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Interviews with amazing people making things happen across the world of digital media.
New episodes every Thursday.
Mike (00:01.791)
Our guest today is a guy who has spent his entire life in digital media. Grady has served time as a gaming influencer, a podcaster, executive producer, founder, podcast host. I'm sure there's more. basically he does everything. You merely adopted digital media. He was born in it. His new digital content agency is called cheat code. Ladies and gentlemen, it is Grady Reigns. Grady, what's up?
Grady (00:07.566)
Yes.
Grady (00:30.144)
Wow, what an intro. That was pretty legendary. I'm not gonna lie. The born in digital media, that is a line I'll have to take with me from this podcast.
Mike (00:31.679)
Ha ha.
Mike (00:37.279)
Yeah, well...
Mike (00:45.151)
Yeah, I know. I'm wondering how many people understand the reference. I think a lot of people. It's like a pretty iconic line, but I'm not gonna, if you don't get it, go Google it or something. I don't know. If you're driving, don't Google it, but maybe later.
Grady (01:00.622)
Yeah, absolutely. I feel like everyone above, I can't imagine there's too many 14 year olds listening to this that haven't seen The Dark Knight. So, I feel like we'll probably hit our target audience with that one.
Mike (01:07.903)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dope, okay. So I alluded to it in the intro, but Grady has spent his whole career doing all sorts of different things in digital media. I would say after being like working with you a little bit and just like getting to know you and the work that you do, your expertise is basically like making things go viral on the internet, right? Like that is a really oversimplified way of kind of summing up what you do well.
Grady (01:34.414)
Yes.
Mike (01:39.839)
an important thing to do well, right? Like everybody wants to have that skill or at least access to that skill. So starting there, you know, virality is such an important part of how content is distributed in 2024 and beyond. So for you, as you look at the ecosystem and you look at all this content that you're making, is there a way for you to describe the kinds of content that will go viral?
Grady (02:05.838)
Yeah, so the way that I describe this to the people that we now work with and the people that I've worked for in the past is...
Creating a viral piece of content, it's a lot like playing blackjack. I always equate it to gambling almost. As in, if you've ever played blackjack in Vegas and the dealer like teaches you when to hit and when not to hit and when to do this and when to do that, it's called like playing by the book. And basically in blackjack, there's a way that there's like a guide that no matter what the situation is on the table, no matter what cards you're dealt,
There's a specific thing that you're supposed to do where you're playing quote unquote by the book. And if you do that, then your odds of winning at Blackjack, I think are like 50%.
And if you don't play by the book, it can go down to like 30 % or 20%. So it's like, you have to play by the book to basically like win at blackjack. And that's the best way I describe like doing stuff on social media, because there are, it's kind of like a book and there's a lot of unwritten rules and different people have different rules that they live and abide by. But over my experience with all these different companies, I've kind of built up my own set of rules. And those rules are also like constantly changing.
And so we kind of have our own little book, I guess you could call it, of like, hey, here's everything you have to do to have the best shot at a video to go viral. And the reason I like the blackjack analogy is because sometimes people can do something really not by the book and it goes totally viral.
Grady (03:47.086)
And you can't really explain why that happened. And sometimes people can play by the book and play by the rules for a very long time and still lose all their money and never go viral. Like lose all their money in blackjack or just never go viral. So it's definitely feels a lot like being kind of like being like a professional gambler where like you can't guarantee that anything's going to go viral, but you can guarantee that you're going to give people the best shot possible. And so that's what we've made a career out of doing. And we've got.
gotten a lot of different brands to go viral, so it's been awesome.
Mike (04:20.511)
Hell yeah. So that's a great analogy. And like, you know, blackjack is obviously set so that the casino and in the end we'll make all their, we'll make money. Hence the 50%, like odds number. That's like one of the friendliest numbers in the whole casino. So on social media, like, you don't have to say necessarily what your number is, like what your odds are to go viral, but like,
Grady (04:30.862)
Yes.
Grady (04:46.766)
20 % no.
Mike (04:48.287)
If you take somebody who like knows what they're doing has some version of like the book that you guys have, but maybe not exactly the one, but like they have experience, they know what they're doing. Like, what do you think that person's like odds are of going viral with on a given post?
Grady (05:08.462)
I would say...
I mean, even if I'm thinking about all the stuff I was a part of, we'd probably have like a 95 % success rate, I would say, of like, and not just like one post going viral for a brand, but like making, like creating multiple viral posts and creating, like having success and starting to build a following towards that brand. I think what happens a lot of times is like you start to work with different people.
And some people are like really incredible artists and the art that they're creating isn't necessarily best suited for some of these social media platforms. And so when you start going through the things that you have to do to make a post go viral and you say, hey, you know, this needs to be 60 seconds long or 15 seconds long and it should be vertical and it should be like this. And sometimes people can be like, well, I actually want it to be horizontal. And then they can kind of start like checking those things off.
the list that you can't do. And I think the more you do that, the less chance you have of that kind of piece or brand being able to get in the algorithm and get pushed out to a huge audience. But like I said before, sometimes the art is good enough or the meme is funny enough or it's just something crazy or weird that happens in the world where it can blow up anyways.
Mike (06:36.703)
Yeah. Speaking of memes, I want to talk to you about memes. Put a pin in that for just a second. I have one more question about virality. Like, and so as you guys are, you know, super talented at making content go viral for brands or for yourselves or for whoever, and you say that the rules in your book are constantly evolving and changing, how are you like learning when those rules change and evolve? Is it just because you're super tapped in?
Grady (06:57.998)
Absolutely.
Mike (07:06.015)
and just grinding away on the algo like constantly thereby sort of like, like understanding like being ultra sensitive to the algorithm and like what's changing and how it's changing, or is there some other process that you have?
Grady (07:20.686)
Yeah, I would say it's pattern recognition and just like I the amount of screen time on my phone is absurd. It's I didn't I should look it up right now. I'll look it up the amount of screen time I have like the amount of hours I spend. How do I look this up system setting?
