaming.
It's funny.
I'm still thinking back to that,
that meeting from, from the, from
the beginning of the podcast.
I'm still thinking back to that time where
somebody just said, Hey, I have an idea.
And they repeated my idea
right in front of me.
I was like, Holy crap.
What is this?
I didn't go to war with that
person per se, but I had to
outpace them at every step.
I had the energy because I had the goods.
You got to remember it takes far
more energy to maintain a copy.
Then it is to provide from the source.
If you've got a water well, and
you're always bringing forth fresh
water to serve the people, somebody
can start siphoning off your well
and say, Hey, we've got fresh water.
And then it's like, okay, you've got
fresh water, but I've got the well,
you may have siphoned off some of it.
You may be able to take my
water and try to resell it.
But if I have the well, I
have the ultimate upper hand.
Usually,
usually you have the upper
hand if you know how to use it.
So what I'm asking you is to stay deep in
your creative well, if you're on threads,
this is the age of copy paste fame.
You're on Instagram.
This is the age of reposting memes as if
they were your own getting rid of water
marks and posting as if it were your own.
It's crazy out there.
So yes, I've had, when I
stopped to make the Mr.
Benja brand, I actually stopped
and did that intentionally because
I knew where we were going.
I was listening to a lot of marketers.
I was listening to a lot of sales and
promotions experts, and I had to step
away from the creatives and say, listen,
creatives, I know you're creating a lot
of awesome work, but there are people
out there who are coming with AI,
they're coming with, um, you know, fiber.
They're coming with outsourcing.
They're coming with cheap labor and
they're going to start recreating
everything you do at cheaper
and more quickly than you do.
You do not want to get lost in this.
And I started building up my brand
so people would know me as such.
So no matter what I do now, I still
have my brand power behind me.
And in fact, there are people out there
who go and run and try to take my name.
I've had people take my graphics from
my website and create their own website.
It's really bizarre.
So I didn't intentionally want to
come online and start, you know,
building out my personal brand.
I am the consummate introvert.
I don't want to talk to people.
Yet here I am.
I want to keep my creativity strong
and this is what I do for it.
I don't know if that makes any sense.
You could always tell me in the
comments if it does or it does not.
In fact, I actually would appreciate
you saying something in the comments
because I know this is true for
me and I can't be the only one.
I've got many stories of
copying and plagiarism.
Um, you know, vibe jacking, all of what
I've put under the idea of joke repeating.
Cause that still happens today.
Like whenever I tell a joke and I
realize it's funny and I've made five
people laugh, then I get like a, a
sinking, not a sinking feeling, but
I get this weird feeling in my chest.
Like, okay, that was really funny.
That was really funny.
And I just created it.
Out of nowhere.
I think back to my references.
I'm like, where did I get that from?
Who did I learn that from?
Do I need to give credit to somebody else?
I really think through these things
and I'm like, okay, this is my idea.
I'm going with it.
I'm telling everybody, because if I
don't tell everybody somebody else
will, if I don't stand there at the
forefront and say, this is me, I did this.
Somebody else is going to say that
it was them and they did that.
It's going to get real hard
here in the future with the
amount of copying going on.
As I said, We're in a copy
paste lifestyle, and you
gotta go to war to protect it.
Protect your future, to protect your
creativity, to protect your output.
Whatever you create, you gotta protect it.
Legally, it's fine.
Socially, it's extremely important.
Sometimes you have to go to war.
Is what Cat Williams did classy?
Probably not.
War is not classy.
Is that his truth?
It very well is.
Now people are pulling up receipts.
You've got ice cube coming
and talking about it.
You've got Ricky smiley
coming and talking about it.
You've got, what's his name?
Kevin Hart saying stuff and wire fireworks
going off this many days after the first.
But everybody's talking about
this cat Williams thing now, and
this has been going on for years
where things start building up.
And at some point when things
build up enough, you've got to make
the, you've got to make the call.
You've got to pull the trigger.
You got to light the fuse
and say, you know what?
I'm about to blow something up.
I got to say something, whatever that
is in your situation, you may have
been letting those little things slide.
And you call them little things and
you think they're going to go away.
When little things are said in your, in
your, uh, earshot, where little things
are said that you can hear and pick
up on, you know, they're being said
louder when you're not around or out of
earshot, those rumblings mean something.
And you've got to take your creative
prowess and shine that light, go
into your creative well, and say,
I am the source for this water.
I am the source.
And if you're not the source, build one.
If you don't have a creative bone in
your body, start building something.
Maybe your creativity is not necessarily
in building the thing itself, but
maybe your creativity is in promoting.
If you're the best promoter around,
I don't know, be like a Don King
say, yeah, nobody promotes like me.
I don't actually create the boxers,
but I make the boxers happen.
Make that your creativity.
I'm not knocking all the marketers
sales and promotions people, but
I'm saying you've got your own art.
If somebody does in fact create something
and you borrow from it, Say, Hey, I got
the inspiration from this, from that.
I learned about painting arrows and
lines from the old graffiti artist.
I learned my collaging from when I saw
old shepherd fairy works and people, a
lot of people don't like shepherd fairy
because they say he plagiarizes, whatever.
That's an argument you can have,
but he's made the art his own.
And it's intentional.
He's gotten caught up in some stuff.
So can't fully back every.
single thing, but you get what I'm saying.
You've got to do you, whatever your
creative power is, as I said, as I always
say, whatever your art is, whatever
your expression is, whatever that
true thing is that comes out of you.
Maybe you don't create good jokes, but
you know good jokes when you hear them.
If that's the case, you have the
power to bring people up and say, Hey,
listen, This person had a great joke.
This person's funny.
Everybody should listen to
me cause I know who's funny.
They'll come to you when they
want to find somebody funny.
They'll come to you.
It may not seem like it in this
weird internet age where everybody
just copies and removes credit.
And you know, you've got Instagram
theme pages where they're built off
of copying other people's content.
I mean, that is what they do.
I webinar where they're saying,
yeah, don't make content,
copy other people's content.
Don't give them credit and try to
blackmail them into paying for credit.
It's wild out there.
A lot of you are saying,
Hey, that's just smart.
That's just good business.
Might be good business.
Might also be some bullshit.
So yeah, creatives, listen,
this is creativity threads life.
And I'm always talking
about how creativity threads
through all parts of life.
I am going to try to keep this at about
an hour, unless we get really good,
get really juicy with the whole thing.
So I'm going to start posting these up to
my website at creativity threads, life.
com.
You'll be able to see
all the episodes there.
It should be up.
If you go there now, still working
out all the kinks, um, love having
you all seeing you, as I said, I'm
going to be posting these most every
night that I feel like it, no set
schedule, usually aim for the afternoon.
Sometimes I go into the evening a little
bit like this one, but anyway, follow
along, keep listening up and listen.
When creativity strikes, drop
it, put it out there, protect it.
And if somebody tries to take your
land from you, you go to war with them.
This is Mr.
Benja for Creativity Threads Life.
Peace.