Riley, welcome to Reacting to your first appearance at LMG.
Thank you, happy to be here.
I know you see the screen in front of you and I've shortlisted some videos but
did you remember your first appearance on LMG? My first appearance at LMG was in the TechLinked announcement video where Linus made everyone
think I was living in a dumpster prior to that point which fun fact I wasn't but it was a good bit.
That was a very Riley bit wouldn't you say? I think I made it a Riley bit. I think it was Linus' idea to put me in the dumpster
but I was like that is a funny joke let's go with that. I came up with the idea that I would be like uh incomprehensible.
I was just like I just want to do a quick bit. It was only funny to people who knew who I was already.
To everyone else they're just like why? Why is this dude crawling out of a dumpster?
But you knew Linus before LMG did you not? Yeah I worked with him at NCIX but by that point he had left as an employee and was working
as a contractor but then I was the employee and my team was writing scripts for Linus to come in
and and host which is partially why the whole kind of heckling thing like the person from off
camera like speaking when someone's hosting that's kind of where that came from because
he would be hosting stuff and then he would like call something out in the script that was
inaccurate and then we'd respond and then they'd be back and forth and then he'd carry on with
the script and then we just kind of kept doing that. You didn't ask but I gave it to you anyway.
Let's take a look at your first netlink to weekly.
Oh geez. Let's see how much you remember. I told you to go and find this one but I regret it now before I've even clicked on it.
This is a horrible idea. So for context this is episode 49 of the weekly show that Linus would make on NCIX
Tech Tips. It would usually start out with him talking about sales going on at NCIX.
After he talked about the sales and like the deals at NCIX that week then they would start
talking about news at some point but I guess he brings me in here at some.
Okay so I all right where should I play from I'll play from here.
Oh man this is you know this is what the YouTube audience craved back then.
They just Linus felt the need to demonstrate that if you buy this monitor you get the 3D
vision goggles and he did this to show that that's what goggles look like.
When you put goggles on your face it looks as if you have frames around your your eyes.
So that's what he's doing there. Special correspondent agent keys.
Over to you. Thank you Linus if you go into an NCIX store.
I'm very very thin but I think that the green screen key is also like
that it was so strong that it's like subtracting another like half inch from my body on both sides.
Back to you Linus. Oh wasn't even a green screen green screen.
Well yeah so like that's why all of these old NCIX videos the back wall is blue
because they're like we can use it for regular hosting and then if we need a blue screen we
can use it for a blue screen but like we hardly ever used it as a blue screen.
Wait tell us a little bit about why why why you're referred to as keys.
Okay so all right all right here's the whole context here.
So I mean Linus has told the story about NCIX and how he started the channel or
whatever million times but he was he was running NCIX tech tips.
Esther his sister-in-law was hired to I forget exactly what she did.
I think she did social media some marketing stuff.
I think she did some other things I don't remember but anyways I went to high school at
Esther so then I was hired on as an intern for Esther to also make video content
because Linus was moving to something else. At this point I'm an employee I believe.
What time is it what month is this July? Oh no I'm not even an employee at this point I'm still an unpaid intern.
Oh boy at NCIX. I'm not sure if that was legal at that point.
I think it was but I'm not sure BC law.
At some point they were like Linus is going to transition away from this
and we need to bring in our own personalities to try and like keep the channel alive so this
was the way to introduce me to the NCIX tech tips audience as sort of a guest correspondent
on netlink weekly. The reason I had the nickname keys is because Linus's crew at that time consisted of Linus,
Luke who was known as slick because of his mineral oil PC I think and Edzel who was known as diesel.
I'm not sure if anyone else was on board at this time. We had to have nicknames too.
It was decided by somebody at some point I don't know so I came up with keys because I play piano.
So when did people stop calling you keys? Closer to the end of my run at NCIX tech tips I started just referring to myself as Riley and
having other people refer to me as Riley even though I think my lower third when I was hosting
still said keys right up until the end. We started using real names at some point because we're kind of like we don't really
need the nicknames. I don't know. So you seem pretty confident in this netlink weekly like on camera.