Mike (07:31.311)
I'm going to go ahead and close the video.
my god, no.
And the top five apps is just TikTok, Instagram.
Grady (07:42.702)
Yeah, hold on, I'll look it up right now. It's screen time.
Grady (07:57.326)
So I have on average...
10 hours of screen time a day. Yeah, this week it's six and it's down 25%. So that might be eight, but like six to 10.
Mike (08:06.271)
10 hours of screen time on your phone?
man.
Grady (08:21.294)
I am on my phone like looking or creating posts or looking through posts or figuring it out. So like, and it's a lot of just seeing what goes viral. And the best way I can describe it is a lot of people like to, a lot of creatives will kind of like sit in a room with other creatives and try to brainstorm what the next big idea or the next big format or the next big viral piece is gonna be. And I always like to start by looking at the
feed and I create different accounts that I basically like tailor their algorithms to fit into different niches of like whoever we're working with so I can see what's working in those niches see what's going viral because the reality is there's you know millions of videos that get posted online every single day but there's only maybe 50 that pop up on your phone every day.
So what do those 50 videos that are popping up on your phone all have in common and what are kind of like the common threads you can find? And then sometimes what happens is you'll get a video that pops up on your phone that like breaks a rule that you knew. So you're like, okay, this video is horizontal. It's not totally optimized. It's longer than 15 seconds. It's this, it's that. What did it have that made it go viral?
And then you learn something like, it's because they used this sound and asked people to click share other cancel. And that tricked the algorithm into thinking it was getting shared off platform. And right now the platform has a huge push to gain new active users for whatever reason. So they're, you know, prioritizing content that's getting shared off the platform. And then you make this huge breakthrough and then you can apply that across all your other things. But.
I forget what the original question was, but that is another piece to it, I guess. What was the original question? I feel like one on a tangent.
Mike (10:16.383)
Yeah, yeah, no, no, you got it. It was, how do you know when to change your rules in your book?
Grady (10:21.07)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it would say whenever we come across pieces of content that break the rules, but are still working. I mean, obviously, if it's like Super Bowl, the day after Super Bowl Sunday, and it's Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce kissing, there's not much to deduce from that. But anything else, sometimes when those like outliers pop up, it's just a big case that you add that to the case study section, you say like, okay, that was really weird. I'm gonna put that over here. And then you see another one like it, and then you try to figure out.
what those patterns are and then test it out and if it works you add it to the book.
Mike (10:54.111)
Yeah, it's, it's really interesting because I think a lot about how like the next generation of creators and of content producers or like whatever kind of word you want to use there, the environment in which those people are coming up, right? Like for me, I was in like linear TV, like capital J journalism, even though it was sports, which like sports journalism is like a whole.
Like what is that even, right? But, you know, like that, like being on linear TV, like attuning my editorial senses to that, right? Like shaped kind of the way that I look at content in a sense, right? So for you, like, you know, everything that you just said basically tells me that my Bane reference was like super spot on, right? Like you literally were born in digital media, right? And you coming up through that,
Grady (11:46.158)
Thank you.
Mike (11:52.447)
that process has created a person that is like super attuned to the algorithms, you know, super aware of, you know, how to sense when things are changing and, you know, how else has kind of like spending your whole life slash career and a lot of screen time hours on your phone, shaped the way that you look at content and how to make content.
Grady (12:19.086)
Yeah, so like what are some other things in my life that have shaped how I look at content, I guess is what you're asking, besides just looking at the album and stuff.
Mike (12:29.695)
Or like, or like, okay, so like what I would, my theory after talking to a lot of people is that when you're in, when you're dealing with these algorithms for many, many, many years, there are things that it does to you as a producer, right? It, it forces you to be much faster and more adaptive to change. It forces you to like be very trend seeking. It forces you to do all sorts of things like that, that like,
Grady (12:46.99)
Yeah.
Mike (12:59.359)
the previous generation of content makers and producers maybe aren't as well set up to do.
Grady (13:05.806)
Yeah, I would say the number one way that's affected me in the way I create content is that over time you start to realize that you're not creating content for people anymore. You're creating content for a robot algorithm that doesn't have eyes or ears. And so basically you're just trying to feed this robot that gets to decide what.
We watch.
which is, but it decides that based on like what people watch. And so it's this, I feel like it's this like really, really trippy thing where it's like we created an algorithm to like figure out what people like the best. But then at some point we just started to create what the algorithm liked the best. And then now with the algorithm likes the best, the people end up liking the best. So it's like this really trippy thing that I think has happened where now you start to see,
like all these kids love these Mr. Beast videos that are so fast -paced and like have these certain graphics and images on them and so like it's really crazy how like that whole generation is gonna grow up with content that was basically like given to them by an algorithm.
because people are just like feeding it in. And I think a lot of creators, you could ask them, they, you know, especially YouTube creators, and I don't create on YouTube that much, but especially YouTube creators, they oftentimes will create content for an entirely different audience. And then it ends up hitting some other audience and they have no clue.
Grady (14:47.566)
Like I'll give you one example, we're working with a client and we're posting on Instagram and things are going really well. And then we were just auto posting to Facebook as well. And we checked the Facebook two weeks later and we found out that there were just like a bunch of grandmas who were rocking with us. And we had like 10 million extra views over two weeks on Facebook. And we're like, my gosh, this is...
Mike (15:03.103)
Yeah.
Mike (15:08.255)
10 million grandmas? Wow.
Grady (15:09.614)
Yeah, so we're just like posting into this algorithm and then the algorithm kind of decides where to put you so I would say that that is the biggest thing that's changed is like and I try to keep like a perceived audience in my head, but there definitely is something to like It's the first step has got to be making something that the algorithm is gonna push out And if you get lucky enough to do that wherever it pushes it you kind of just got to roll with it
Mike (15:36.799)
Yeah. Well, you were describing before about making content for the algorithm to then like what the algorithm likes the people like now, right? It's sort of a, like much more intense version of the way that like the networks used to operate, right? Where there was only so many different places for content to exist. And so if you could get your content up on one of those networks, people would know it, right? It was like that sort of.
