theinternetinterviewed

[theinternetinterviewed]

Ben Harvey, An Architect Who Puts His Life On The Line

The most popular video game to come from Slovenia is Line Rider. The object of Line Rider is to design a track for a boy on a sled to ride. In doing this, players becomes architects. Released in 2006, there are thousands of Line Rider tracks and the longest ever is titled This Will Destroy You, 50 minutes long with 2.7 million views. Ben Harvey, its maker, is a man whose sense of sight is influenced by what he hears and he therefore is able to translate musical tracks into Line Rider tracks. To watch two minutes of the video is to see a series of satisfying, sight-to-sound synchronizations. To watch twenty minutes is to narrow your attention in such a way that the boy’s experience become your own and to watch the full thing it to live the definition of the word ‘journey.’

A: Is this Ben?

B: This is Ben. You’re two hours early. A: Am I really?

B: That’s okay though.

A: Are you sure?

B: Its 1. But that’s okay though.

A: You’re cool to jump into this early?

B: We can jump into it now.

A: Cool. My name is Austin. Nice to meet you.

B: Nice to meet you. My name is Ben.

A: Hi, Ben. I have a blog called The Internet, Interviewed. It’s where I interview people who do cool things and you are one of them.

B: That sounds very broad.

A: Oh, it’s the most broad thing. Have you been interviewed before?

B: I have been interviewed a couple of times. I don’t think any of them are going to take the format that you’re doing here.

A: As in, on the phone?

B: On the phone and *pause* most of the people who have interviewed me before were in the scene of Line Rider. You’re more on the outside, if that makes sense.

A: I just like the videos.

B: *laughs*

A: I’ve seen your essays and very little of them makes sense to me.

B: *laughs*

A: This will take about 60 minutes. I have a bunch of questions. Some are funny, some nostalgic, some serious. Answer however you like. I know you’re a thoughtful, articulate guy so if you digress or tell a story, that’s fine with me. This is an interview and you’re the subject.

B: Great.

A: My first question: how did you find Line Rider and how old are you?

B: I would have been, let me do the math, I would have been 14 and I was making computer games with Game Maker [software] and trying to find where I can put them on the Internet. I found Line Flyer which was a rip off and made something in it and sent it to one of my friends and he was, like, “That’s not the real Line Rider.” He sent me a link to LineRider.com. Then I was off to the races.

A: When did you become more serious?

B: It depends on what you mean by serious. I started working seriously on a large project a year after I discovered it. A year to two years. I don’t remember. It’s been a long time since like 2008. I was 15 at the time. The Line Rider Community was something I found early and got heavily involved in. I wrote a bunch of reviews for Line Rider tracks. I didn’t start treating it as an art medium until about 2015. I went to a liberal arts college and ended up creating my own major call Electronic Artistic Design. For my last year of college, I had not been thinking about Line Rider because I was focusing on my school work. When I came back, I had a slow, rolling epiphany about how Line Rider could be treated like an art medium and how a lot of the things that I studied, I could apply to Line Rider. I’m not sure I answered your question. What was it again?

A: That was on the nose. I wanted to know when you started to look at it seriously.

B: I started putting a lot of time and effort into Line Rider in 2008 and I started looking at it as a medium for art creation in 2015–2016.

A: It amazes me that at 14 you were interested in writing reviews.

B: *laughs*

A: The game must have struck you.

B: I’m trying to think ���back 12 years ago now. Getting closer to 13. I just found myself wanting to watch all of the tracks and then I realized that a lot of people were spending a lot of time on these tracks and then they would get comments like, “Cool,” “8 out of 10,” [boring voice] and I wanted to give some real feedback.

A: That’s a noble response for a young person to have.

B: Another part of it was…I was also a little bit of an outsider in school and I found a community of peers in other people who were interested in Line Rider. A big part of it was that, finding a community of people who were interested in the things that I was. Also if you’re hearing purrs it’s because my cat has decided to sit on my chest.

A: If the cat says anything, I’ll make sure to include it.

B: *laughs* Excellent.

A: Can you remember the first track that wowed you?

B: There were lots that I really liked. The first that really impressed me was a track called Discarded by TechDawg. I saw it when it came out and it was sort of the first example of a Line Rider track that someone had made where they were using scenery lines to add texture and detail to the ground so it looked like this cool, rocky landscape. It was like he was painting a picture. Instead of, “Here is a rock shape,” it was, “Here is a rock-shaped drawing and a whole bunch of cracks and crags.” He would shade the rock. That was the first one that really impressed me.

A: Did you write a review about it?

B: I did. It’s not worth much but, yeah, I did. *laughs*

A: When someone sees your work for the first time, what do you hope they think?

B: My hope is that they’re not thinking about how I made it. My hope is that they’re letting the visuals wash over them and having an emotional response — whether that’s reflective or joyful or harrowing or trippy or whatever.

A: How big is your body of work?

B: It depends on what you include. Do you include the things that I've produced or directed? Within the things I’ve made, there are shitposts I made in an hour.

A: *laughs*

B: Those take as much time to watch as something that I worked two hundred hours on. There’s maybe 10 to 20 projects that I’ve poured a lot of time into and there are 10 to 20 projects that I remain proud of today and those overlap and there are tracks that fall into one or the other only. There are a couple dozen projects that I've directed or produced or facilitated in some way, even if I only made a small fraction or even none of the actual track. There is the writing I’ve done about Line Rider which ranges from crappy reviews I wrote when I was 14 to video essays about the nature Line Rider that I’ve done more recently. There is the Line Rider Archival Project which I can’t forget. It started ad hoc a long time ago but in the last few years I’ve formalized my attempt to archive as much of Line Rider on the internet that I can so it doesn’t get lost. On top of that, there are dozens of projects that were experimental or low effort or just memes or shitposts. I’ve had a lot of conversations with all sorts of people who are making Line Rider tracks and while that’s not really part of a body of work, it’s had a lot of impact on my work.

A: If you took the courses you made and the ones you produced and directed and played one after the next, how long would that be?

B: It would take a few hours depending on what you include.

A: More than six?

B: Six would be on the high end. Oh gosh. *laughs* There was an 18 hour marathon in which I watched a lot of Line Rider track and gave live commentary on them, so if you exclude all of that and focus on the raw footage of Line Rider then it would probably be like three hours?

A: Like an unabridged order of Lord of the Rings with all the extra scenes.

B: Something like that. If you add all the video, it would be a few days.

A: When having a conversation with someone, do you sometimes drift off and create Line Rider tracks in your head? Or when putting away dishes? Sometimes does Line Rider just happen?

B: It usually happens when I’m listening to music. Music is the spark. That wasn’t always the case. The first few years…excuse me if my voice sounds weird. I’m getting over a cold…. I was imagining these two dimensional spaces with three dimensional objects in them that the sledder was moving through. I thought about the projects I was making and how I wanted to make them look. Nowadays, I find myself daydreaming about Line Rider when I’m listening to music. I think, “Oh. I know how I would visualize this piece.” Most of them will never come to fruition because I lack the tools to create them without immense amounts of work.

A: Music predates the course? You have music that attracts you and then you create a course according to it?

B: As of the last, ten years that’s true. The first maybe three years it was not about the music but in the last decade it’s been about the music. Music creates the course. I hear a piece of music and I go, “Oh. I know what I can do with this.”

A: Are you a big music fan?

B: I am a big music fan. I’m super into post-rock. Which is how This Will Destroy You got created but lots of other types of music too.

A: When you have a Line Rider session and you’re going and everything is clicking, you’re inventing things spontaneously and they’re working out, what does that feel like?

B: I have two answers for that. One is, if you have heard of the concept of flow — it’s an artistic creation mode where you’re totally focused on what you’re making and everything else fades away. And another thing relates to my autism. I am autistic and so I have this thing where I hyper-focus. That means basically the same thing. But it’s something that I can control and sometimes I can’t. Sometimes I wind up hyper-focusing on things before I know it’s happening. Other times I want to hyper-focus when I want to make something but it’s difficult. But it’s a great feeling. Sometimes I make Line Rider tracks for eight hours in one sitting and other times it’s a struggle to work on it for an hour. It varies. What was that the question? I’m not sure if I answered it.

A: You absolutely illuminated it. I’ve never made a Line Rider so it’s interesting to know what it feels like to do so.

B: I can speak to that. Making a Line Rider track is a lot more like making pointillism then it is making a watercolor. *laughs*

A: How so?

B: It’s tedious and slow going. Generally, the lines are drawn one at a time and erased one at a time. They’ll get drawn and may be adjusted and erased if they’re not working. That’s been changing recently. There are new tools with copy and paste features. There are fill tools. There are all sorts of things that are new and changing that workflow. But, historically, lines are drawn one at a time, very slowly, one after the other.

A: Jeez.

B: Another thing is, you’re making a track and especially if it’s the track that’s focused less on the visuals and more on the the movement, you can’t go back and change part of the movement early on in the track because that would affect everything after it so you have to make every second of track in order one, after the other, and that can be a challenge.

A: You can’t skip around if you’re stuck on something. You have to go straight through.

B: *water drinking noises* Exactly.

A: Do you use a mouse or a drawing pad?

B: Sorry. I need to have a little more water. This cold as persistent. *water noises* I use the mouse for the entirety of the time I’ve made Line Rider tracks, so far. It’s a standard mouse. More recently sometimes I use a trackpad on my MacBook Pro. Going forward though, something I’ve been debating getting for a year now is a one of those touchscreen displays that hooks up to your computer.

A: Can you write your signature really well with a mouse?

B: *laugh* No. Not at all. You know those things where you have to sign your name on an iPad? I’m horrible.

A: Then how are you able to make courses that looks so great?

B: By drawing them one line at a time. I use the straight line tool. With the tool, you click and draw and release and that makes one line. I do that thousands of times.

A: When you plan to work on a project for the day, do you have a schedule? Do you work a certain amount of hours? Or do you throw yourself at it and get done whatever?

B: It can be a struggle to find time to work on Line Rider tracks because historically they’ve been more of a hobby than a profession. In the last year that I’ve been getting commissions, if I have a deadline that’s coming up, it’s easy for me to sit down and start working. I’m in the state of, “Ahh. I have to get this done.” If I don’t have a deadline, sometimes it’s just a matter of getting everything else in my life cleared off my plate so I’m like, “Alright. What’s left to do is the track.” Then I can sit down and not think about if there’s anything else I should be doing instead. That helps me focus.

A: What is there to be said about flying at high speeds to the sound of music? Do you have any insight into what that feeling is?

B: Yes. I’ve known for most of my life that I have synesthesia from music into visuals. Sometimes those are colors, sometimes shapes, and sometimes a movement and that can be more of an auditory-to-kinesthetic synesthesia. I get an actual sense of movement often times when I’m listening to music. It’s like the music is moving or I’m moving because of the music. Often times the most intense feelings are feelings of flying. I translate that into Line Rider. Maybe that’s what people are picking up on. I take for a lot of people it’s something that they don’t necessarily feel vividly but if you’re watching something where there is a figure flying through the air and it lines up with the music really perfectly it’s sort of this thing where people don’t get it at first and then they realize it’s lining up with the music and I feel, “Oh. I see it’s lining up with the music.” Some people react with “Oh. That’s it? That’s boring.” Other people start feeling it. It’s like they can feel the music physically. Which is really fun. It’s a thing I’ve noticed only some people experience. I thought all people experienced it until This Will Destroy You went viral and I got comments from some people who are like, “All it is is movement music synced up to music.”

A: *laughs*

B: And I’m like, “So fascinating!” There are people who don’t feel anything from that inherently.

A: Another thing I noticed was that I was watching one of your tracks and I started to do my grocery list in my head but I didn’t realize I had done it until afterwards. I realized I was thinking clearly. It put me in a zone where my mind was flexible.

B: That is interesting. Sometimes when I watch Line Rider synced to music it feels like a cleanse. It might be a vicarious experience of, like, the feeling of going on a rollercoaster, a little bit. I feel more free afterward. I’ve also noticed people experiencing that themselves. It’s good to know the feeling is widespread.

A: If Line Rider had not existed, would you have invented it?

B: I don’t think I would have invented Line Rider. I don’t know what I would have spent my free time on in 2007, 2008, and 2009 but I know I would still be doing some kind of auditory, music, or sound visualization. I was drawn to that in college and one of the big final projects I did was, I visualized a piece of music with these lights and colors in After Effects. I’d still be doing stuff like that, it just wouldn’t be with Line Rider.

A: For those of us who are not a part of the Line Rider community, can you summarize it?

B: Oh, boy.

A: What is it?

