Hey James, welcome to reacting to your first time on an LMG video.
Do you think you remember what your first time was?
Ah, my first time on an LMG video. I would...
It's weird because there's definitely your your first time appearing is usually for a back then
was silent. I was I'm sure I was in a lot of b-roll shots before I was ever in a speaking
kind of role. I know I ended up having a semi regular appearance on the WAN Show
for a while but there's no way that was like my earliest. I honestly don't know. It took me a
very long time before I hosted an LTT. I've still only done that like three or four times I think.
Less than ten for sure and even co-hosting LTTs. Back when I was writing I rarely did a vlog
and the vlogs were the things that were co-hosted so tricky. Not sure what my first video was.
As you can see in front of your screen we have one video shortlisted which is
what's it like to work for Linus? Honest Answers part four would seem to be the most
notable first appearance on camera. Aside from b-roll and all that. Okay let's take a look at the
video and see how much you remember. Honest Answers part four and look at that set.
Who thought that was a good tech set? So it looks like a travel...
It looks like a travel channel set but if you want the real answer.
And then there's like no beard Linus is always weird to see too. Oh yeah. Oh these guys these are
good guys. We made a deal. I'm guessing it was around Christmas time because of how Christmasy
the set is. Oh the hmm I have no idea. I remember where this was shot. Oh this old intro.
First guy out of the ad spot. This guy is so quirky. First guy out of the sponsor spot.
Psychotic. Petite. Autiler. Hyperactive insanity. Nick with hair. Yeah somewhat like insane. This is
crazy. Insane like that much. Insane. I mean we're not we're not dead in the water yet. This is a
memory lane. Cole hasn't aged a day. And my first thoughts are holy crap. This guy is so intense
that I'm a minute late for my interview. He locks up shop leaves doesn't even consider me.
He's coming at you with all this energy. Back when John worked in the office. He's gonna have to
match that. Like has no semblance of personal time and... This shot of Linus with those sunglasses on.
He knows he looks like a douche with the mask. He thinks sunglasses always make you look like a
douche. Inspiring drastic action. What was it like I guess being on camera for the first time? Were
you nervous? Were you... I don't specifically remember what it was like to be in this video but
I really wanted to be on camera back then a lot and I even shot I had my own YouTube channel
kind of like a few uploads and I managed to get Linus to allow me to write and shoot a video on
the green screen here. The video was about how like Tesla cameras are worked on the cars but
and it was a lot like a tech wiki. But I was doing that just for practice because I wanted to get
better at the job and better at hosting and practice hosting and I think that's showing that initiative
perhaps help. At the same time I was so self-promoting it was a bit of a worry that I just wanted to
like self-aggrandize and get the heck out of here. So there's some caution there. Oh my gosh look at
Alex and his little t-bomb. That's cute. So I've never used a reciprocating saw
and it's plugged in. I get kind of weird demands from Linus. Like I said not working with him much
I get demands like can you paint my face? Can you find this? Can you do that? So as a leader
I'd say he's very random and interesting. So I never heard one of my bosses like fart audibly
from across the office before. So this you see my teeth there this is pre-invisalign James.
My teeth were messed up my whole childhood. I wouldn't really like smile with my teeth
in school photos or anything like that. But by the time I was in my late 20s I was fine with it.
If I didn't have a job where I worked on camera I would have I love Max. I would have never fixed
my teeth but one time I was walking by an editor's desk and a thumbnail of me was like full screen
and I was smiling a big smile with this crooked bent teeth and I was like okay I gotta do something
about this. Don't work at that at all. Wasn't that onerous to have invisalign?
Berkel only actually overlapped with Berkel for like eight months or something like that didn't
get to work at them. I only specifically remember him doing the V-roll for a keyboard roundup that
I wrote in the early days. And he I remember he he hit the the spacebar with his index finger instead
of a thumb. Bizarre. Okay. And once he gets to a certain boiling point you can just you can feel it.
The kind of mad where he gets really high-pitched and goes
and then about a week later. It's crazy to see how young people look at this video. It's like
we look like just a whole company of children. Bizarre. Hey there's a jump cut there.
I've had some terrible terrible bosses. Sometimes you know I've been able to get one either like
Tyler was like the most interesting person who worked here. I love talking to him.
He read like he read like three books during rotation. Max was so fun. We had so much fun
doing V-rolls and we just dancing and stuff. That was awesome. How big was LMG when you at this
point? Yeah. So when I got hired at LMG I was with Alex and Emily and we were employees 14,
15, 16. We were the first people hired as writers. Jake eventually joined the writing team and he
worked a year earlier than us but at that when he was hired. I was like the 25th person to get
interviewed. By the time he got to me and I was last I think he had a real strict regiment of what
he wanted to get through. Oh yeah. He didn't have any time or energy to waste on any bullshit.
In my interview he said nothing. It was Luke and Yvonne who interviewed me and he just typed
the whole time. I thought that was so weird. He sat there just typing. Now I get it. He basically
tries to make transcripts of all of the like entire meetings or he did for a while. Now we have
transcript NEIs and stuff like that but I just thought it was so weird that the person I'd be
working directly with didn't like ask me anything. I wonder if this is a story I want to tell. I
don't know if it's in this video so I guess we'll just keep watching. Oh yeah. I was saying
Jake was hired before me, worked here a year longer than me but he was actually a warehouse
person at first. Like the first warehouse person I think. Excuse me? He's like yeah you heard me.