Grady (16:03.982)
Right.
Mike (16:05.503)
Like in sports, that would happen a lot. Like if, you know, a sports league was on a network, it would then gain in popularity just because it would have reach. Right. so it's, it's sort of like that, but I guess like the difference now is that the, the way that decision is made about what to put in front of all of these people is like, like, we don't know exactly what that is. Like who's making those decisions or.
Grady (16:14.782)
interesting.
Grady (16:30.382)
in the platformer.
platform reps don't know what that is. It's crazy. This is another thing. And I'm not, not to like be mean to platform reps or anything. I'll you were a platform rep of mine at one point in time. And they're like, everyone's great, but it is really crazy because sometimes I get in these meetings and obviously they have lives and they, you know, their job isn't to sit on, you know, the app all day and figure out what exactly is working. But a lot of times, you know, I'll hop on with these people and,
we'll kind of be telling them, you know, hey, I'm not sure if you knew this, but you know, the algorithm does this or it favors that or it favors this. And then, you know, in the back of their head, they kind of have to be like, well, I don't know if it exactly does, and we're like, it does, it for sure does. So, and it's not any fault of theirs, but there is a bit of like a...
black box to a lot of these algorithms that people don't realize where it's like they set it up and it starts working. And then you can kind of get hesitant to touch it. Cause if you like create an algorithm that works on social media, if you create the next Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and it's working, like you're a fast track to being, you know, mega, mega, mega rich. And you know, messing with that is like gotta be really hard to make that decision. So.
Mike (17:48.959)
Yeah, I will say, and thank you for the shout out as a former platform rep. so, okay. Two things. Number one, if you haven't already go back in this, the pod, the feed of this podcast, episodes two, and I believe five are former snap employees where I used to work. Peter conforty was in the room where algorithm decisions were made and shares an anecdote.
Grady (17:53.102)
Yeah.
Mike (18:17.279)
about the moment that they went from a certain kind of like human input driven algorithm into full on machine learning. and the impact that that has. And then, so too, so that's just like my shameless plug here. and then two, there were so many times when I was at snap, frankly, where what you're saying is definitely true. Like they're like, I knew a lot about what was happening at snap, right?
Grady (18:25.198)
Yeah.
Grady (18:30.894)
Yeah.
Mike (18:44.959)
Mostly from like a big picture level. That's like where a lot of the thought is when you work at a platform. I don't think it's possible for anybody to be as knowledgeable about the day -to -day algorithm as the people in the tool every day making stuff like we talked about before, right? Being really tuned into the algorithm, how it's changing, what it's rewarding, what it's not rewarding. The people at the platforms, like generally speaking, and you know, there's some versions of this.
Generally speaking, the people at the platforms do not do that every day, right? They're doing other things. They're having meetings, they're writing strategy memos, they're having lunch with partners. It's just not, that's not what they do in a lot of cases.
Grady (19:17.358)
Right.
Grady (19:22.83)
It's like a...
Right, I feel like it, and it's not like a knock on them because I just feel like, maybe this is a bad analogy, but it'd be like someone who has gone to mechanical engineering school and knows like everything about mechanical engineering and has got straight A's and knows it all.
versus the guy who's been on site at the mechanical engineering operation for like four years, who's at the construction site for four years. So like the person who with the cauldron coming in and be like, hey, you know you're actually supposed to build this type of bridge with these types of studs when you create a bridge like this. But then the guy on site would be like, yeah, I know that's like what they say, but actually those bolts are really bad and they always break. So we just do it like this. It's like, I feel like there's a lot of like stuff
Mike (20:13.279)
Yeah. Theory versus practice.
Grady (20:14.784)
that you just, yes, that's what I'm reaching for right there.
Mike (20:19.583)
Yeah. No, I, I thought about this all the time when I was at snap and a lot since I left because I, I have a, a much greater understanding of like the other side of the relationship. And I w there are many times where I wish in my snap career, I had more of that perspective. And a lot of people that work at snap come from publishers, come from the content world and have an understanding of this. But I do think that if you like, I equated to like,
for a police officer to have a taser, they have to get tased, right? Like I almost think that if you work at a platform, you should have to try to grind against the algorithm in order to be able to then talk to people that do all the time. I don't know, like why, is that unrealistic to consider?
Grady (20:51.822)
Yeah.
Grady (21:03.086)
It would be, it would be, yeah, no, it would be nice. It would be nice cause then they would have a little, I feel like have a little bit more, more empathy towards you. But no, I love, I love talking to all our platform reps and I.
Shameless plug here, but I have always wanted to kind of like what I was talking about, like work directly with people and algorithms to tell them like, Hey, like this is the practice part of it. Like here's what actually happens on your, on your platform. And not in like a know it all way, but just, Hey, here's, here's the experience as a creator. And I always felt like I could get really good, good input on that. And it'd be really fun to help craft an algorithm, but kind of like you said, I don't even know if.
you bring that input up if it like, it's just all machine learning and stuff. So it's like, I don't, they just go like, okay, thanks for telling us. And then it just like, it just keeps chugging along.
Mike (21:55.903)
Yeah. So yeah, I mean, we've had this conversation on this podcast once or twice now of like, cause some people think that algorithmically distributed content platforms are like a scourge on society, right? And in some ways they are like, there are some real issues. Like you're spending way too much time on your phone, Grady, like, you know,
Grady (22:11.982)
Yeah.
Grady (22:18.446)
Yeah.
Mike (22:19.583)
Maybe, maybe put it down and like smell the roses a little bit, but like it's your job. It's, it's not the same thing, but there are people spending hours and hours a day on these platforms looking at content and you know, people are like, well, so how do we change all these things that are wrong about it? misinformation, right? Wind tunnels that like radicalize people, like all of these different things that algorithmic content, you know, platforms can, can, can do to people.