B: The simplest definition would be: a bunch of people, maybe a few dozen people, that hangout with each other on the internet and get really into discussing and creating extremely intricate Line Rider tracks. If you went into the Line Rider community, the average person would be totally confused about what people are talking about because, at least nowadays, which means in the last few years, they’ve been very very focused on the intricacies of the original physics engine and how it can be manipulated to get the sledder to do bizarre erratic movement. Sometimes these things are used to create things that can be impactful to the average person. But if you just walked into the Line Rider community and poked around you would think, “What are they talking about?” *laugh*

A: Can you rattle off a bunch of terms that I have no idea the definition of?

B: Some early ones are gravity wells. Then there ares flings of gravity wells. Then there are variation on flings. So flings can pull different parts of Bosh. Do you want me to come up with the most complex stuff I can?

A: Spit ‘em out.

B: You can make an inverted hand and tail ASDF which stands for an Alternating Single Direction Fling. We could do a Dual Alt Flanual. That would be fun.

A: *laugh*

B: You can have an all blue ten point cannon. Those are interesting.

A: *laugh*

B: Let’s see. Then you have an inverted cranual lock. How’s that?

A: I love those.

B: These are actual terms.

A: When did you make your Patreon? When did you wonder, “How can I make a living, if any?”

B: The shift turned when I was thinking about it as an art medium. Where I was like, “Oh. What if instead of playing this like an open-ended game, why don’t we try to make things that are going to appeal to people who might not even know what Line Rider is?” So, thinking about it as art that’s going to resonate with a general audience and then thinking about how I was going to do that corresponded with thinking about, well, maybe I could make this into a little hobby or a side hustle. It took off very suddenly, much faster than I expected.

A: Yes. How do you feel about your success so far?

B: I have a lot of feelings about success so far. It’s weird to have — sorry, kitty.

A: The cat jumped?

B: I got up to get water and then I was pacing around the room and I tripped over the cat.

A: Son of a gun.

B: Let’s see. How do I feel about my success so far? It’s complicated. I’m a bit estranged from the Line Rider community as of the last couple years. Three years or so. Prior, I was the administrator of the main Line Rider community and I had been running everything in the community so it’s complicated because when I retired from my administrative duties was when I went back to making more Line Rider tracks myself. When This Will Destroy You went viral, it created buzz around Line Rider and funneled people into the community that I had become estranged from. It was this awkward situation where I was reviving this community that I was no longer really as in as I used to be. I have mixed feelings around that. Those feelings standard in contrast to the feelings I have about the comments I’ve gotten on This Will Destroy You. It’s far and away the most wholesome Line Rider YouTube comment section I’ve ever seen. I’ve had people talk about all sorts of mental health issues and how the video has helped them. I’ve had people write basically a story of someone’s entire life to go along with the Line Rider track. I’ve had people being open about how it made them cry. It’s been wonderful to see how much of an impact that has had on people. It’s been great to be able to have an actual audience outside of the Line Rider community, a general audience of people who are interested in the stuff I’m making. So a lot of mixed feelings, but very positive. Is that the question that you are asking?

A: Yeah.

B: Cool.

A: You might have caught on by now that I’m asking broad questions that have no right answers. Feel comfortable as you are. These are some things you might be thinking about and putting into words for the first time ever so you’re doing great.

B: Yes, great.

A: How do you feel about your success on Patreon?

B: The Patreon started out small. And then it grew. It grew suddenly after This Will Destroy You went viral and it slowly but steadily has been growing since. I was surprised by the ratio of how many people were leaving glowing comments and how many people were sending me a dollar on Patreon. It seems like .01% percent of views and then .1% of positive comments got transferred to giving me money even though it’s just a small amount of money every time I release something. I was surprised that that didn’t translate. I think the thing is that on YouTube, people who make a lot of money on Patreon are talking to the camera a lot and so they’ll be talking and talking and talking and at the end they’ll be like, “You should pledge to my patreon.” And that brings people’s attention to it. People aren’t used to having to go look for it. They’re used to be told about it. I think it would be weird if my head popped up at the end of the Line Rider track and I was like, “Hey. Thanks for watching. Check out my patreon.” And they’re like, “Who are you?” I think that’s a big reason why it hasn’t been as successful as I would have hoped it would be with having a track going viral. It is at a point where it is starting to feel like real money and that is exciting. [$144 has been pledged to Ben by patrons per release.] Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons I haven’t been able to make something that I can release on Patreon. I took a break from Line Rider and then I had commissions and then I flew to Slovenia…anyways...

A: That’s a good segue.

B: Oh?

A: You gave a lecture in Slovenia about the history of Line Rider.

B: I did! I’m good friends with the current developer of the build of Line Rider that is on LineRider.com right now, David Lu. The original creator of Line Rider, Boštjan Čadež, (pronounced like Bastian Cah-dez) lives in Slovenia and was looking for people to curate Line Rider videos that would be included in an exhibit. He reached out to the community, got in touch with David, David sent him over to me, and I pulled together a list like, “Here’s a smattering of Line Rider tracks from across various styles and years, and a wide variety in content.” That’s how I got involved in the art exhibition. Then the curator of the art gallery reached out to me and invited me to come to the exhibit in Slovenia and said, if I can get myself there, they would provide me with lodging and give me a tour of the gallery. I managed to find a cheap plane ticket that fit with my schedule. After that was nailed down, he asked me, “Since you’re coming here, do you want to give a lecture?” He said I could choose the topic. I decided to use the opportunity to put together a lecture about the history. It got thrown together quickly though. I had about two weeks notice to know I was flying to Slovenia and giving a lecture. Given that small amount of time, it turned out well. It was good to get something about the 12 year history of Line Rider out into the world. A lot happened in 12 years and most of it was underground, obscure.

A: How did it feel to put it together? Was it easy to recall?

B: I had already done a fair amount of writing on all of the different aspects. I had already done the Line Rider archival project. I had lived a lot of the history. But I'd also done research into the various development builds. These were on the old internet forum that I used to administrate. I compiled lists of prominent Line Rider track releases, lists of different Line Rider builds and the features that they added and the people that developed them. It wasn't so much that I had to sit down and find out all this stuff. I had generally knew it. I just had to put together, “Did this happen first? Or did this happen after that?” And then package the important things to a general audience.

A: What was this exhibit for? What was the nature of it?

B: The exhibit was about Line Rider. The exhibit was titled Line Rider. The original creator of Line Rider put it together, an exhibit where there were different builds of Line Rider that people could play. There was a room with tracks projected on the walls playing on loop. There was a documentary that was created about the creator of Line Rider and and the history of how it was bought by the company InXile Entertainment. There was there was also a new virtual reality Line Rider that the original creator developed for the exhibit. There are some other things like the Game Developer Conference trophy and fun Line-Rider-themed sleds.

A: What was the cause of this exhibit?

B: The curator of the art gallery, Jani Pirnat, and Boštjan were on an artist retreat. Jani found out that Boštjan was the creator of Line Rider. Jani was like, “Oh, that's so cool.” Bosh was like, “I have a lot of negative memories about Line Rider because it got bought out by this company that was going to make a game and I was going to get a share and the game didn't do well financially so I never got any money. I don't have the rights anymore. They basically abandoned it. There are a lot of bad memories.” Jani was persistent and said, "No, no, we should look into getting the rights back. You should do this exhibit."

A: How did the creator feel about the exhibit when it finally happened?

B: He was really happy. He was also happy with the VR Line Rider that he developed, the videos on the documentary. I think he's really excited about continuing development of the VR Line Rider. I also think it's helped him work through the negative stuff that he had surrounding Line Rider. He's been active in the community since the exhibit. That's good to see.

A: What is the documentary called?

B: The documentary is called Line Rider: A Documentary. It's unreleased. In the exhibit, there was an excerpt of it shown. I might be involved in the full documentary release, which should be.... I don't know. I don't know what's going on with it right now.

A: That would be amazing.

B: I'm excited for it.

A: *pause* Who is the little boy on the sled?

B: *laughs* In the earliest builds, the sledder is referred to only as the sledder. He was given a name and personality and story in Line Rider 2 Unbound though if you watch The History of Line Rider lecture you know that Line Rider 2 Unbound has a question of… is it canon? It is officially Line Rider material but the community uses the old physics engine from before Line Rider 2 and up until recently used a modified version of the last version Boštjan developed. In Line Rider 2 Unbound, this sledder is named Bosh, after the creator. I like to think of the sledder as a universal stand-in for the viewer. I try not to focus on who is the sledder. There are people who do that in the community and it can be really fun. My favorite example is... Dangerous Cargo has a thing where, a story-focused Space Operetta, of the sledder on this little journey. But I like to think of him just as a stand-in. I want you to empathize with this sledder.

A: How many times have you dressed up as the sledder for Halloween?

B: Oh. I have never dressed up as the sledder. The most dressed up I've ever got is wearing my Line Rider t-shirt which is now signed. I actually have, through a series of events, ended up with a whole bunch of Line Rider t-shirts that I've been sending off to people who want them over the last few years. At one point, I had 16 t-shirts. But, no I've never dressed up as this letter. I don't have Bosh cosplay materials. I know the creator has dressed up as Bosh for the art gallery and some publicity material. It has him in the Line Rider hat and scarf. He also dressed up to get the Game Developers Conference award in California in 2007.

A: What are some of the funny or strange or memorable comments you’ve received on YouTube?

B: There are so many. When I scroll through my web portfolio there's a whole bunch of comments that I've just saved on there. Probably because then people can see all the nice things people have said about the track but mostly because I like to save them so I can look through them later. One that stands out to me most because it got me to reflect a lot on the impact This Will Destroy You has on the demographic that's most likely to be watching a Line Rider video is, “Is it okay to cry?” That was the whole comment. *laughs*

A: Did you not expect anyone to cry?

B: I did not. It had been years since I'd had a video that had gotten more than a few hundred views so I thought maybe a thousand people would see the video. Within a week from posting it, it went viral on Reddit, got a hundred thousand and that was more than almost any other Line Rider track I had ever made. I was over the moon at that. A couple months later, Mountain King was released by Doodle Chaos and that generated a ridiculous amount of traffic for Line Rider. My video was the one that was often recommended next by YouTube. That put it up to a million views in a very short amount of time. 100,000 was wild to begin with. *laughs*

A: How did that feel? That must have been amazing.

B: It was amazing. It was also unexpected. I found myself being overwhelmed with the comment section. It wasn't just people saying, “This is great. Nice job.” It was people reflecting on their lives. *laughs* That was really impactful. I was not expecting it to resonate that hard. I think part of the reason might have been that when making it I was in a reflective and somewhat depressed state of mind for the year and a half. I think it ended up coming through and people resonated with that.

A: It took you a year and a half to make?

B: It did. It sounds more impressive than it is. It took me about 250 hours, a little more. If you are working full time on a project, that's about two months. For me, it took 18 months. If I do the math, it averages to half an hour a day. There were days where I worked eight hours and there were months that went by when I didn't touch it at all. It varied a lot. The reason I got it done is because I kept coming back to it and being like, “Do I want to finish this? Yes I want to finish this."

A: Were people in the community expecting it or was it a secret?

B: Before This Will Destroy You was released, anything over 3 minutes was considered very long for a Line Rider track. Part of the reason I was able to make This Will Destroy You as long as it was was because of the newer builds that allowed you to scrub ahead in the timeline. They didn't used to be any timeline scrubbing so it was obnoxious to watch two minutes of track just so you can pause it and work work on the next bit. The new tools made it possible but also... I just forgot what the question was.

A: Whether it was a secret or if people knew it was coming.

B: Right. People knew I was working on a track and it was really really long. In the community, I updated people like, “I've made 5 minutes,” “I've made 10 minutes,” “I've made 15,” “I've made 20, 30.” I released a little trailer once I reached 35 minutes. But the Line Rider Community was very small. They were maybe 20 people who knew it was coming and were excited or at least curious. Most people were probably just like, “Why is this Line Rider track so long?”

A: Would you ever make another feature-length course?

B: Yes. But not soon. I have some ideas four things I would like to make eventually that are similarly long but I want to focus on some more experimental things that are shorter. I want to work on ideas I have before I tackle another long project. I could keep making projects like This Will Destroy You that are similar in structure and style but I feel like it wouldn't be as good if I tried to copy the formula.

A: Going back a bit, you said that you went to school and created your own major. For anyone else who is artistic, how would you say school has helped you?