I think I was confident there because I had an outline of things to say but now I'm going to
come in and join Linus and it is about to be super awkward.
These aren't even microphones. These are pens. This is awkward. So I said it's awkward.
I even said it. We're holding Sharpie like this is a electronics retailer.
Like this is a real company and we're putting out videos that look so amateur.
It's insane. How did they pay us to do this? I mean I wasn't paid at this point so that explains that but Linus was paid.
I mean maybe it wasn't amateur for the time right? Even today I feel like it's weird for companies to have like fully hosted YouTube videos with
like personalities and whatever but like you know they do exist now.
It was less common back then. Man they just like grabbed whoever wanted to make videos and just like threw them in there.
It was very strange. Chromecast yes.
There we go. Oh exciting. This is the news.
The Chrome the first Chromecast was announced. Google it's $35.
$35 Chromecast. That gives everyone an indication of Riley's age.
Full disclosure I am currently 34.
So 10 years ago in 2013 I was 24.
This is a 24 year old Riley. Really kind of fantastic.
I mean they're they're... Look at that smile. You look so young like you're 18 or...
Would you say I look 24 now? No comment.
Let's move on to um... Say it.
I feel like if I shaved all this I could pass as a little baby.
Take my word for it. See now you'll notice that I'm doing just a lot of smiling and closed mouth nodding and whatnot
because I don't have an outline to say. This is the first time that like Linus is a big figure in my mind.
I know that he's you know the personality on this channel. I'm some schmo showing up.
I'm like what am I going to do? Like interrupt him? Talk over him?
It's hard to have banter in that situation because this is really the first time I've done this.
Like however even TVs that don't have a powered HDMI
some of them do have a random USB port for power on the back of my mind does.
Waiting for an opportunity. You can actually power it that way as well rather than just having a dedicated plug running into your power bar for this.
And also I don't have any idea most of what he's saying.
Like I was not a technical person.
I feel like I was pretty technical among my friend group. I would kind of like you know hack my MacBook a little bit
to get Windows apps running on like a MacBook.
I mean he's not saying that's that much of a technical like level type stuff here
but he's just going. He has all this background knowledge and he can just talk
which he can still do remains one of his greatest strengths.
They found a piece of code in the source code for Android.
They found a piece of phone. I made a mistake and now Linus is making fun of the fact that I stumbled over my words.
This is the other thing to note about this is that there's no like editing in so far
as we're showing visuals but they're not cutting anything.
Yeah this is uncut. It's it's live basically.
So like nowadays we would probably cut something like that. I think that's good enough.
Yeah that's good. Let's move on to your first netlink daily.
So do you want to give us some context about what this is? So that first video we were watching was in July 2013.
This is now September 11th and at this point I believe in August.
I think at that point he was like I'm doing full-time Linus tech tips.
At this point now I'm unemployed. They're paying me at this point.
I'm coming into work full-time and we started we decided to transition netlinked
weekly into netlink daily instead of doing one video a week uncut one of these episodes
every single day. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and we're only doing three stories.
At that point I believe that there were some other shows that were doing something similar.
The Verge had there like the Verge in 90 seconds. Polygon had one I think that was like also 90 seconds.
There were some other like sort of like daily news shows and we're like let's do that.
So there's a minute 30 seconds this video. It's the very first oh this actually isn't the very first one.
Jack hosted the very first one. This is the second one of netlink daily.
Hey guys welcome to netlink daily today tiny tiny pc.
The audio. This intro was made by Chris Lim.
Chris Lim aka NCIX Wheels.
Because he was into cars? I think so. Right. And then NCIX Jack his real name was just Jack.
He didn't I think he was like Jack is already a nickname so I don't know.
That can fit in your hand. It's called the Bricks 2 about 4.5.
The slide in. Is comparable to a g-force cheat.
And this is always the cheat. This is always the cheat when you are making a youtube video.