Grady (22:24.974)
Right, right.
Grady (22:47.31)
Right.
Mike (22:47.647)
And I always just say that I think that you have to take the money out, which is never going to happen. So that because it, cause the algorithms are designed to make the most money possible.
Grady (22:54.862)
That'd be a good way to get people to stop making stuff, for sure.
Mike (23:00.543)
But so, okay, but so anyway, I'll get off my soapbox here. So like speaking of getting tased and how difficult it is to like grind away on the algorithm. So a lot of people talk about like just algorithm burnout, right? Like you're making content every day. You're like, you described some of your process earlier. Like that sounds exhausting to a lot of people. Maybe it energizes you and I understand that.
But like, how do you combat burnout when you're grinding away on these unpredictable algorithms every day all the time?
Grady (23:32.078)
Yeah.
Grady (23:36.494)
Dude, well, the algorithm social media is like the easiest place. Well, I don't want to say it's the easiest place to get burnout. Maybe like doing a brain surgery every day or serving in the military is probably a harder place to get burnout. You know, so I don't want to be like, it's the hardest place. But I feel like the, the non -consistency of it, like I feel like the Pavlov like reward.
butchering it, my AP psych teacher has really disappointed me right now that I can't remember this.
Mike (24:08.287)
Pavlovian, you're right.
Grady (24:09.934)
There's like a reward system and one of the most motivating reward system is when you're consistently rewarded. So when the dog hits the button and gets the treat and hits the button and gets the treat and it just keeps happening like that. Like that's the best way to motivate someone. And one of the least motivating ways to do is random rewarding, which means you hit the button, nothing happens. You hit the button, nothing happens. You hit it one time, it gives you a treat. It gives you a treat twice in a row and then it doesn't happen for eight times. And that's
That's what social media is. So it's like actually like there's a theory, psychological theory behind creating content for an algorithm that is like, it is meant to kind of burn you out. It is not super motivating. So the way that I've combated that and especially with starting a new company and we start up with so many different clients and need to like start from scratch and we don't oftentimes get that reward right away with them and we have to really battle it out.
to kind of get them off the ground. But Sam Altman has this really cool quote because someone asked him the same thing and basically they asked him, hey, what do you do to fight burnout? And he said, I found that I rarely get burnt out.
of things in my life that are going well. And it's the things that aren't going well that I feel like I get burned out of. And so he basically is like, I just try to find projects in my life that are going well and like go with that. And if things aren't working out, then that's kind of the time when I need to like take a break and go on vacation and come back and see if this is a project like I'm willing to continue. And so I've kind of taken that and like ramped it up to like an extreme level where,
I kind of try to trick myself no matter what to be like this is going well and always finding ways to feel like things are going well because it can keep you energized and so I'm spin zoning stuff and I'm trying to figure it out and actually this was good and
Mike (26:05.471)
No.
Grady (26:17.326)
not to our clients or anything like that, but just kinda in my own head to try to make sure like, hey, as long as I feel like we're moving in a positive direction, I'll be able to find the energy to keep going. And to be honest, I haven't had to lie to myself too much. We've had a lot of great, we're fortunate to have a lot of success early on with the start of our company. But it can be easy to not celebrate those wins or kinda get like numb to them.
And so I think one of the really important things we do as a company and Ben and I, my co -founder do is we always find time to, no matter how many videos we've made go viral or brands we've brought up from scratch, whenever we hit those milestones, we always call each other and celebrate. And we have like a Slack channel called like the W channel where we drop in like all our, all our wins and we gas each other up and try to, try to energize each other to keep going.
Mike (27:06.719)
I like that.
Mike (27:12.319)
Nice man. Well, that's a great idea. Having it just like, yeah, motivating the team, right? In through various ways like that and just highlighting this. That is a really interesting, like the treat analogy is, is great. And the Sam Altman thing, it's just like, yeah, swimming downstream makes total sense.
Grady (27:19.694)
Yeah.
Grady (27:33.678)
Right.
You got to find other rewards in digital media besides viewership because viewership will come and go and the people who end up winning are always the people who just never quit. I've, I feel like now I've been in it for like a decade, even creators, like I know a creator is going to make it when they, it's kind of like dangerous though, cause they just, they're like, I'm not going to do anything else, but become a YouTuber or, but become a creator or a streamer. And.
There'll be like a three year period where you're like, you might want to stop trying this, you know, like it might be over and then all of a sudden it happens for him and it turns out great. So.
Mike (28:17.407)
It kind of sounds like the starving actor thing, right? Where you're just grinding away trying to make it as an actor and then one day, if you don't quit, you make it, right? That's crazy. The one...
Grady (28:21.294)
Yes.
Grady (28:29.838)
Absolutely. It's like a war of attrition, not necessarily like just how long you can keep at it.
Mike (28:39.647)
Yeah, no, and there is certainly like, it is a challenging industry for anybody listening to this that's like interested in trying to get into it. It's certainly challenging. There are a lot of cool things about social media and there's a lot of really fun parts about it. And one of the things that algorithms and social media has sort of like created is this thing we all call a meme. so.
Grady (29:05.07)
Yes.
Mike (29:07.263)
I wanted to talk to you about memes, right? We talked about viral content, but specifically memes, the content style of a meme. like I'll, I'll just give a quick definition because I think like the word can get thrown around. I think in your head you might be, I know what a meme is. It's this. Somebody else might be thinking, I know what a meme is. It's something else, right? It's kind of a big word that can mean a lot of things. and I just thought the.
definitions are kind of funny. So the first definition is an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture. And then the other one, which maybe is what most people are thinking is an amusing or interesting item, such as a captioned picture or video or genre of items that is spread widely online through social media. So it's like, it's yes, there is like a look to a meme, right? Like the captioned.
Grady (29:46.734)
Hmm.
Mike (30:05.631)
thing, you know, an image with the caption or whatever. But, you know, like what are memes to you? Like when you think about like, what is a meme? Like, what does that mean to you?