B: The big thing was resources. I had access to software. And also physical things like lighting. I had the space where I could go to, a building and go to a room in that building and sit down and be like, “Okay. This is my space where I’m art making.” It's a little more difficult to get into that when it's my apartment. I sit at the same place to do my taxes as I do my art. It's a little more difficult to do that so it's nice to have studio spaces. Another big part of it was having deadlines. Like, “You have to make this project and it needs to be done by this day or else bad things will happen.” *laughs* That was helpful. It was also helpful to be around lots of other people that we're doing things that were somewhat similar. Someone to bounce off ideas. I could show people what I was making. All of those things are big parts of it. I also appreciated being able to take classes on the philosophy of art. I appreciated being able to work in collaboration with people. There are a lot of things. Amusingly, the classes we're probably one of the things lower down on the list.*laughs*

A: What will you be doing in five years?

B: Oh boy. Well, my day job is in technical theater. I imagine I'll still be doing that in five years. Even if Line Rider became a full-blown career and I didn't need to do it anymore, there are still things I would want to do in that.

A: What did you say the job was?

B: Technical theater. Lighting and sound and video for theatrical productions. I will still be doing Line Rider. I don't know what it'll look like in 5 years. There are things in flux right now in terms of the features being developed. I have no idea. That's all I can say. I don't want to plan too far into the future. I don't want to plan too much of my life. I want to see how things go.

A: Ben that was my last question for you.

B: Oh. That's not a question. *laughs* Alright, wonderful.

A: Thank you very much. That was awesome.

B: You are a wonderful interviewer.

A: Thank you. I'll type this up, transcribe it, make it look nice, and I'll send you a link shortly. Hopefully, within two weeks.

B: Sounds wonderful. Thank you so much.

A: Thank you.

B: Great talking to you.

A: Same. Talk soon.

There was Ben Harvey, in the midst of his life, the line he is riding. Lines tend to be everywhere. Lines are in plays, lines are in supermarkets. You have a line of work where you line your pockets. Some things are divided by a fine line, others by a dotted line. Occasionally, we draw lines in the sand. It’s difficult to keep track of them if someone’s blurred the lines. It can be fun to get out of line, feel the sensation of crossing the line, and of beating someone to the punchline. By the end of our life, we have lines on our face. And when we are online, it’s good if we can fill our empathy meter to the top line. This allows us to join the timeline of art history where many millions of people have stood in line in order to see further down the lines. When we see the end of the line, we have arrived at a point. That’s the whole point. To be pointed in a direction, ride the storyline to that point, and feel something poignant. Line Rider epitomizes this and shows us that even if you forget your lines, you’ll never forget how those lines made you feel. That’s the bottom line.

Interview conducted on 5/26/19

[theinternetinterviewed]

Crazy Mike, A Love Sprinkler Who Lives In His Vhouse [Van/House]

Interviewing Crazy Mike is like watching an episode of Planet Earth — — the one about birds in New Guinea who have no predators and spend all their time singing, dressing up, and building color-coordinated homes. Most of Planet Earth is about animals that have survival claws and competition brains so to see an animal that has zero of those concerns…it’s amazing what they do with their time.

If you don’t know Crazy Mike: he is a vlogger, lives in a van and travels around America, and is an ex-stuntman. Crazy Mike was doing a stunt on the set of the movie Ghost Rider 2 where he was supposed to drive a motorcycle up a ramp and into a lake but instead flew over and broke many bones. Before reading this interview, watch his video BULLSH*T and the rest of who Crazy Mike is will be made clear.

A: Oh my God. Is this Crazy Mike?

M: This is Mr. Crazy Mike.

A: Holy motherfucking God. How are you doing?

M: I was trying to FaceTime you. I guess you don’t have a FaceTime option?

A: No. I only have an Android. Is FaceTime on there? I don’t use it too much.

M: Sorry to hear that. iPhones are better.

A: They are. I’ve just had an Android since high school and haven’t switched off.

M: That’s the same thing I say about the iPhone. I just don’t want to switch.

A: Real talk.

M: *laughs* Let’s have a real talk. What is this about? Can you give me a rundown?

A: I like interviewing people. I’m an interview junkie. I love reading interviews. I stumbled on your YouTube channel a month ago, binge watched everything, and think you’re a dope motherfucker. M: Thank you, man. I noticed you’re from New Jersey, dude. I grew up there.

A: Hell yea.

M: I have…I had a 732 area code and everything. 732 is my whole town.

A: I’m from Middlesex County.

M: My family lives in Monmouth County.

A: I was looking at some of your old clips and I didn’t recognize any of the spots but I recognized the trees.

M: Those are some Jersey trees. Thanks for reaching out.

A: It’s a pleasure. I just wanted to give you fifty bucks but then I figured, “Hey, I’ll interview him too so there’s a little activity.”

M: Yeah. I like to actually do things for money. I don’t like to just get money. I used to. People would be like, “Let me send you 20 bucks.” I’m like, “Yo, let me make you a piece of jewelry or something.” I want to always do something. I’m about that life. SLAWAA all the way. [Sprinkle Love And Work Across America.]

A: My first question for you, well, it’s actually a statement and question, is: You are an excellent filmmaker. And in your lifetime you’ve edited many different videos. If all of those videos were played one after the other, how long would the film be?

M: Are you trying to watch it?

A: *laughs* I’m curious. If you calculated everything, would it be 10 hours? 30 hours?

M: I would say more like 10 years. I have a lot man. I’ve been doing this since I was right out of school with the VCRs back in the day probably before you were born. How old are you?

A: I’m 26.

M: Oh, you remember VCRs. You remember the Myspace days. I started around that era and have been doing it since. I pop out an edit a week so I’m going to say, realistically, you’d have to sit down for 3 years non-stop. You’d have to pee and shit and eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner while watching my work.

A: *Laughs* What got you into shooting your own videos? How old were you?

M: I stole my Dad’s video camera and played around with it with my friends. I was in third grade at the time, 9 years old. At this auction, I got a VHS tape called Crusty Demons of Dirt which is like dirt bikes, action-packed, ya know, dirt bike tricks and it’s an hour of that and it inspired the fuck out of me. When I watched it, I was like, “Damn. I want to make that.” A year later, I started filming random shit and then four years later I started getting featured in that Crusty Demon series. From there, I took off.

A: Do you remember your first editing software? Windows Movie Maker?

M: Well it was VCRs so putting two VCRs together was my editing software. I would film on a tape and connect it to another VCR and hit play and record and play and record, back and forth, to make a tape that I sold in high school. I was a freshman selling my VHS tapes called Dead Troopers.

A: It was stunts and skits?

M: Yea. A mix between Jackass and Girls Gone Wild and the X Games.

A: I don’t think most people realize how much fun editing is. Would you talk about the fun of editing for a minute?

M: Editing is really fun when you enjoy what you’re editing, the footage, and you enjoy telling a story. It’s really fun. I love it. I absolutely love it. But when someone gives me a bunch of wedding footage and tells me to edit their wedding, it’s not that fun. The whole creation process is when you shoot the footage, it’s your footage, and you get to work with that footage. A lot of the times I have the edit already envisioned in my head when I shoot something. I’m talking about natural transitions. I’ll crank the camera a certain way because I know my next clip will be cranked that way. *pause* It’s like a tattoo artist. If the tattoo artist has a blank canvas to work with they enjoy it a lot more than doing a cover-up of someone’s ugly ass armadillo tattoo on their chest.

A: I hate ugly armadillo tattoos.

M: The guy in Jackass had an ugly armadillo tattoo on his arm. Dave England. That’s why I came up with the ugly armadillo just now.

A: *laughs* Have you ever met the Jackass guys?

M: I probably met about half of them. I never did any work with them. I used to work with Don Vito when we were doing We Play Crazy. Any time we had a big event, Bam’s Uncle came out and he was pretty hot at the time so my whole thing was, “Buy a DVD and get a picture with Don Vito.” All of these kids bought these DVDs and got their photo taken.

A: A couple of YouTube videos ago, you had a call with someone in Bam Margera’s camp about video editing work? Did that pan out?

M: Chad Ginsburg, the singer of CKY reached out to me and told me, “Bam Margera is looking for an editor.” I called and never got a phone call back. So, he either got a new editor or hit the booze.

A: That son of a gun.

M: *laughs*

A: Are there days where you shut the camera off and think, “Yes! I caught gold today.” Do you get that feeling?

M: Totally. All the time. Sometimes I shut the camera off and I don’t know that I have gold until later on. I do this new thing called “unknowingly knowing” where I have the camera on and don’t know it’s recording. I capture great shit off of it. Real moments, man. Anytime you shove a camera in someone’s face — most of the time they’re not really themselves because they know they’re being filmed. But when they don’t know it’s beautiful. I find it more beautiful that way.

A: The truth of the moment. Can you give me an example of something you caught on film but only realized later on?

M: I’ve been keeping my camera on my dashboard so when people come up… for instance, I had a cop yesterday knock on my window and wake me up. I call it “unknowingly knowing.” I know I put [the camera] there and hit record but after a while I forget it’s there. I don’t sit and pay it attention. I’m paying attention to, “Oh. I have a cop in my face. Let me keep my focus on him.” The camera just rolls. Those are the moments where I capture the truth of the moment.

A: Can you tell me the psychological difference between when someone is acting differently on camera and what’s happening when they’re relaxing?

M: The difference is flexing. You got someone with a camera and it’s like, “Yeah I’m going to flex for YouTube. AHH YEAA LETS GET CRAZY.” And then when I put the camera down, they’ll be like, “This is a nice day.” And then whatever happens happens without a flex to it. Which are still beautiful moments. But a lot of people don’t realize [they’re flexing]. I’m even speaking of myself. The only reason I know so much about this is because I speak in terms of my experience. I know how to emphasize the moment. When I see a camera it’s like, camera up — Hollywood time, “BAM. YO, WHATSUP. THIS IS CRAZY MIKE, BABY, ARE YOU READY FOR THE NEW VIDEO? YOOOO.”

A: *laughs*

M: Crazy Mike is always overemphasizing the real Mike. My Crazy Mike way of introducing myself is, “YOOO. It’s Crazy Mike.” My Mike way of introducing myself is, “Hey. How you doing? My name is Mike. Nice to meet you.”

A: It’s interesting that some people don’t realize they’re acting different. They’re unconsciously doing it.

M: There’s also that category of people who, when you put a camera in front of their face, they go completely still. They’re like, “Oh, what’s up.” [boring voice]. It goes both ways.

A: How funny is it when you’re watching your footage and you see the exact moment when a person looks directly at the camera and realizes it’s there?

M: Those are hilarious. I got this old guy [working in a toll booth] that I was chatting with and he’s being cool with me and telling me, “Oh yeah, if you don’t have a real license plate on there then just don’t pay the tolls.” I’m filming him talking the whole time. He even said something like, “you could get me in trouble…” so when he realized the camera was there all of a sudden the conversation stopped. I knew in the moment, “Damn he must have just seen the camera.” Sure enough, I was looking back at that footage and it’s clear as day. He stopped talking to me and put his head down and covered his name tag. He did some, “Yo, yo, you got me. I just said you can go through tolls. Shit. I’m going to lose my job.”

A: Tell me about your toll road jokes. Where did they start?

M: My toll road jokes? Well, they’re not really jokes. It’s far from funny actually. Tolls, I hate tolls so much. I’ve driven through so many. They’re ridiculous. The idea of it, the fact that you have to stop and pay dollars — it’s like $25 to get into New York City. Random roads in Pennsylvania are $20. If I’m paying to drive on the road… it sounds crazy. I’ll pay for registration, for insurance but why do I have to pay to drive on the road? Whoever created that idea, “Let’s charge people to drive on the road,” I think is completely fucked in the head. I’m super against it. I don’t complain about it too much anymore because I realized this thing on Google Maps that avoids tolls so I’m the guy who will drive three hours out of the way to avoid paying the toll. But the good thing is, I’d always be nice to the people at the toll booth. It was never their fault. My thing was, I would give them the money and act like, “What? I pay you money, huh?” I’d act surprised. I knew I had to but I acted surprised. But I’m telling the truth when I’m acting, like, “What the fuck? That’s crazy.” I give them the money, tell them have a nice day, and then say, “Fuck the government,” right after it. Most of the time, 7 out of 10 people will laugh with me or say, “Fuck the government too. It sucks.”

A: We talked earlier about how I live in Jersey. You live in Jersey. That is one similarity. I smoke weed. You smoke weed. That’s another similarity. But there’s a big difference I’m curious about. You have a medical marijuana card, which is gold in New Jersey. How did you get that?

M: I just went to the doctor. Everybody has an issue. It can be something small like appetite, or depression, anxiety — whatever you want to say. Just go to the doctor and give the doctor money and the doctor is guaranteed to write you a script for medical marijuana. You get two ounces per month in New Jersey.