You can make it look better by grabbing one of these you know product announcement videos
off of the official Intel channel and throw that on there. And now look at look at those cool graphics.
We didn't even give a credit or anything like we do today.
The vanilla version of the Bricks 2 comes with HDMI mini display.
To that same blue background. Yeah. That image isn't even fully aligned with the screen there was like a blue bar.
Yeah there's blue bars yeah. Think Chris was editing these.
I think we switched off editing but I think at this point he was doing most of the editing.
You'll have to get your own memory a 2.5 inch hard drive and an operating system.
Like why did I cut? It's so clearly amateur.
Like I don't want to be too harsh on it obviously because it's like we it's just
still crazy to me that a company like a retailer paid us to do this.
We had no idea what we were doing. I mean we sort of know we knew how to set up the camera and edit and whatnot but like
I'll I want to ask you my hosting style like what do you think?
Oh like I think there's much worse out there. You're charismatic on screen so it comes off like well.
I think that the main thing I notice is that I'm just like moving my face less.
Yes you're like stiff but your hands are very. You can get a Gigabyte bricks module with extra RAM and I'm like I'm keeping my face
like it's not really moving a lot instead of being like Gigabyte announced and brand new
PC that is going to change everything you know like I'm using all these expressions.
Yeah. Hey we all have to start somewhere right? I watch these and I cringe but I'm like why am I cringing?
What is cringe? So this is your first official appearance.
Love manual labor. We are all we need now.
Oh is someone who's got time to host it?
Yeah all we need now is a host so then he goes through the the
office asking various people if they want to host and then he gets to the dumpster outside.
Yeah Riley is that you?
Hallelujah! That's it how did he pitch this to you?
How did he pitch this to you?
It's not level it's not level it's not how did this happen?
It wasn't doing this before. Is it doing this? I don't know if we weren't touching it.
Well he didn't really pitch it to me per se.
We were having a meeting talking about how we're going to announce the channel and then we kind of
like over the course of an hour or two or whatever we kind of came up with the concept of okay we're
going to say we're going to do a new channel where like we got to find a host and I think he
thought the dumpster thing was funny because NCIX went bankrupt.
And I left just before it went bankrupt because I took all their money with me.
I'm just kidding. In the intervening year and a year and a half I made a food show for a company that is now called
Tattle but at that time was called Secret Informant and yeah they went around hosting this food show
which they asked me to do and I was like why not but I think Linus approached me after a while and
was like do you want to come work here and I'm like I guess so.
The way that he tells it he like he he subtly hinted many many times that I should come work
for him and I didn't get the hints so then I didn't I could have been working there earlier here
earlier but I didn't I'm not smart like that. So then he was like okay you haven't been making tech videos and hardly anybody has seen this food
show so as far as they're concerned you have been living in a dumpster and I'm like fair enough
it's a funny bit although now I'm watching it it's awkward it's very very awkward
maybe not so awkward maybe I'm being harsh on myself anyways that's the story oh here we go
Central Park this might be offensive to you Arjun because you're from Australia
did I explain to you the Central Park Central Park? It's a New Zealand accent there's a Flight of the Concords episode where they get that Murray tells them
Gochiko has a gig at Central Park and they're like Central Park and then they go to the gig
it's not Central Park in New York they're like this isn't Central Park and he's like
well it's I Central Park like it's Central it's a park that's centrally located and my friend and I
thought this was hilarious so we just started saying Central Park to each other constantly
and then I was saying it on NCIX tech tips and it kind of like caught on as a meme a little bit
yeah let's take a look at your first ever TechLinked appearance I believe it was episode two
this was again the second episode of this because Linus hosted the first one
and yeah I started out facing the opposite way I mean I guess people did people people were aware
of who I was because I'd been hosting at NCIX I hosted there from 2013 to 2017 wait 2017 oh yeah
I did the food show for a year and a half but at this point I was actually only starting
part-time at LMG I was working here Monday Wednesday Friday which is the days that we
were doing TechLinked and on the Tuesday and Thursday I was going back and working for Secret
to form it Central Park okay there it is it's funny I feel like I can really notice a difference
in my hosting style between now and then but I imagine that other people probably can't unless