Grady (30:06.542)
Right.
Grady (30:16.814)
Yeah, even you like giving me the death like the Webster definition of a meme like seeing the word meme and have a Webster dictionary definition feels like a meme to me. So I when I hear the word meme, I think of.
Mike (30:26.671)
Yeah, I know.
Grady (30:33.934)
The original white and black block text over like a JPEG in like 2009 and that was like the original like those were memes and you would share them on each other's Facebook walls or send them in.
send them in like email forwarding services. And then I feel like it started to change over time where they became like trends. And then it was basically just like inside jokes of the internet was like the meme. And it was just like this, the biggest inside jokes on the internet were memes. And what it was, was like this collective,
expansion of a joke or like this collection of like collective like building of a joke and I actually went to comedy school clown clown school second city and part of joke writing.
Mike (31:30.431)
No way. You did? That's awesome.
Grady (31:32.302)
I did, yeah. And so I graduated from Second City in Iowa, Chicago. But part of building a joke, like there's like a type of joke where basically everything's normal and then one kind of absurd thing happens. And then that little absurd thing gets more and more and more absurd until it like breaks the scene into pandemonium. And there's a guy named Adam W. who like this is every,
Mike (31:38.303)
Nice.
Grady (32:02.208)
it's every joke he does on Instagram where it's like, like when you forget to wear deodorant and like at first the guy smells and he's like, you smell terrible. And then all of a sudden the guy next to you has a gas mask on and then all of a sudden all the plants around you are dying. And then all of a sudden it caused the nuclear fallout. And like that's like it builds on interest. So I feel like memes are just like the internet doing that collectively where like something kind of funny happens, like kind of absurd. Like Will Smith gives a corny intro
introduction to the YouTube 2020 rewind. Error, let me think of one, or I'll think of a more recent one. The Orlando Baby. Their Four Seasons Hotel Orlando Baby. So like, there's this baby and it sticks its finger up and says, me, and everyone was like, that was kind of weird. Is that baby conscious? And then all of a sudden you start to see people build on that, which is like the first layer where they start saying like,
me and then it like turned into a thing where they like freeze frame it and they make like a narrative voiceover of the baby having a British accent and like saying all the things. And then you see the next one and they freeze frame it, give them the voiceover and then they turn them into like a 15th century painting. And then all of a sudden someone else takes the joke a little bit further and they're pretending to be the baby in 15 years on their Instagram story trying to stay relevant. And then it's like everyone's just like building on this joke and making it more and more and more absurd.
Mike (33:23.391)
Hehehehehe
Grady (33:27.616)
until finally it dies when, I don't know, probably when like someone, some politician shares it to their Facebook feed or something like that, some older person like recognizes that as the name. And then the inside joke's over.
Mike (33:41.691)
Yeah. Yeah.
Grady (33:44.334)
But it's actually probably more like when it gets so absurd that it's like, all right, the joke's over. We've exhausted all options here. But that's what I feel like a meme is in current day. It's more of a trend than anything, I feel like, now.
Mike (33:57.727)
Yeah, I, the way you just described that is really cool. That like layering, like, and I feel like Reddit does a really good job with this, right? In particular. And I used to, I used to, and still do check out like Photoshop battles, right? Where like, I don't know if you've ever seen that, but like someone posts a picture and then there's a Photoshop and someone Photoshop's on top of that Photoshop until like the picture is like, and there's, you know, there can be 10 deep, right? So it's like,
Grady (34:06.158)
Yeah.
Grady (34:19.31)
Yeah.
Mike (34:25.695)
Yeah. So it's almost like these memes are like these layered viralities as like they sort of like feed off of each other in a sense.
Grady (34:34.638)
Yeah, and everyone's trying to make it bigger, bigger and bigger until I guess it can't get any bigger anymore.
Mike (34:42.527)
Yeah. All right. So, you mentioned, that you were at second city acting school. That's awesome. that, that weirdly probably really sets you up to like, have like a really interesting perspective on social media, right? talk, talk, tell us through or talk us through your journey, right? Because I, I mentioned off the top that you've done all of these different things. I mentioned off the top that you were an influencer.
Grady (34:49.902)
Yes.
Grady (34:59.31)
Yeah.
Mike (35:10.047)
And now you are a co -founder of this digital content agency called Cheat Code, which is awesome. They do great work. But so if you can share your story of just like how you went and you take as far back as you want, if you want to go all the way back to second city, that's fine. But just like give everybody a sense of like your path through the industry.
Grady (35:25.838)
Yeah.
Grady (35:31.118)
Yeah, so I would say I had like a
creative passion like early on in my life. I would do like all the skits at like the church camps and stuff growing up. That was like where I would like do like summer camps and I'd be like the guy like the high school kid who was on stage like being goofy or whatever. And I always loved doing that stuff and then went to college at TCU to become a teacher and a graphic and I was a double major in English education and graphic design. So I had basically had like an
an English major, an education major, and a graphic design major. I didn't finish the graphic design major because it just became too much. But then once I graduated, I realized I didn't really want to be a teacher. So I ended up kind of volunteering as like a youth mentor and then was a coach. I was actually a substitute teacher. My first year out of college, which is hilarious because every now and then I'll get comments on my videos and people will be like, dude, this guy was my substitute gym teacher. Like what the hell is going on?
Mike (36:32.603)
Mr. Mr. Rains.
Grady (36:35.086)
Yeah, exactly. So...
Mike (36:39.294)
Yeah.
Grady (36:41.582)
Anyways, while I was doing that, youth mentoring, I was taking classes at Second City in I .O. Chicago doing the comedy stuff. Cause I kind of knew at that point that I wanted to go into comedy writing or comedy in some way. And so I went like the traditional route where like you go to Second City or I .O. you join an improv team and then you try to make like SNL. I guess that's like the route which kind of got halfway through it. And I was like, it seems implausible. It doesn't seem like.
you know, the chances are very high of that happening. But anyways, in class I wrote a skit. It was a cold open to SNL, like a fake one obviously, and it was about the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago Cubs and the World Series, and I was like, you know what, I'm just gonna go film this. So, and kind of speaking of algorithms and stuff, it'll kind of come all together, so.