A: Do you have to go to a funny doctor?

M: You have to go to a doctor who does medical marijuana. There’s a list of doctors on this website…NJ… New Jersey Medical Marijuana program…so NJMMP, I think it’s called. It’s a list of all New Jersey doctors that have access to the medical marijuana industry. You can’t go to a random physician and say, “I’m seeking that.” You have to go to a marijuana doctor. Tell them what [issue] you have and say that friends have suggested… “I was wondering… if it would be a good idea….” You can even say it helps you out to simplify what you’re trying to do… “Yeah, when I smoke it helps my social anxiety…I’m just saying.” A doctor will write you a script within an hour.

A: Share your thoughts on weed, your general thoughts on how awesome it is.

M: It cures the soul. It’s a blessing. It helps everything. Can you abuse it? Yes. You can also abuse water. I don’t think you need to smoke as much as some people do. I’ve been there before where I smoke and smoke and smoke and smoke and I didn’t find it enjoyable. I found my enjoyment by taking breaks. When I come back to it, it makes me appreciate it more. Now I don’t travel with it. I usually only have a gram at a time so I can eat it if I get pulled over because some States arrest you for it. Most of the time when I smoke is when I do these house calls all over the country. Whoever is there or happens to have weed, I’ll smoke with them. Which is not everyday. I’ll go three days without visiting anyone. I’ll go three days living in the woods or in a truck stop where I don’t know anybody. But on that fourth day, when I do smoke, I appreciate it so much more. It opens me up like, “Wow.”

A: “I only carry as much as I can eat.” That’s hilarious and makes so much sense.

M: After spending six months in jail, I had to change it up.

A: How did that time change your philosophy? Did you get a new perspective on things in jail?

M: Totally. I have a folder full of writing I did in jail. Jail, I look back on and think, man, maybe I needed to be there — complete solitude, no technology. When you’re by yourself for that long you learn about yourself. You have no outside distractions. Not that I wanted to do that but I was forced to do it and I took it the best way I could. I wrote a whole bunch of stuff, whatever idea I was having, whatever happened to me that day. I have hundreds of pieces of paper. My plan was when I did finally get out I would turn it into visual stories. And I did it already with some. It’s kind of how Trippy Talks came about, when I just talk. I do a voiceover. I write whatever I want to talk about and I do a voiceover and mix it with clips. That whole style of editing came from jail because when I was in jail, all I did was write. I wrote before but never as much as I did in jail. I have all these writings and I was like, “Damn. These are pretty beautiful and I want to share my thoughts. What is the best way to do it?” For me, it’s making them into visual stories.

A: In your Quarterly Report you gave a Trippy Talk and in your Risk of Living video and also in your My (kinda) Serious job Application. How important is it for a person to have a philosophy?

M: Philosophy is your beliefs in something. I think it’s important and yet it’s not important. You don’t have to believe anything. You can just be. I don’t think it’s necessary to have a philosophy on something. Having a philosophy though brings enjoyment out of life by the way you think, so, my way of thinking has brought me enjoyment in my life. I make videos the way I make videos, to share that, to hopefully get other people to get enjoyment the way I get enjoyment. But is it necessary to have a philosophy? Absolutely not. You don’t have to believe anything. That’s the truth of the matter.

A: Word, word.

M: But you have to believe you’re going to die one day because it’s true.

A: Why is that a necessary belief? Of all the beliefs possible?

M: That’s one thing everybody has in common — me, you, and the rest of this world. Our mothers, brothers, fathers, sisters, friends, and dogs…we all go away one day. We’re born and we die. As far as what happens in the middle, you can believe whatever you want. The beautiful thing about it is we have a choice. We can choose to focus on whatever we want to focus on and it determines a human being — their way of thinking. If I sat and watched the news all day and focused on the war and Donald Trump…fuck, my life would suck. It would be full of politics, bullshit. But if I focus on the arts of life, the creativeness of life, then life becomes creative. My life becomes what I want it to. You choose who you follow on Instagram. If you follow a girl who talks negative all the time, that’s what you’re going to see on your Instagram every time it pops up. “Oh life sucks. When is it going to end?” Every day that’s going to be on your news feed. You make the choice, which is a beautiful thing. You choose what you believe.

A: There are messages that you often put on your videos, for example, free thinking is welcome — can you tell me more about those messages?

M: Free thinking is welcome is… I welcome hate, positive comments, whatever you think, hey, say it. It’s cool. I don’t delete comments. I let them be. I guess I used to think I could control that but at the end of the day I’m controlling someone’s thinking and I don’t want to do that. I make what I make, maybe, to alter their thinking. But I allow them to say whatever they want to say. It’s a free country. Well, almost free. We have freedom of speech. We can say whatever we feel. Sometimes it might get us in trouble, sometimes in might not, but I promote that. Everything I say, not everyone is going to agree with it and I’m well aware of that. Especially when I talk about things like the military, religion — topics people are uptight about. There is going to be a lot of disagreement. So, I say share your thoughts. Why do you think a certain way? I don’t really appreciate the comment…*adjusts* I don’t respect the comments where it’s like, “You’re an idiot.” Tell me why I’m an idiot. Tell me why you think the way you think or why you think I’m wrong but tell me why. I encourage that. If you hit me with a legitimate response, okay, maybe I have something to think over now. Maybe I just learned something.

A: Speaking of the people who do agree with you, your community, how dope is it to have that many people around the country who will hook you up with a bed or a meal?

M: It’s pretty cool. I am blessed. It’s funny because sometimes I…I like my days off when I don’t really see anybody. My days off are when I’m chilling in nature by myself. I like to be alone. I’m never lonely. But I’m alone a lot. There is a difference. I like the parties and I like the friends and the social interactions, sure, but I also love my alone time. There have been so many times where I have to say, “Yeah, I’ll be in town…” Or maybe I won’t even post my location and I won’t see anybody by choice. But going back to your question, the fact that I have a support system up in here is a beautiful thing. I don’t think I’ll ever go hungry. I just have to post on Snapchat where I’m at. Every city I’m in, so far, there has been someone who says, “Yo, come over, hang out.” My house calls are usually a shower, a bed, and I’m taken care of. A lot of the time they’re like, “I don’t want you to leave. Stay around for weeks.” I’m a love sprinkler. I sprinkle a little bit.

A: If given the chance, would you write a book?

M: Totally. I love writing.

A: Not only a life story book but the way you perceive things, your feelings about things.

M: 100%. I would. My writing is…I kind of already do that but I don’t write words on paper. I write into a visual story.

A: You need a speech-to-text app. It’ll turn what you say automatically into words.

M: I do that with my phone if I’m driving and I have a thought. I’ll punch in my microphone and talk. Later I’ll go back and … what is that word called? Edit *laughs* What do you call it? Edit that shit!

A: *laughs* You’re an editor aren’t you?

M: Edit that shit! Like a finalized edit…proofread that was the word I was thinking of. Yeah I love it, man. I love books.

A: When is Hella Crazy 5 coming out?

M: Ahh…man..you know… I don’t think I’m going to bring it back. There has been…life is full of change. There’s been a change. First of all, DVDs aren’t anything anymore. Seeing a DVD is kind of like, “What the fuck is that?” Kids these days would be like, “If that’s not on my cell phone, I don’t want that.” I still love stunts. I’ll forever love stunts. I do them when I have the chance. But to make a whole project about it just isn’t my style. I’m now more into… I like the vlogging life. I like bits. I still always have the love for it but its not what I promote 100% anymore.

A: If your vhouse [house/van] life ends, would you ever make a full length documentary? Or do you strictly see your adventure as 10 minute long videos?

M: Maybe a 20 minute piece. I have so much footage from my YouTube that I can collect and collect and put it together to make something beautiful. Again, I just go off feelings. I don’t plan to make projects. I don’t know what videos I’m doing the next day. It just happens. All of my Trippy Talks are just feelings I have at that time. I don’t force myself to write or make a video. I don’t have trouble with it, like, “What sort of topic should I focus on now?” It just comes to me. It bursts out of me in a natural way. BAM. I go with the day. I won’t plan for that but, will it happen? Judging off of past experiences, yeah, when I end a big trip for a tour, I’ll make a compilation. My quarterly reports are kind of like that. My Snapchat Adventure I did on Snapchat, I traveled for a hundred days, that was planned. After a hundred days, I would stop traveling. I had all this footage and I was going to make a movie. I’ve done it before. Will it happen again? I don’t know. We will see how that cookie crumbles.

A: Where did you get love sprinkling from? Where did you get the idea?

M: Just me, man. I was trying to figure out what I do. I was a love sprinkler. I sprinkle love everywhere. Not physically with glitter. The glitter came later. I thought, “Man, I’m a love sprinkler.” I’m going everywhere like, “Yo, I just want to spread love and good vibes to everybody.” I make people happy just by chilling so I called it love sprinkling. Then I was in Walmart one day and saw glitter and was like, “That would be cool if I could actually love sprinkle people.” I took the glitter and started sprinkling it on people’s heads and they became so happy from it so I stuck with her. I’m still doing it three years later.

A: How many people in total have you love sprinkled?

M: I do about five a day. So, so many, thousands…thousands…

A: Tell me some things about Jersey, about being born and growing up here.

M: Well, you live there. You can answer that question.

A:I know but I want to hear your answer, if you have any vibes to share.

M: I love New Jersey but I love everywhere I go. I make the best of it. I didn’t like it after a while. I was always like, “Man, I just want to get out of here.” I wanted to get out of living with my family because I don’t like living anywhere for long periods of time which is what I learned about myself. The best thing about traveling is brain stimulation. *pause* I didn’t like [New Jersey] but then again I didn’t have any true reason not to like it. That was just me wanting to move around. That’s what it came down to. But I think it’s pretty cool, man. I have no regrets. Well, my only regret is that I probably would have dropped out of high school sooner. Or dropped out of High School period. I never even dropped out. I actually graduated. But it served no purpose to my life. So I’d probably bring that back and drop out of High School but as far as where I lived — I think it was pretty awesome. I lived five minutes away from Six Flags Great Adventure. Kind of cool. I grew up in the township called Millstone Township. It’s right by Six Flags. It was cool, man. It was cool growing up. We had a lot of farms to fuck around on. We didn’t have Township police. We got away with a lot of the shit we did. It’s definitely a cool State, bro. I got a tattoo of it on my back. I’ve got a heart with everything I love.

A: Sometimes when people ask you where your from, you’ll say something funny like from my mom’s vagina. Why is that?

M: Because it’s a question I get asked all the time. Sometimes I just have to say something stupid because after saying the same thing over and over again it gets tiring. Like anything, I switch it up and catch people off guard that way.

A: You listen to Alan Watts. Can you tell me about him?

M: Oh, I’m on 27%. I can get off the charger now. I was sitting by my charger the whole time. My phone was on 2% when I called you.

A: Bro. Damn.

M: But now I’m good. I’m going to open the door around here. It’s hot as a mother fucker.

A:Where are you right now?

M: I’m in a truck stop headed towards Bakersfield, California. Yea, Alan Watts is a… he’s helped me so much. I listen to his lectures. Alan Watts has a stylistic way of speaking and getting down to the truth. He’s one of my inspirations and he’s shaped the way I think. If I could put him, Terence McKenna, Joe Rogan — if I could put the three of these guys in a blender… WHIRRRRRRR… out would pop a Crazy-Mike-thinking smoothie.

A: *laughs*

M: And damn it tastes good!

A: For the readers of this interview who don’t know who Alan Watts is, can you give a summary?

M: He’s a philosopher who is about the right now in life. He speaks a lot about religion, a lot of his lectures are complex to the point where I don’t even really know what the fuck he’s talking about a lot of the time. Especially when he goes into his religion. Some topics are more blunt than others. He has a really cool voice, a chill voice so a lot of times I would just listen to him at night before I go to sleep. His voice alone would be warming to my heart. And to my mind.

A: Between the We Play Crazy days and now, when did you discover Allan Watts?

M: I discovered him when I first bought this van that I’m living in right now and I started doing van life on my Snapchat adventures. I had all this time to be on the road and listen to music and observe other people’s creations. I get a lot of snapbacks and somebody was like, “Yo, man you should listen to this Alan Watts guy.” I guess I was already doing things [Alan Watts] was talking about so somebody thought I would like him and I fucking loved him. I played him and went, “Wow. This guy is fucking smart. He knows what’s up.” Then I started listening to him lecture after lecture. I’ve heard them all. I’ve read a couple of his books. I’m still a big fan. Just yesterday I was playing his shit.