I'm like uh no. The first interaction I had with Linus actually on the phone was my first interview.
It was at an Indian restaurant with his children. It was kind of like a first date
but someone brought along a baby. I remember my the baby phase meant when Linus's third kid was
born I was sitting right beside Yvonne's desk and Yvonne didn't do a lot of mat leave. The kid,
she was bringing the kid like daily to the office. I was, it was a shocking to me.
Great kid. Catches him off guard or whatever but he seems to be pretty on top. I can't imagine
that happening you know. It's just not very well prepared for everything that comes. Imagine
everyone bringing their kid. I would love if we had some kind of daycare program here when enough
people get kids. Heck even like a not homeschool but like a private teacher there's enough kids
here. That'd be dope. On the car ride to or from somewhere is when we can actually talk about
whatever. So that's when you actually. It's interesting to notice how much more heavily these
other hosts are featured in this video. Like Taryn, Colton, the Channel Super Fun Guys are
getting way more screen time than the likes of me the first timer which totally makes sense.
The audience, the audience loves people they know right so that makes sense.
This video is six years old and it already is using old footage and some of this old footage
we still use. It's just not it's like the when you're smashing that keyboard it's crazy to see
how old that footage really is. There's intense meetings and there's deep statistical analysis.
All this kind of stuff which doesn't make it feel as like fun. It's actually really refreshing to
have a. Luke already talked about how the business has changed at this point when they have like 20
employees. I actually spoke to a past editor recently. He worked there like a year before me
and he thought well I represent the echelon of employees. I represent the corporate era the
changing of this business from being a tight-knit group of youngsters to like a big corporate
company. He's like employee like 12 or something like that. You have no idea.
Bye. $60,000. I don't know. I mean he says he's not going to watch it. That's bulls***.
Everyone knows that Linus is going to watch this and then he's going to come around and be like
so um. I heard you think I say it's fine all the time when I'm mad.
I don't think Linus ever watched this still. He felt that a leader should ride a horse and
I've never seen him on horseback so I guess if I were going to say one thing that Linus
could do to improve himself as a leader in my eyes is I'd like to see him on a horse more.
Just it would make me feel a lot more at ease.
Man I was in here for like none of it.
Was it weird for you that your first appearance was a video talking about what it's like to work?
Was it weird for me at the time? Yeah like because I guess it's kind of a big thing right?
Or did you feel that way? I honestly can't remember how I felt so long ago.
Trying to remember how I felt it was so long ago and you also have to remember tech quicky
didn't exist. Excuse me. You also have to remember TechLinked didn't exist and ShortCircuit didn't
exist so your opportunities for being on camera were really as did we even do alternate hosts on
tech quicky? At that time it was all Linus and occasionally John
and Luke. Luke was the original kind of co-host. Luke by this time was already kind of stepping back
from hosting. Channel Superfund was like a gateway. Did I peer on this on Channel Superfund? I wasn't
heavily used by Channel Superfund either and then Berkel left and there was kind of a hiatus there.
I was interested in producing and writing it but
but the hosts of that show have their own chemistry already so
really happy tech links came along. That's a that's a good fit for me and they're just movies
obviously that was that was my baby too. How did um so you hosting you being a host on TechLinked
how did that come around was that something you volunteered for just naturally happened that way?
I don't remember how I got involved with TechLinked I think I was suited for it by then I
probably had a lot more hosting experience with Wancho at least if not maybe I was doing tech
quicky. Don't remember. It's all a blur man. No you're good. It was crazy. You're good. I think
with tech I think with TechLinked we kind of knew that show already had an established multi
host format and it's a large volume of videos to do three per week and and I know rather to this
day likes to switch it up so maybe he was advocating for other hosts to get in on that
maybe it was my comedy affinities but I honestly don't remember it. I wonder if there's an email
where I'm or I like formally asked to be on TechLinked I'm not sure. I know you know you're
you're currently a writing writing supervisor so that's a correct title. Head of writing.
Head of writing. Jake's the writing supervisor. Do you think we'll ever see you writing another
LTT video like from scratch like your video? Will you ever see me write another LTT from scratch?
It could happen at a show like for example I traveled for the Nanosys tour and wrote that video
that was one of my later videos but that was before Labs and I was sent there because I was the
display person but it's something like that where I'm just the one there could it could happen
there actually was an ergonomic keyboard that we saw that Linus was like yeah you should write this
I want to watch the James review this so it could happen but there's just so much stuff to do man
there's so much stuff to do even Jake is making too many videos there's just so much to manage
we need to just be managing yeah and every time we're we're doing out that other kind of front
line stuff other stuff gets gets neglected that's fair that's fair to wrap things up what has been
your favorite part of working at OMG in all these years if you had to pick one thing this is a
great place to work Linus is a great boss there's lots of great perks and benefits and compensation
is good it's just a great business and it's an exciting place to work because we've been growing
and we're working on exciting things with exciting people it's just a good old job