I had noticed that on Facebook back in the day that if you shared a BuzzFeed article, everyone shared the BuzzFeed article. It didn't matter what it was, it was just like that way it was set up. If you saw like BuzzFeed on your page article.
It just got shared. And so I made, what people didn't know is you could make like community Buzzfeed accounts. So like people just thought every Buzzfeed account was official, but you could make your own and post Buzzfeed articles on it. So I made a fake Buzzfeed account and then I made this video where I interviewed myself, like talking crap about the Chicago Cubs in front of the Cleveland Indians, the Chicago Cubs in front of their stadiums wearing an Indians jersey and put it on Buzzfeed and then shared it to my Facebook page.
wall and it went everywhere. It like totally blew up. It went viral. Like Darren Revelle got a hold of it and he like tweeted it out and like everyone was talking about it. So that was like my first ever viral video. From there I became like a Cleveland sports influencer. So I would make videos after every Browns game and it was during their own 16 seasons. So I had tons of material to work with.
Mike (38:41.407)
Yeah.
Grady (38:41.518)
So that was great. And then made videos about the Cavs, the Indians, the whole deal. And then that's when a game called Fortnite came out. And I transitioned to making content about video games, because I played games growing up. And so I started making content about Fortnite. And that's when everything really started to take off, because it was a bigger audience than just Cleveland, Ohio. And ended up moving out to LA actually to be a vlogger.
I went to high school with a kid.
Mike (39:10.271)
A flogger.
Grady (39:11.918)
Yeah, I went to high school with this guy named Mark Donner who was Logan Paul's cameraman and roommate. And so I moved in with this guy named Mark Donner and George Janko who was like Logan Paul's old co -host of his podcast and stuff. And so I kind of like hung out in that crew and did vlogging and actually just ended up continuing to do my Fortnite stuff and really started blow up there. But then I was like, I need a job. So,
ended up getting a job at the NFL where I did a youth -focused...
Social media marketing and we just ran some accounts. One of them was the check down I'm repping it right here. And so that's where I met my co -founder Ben. So we did a ton of awesome stuff at the NFL and then from there had my video game experience had all the marketing experience and Shaq and a couple co -owners of the Sacramento Kings They had just started an eSports team and then so they were like, hey We need someone who knows marketing and fortnight and I was like, alright, well, I'm the only guy above the age
age of 16 who can help. So I guess you gotta hire me. And so he hired me and was able to kind of take that from, I think it had like 50 ,000 followers at the time. And by the time I left, they were doing 2 billion views a year organically just on their owned and operated platforms. And then...
Mike (40:17.599)
Ha ha ha.
Grady (40:35.598)
ended up hitting up Ben again to come back to where I was. We went to the board to start another brand called Full Squad Gaming. And so that was like a Barstool Sports for Gaming type thing. And we were able to start that. And within 24 hours went from zero to I think 600 ,000 followers in 24 hours. And then we got to a million by the end of the week and then like 12 to 13 million followers across platforms in a couple of years. And then from there, we ended up kind of breaking
off from that because we want to get back into sports more and do some other gaming stuff kind of on the side. And Ben and I just really wanted to own something 100%. So we made this agency called Cheat Code. And kind of with all of that experience that you heard of like building things up and building all these brands that we just felt like we learned all the cheat codes to social media and going viral. So that's kind of why we named our agency that.
Mike (41:32.607)
Man, that's crazy. 600 ,000 followers in 24 hours from a cold start. That's insane.
Grady (41:37.966)
It was, it was nuts. Yeah. It was zero to 600 ,000. We made this like, I like saw this like trend popping off where people were like basically like giving like a story and then asking for a follow.
So I was like, okay, like, so I like crafted this whole story where I was like, and we actually made it on not our official account because I was like, I don't know if this will work. We got to give it a shot. and we knew that the first post on Tik Tok back then they would choose it. So to like encourage you to keep posting. And so I knew that it had to be on a fresh account. And then, so I created it and it was like this whole story about how Ben and I quit our jobs, started a gaming company. And that if you gave us one week, we would post a piece of content.
every day for a week. And if you didn't like it, by the end you could unfollow us. But to follow us now and just give us seven days, and if we disappoint you, unfollow us. And yeah, 600 ,000 people followed us over. I woke up and we had 300 ,000 followers. And then like over the course of the day, we gained 300 ,000 more. It was great.
Mike (42:43.871)
That is, that is awesome, dude. you, you mentioned, the NFL. What, like, you know, we've talked a lot. This podcast is probably 70 % sports, 30 % other, just because of my background. like a lot of the people that I know and that I will bring on will be, we'll have like cool sports backgrounds. so we've talked about the NFL fair amount here, but like, from your perspective, you work there. you know,
Grady (42:50.894)
Yes.
Grady (42:59.63)
Yeah.
Mike (43:13.215)
What are the pros and cons of making social media content at the NFL? I think like, you know, in order, it seems to me like in order to succeed on social media on all these different platforms, you have to be super creative and you probably like any rules about what you can and cannot post are probably really going to hinder like the success that you can have. Right. So you think about the NFL, right? The NFL is very concerned about.
Grady (43:36.75)
Yeah.
Mike (43:42.143)
you know, their messaging as they should be. And so for someone like you, very creative and innovative, and someone who likes to break rules, you know, or at least like, quote unquote rules. You know what I mean? But like, like, how did that work within the NFL culture?
Grady (43:55.214)
Yeah, for sure.