A: My final stuff is: Can you give three tips to anyone contemplating van life? Three things they should know.

M: Be okay with small spaces. Be okay with parking in public lots. And you might get kicked out. You have to be okay with that. The third thing is: enjoy the ride. Enjoy the fuckin’ ride, dog, cause, let me tell you, it is free.

A: During your bicycle trip through Vietnam, you learned a lot about social skills through body language because you didn’t speak a common language. I found that fascinating. Can you give some remarks about social skills?

M: Social skills are built off experience. Some of the fucking best social skills out there I’ve noticed are from homeless people on a street asking for money. They have so much interaction throughout the day with people. So you learn how to talk to people. That’s all practice. I think our world is afraid to talk to people that they don’t know. They shy away. But every person you back away from is another person you lost. I think I have excellent social skills now. I talk to fifty people a day.

A: My final question is, how can I get my hands on Hella Crazy 3 and Hella Crazy 4 and, more importantly, Crazy Mike Is Dead?

M: Crazy Mike Is Dead… what I’ll do is I’ll send you a link after we hang up, a private link. Hella Crazy 3 and 4, I don’t know. They’re kind of lost in the market. My brother might have some. They might even be online. I wouldn’t be able to get you that.

A: I’ll keep searching.

M: Maybe *pause* Oh, no. I was going to say you can get 1 and 2 on Amazon. I have a distribution deal.

A: Yeah. They just came in the mail. I just got them.

M: Oh nice! Yeah it’s crazy. I don’t even get paid from that anymore. *laughs*

A: Son of a gun.

M: I’ll send you Crazy Mike Is Dead. It’s pretty cool. It’s powerful. It was the first film where I completely opened up on and I was crying and shit. But, yeah, Hella Crazy 3 and 4, I’ll have to say keep hunting because your hunt is my hunt.

A: Thank you for this interview, Crazy Mike. This was a nice time.

M: You’re very welcome, kind sir.

A: I’ll send you a link to this when I write it all up.

M: Cool, man.

A: Have a good day.

M: God bless your soul.

God bless you too, Mike. God bless your bliss. I support your movement of one and appreciate you leading by example for those of us who watch. Do continue telling visual stories. I wonder how we, those who don’t live on the road and have to pay rent, can benefit from your philosophy. We can at least be entertained by your videos. We can learn your openness towards people, your willingness to let surprises happen. I know, actually. Those Mike-thinking smoothies, we can try those. If you blended a batch, they would be best-sellers in the merch store. Do you think you could set that up? I’d like mine with love sprinkles.

Interview conducted 5-2-19.

[theinternetinterviewed]

Duaív, The Painter Whose Paintings Have Seas

*laughs*

So begins an interview I had with Duaív, a pleasure-harnessing artist who turns blank canvas into final products that are so bright that you can read next to them in the dark. He comes from France, lives in Miami, and if you wish to be tanned by his painted sun, read ahead and remember to forget your umbrella.

A: To me, your paintings are about pleasure. I see them and I want to be in them. What role does pleasure play in your life?

D: It is the sport of life. All my life I try to do what I want, what I love. And I love music and art and sport cars. These are my pleasures since I thought to play the cello when I was nine after I saw the cellist Pablo Casals. Then I went later to Paris to study music at the Conservatory of Paris. And then I became a cellist. Then I met my wife. We decided to live 24/7 together. We took a tour of Spain on motorcycles. We stopped at the Dalí house and we met Dalí. I decided that was that and that I would become an artist. I started to paint in the streets. Now I’m in the States. *laughs* That’s a life [explained] in two minutes.

A: When someone sees your art for the first time what do you hope they think?

D: They have to feel happy. I think the artist is like the maitre d’. I have to give you some energy or some pleasure. After your work, you sit down with your glass of wine and see my picture and feel good. This is my job. *laughs*

A: Tell me about the relationship you have with your palette knife.

D: I studied with a brush and I love to paint with my fingers but the way I make my living with the art, I take the palette knife. It gives a brightness to the color and deepness to the seas of the painting.

A: Can you remember some of the first paintings that left an impression on you?

D: Oh, yes. The first painting that impressed me was a big, big painting by Salvador Dalí. The name of the painting is “Tuna Fishing.” Then I saw, “The Starry Night.” That was the first two paintings who impressed me, who gave me the influence in my art.

A: What is it like to paint? What does it feel like to sit and make images?

D: The process of creating is strange because I don’t like to paint in the morning. I love to paint at night. But generally I paint in the afternoon and start at night because it takes a long time to start to paint, to get into the creation. But when I start, I’m finished. I’m not here. I am in my painting, my art. You don’t know what happens on your canvas. It’s why I love the night. There are no phone calls and nobody speak with you. I also love to paint with music.

A: How long do you paint in a sitting?

D: Everyday I work about six hours.

A: Wow.

D: Everyday. I don’t take vacations. Every Saturday and Sunday.

A: Why is it that sometimes it takes you a little while to get into the creation mode?

D: I don’t know why. It’s difficult to go in your painting but it’s difficult to leave. When the painting is finished, I cannot drive. It’s like I am drunk. I don’t feel comfortable, I don’t see well, my brain is not coming back in my body. To start, I feel a little bit like a dog before it goes to sleep. It turns around and around and then it finds its place. He lies down. I repeat the same process.

A: I see. You have to find a comfortable position.

D: You have to shake the tree to get the fruits.

A: *laughs*

My next question is, if you could design your own city, what would that look like? What would be in that city?

D: My own city? Oh, it would be a mix of all of the places I love. I love so many. It’s a hard question. It would be a mix of New York, Paris, Venice, Singapore… I did a painting like that for a friend once and I put all together in one painting. I love especially New York. It is a big city like Paris. You leave the South of France and you want to go to Paris. But I also love Florida because it’s warm.

A: What else would you take from the cities and put in yours? Coffee shops, libraries, bridges?

D: All of the life of the city: cafes with the people, terraces, the shops at nights, also cars, the movement of the people, the crowds.

A: Yes, yes.

D: All of the life.

A: If I saw some of your artwork from your childhood, what would it look like?

D: When you are a child you don’t have the same experience or maturity but I did some paintings of landscapes and when I saw that I said, “Oh, this is not so bad.” *laughs* I felt that the talent was there and I knew I had to work and develop it. You have to work to be better and better.

A: What is the importance of those hours spent working?

D: We say always in music, “You are 5% talent and 95% work.”

A: *laughs*

D: Everything is working, working, working. That is how talent arrives.

A: Can you recall some moment when you were younger, or even recently, when you had a breakthrough? When suddenly all of that work allowed you to do another technique, for instance?

D: No because you get evolution all your life. You don’t see the evolution yourself. You see the evolution, when for example, when I moved from Paris, to the South of France, from South to Tunisia, and from Tunisia to Florida. You see your pallet changing and technique changes also but you don’t know exactly why. You are always all new.

A: So it’s gradual and maybe only when looking back is it obvious.

D: Yes.

A: Interesting. A similar question: how does calmness contribute to your talent as an artist? By this I mean, you mentioned earlier that you are able to go to a place and get lost there. How does your ability to be relax contribute to that place?

D: I am never relaxed. *laugh* I don’t know what that means. I start in the early morning and sleep when I go to bed. So, relax? I don’t know. I’m never relaxed.

A: I see.

D: I’m sorry.

A: No. That’s a better answer.

D: I would love to be more relaxed but I always create, create, create. I don’t know what I’m doing or what will be the next painting. I want to be better and better.

A: How would you describe your work to someone who has never seen it?

D: It’s oil and canvas. Post-impressionists. I love to do abstract to but I don’t have the market to be openly abstract.

A: Does it feel different whether you’re going for a scene or something abstract?

D: Yes. It’s different. In a figurative painting, you have to go inside the place. In an abstract painting, you don’t go inside a place. It’s just your mind going somewhere else but you don’t know why, you can’t say, “Okay, here.” You can’t just suggest something. It’s a question of feeling and energy and me. It is difficult to explain.

A: Hey, that’s why they call it abstract.

D: Yes.

A: When you want to achieve something new in your work, something different, how do you instigate a new idea?

D: I don’t know. I don’t think. I just arrive. I think to myself, “This painting, this next painting that I’m doing is not for me. It will be for somebody who needs this painting. It will be for someone who needs this color, energy, or this shape.” It just happens. It’s why all of my art is always sold.

A: I imagine that this has made you a productive painter since you can just go at your painting and let it become. Is that true?

D: Yes, yes. That is the most important thing. This is why I made the change from musician to artist. I felt I could sell my art because it was coming to me like that.

A: What is it like to listen to music while you paint?

D: When I paint, I don’t listen to the music. I just hear it. Like background inspiration. But I don’t listen like if I go to a concert. Then I listen.

A: Interesting.

D: When I paint with music I couldn’t tell you what exactly what was playing or who the composer was. I don’t know.

A: So you truly get lost. What if someone is knocking at the door and needs to get a hold of you? What then?

D: I paint late so no one will be knocking at my door. Only my wife. *laughs*

A: I notice you paint in front of audiences sometimes.

D: Yes, on stage.

A: How much fun is that?

D: That’s fun. That’s very fun because it’s a challenge. For example, I painted two buses for the Canne festival. Here I have time. I have certain days to do the bus. [Other times], I have ten minutes, fifteen minutes or like the last concert, I had four minutes for each painting. So it’s a challenge. How are you able to succeed? But you have to do it. I painted a Porsche in Palm Beach in front of the TV so I have two hours to finish the Porsche.

A: Wow. So it’s a different feeling.

D: Absolutely. It’s a show. You are not alone in your studio. It’s like if I’m alone with my cello, I practice in the morning. If it’s at night, I’m going to a concert. It will not be for me now. It will be for the public so I prepare for months. It’s the same with live painting.

A: When you look at a painting that you’ve done in the past, what do you usually remember? Can you remember the time in the place?

D: Oh, yes. I remember but also for me it’s like an old car and a new car. You see an evolution. If you have a car ten years ago, it doesn’t drive like the car you have now. It’s the same when I see my old art.

A: Can you explain that more?

D: It means the colors, the hues that I used. The view is different. If you look at yourself ten years ago in a picture you don’t have the same feeling as if you looked at yourself in the mirror today. You feel a little bit uncomfortable. *laughs*

A: When someone reads this interview, what do you hope they get out of it?

D: I hope… how I feel with the art. I paint sports cars because no one is coming to the gallery and opening the door. So the art has to go to the public. What I love with sports car is that they are in the streets and people look at them. The art comes to them.

A: It’s funny you say that because earlier you said that when you are painting in your studio you feel like the painting just arrived and now here you’re saying that you want the art to arrive for the viewer too.

D: Yes. This is a different view of the artist. You cannot always be alone in your studio. You have to share your art with galleries but also with events, life events, cars, or something like that. So it’s fun for the public and people who don’t go to galleries. Or museums. They can see the art on their way.

A: How important is it for the public to have art in their lives?

D: I make people love art. They appreciate much. They are more sensitive. In Europe we have everything since years and years. We critique too much. Americans, they are easy. They love everything. They are sensitive. Some people cry sometimes and you don’t know why. In Europe, it never happens.

A: So you’re saying that because Europe has a history of art and America is younger and newer, it strikes us more strongly?

D: Oh, yeah. You are more positive then we are in Europe. You are more open.

A: When did you realize this?

D: When we arrived. There were a lot of shows and VIP events so the people were coming and we met them the night before at a presentation and then the next day at the auction.

A: Can you recall a particular moment where someone gave you a positive reaction that you didn’t expect?

D: Yes. We did an auction on a VIP cruise and it was one of the best events we did. We did very well at the auction and I gave a cello concert after that. Collectors came to me afterwards and were crying. I say, “Why?” They say, “We are so happy. We don’t know why.” That shocked me.

A: That’s incredible. That is so energizing. *pause* Tell me your favorite dessert.

D: That is a hard question. I love chocolate. I love sorbet.

A: What flavor?

D: Strawberry. Or if there’s no strawberry…lemonade.

A: Can you recommend me a book?

D: Yes. The Master Key by Charles F. Haanel.

A: What is it about?

D: It’s about how you can do anything with your mind.

A: Jeez. I have to read that one.

D: Yes. It’s fabulous.

A: What kind of impression did it give you?

D: When I finished, I started again. And again.

A: You re-read it.

D: Yes. You have to work on it, work on yourself.

A: What painting are you working on at the moment?

D: I don’t know.

A: Do you mean that you’re not sure what you’re working on beforehand? It’ll be a surprise?

D: Yes. It’ll be a surprise. Call me later today. *laughs*

A: I think it’s wonderful that every painting is a surprise.

D: Yes.

A: What was your imagination like when you were a kid?

D: When I was a kid, my imagination…

A: I mean, what did you do for fun?

D: I was doing a lot on sail boats, marina boats. I lived in a small island near Bordeaux, France. I spent all of my youth on a boat, free. I can do everything I want. Nobody disturbs you.

A: That sounds like a great place to be a kid.

*call breaks up*

A: I’m losing you a bit.

D: Is this better?

A: Luckily, that was my last question.

D: *laughs* I hope you can write something with what I said.

A: You’ve given me plenty. Thank you for the interview.

D: Send me an email so we can keep in contact.

A: Absolutely. I shall.

D: You are in New York?

A: Yes.

D: I was just there two months ago for a show.

A: Next time you’re here, let me know and I’ll come.

D: Yes. Thank you, sir.

Thus ends my encounter with a man who can arrive at a canvas and have art arrive to meet him. Perhaps those not-so-distant pen pals have a relationship which scientists will one day crack and present to the rest of us so we may partake in artistic telepathy ourselves. But until that day we can stand in lines around the block that Duaív lives and works on, waiting our turn to get a glimse of his creation live. If the line runs miles away and seeing the creation live is as hopeless as a dog finding the comfy spot on the couch first try then surely we can look at the clouds in the sky, squint, and be reminded that in that gassy nebula is the same nature-swept inspiration that creeps into Duaív’s sorbet and stirs itself within him during the interval between afternoon tea and midnight chocolate. In these momentums of clarity, he becomes a Venice gondolier, Miami beach bum, and forever-young sailor who can throw fishing hooks onto paint brushes and paint brushes at paint pools on palettes until pools turn to seas and canvases turn to oceans that drain in faraway canals behind our eyes.

Originally posted on Winston Wise on April 1st, 2019  Interview conducted 2-27-19

[theinternetinterviewed]

Kitsune, Web Comic Curator

I was introduced to Kitsune's Facebook page through some posts shared by my friends. Kitsune's page is a variety of web comics, all sourced with distinct purpose and hilarity. Check the page and within a few clicks you'll know exactly what I mean. In short, I really, really dug the comics and had no choice but to reach out and talk to the curator.       

Interview recorded 7/30/14

"Sorry it took me a while, i've been swamped with stuff this week. Here you go, anything else you need just let me know...

Q: Who are you???

  A. I'm a 24 year old University student currently undertaking a Bachelors of Film and Screen Media Production. 

Q: How long have you been had your FB page, and how long have you been on Tumblr for?

A: I've had my Kitsune page for about 10 months now and only started Tumbling around approximately 5 months ago.

Q: What things got you started using the internet? Did you find it yourself, or did someone show you? 

A: My dad has always loved gadgets and computers, he used to buy those big pc magazines and teach himself, he built my first personal computer from scratch when I was pretty young.

Q: What is your earliest memory of the internet?

Because of my father's love of computers, i've been using one since I could sit up. Counting, shape and colour games when I was a toddler, then progressing onto spelling, maths and other educational games as I got a bit older. Once I was allowed to pick my own games I would go online to find cheat codes for PC, PS1 and PS2. There really wasn't much else that interested me online back then.

Q: What is your earliest memory of the internet? 

That feels like eons ago, I can no longer recall. I do remember spending an unreasonable amount of time on Myspace between the delicate ages of 13 and 15. Shhh, I know, please don't judge me x) About Facebook..

Q: What’s the history behind ‘Kitsune’ and when did you start it? What motivated you to create the page?

I started admining for one of my favourite pages on Facebook last April, 

Dr. Zoidberg's Assistant. It was a humour page and the admins just posted whatever they found amusing, memes, Tumblr extracts etc. Because so much content was uploaded by all of us daily, a lot of my favourite stuff disappeared and it would take forever to sift through stuff if I wanted to find it again. Thus Kitsune was born. It was my admin tag so I named my page the same thing and it was originally just a place to store all my favourite memes and comics. Now I keep the different genres of stuff I collect on their relevant pages, memes on

 Dr. Zoidberg's Assistant, Tumblr Extracts on Sexually Confused Panda and Comics on Kitsune.

Q: You probably know much more about Kitsune than I do. I’ve read some of the common Chinese Folktales like the Pu Songling Tales but that’s about it. How did you find Kitsune, what about them interests you, and what inspired you to use the name?

Aside from web-comics, another thing I am passionate about is mythology. I read a lot and out of all the wonderful creatures in stories that have captured my heart and imagination, I fell in love with Kitsunes the most. Japanese mythology is rife with strange entities, but something about the mysterious kitsune has always intruiged me. Perhaps it's the love stories of mortal men getting romantically involved with these shapeshifters or perhaps it's because of the different point of view of the never ceasing struggle between good and evil shown through the differently aligned kitsune. I don't know pick one, hahah.

  Q: What kind of web comics do you enjoy? What do you look for in a web comic? In terms of art style and subject matter?

I look for something that surprises me. I enjoy the unexpected, facial expressions of the characters are usually what set me off and dark humour makes my world feel a little brighter in comparison. Subject matter can be anything but if it contains sci-fi, fantasy or nature elements it has probably won me over already.

Q: What are some of your favorite web comic series?

 I adore Poorly Drawn Lines, by this point I know I will laugh heartily at the next eagerly awaited comic before I've even seen it, i swear that artist is a genius. Extra Fabulous Comics, Happy Jar, Death Bulge, Iguanamouth, Owlturd, Channelate, Pie Comic and Pictures In Boxes are all wonderful as well. But i guess the one that got me started on this web-comic journey had to be Cyanide and Happiness. I still love their stuff but people don't react so well to me sharing them any more because I guess a lot of other pages do that so they've been over exposed to it and want it straight from the source. That's fine, I can appreciate that, my page is there so that I have a place to store all the comics I love the most and if people are enjoying the same things as me that is a bonus. I would always recommend that if you do follow my page and there is a particular series of comics that you enjoy, to go and support the artist's actual page. All I'm doing is bringing them to your attention if they aren't already and collecting a giant folder of my personal favourites.

Q: Where do you find/aggregate all the comics you curate? Any special websites you use frequently?

Funny Junk, Imgur, Memedroid, Cheezeburger to name a few.

Q: Who are some underrated artists you think deserve some more exposure?

I think 

Mummy Comics

 is great but doesn't get updated often; 

Completely Serious Comics

 is also wonderful but it ground to a halt for a while, the good news is that it's back in business. There are so many web-comics that i enjoy but we will be here for a very long time if I have to name them all, if they are on the page I think they are great.

Q: What has your experience on Facebook been like? Specifically the differences between Tumblr. In terms of communicating with people, finding an audience, and connecting.

I would say people on Facebook are a lot more hostile for absolutely no reason. You learn not to put stock in verbally abusive behaviour very quickly. Tumblr is where the quick witted folk reside, there are always laughs to be had and beautiful images to be seen but i'm convinced that at least 45% of people on there have actually murdered someone. Most of the outlandish ideas on there cannot possibly come from people with normal trains of thought. Nevertheless it is a colourful land full of strangeness and charms. Facebook is just better equipped for communicating with others because of the chat features etc. but getting real tired of the paid ads, censorship and manipulative data collection tactics.

Q: What are your interests outside of the obvious? What are some things you're passionate about or want to explore?

I love to draw, read, write and I would like to start getting into voice-overs. That's been my dream since i was a kid, my dad went to hospital when i was 10 and I just watched 

Futurama constantly for three months to distract myself. 

Billy West's talent inspired me and I had a demo reel of all the voices and accents I could do at that age, but my voice has matured by this point so I would like to make a new one. It's just a matter of finding some free time. 

Q: What's one of your goals for the next year... and how can the internet help?

I have started drafting and planning my own series of web-comics, I hope to have it up and running properly by the end of the year. If anyone is interested they can keep an eye on reincarnators.tumblr.com The internet can help by connecting me with people who will hopefully enjoy it. 

And most importantly... 

Q: What question should I have asked you?

You should have asked me to pick a starter. 

Q: What’s some of your favorite music! Recommend an album if you can. 

Tool, Bob Marley, Goo Goo Dolls, Rage Against The Machine, Zeds Dead, Bonnie Tyler, Bryan Adams, Eminem, Flume, Jimi Hendrix, The Bloody Beetroots, Florence and the Machine 

Q: Book recommendation? If I may, Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics is a classic.

If you haven't read Patrick Rothfuss' Kingkiller Chronicle; then I highly suggest that you do, they are fantastic books. The Monster Blood Tattoo trilogy by D.M Cornish may sound like it's for kids but it's not, they're great and last but not least one of my all time favourite books, The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski.

Q: Meaning of life?

Life is a giant game, you level up, you learn, you change your appearance, you strive for your own personal achievements and in the end you just pray that you've grown in character. Then I personally believe you start all over again in a different game and hopefully you take a little of what you learned the last time with you until eventually you land up a whole and well rounded person.

[theinternetinterviewed]

Ian Danskin, Media Artist

Interview recorded 7/5/14

Q: Let’s start at the beginning. When did you begin to develop an interest in media and design, what kind of stuff exposed you to it? Professionally or for fun, what were some of the first projects you worked on? A: In the first half of high school, my ambition in life was to make adventure games at LucasArts. In the second half of high school, LucasArts had stopped making adventure games and I was taking a lot of Animation and Video Production classes, so I was thinking more along those lines professionally. Nowadays it looks like I can do all three from my bedroom, which I certainly didn't expect as a teenager. I think my first project where I had a lot of free reign was a vector-animated music video for a faux-country song by the Beastie Boys called Railroad Blues. I, uh, haven't put that one online. 

Q: You've had a lot of involvement with Kickstarters. How were you introduced to crowdfunding and what got your interest there? A: I first heard about Kickstarter back when it was invitation-only - a game developer friend of mine got me an invite. It seemed like a promising way to make stuff without having to hold down a day job, so I started reading up on it. The whole culture of crowdfunding was new and fascinating, and I basically read whatever I came across for the next several years. Crowdfunding seemed to be about trading money to feel like you're part of the creator's story - I found that really interesting.

Q: How did you come to link up with those Kickstarter creators? A: Well, I know a lot of creative folks. When friends or friends-of-friends were starting campaigns, I'd end up talking to them, and it turned out I could talk for quite a while. I ended up giving a short talk on Kickstarter at an indie game development meetup here in Boston, and that's led to a lot of talk and even a little paid work as a sort of Kickstarter Consultant.

Q: What is your current job and what do you do?  A: I... do a lot of stuff. I'm a part-time student at MassArt, very belatedly (and very slowly) finishing my undergrad. I'm the community manager and a regular contributor at #24CC, an arts/jam collective that was also a magazine. I work part-time at Seung Labs doing Eyewire. I do some freelancing as a podcast editor, video editor, or animator. And I'm teaching myself game programming, or trying to anyway. And I guess I make video essays, too.

Moving on to Youtube

Q: Prior to This is Phil Fish did you use Youtube a lot? What was your experience with the platform? A: I've put most of my video projects on Vimeo up until now. Vimeo is like inviting your friends to watch a video in your living room; YouTube is like projecting on the side of a building. YouTube is accessing the public. Even if there's not much likelihood that whatever you make is going to get a ton of views, that's always possible. You can't control it; it's in the audience's hands. I feel like putting things on YouTube is saying, "Yes, I'm ready for the public," like it's some kind of coming-out party, which I've been hesitant to do so far. You know, like, "Am I ready for that?" But whatever, I figure hardly anyone ever feels "ready," so I put some stuff up anyway. This Is Phil Fish was the second video I uploaded, the first being an old ridiculous thing I did 8 years ago.

Q:  How’d you hear of Phil Fish in the first place? Did you play Fez, if so, gotta list some of your favorite video games. A: I was aware of Phil slightly before he was A Big Deal. I remember his post on TIGSource where he announced he'd quit his dayjob because they wouldn't give him leave to go to the Independent Games Festival, where his game was nominated. So that must be back in 2008. I think the only direct communication we ever had was when I recognized him at PAX East a few years ago. I said hi. We fist-bumped. It's hard to be plugged into the indie scene at all without hearing about basically everything Phil did or said. I liked Fez - it was so pretty, and Phil was doing things I hadn't seen anyone do since Riven. For favorite games, I guess Riven is up there, and Grim Fandango, and The Last Express. For indie stuff, I loved Aquaria, and Blue Lacuna, and Thomas Was Alone. I fucking adored Jumpman. Lately I've been playing a lot of Luftrausers.