Grady (44:01.55)
Yeah. So that's a great question. I would say the, to start with the pros, the product of the NFL is so sick. It's like the greatest product in the world. I love the NFL and the highlights it produces and just like it. It's so it's the biggest sports league. I don't know if it's the biggest in the world, like probably like there's soccer leagues that might be bigger, but at least in America for sure. And so that just being able to be a part of that.
and like use that IP is so awesome and unlocks like so much cool stuff that you can do. Also, because of how competitive it is to get a job there, you end up getting to work with super talented people. And everyone I met at the NFL was awesome. And I feel like it's the same way at Snapchat and in places like even like Red Bull. Like there's just like some of these like digital media spots in the in the space where it feels like.
almost like you get your master's degree in digital media at these places and I really feel like NFL is one of them with the type of people you get to work with and there's so many people who are still there that are amazing. I would say yeah that the one big con I could sum it up with this is that the NFL if you take a step back it's a governing body.
of it's like a league it's like a governing body of these clubs together so like my co -worker technically is the referee out there you know it's like that's who's on my team you know what I mean like if I work for the NFL I'm like Rob Lowe in the hat wearing like the NFL logo you know what I mean like
Mike (45:48.487)
Yes.
Grady (45:51.406)
I think a lot of people forget that because it is an entertainment property, but also like, you know, the people who buy the licenses to show what's going on there, I feel like are more the people who are, it's their job to make it as entertaining as possible. Like, I feel like it's our job as well too. But at the same time, we were, I was a part of the governing body of the league and you don't want the governing body of.
to be having silly goose fun time 24 -7. Like you can do some stuff, but like you definitely don't want the referee like doing touchdown dances in the end zone with your, you know, there's just something to it where it's like, you have to have some sort of decorum, I guess is that word, which I totally understand. So that's the one like.
I don't want to call it a con, but just like one of the obstacles is, you know, making sure that you're doing as much as you can to make it as entertaining as possible.
but then also realizing, hey, I work for this like multi -billion dollar company in this massive thing. Let's just double check that the post we're about to make is not gonna burn it to the ground because it's not worth it. You know, like this meme, probably not worth it to like all this. And honestly, the fans probably don't care that much. And like, you know, it's like at the end of the day, like people wanna see Patrick Mahomes for the football.
Mike (47:12.063)
Yeah.
Grady (47:22.384)
and they're gonna be content with that and you don't have to put out the funniest meme in the universe from the NFL account to make them wanna watch that. So I think it goes both ways where the product is so powerful, it's so fun to be a part of it, but at the same time, sometimes you have to step out of the way of that product and let it be what it is and not get in the way or screw it up.
Mike (47:45.663)
Yeah, and I that's really well said and it sort of falls into line with some of the things that I've talked about a lot on this show, which is, you know, the leagues have a job to do. The rights holders have a job to do and the like pirate ship organizations have a job to do. And there should be room for all three of them, right, to like operate and sort of be symbiotic. Like I was not, you know, a huge fan of when.
the industry was sort of trending towards O &O, right? All the leagues were creating cable networks. There was rumblings of the leagues kind of just like taking the rights for themselves and doing pay -per -view Super Bowls and all of these different things. I am relieved to see the trend going the other way now and all of the leagues are selling off all these games to all of these different rights holders now, like Netflix getting the Christmas games. And, you know, it's in seemingly in some respects,
Grady (48:16.878)
Yeah.
Mike (48:39.839)
the leagues are like pulling back a little bit as far as being like, no content makers. And I think that's good. Like the fan experience needs non league storytelling, right? Like the, like that is a very important part of the entertainment value. And as in sports, you know, there's so much competition for the entertainment time now, you know, more than ever before.
Grady (48:45.198)
Yeah.
Mike (49:04.479)
The storytelling has to be as entertaining as possible. And if the leagues aren't the ones that can do that, then like you have to be comfortable with other people doing it for you. Right. And I think the leagues have realized this, like I honestly, the NFL, like in my time at snap was one of the most surprisingly like creative and fun groups to work with. you know, we did a lot of really fun and cool and innovative things with them. but like there is, like you said, there is only so far that they can go.
Grady (49:15.182)
Yeah.
Grady (49:26.606)
That's cool.
Mike (49:34.943)
and, and there's nowhere that Barstool can't go, right? But Barstool doesn't have the credibility of the league. So it's like, there's just, there just should be room for all of it.
Grady (49:39.118)
Yeah, exactly.
That's Super Bowl Media Day. They're banned from Super Bowl Media Day, so they can't go there. But besides that, there's nowhere to go.
Mike (49:48.319)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, I guess like physically they can't go. But they could put a clown nose on Roger Goodell and nobody can stop them, right? So, OK, so. Yeah.
Grady (49:54.542)
Yeah, yeah, I know, I just want to put up a tag. No, I agree, I agree with you. It's, it's, it's super interesting and I think that it's definitely give and take where like,
100 % where I feel like at one point everyone was like, we should own everything and then at the same time it's like hey Tom Brady is the biggest star in this league or Travis Kelsey and Taylor Swift are the biggest stars in this league like and Someone should just be posting them 24 -7 but if it's the NFL account then all the comments start going like
All you do is post about Tom Brady. All you do is post about this. Like you could post about anything on that account and there's like an angry mob ready to, ready to yell at you. I mean, it's like, it's, it's like the ironic thing. Like no matter what or who the commissioner walks out with or how successful he is, he is, you know, the Goodell is just going to get booed and it's just how it works in the NFL. You just boo the NFL, even though everyone loves it and it's their favorite league. So I do think it's, it's cool that, you know, kind of.
Mike (50:57.663)
Yeah, but.
Grady (51:02.606)
getting to push those clips and the product out through different channels where it doesn't have to get so much of that like negativity or I don't want to say negativity, but like it doesn't have the pressure to be so neutral is great and super necessary for any league to thrive.
Mike (51:20.511)
It's like, I don't think that any objective observer would say the NFL's content arm is optimized for performance, right? Like they want to do well. They want to have clicks and drive engagement into their narratives, of course. But if they were fully optimized, like you said, they would be posting about Taylor Swift all the time. The NFL also, and like all the leagues.