Q: What prompted This is Phil Fish’s creation? Is this a project you had in mind for some time, or was it inspired by something else? A: When I find a topic interesting, it just sticks in my head a while. Sometimes I just scribble down some notes and see that there's not much there, and then I forget about it. What was happening with Phil stuck with me. I could understand why people hated Phil - he's certainly said a lot of vitriolic stuff, and my video is in no way a defense of any of it. But I was curious about the way they hated him: Why were people so invested in hating Phil? Why didn't they just ignore him? Why did his outbursts become news? And why did people feel like they needed to take action against him? Things started to come together when I thought of the "Phil as Nickelback" metaphor.

Q: What program did you use for animation? A: Flash CS5. The images are all from the internet or screencaps, which I vectorized to give myself some flexibility with manipulating them, and to make them cohere visually. That posterize effect is convenient for making images of different resolutions look congruous. It's all pretty low-tech; I still haven't learned Photoshop.

Q: How much time and effort went into creating This is Phil Fish? In terms of internet research, scripting, and editing? A: Enh, hard to say. However many months of pondering, several non-consecutive afternoons of writing/revising/fact-checking, a half-day recording and editing the audio, a couple days on graphics for the rough cut, another couple days on graphics for the final version. It's either ~8 months or a week and a half, depending on how you count. 

Q: Specifically, what went into your critical thinking, idea formation, and final perspective? Where your views built on any past experiences or projects? A: I've done a little writing in print, but I just gravitate towards video. I'm kind of addicted to good non-fiction writing. One of the most amazing feelings is when I read about a topic and feel like I come away understanding something fundamental about it. Carl Sagan helped me understand rational thought. Annette Lareau's Unequal Childhoods helped me understand the economic forces that create and perpetuate poverty, and what effect those forces have on the psychology of the generationally poor. I feel like a lot of the writing in the games space can be very thoughtful, but ultimately comes down to discussing whether something is good or bad. My favorite writers don't care so much whether something's good or bad, but how it works, why it's important, or at least why it's interesting. I feel like Chris Franklin, who does the video essay series Errant Signal, is superb at this. Leigh Alexander is often amazing. Tom Bissell is often amazing. I mostly just don't want to talk unless I'm saying something I haven't heard before.

Q: Congrats on the video’s success. Really great seeing Youtube viewers value objective, thorough content. Has the success given you any insight into Youtube’s viewers or taught you anything about the platform? A: Honestly, I've been avoiding the comments. I'm incredibly humbled by the response the video has gotten, and I'm generally aware that most people who've commented on it have said good things. But I think we're all aware that YouTube commenters are the worst. I watch enough videos essays on YouTube to know there's an audience for them, but in any YouTube audience there's just always going to be some number of loud assholes who really skew the conversation. I had a video on YouTube a long time ago that got only a few comments, pretty much all of them insults, and I didn't find "you fucking Jew-nosed weirdo" an edifying critique. I don't mean to complain - it's a hundredth of what Anita Sarkeesian gets - but I don't see much value in it. YouTube's platform doesn't allow enough characters for meaningful conversation (except for Google+ users, which I'm not), so what valuable commentary exists is usually elsewhere. But I also don't want to get too fixated on what people are saying about me. I need to know if anything I say is problematic or redundant, but beyond that I think reading comments is usually approval-seeking behavior. I don't figure that's ever healthy.

 Q: Perhaps most important, what plans do you have for the future of your channel and the type of content you want to work on? A: There are definitely more video essays on the way. And maybe the occasional ridiculous thing.

Q: What kind of topics do you want to explore further in the future? A: I'm kind of obsessed with interactive narrative, so there's a lot of analysis of adventure game design coming. I want to get into the economic problems of Steam Greenlight, and talk about the "games as art" debate from the perspective of someone who's spent way too much time in art school. I also want to talk about the backlash against Anita Sarkeesian, and people like her, which is a much uglier sort of backlash than what happens to people like Phil. I'm actually kind of sheepish that my first video essay was so successful while ultimately being 19 minutes about how people hate a straight, rich, white man, especially in light of how much hate there is for underprivileged people. I figured by the time I had any kind of audience, I'd have several more political videos in the can. Just goes to show: never assume anything. 

Q: Outside of Youtube, do have future plans for yourself, short-term and long-term? A: With any luck, a modest Kickstarter for a small indie game. A somewhat large-scale animation idea I've had on a back burner for ages. Eventually graduating college. Marrying my fiance. Traveling. Dying in my sleep old, comfortable, and happy. Reincarnating as sea turtle.

Q: What question should I have asked you? A: What's the deal with your roommates?

Q: Good book/author/project/film you can recommend me? A: My favorite book is Samuel R. Delany's memoir, The Motion of Light in Water. And if you haven't seen Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, you haven't lived.

Q: Meaning of life? A: "Never pay more than $33.70 for a computer game." -Guybrush Threepwood (adjusted for inflation) _________________________________________________________ Interview recorded 7/5/14

[theinternetinterviewed]

Jonathan Wagner, Creator of ScribbleMaps

If you are not familiar with ScribbleMaps or custom map applications, essentially they are tools that allow you to draw and edit on top of a world map. Map editors' uses include commercial and individual application, from planning road trips to creating custom and localized maps. Ultimately, its a sandbox with which you can experiment. Specifically, ScribbleMap is a robust tool that allows you to import spreadsheet data, capture and print high quality photos, and easily send and share the maps created. Below is my interview with Jonathan Wager, inventor. 

Q: Where did you learn coding and how did you start?

I am self taught, I started by creating simple websites for local businesses. I later moved on to making fancy elaborate flash websites where I started to do my first basic coding for animation. After Actionscript 2.0 every coding language is pretty easy.

Q: What independent projects have you done prior to Scribble Maps and can we see any?

I have done a lot of projects, some of them actually didn't work out. When I was younger my business partner and I tried to make a very large MMO that unfortunately was too big for two people. We later made a side scrolling game called Fox-X (http://www.fox-x.com). While games might seem unrelated to mapping, the knowledge and experience garnered from performance testing was directly applicable.

Q: How did you decide on creating ScribbleMaps?

I kind of hate to answer this question because it is some what cliche. The idea came to me in a dream and after some research it seemed like it was a really good idea.

Q: Who else works on ScribbleMaps with you?

I have a business partner who handles all the server side stuff and server management. I handle all the front-end javascript stuff.

Q: How has the experience been making ScribbleMaps profitable? What strategies did you begin with, what has changed, and what changes do you see for the future?

Scribble Maps is only now becoming profitable after nearly 3 years. Fortunately, the amount we made just off ads was enough to cover all our infrastructure costs since the start. The primary strategy that we employ now is one of feature testing. We will roll out features or now new products (mapyourlist.com) and figure out what makes sense business wise. The freemium model is a challenging one because you need to strike a balance between features you give away for free and features you charge for. With ScribbleMaps.com the features we charge for are currently all rolled into VIP. One of the biggest insights came from our business adviser in New York. He told me that every day we have thousands of potential customers, we just need to figure out what we can sell them. Our future plan is to build a network of what I call consumer geo products.

Q: Do you predict you’ll be able to work on ScribbleMaps full time in the future? Would you want to?

I pretty much do work on Scribble Maps full time now but some times it is indirectly. Right now I am developing a project for the wine world which has a very large geo component. In fact the work we did in it helped get us a research and development credit from the government. Portions of code developed in this wine project are now directly utilized in Scribble Maps 2.0.

Q: What are some of the most creative or unexpected uses of ScribbleMaps that you have seen? What are the uses you envisioned people would use it for? What uses do you see as underestimated or underexplored?

This is an interesting question because when we first launched Scribble Maps so many people said, "This is cool, but I don't know why anyone would use it." The most creative use I think I have seen is someone using the satellite view and our drawing tools to plan their garden. When I originally developed it I just thought people would use it for directions but it is pretty much used for everything but.

Q: The move from Flash to HTML5/Javascript allows ScribbleMaps to now operate in a mobile environment. What sort of demand was there for ScribbleMaps to be mobile-accessible? And, now that the change has been made, how much mobile use is being generated?

10-15% of our traffic utilizes mobile. We regularly got requests for mobile access. In comparison to other sites, our mobile traffic is lower because a lot of our users are doing heavy duty work that requires a PC. However, there was other motivations for moving from flash to javascript. The first motivation was Google decided to stop support for their flash maps API so we were forced into a situation where we had to do a switch. In addition, the original Scribble Maps was not developed in such a way that we could easily use it in other products we had envisioned. Lastly, flash performs notoriously bad on old Mac machines, the new Javascript version runs significantly faster in addition to being able to run on tablets.

Q: How is your Youtube channel going? How do you feel about the content you have uploaded thus far, and what do you intend for the future?

Besides hosting some basic tutorial videos, I wouldn't say we have an overly active presence on YouTube. We have an incredible community that has created all kinds of tutorial videos on our behalf. I am not sure if we will be doing anything more intensive with it, a vlog about mapping technologies and services might be interesting.

Q: You use Uservoice for hosting your Improvements. How has your experience been with it?

Uservoice has been excellent, it was particularly useful in our early days. When it comes to user experience, things are always more obvious to the user than the developer and Uservoice gave a mechanism to our users to tell us when something could be improved or, in complete honesty, when something was terrible and needed to be fixed.

Q:What is some advice for anyone seeking a career in interactive design?

Be afraid, be terrified, because than you will never stop improving. Always know is who worse than you and who is better than you, otherwise you will never know where you are at in terms of skill.

Q: If you had all the time in the world, what would you be pursuing?

What I am pursuing right now, I enjoy what I do, and I think that is important. Q: Meaning of life? The meaning of life is to live, just try and move the needle while you are doing it. _________________________________________________________ Interview conducted on 5/19/14

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[theinternetinterviewed]

Greg Pembroke, Author of Reasons My Kid Is Crying

Greg Pembroke is the Tumblr-famous father responsible for Reasons my Son is Crying. His photo/caption combos of his son birthed an internet meme, Tumblr fame and a soon-to-be published book! 

"Hey ! Sorry! Crazy days with the publication of my book.  Here you go!

-How many submissions per day does RMSIC receive? What’s it like getting through them all, have any help with it?  I have received thousands and thousands of submissions. It can be very overwhelming! I have no help - I'm the only one who posts on my accounts, so they sometimes start to pile up!  They come in via tumblr, Facebook wall posts, Facebook messages, Twitter, and email!  I hate that I can't get back to everyone! 

-Both Buzzfeed and Huffington Post spotlighted your blog within a few weeks of it going online. Within weeks you were on Good Morning America. It seems the blog really took off without much need to spread the word. Can you tell us your thoughts on the crazy internet and the secret formula for viralness?  I think people reacted to the unique perspective - and the authenticity.  Not many people are sharing this side of parenting and I accidentally discovered something that's hilarious, adorable, all while being occasionally disgusting!

ABC US News | ABC Business News

   -The Honest Toddler twitter also has a book out. What’s the story behind how RMSIC ended up in book form? What does the process entail in terms of getting it into book format? Did you try to have it published or did a publisher come to you? I had zero thoughts or intentions of making a book, but after Good Morning America I was approached by both publishers and literary agents. It was easy for them to imagine how my blog could become a book - it all happened very quickly, and again, totally and completely by accident! 

-How was creative control when it came to the book? What kinds of unexpected challenges, as well as freedoms, come with a book format? 

The hardest part was the dpi requirements. A ton of great and funny pictures were too low-res to make the printed edition! 

-Pre book deal, has your Tumblr success helped to pay the bills?With publishing, it all comes down to whether or not people buy your book because most of your financial gain comes from residual earnings.  I don't have any advertisements on the site, soooooo I guess I hope people like my book!

 -Life before and after becoming an internet phenomena. Any major differences?    Well, my "after" included publishing contracts on 5 continents with VERY tight deadlines, so that was stressful - but there isn't any real difference in my day to day life.

-So you were able to visit Tumblr HQ! I hope you know I envy you very much hah. What the reason you stopped by? Talk a bit about your overall experience. Steal any cool souvenirs?  I had reached out to Brandon from HONY and he suggested meeting over there. That first day was such a haze, but I've been back a few times since. They have a great person on staff named Rachel whose only job is to help Tumblr blogs become books. She's got tons of amazing ideas and worked on a series of hit books herself, prior to joining Tumblr.  The coolest souvenir I have from my visits there is actually a selfie that Tumblr founder David Karp took of us on his phone! (Attached)

 -You mentioned that you met Brandom from HONY while at Tumblr. Swap any good stories about the crazy internet?  Brandon is the best. The nicest most genuine and driven dude that I know.  We met the first day my blog blew up because I wanted to find a way to tell more people about HONY.  We met, he took a picture of my crying boy and now it's a year later and we both have books out! We text and chat about the internet, publishers, and agents often. I think it all feels very surreal to us both (although his success is hard earned while mine is accidental!).   

-Last question, got any hunch about the meaning of life? I've been watching Cosmos, so it's hard to feel that my life is too important to the universe in general, but I think that life is too short to spend doing things you hate.  Find people, places, and activities that you love and spend as much time with them as you can before you're forced to leave this place. It sounds simple, but really isn't.

_________________________________________________________ Interview conducted on 4/9/14

[theinternetinterviewed]

T. Kyle, Creator of RealityTVGIFs

Meet T. Kyle, the incredibly creative and successful owner of the RealityTVGIFs. His famous Tumblr is responsible for all the Real Housewives and Honey Boo Boo Gifs that you see all over the internet. He runs the Tumblr while being a full time content creator for MTV. 

If you're a fan of T. Kyle and his awesome Gifs please check out his other interview with Giphy! My conversation with him is below! 

How old is your Tumblr and how long have you been making Gifs for? RealityTVGIFs will be 3 years old in June. I’ve been making GIFs for about 7 years.

What inspired you to start tinkering with Gifs? Did you have experience with photo editing beforehand? I wanted GIFs to reply to people with on the blog ohnotheydidnt. I’m a graphic designer so I’ve been familiar with Photoshop for a while and it was pretty easy to teach myself GIF making.

Where are some of your favorite places to harvest pictures/visual resources from?  Well, I buy all my shows on iTunes. But other than reality shows I love the ocean. I love being near water. Also enjoy cityscapes.

How did you come up with your Tumblr name? Any story behind it? It’s pretty straight forward. I was making GIFs of reality shows. Reality TV GIFs.

How long can you typically spend creating a given gif? Usually 15 minutes a GIF. A few times I’ve spent over an hour making one GIF.

What software do you use to create the gifs? Adobe Photoshop

How do you describe your style? Are there other artists, not necessarily gif makers, which you borrow your style from? I pretty much just use whatever footage I’m working with. I don’t alter anything that much. I don’t know if there’s necessarily a style to my work, it’s more so my sense of humor on the blog as a whole. I don’t borrow my style from anyone, but there’s been tons of RealityTVGIFs copycats!

Talk a bit about the types of photos and themes that you like to represent in your Gifs. Relatable humor. Outrageous, weird characters.

What things inspire you and what artists inspire you? Anyone who creates something unique. People who march to the beat of their own drum. I just love people who are always striving to do something new.

Ever get a creative block? And if so, what helps you through that? All the time. The internet never stops. Sometimes I feel like I can’t keep up. I get creative block every week. I’m experiencing it now. Usually logging off the internet for a few days snaps me out of it.

In what ways has your style progressed over time and do you see it changing now? I’ve just gotten better at making GIFs, my style has stayed the same. I’d love to move away from reality shows eventually and work on more original art.

Which of your gifs are most popular? Honey Boo Boo GIFs get a lot of reactions.

Do you have any goals for your art? Are there any messages you want to get across, topics you want to cover, drugs you want to do? Haha definitely not interested in any drugs. I want to capture more landscape shots. There is really no goal other than creating entertaining content that people enjoy looking at.

Outside of making Gifs are you involved with any other creative hobby? Photoshop, painting, stick figure animation, sword dancing ect… I enjoy tennis and swimming. Photography.

Have you been able to make any money off of your online activity? If not, do you in intend to? Yes, I’ve turned it into a freelance career.

What are some of your favorite Tumblrs that you follow? meanplastic.tumblr.com is my favorite

_________________________________________________________ Interview conducted on 3/5/14

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[theinternetinterviewed]

Joe Merrick, Founder of Serebii.net

Joe Merrick is the founder of Serebii.net. Serebii is one of the web's biggest and most comprehensive Pokemon databases. Since it's inception in 1999, Serebii has grown to include a massively active forum, a place to find the latest Pokemon news, and  essentially all of the meticulously reordered information you could ever want about Pokemon, from the show to every iteration of the video game. 

Joe has also been previously interviewed by Nintendo Magazine and thatguywiththeglasses.com. I recommend you give them a read first, you can find them here, and here. Below is my talk with Joe.

Q: What is your educational background? A: I have a Bachelor Degree with Honours in Computing & Internet Technology.

Q: How old were you when you started Serebii? A: I was 13 and in secondary school.

Q: What did the first few years of Serebii look like? What was your original intentions and did you have help? A: Back then, all sites looked so basic and mine was up there with them with basic design and clashing colours. I did have a bit of help when I started out, yeah

Q: Do you work on Serebii full time? And if so, how long has it been that way? A: Well, I don’t call it work, it is my hobby, but yeah it does eat up a lot of time, especially in times of game release. It has been full on like this for around a decade.

Q: What does an average work day look like for you? A: Well each day varies, but it includes checking for news, maintaining the site, checking the forums and so forth.

Q: What are some of the biggest challenges Serebii has faced since its inception? A: The biggest one has to have been when the domain was hijacked back in 2006. I was very close to not getting the domain back. That was a horrible week.

Q: At what point was the forum incorporated into the site? A: I opened forums up fairly early on, but they got completely rebooted in 2004 and have been running ever since. I also haven’t fully incorporated it and have the Forums on their own domain on a completely separate server in a separate location so that if one server goes down, we have the other to inform people.

Q: How has the Serebii forums been? What was the process like in terms of growing the forum, finding moderators, and creating a good environment for discussion? A: The forums have been a mixed bag. Due to the size of them, they used to be plagued by server issues causing significant lag making them barely usable. Thankfully, this was resolved. The forums growing really came from the site growing, and people came from that. The moderators were all staff who proved themselves worthy there.

Q:The same questions go for the chat room, and how have the two differed? It’s essentially the same situation as the forums

Q: At what point did Serebii create its Facebook and Twitter accounts? What has your experience been like running them? The Twitter account came in 2009 and the Facebook only two years ago. They have been pretty successful in just building up an audience and sending them to the site. I make sure to not tweet whenever the site is updated and only post significant things. I personally dislike how many pages spam irrelevant posts and memes just to get their reach up, so I just make sure to post important things.

Q: In what ways has the Serebii community been affected by social media? How does social media affect how Serebii communicates, and what changes, if any, have you seen come from its adoption? I feel that the social media has helped me interact with the community more, and possibly disproved any erroneous views people may have had about me. Before, I was sceptical and concerned that it would drive traffic away from the site, and make the site fall into unsustainability, but thankfully that did not occur.

Q: Can you talk a little bit about the online Pokemon community and their role in Serebii’s success? Well, without the users of the community, the site wouldn’t be big. We’ve also implemented a system where the users in the community can contribute to the Pokémon of the Week

Q: How has the Pokemon community changed from when Serebii started comapred to now? Well, it has definitely got larger. It may be a bit more negative, but that is a running trend across the Internet these days. However, I truly believe the community is the best it has ever been. It’s filled with likeminded people, who can hate that?

Q: At this point, how many people are involved with keeping Serebii running? This includes forum moderators, the people who run your social media, ect.

Surprisingly few.

On the main site, it’s just a handful of us. I do the bulk of things, Coronis does the manga section and there’s a couple of writers of the Pokémon of the Week. A few other people help out here and there, though, should the situation warrant it such as recently with compiling Pokémon X & Y movesets.

The social media is just run by me.

The forums have got around 40 staff members and the chat has around 20, with some overlap between the two

Q: What are some of your favorite achievements in terms of the resources that Serebii has created? Pokéarth and the Item Database, above all else. Before their conception, there were Pokédexes around, so that wasn’t an achievement, but when I created it, there was nowhere on the Internet that detailed every location in such detail or brought all the details for items across all the games. Now, these things are standards across Pokémon websites.

Q: Has Serebii created opportunities for you outside of Pokemon? If so, can you give some examples? Absolutely. My freelance work has come solely out of the fact that I run Serebii.net.

Q: What can we expect from Serebii in the future? Ah, now that would be telling!

Q: Meaning of life? 42! ________________________________________________________

Interview recorded on 5/27/14

GIf source: Sophia's Tumblr

[theinternetinterviewed]

Mrpimpgoodgame, King of the Selfie Movement

MrPimpGoodGame is the King of the Selfie Movement. That's all you really need to know. His Instagram account consists of hundreds of selfies, all essentially the same. However, there is much more to MrPimpGoodGame than that. He proves to be a highly engaging and vocal social media figure with a worthwhile motivation behind his movement. Check it.

Interview Recorded 6/18/14

Q: How old is your Instagram account? My Instagram account has been open since October of 2012 Q: How was the idea of your Instagram account birthed? It was actually birthed from a joke.  I was looking at a lot of Instagram account and everybody was doing the same thing so I wanted to be different so I decided to put out selfies of myself as a joke.

Q: You’re Instagram account is getting close to 200,000. How much time and effort have you put into building this following? What is your secret to popularity and what helped you? I put in a lot of time in my account because I actually interact with my fans through direct messages on Instagram. There is so much stuff that goes on behind the scenes.  I put in a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into being one of the best Instagram’s on Instagram. It’s like a full time job.  My Instagram has created a lot of opportunities for me and I have to capitalize on them while I am hot.  At this present moment I am writing an eBook on how to become instantly famous on social media.  I have a t-shirt business that I sell t-shirts of myself.  I am in works of creating a show to put on TV. I am also in works of putting out a movie about my life too. B.  My secret to my success is my consistency of putting out pictures and putting out comical statements that pimps say. I also think people follow me because I put out a positive message too. What helps me is just being positive and encouraging other people to be positive. 

Q: What are your goals for the future? Being that mrpimpgoodgamememes has just recently been created, how has your experience been designing memes and selling t-shirts?My future goals are to develop shows and movies to entertain young people.  I also want to write books and to expand on my t-shirt business.  B.  I do not actually run the memes page.  My business partner chrisp runs the page and he develops the ideas for the page.  The t-shirt business has taught me a lot about marketing that I didn’t know.  If you don’t have a good marketing plan than you are not going to sell shirts.  Every good business has a good marketing plan and foundation.

  Q: You’re extremely vocal on Twitter and interactive with your supporters. Explain your relationship with your followers? Well I try to be there for my fans because my fan is always there for me.  I do that in order for them to be comfortable with approaching me when they see me in public.  I don’t want to be known as someone that you can’t approach.  I want my fans to be comfortable in being able to share things with me so I can give them good advice.  Young people tend to listen to celebrities so I want to use my power and influence to lead them in the right direction.

  Q: Who is ‘mrpimpgoodgame�� and who is Benny Winfield Jr?Mrpimpgoodgame is a character that I develop from several documentaries that I have watched on pimping. He was one of my favorite pimps from the documentaries that I watched.  Benny Winfield Jr is a quiet guy that loves to make people laugh and watch documentaries and kung Fu flicks all day.  I guess I am pretty regular.  I like to put smiles on people’s faces

  Q: Can you explain the goals of the selfie movement and describe what it’s like being the king of it? The goal of the movement is to promote confidence, better self-esteem and love on how you look on social media.  It feels good to be king of a movement that is bigger than me because I have a platform to empower to people to feel better about themselves.  Confidence will take you a long way.  At first this was all a joke until I started to get personal direct messages from my fans on their self- esteem  and confidence.  I was like well since my fans are having problems in these areas than this what I am going to promote with some comical pimp statements to make people laugh. 

 Q: Pimpin ain’t easy. So why do you do it?

Pimping is the oldest profession so until the lights are caught off I am going to keep it pi (pimpin international

Q: Do you have a message to the world, and if so, what is it? My message to world is regardless of what you are going through you should always smile and be positive about the outcome.  We as humans have to train ourselves to be positive regardless of the situation and to always be yourself.  See what gets people is that is me in real life.  I am really like that in real life so one thing I want the world to know is to be yourself.

 Q: What is some advice for anyone seeking a career in the selfie movement?    

What I would suggest to anybody that is trying to find a career in the movement is to be different and consistent Q: What is some advice for anyone seeking a career in the pimp game?  My advice is for anyone trying to be a pimp is to be confident but I wouldn’t advise them to be a pimp unless the person really wanted to be a pimp.  I would also tell the person to strive to be the best in the game and to watch out for haters. Q: What is a question I should have asked you?    You should have asked me what my occupation is. Q: Meaning of life? The meaning of life is striving to be the best at whatever you do.  Once you become good at something than you will become the center of attention which will bring fame