Grady (51:44.014)
Content, yeah, like content, like they're like, I would say they're like optimized, but yeah, they're not, they're not like, they can't be hacky. Like they can't like, they can't, I'm trying to think, like I guarantee if you looked up some.
football pages or networks, they really were posting about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey every single day, multiple times a day, and it probably really was working. And like they probably had the biggest month of their entire life doing that. And that's just not something that the NFL could do. And it's partly like branding too, like they just gotta like keep the brand and numbers can't be like a means to an end. And I think that's another thing with social media that people
forget is like the most valuable thing you can have is like an audience that you can actually like mobilize or is like engaged with you like people who go like having season ticket holders and people who are actually like investing in your game like you can pull out all the numbers in the world of well this sport has this many viewers and that's where is this many viewers but when you go to the Super Bowl or when Super Bowl Sunday happens like it's just the biggest thing in the world.
It's like the biggest thing in the world like on that day and there's no doubt about it You don't need to like show any numbers to prove that or you don't need to like boost anything. So as long as they keep that Together, you know, they don't need to get hacky and do that stuff
Mike (53:20.991)
Yeah. So, you know, you were involved in the creation of the Checkdown, which is the NFL's, you're wearing the sweatshirt, that's the NFL's like fun touchdown celebrationy kind of channel. I'm a big fan of that. I've been following that for many years. What else do you think that the leagues and the NFL and even other traditional media companies, right?
Grady (53:40.75)
Yeah.
Mike (53:49.983)
What else can they all do to reach younger audiences? Right? Like this is especially important in sports. Like I just said, there's so much more competition for entertainment time. like everybody has to be doing everything that they can to like, make sure that interest is, you know, continuing into the next generation. So what can the NFL and the NBA and all the leagues and just traditional media companies in general, inside and outside of sports, like what else can they do to reach younger audiences?
Grady (54:20.718)
I would say Goat, you have to be wherever they are, like on the new frontier, I would say. And a lot of times those places are not monetizable. And so for example, like getting onto TikTok early and becoming like a TikTok brand or account.
I think was super important back in the day and the NFL did that. They like hopped on it. And I think that, you know, maybe there wasn't like a big reason to get on back then, like, you know, or the NFL, we don't have to, but stuff like that where it's like you're in step with.
with where those kids are because I feel like the way social media goes is social media app comes out the youth of America all decide they want to use it and then it's like this safe haven where there's like it's like cool kids only your parent your mom's not on there but then one day your aunt joins tiktok and starts commenting on your stuff and it's like all right well I guess the fun's over I can't like post whatever I want on here now and then they go and find another
place and that was kind of like what Facebook was and now all that's left on Facebook are like grandmas and then now it's like that's kind of what Instagram is becoming a little bit like so then they all move to Facebook. Yes, it's like you know now Instagram is kind of for like you know our generation and the boomers and the young kids only post like six photos their entire lives but
Mike (55:41.599)
no, not Instagram, no.
Grady (55:55.47)
And then like Snapchat, I think is even like one that is becoming like more increasingly popular surprisingly. But anyways, all that being said, I feel like the best way to find these is just like target the exact platform that you'd want to be on with them. And then I think also working with up and coming influencers really quickly. I think there's like a period before of an influencer being at
their peak engagement and hitting the mainstream, that's pretty small window. But if you can hit them like right before the end of their come up.
it works so much organically than grabbing them, you know, when to grab them. And a place like the NFL doesn't have to, they can grab anyone at any time in their career and they'll want to be a part of it. So like that doesn't matter, but even if they can hit people at the right time. So like, for example, someone like sketch hitting sketch six months ago would have had so much bigger impact on the youth. then it would working with him right now, even though right now it may have a
bigger impact on like more people know him but if you can hit it like early and prove you're on the inside joke or know the meme early before it becomes played out I think it means a lot to to young people.
Mike (57:18.303)
Sounds like you're saying that everybody could use a team of people that lived and breathed their whole lives in social media. Some of those people may or may not have an agency called Cheat Code that you could call up for help with that, right? Is that pretty much what we're saying here?
Grady (57:25.87)
Ha ha.
Grady (57:30.382)
Yeah, that's what I'm, that's what I'm, don't, you don't have to stare at your phone all day because I do. And I'll tell you what I find.
Mike (57:37.615)
Is this that is like a new slogan right there. I mean, I, I really don't want to be staring at my phone as much as I do.
Grady (57:42.35)
Bye.
Grady (57:48.014)
I want to know another thing. This is another really quick, fun thing of how to reach youth is if you're in social media, you should volunteer your time and coach some sort of team in your area or work at a Boys and Girls Club of America because as awesome as it is to like volunteer your time and do that and as much as it's going to mean to those kids, they will teach you so much about what's relevant.
And like that's really how I even became a Fortnite Instagram influencer and like launched my career. I had no idea what Fortnite was. All the kids on my lacrosse team were playing Fortnite and they're like, dude, you have to play this game. It was like six months before it exploded. I think I was one of Ninja's like first hundred thousand followers or something before you had like 10 million. And it was just because some kid on lacrosse team was like, yeah, like you should follow this guy. And I was like, no way. It's like, yeah, it's Fortnite. It's the next big thing. So.
A lot of times if you can like, you know, volunteer your time and like actually like this is kind of cool, but it's like, you know, we all want to reach the youth, but like the best way to do that is to like actually like go help them out and like listen to them and understand like them and be there for maybe some kids who don't have adults in their life. And then, you know, you'll be able to.
Mike (59:02.175)
and listen and understand what their life is like. Yeah.
Grady (59:14.734)
be able to reach them.
Mike (59:16.703)
Hell yeah, that's a nice social media and also life hack just generally, right? That's rad, man. Well, Grady, thank you so much for taking the time. We're all a little bit smarter and a little bit more meme aware now after that. So thank you so much for taking the time, man.
Grady (59:21.646)
Yeah, for sure.
Grady (59:32.846)
I hope so.
Grady (59:38.958)
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me on, Mike.