they are I don't know paying attention to me as much as I pay attention to myself no I think
there is like a different vibe to like today's tech link that you would host I can't pinpoint
what that vibe is but it's definitely a different kind of Riley one thing I don't
think we have music here what do you think doc I just want to know what the animal rights activists
are going to think of this because pay to flops I get it kill me um that's a joke we would make
today I guess um yeah there's no music I guess we added music at some point we did not have music on
netlink daily so that makes sense maybe we're just like it's literally just gonna be netlink
daily although one thing that if you're you might have noticed in the first netlink daily episode
it's a minute 30 three stories only at some point we were like this kind of 90 second format is
getting a bit old we want to add some more meat to it so then we added five shorter stories that
on my episodes I would call them quick bits on the episodes where my barrett or my barrett
my brother barrett hosted because we hired on barrett to also write and host netlink daily at
ncix he called them for shorter stories told more quickly than the others instead of quick bits he
would never call them quick bits julia called them snippy snippets we're getting deep here were you
nervous at all coming into TechLinked on one hand I was nervous because you know I was going from
like doing this janky low production value videos although we got better by the end of it but
you know amateur style videos for ncix the electronics retailer coming in here to the
you know Linus media group the company that's running multiple youtube channels professional
lighting setups professional cameras you have people actually properly trained to do all these
things instead of like a one-stop shop by the end when jack and julia and barrett had all left ncix
and it was just me by myself I was and at times before that as well I would I would write shoot
host edit publish do the whole pipeline myself and then I was coming here and now you know a bunch
of that stuff is taken care of by other people who know what they're doing better than I do so
that was nice it was like an anxiety reliever in some sense but just the pressure of like knowing
that I was going to be in front of a much larger audience yeah I was I was kind of stressed nervous
but not too bad I guess how much do you think uh TechLinked has evolved today the core structure
of netlinked is still very much the same we have three main stories five quick bits a mix of of
informational details and uh jokes for the sake of entertainment there have been some subtleties
introduced where like I put try to put some more meat in certain stories you know instead of just
kind of like reading the headline and making some jokes and like maybe a couple details or whatever
I'll try to like take a main story and then find other stories that are happening that are like
related to that story and then link them all together in a paragraph that also has jokes in it
so that that has changed where it's like my instincts have got tried to I feel like I've veered
towards trying to be a bit more journalistic than youtubery at the end of the day you know it is it
is a quick and dirty youtube video that we're we're pumping out in a single day of production so
yeah the the core spirit of the channel has as remained unchanged I'm being very serious
I just realized you want me to do some funny accents go ahead let's do it no let's do it let's do it
no no what do you mean a joke I don't actually what I do other than my other than my non-descript
European accent where it's like he's not from North America but he's from somewhere interesting
give us one more no one more no what for float for float plate the only one I want to do
is Australian no over and over again until I go back to the mother country I don't know what
you guys call it there to Australia straya straya sorry we're watching a lot of bluey great show
before you we just filmed uh reacting to the first time thing with uh Yvonne yes she was talking
about how she wouldn't mind uh hosting a tech link to game oh my gosh I would love to have Yvonne
host TechLinked anytime it's been hard to get other people hosting TechLinked as like operations
of the company have expanded Yvonne has gone from like having a couple people under her in the
accounting team to like having many more people uh and same with me I have Jacob and Jessica are the
writers on the news team who I manage so uh it's been harder to get other people hosting uh because
everyone is has has schedules that are much expanded from when you know the years ago what I've been
meaning to do is like get some sort of like pre a pre scheduled uh schedule of hosts and if I do
that then people are you generally available but I think that uh that's uh that's not me to get that
together so I'm sorry Yvonne I'll give you advance notice come back please please come back
anything for our fun people the lesson that I've learned from looking at my first appearances on
YouTube which I haven't really done in like a condensed form like this for quite some time
is that I don't think you can ever make stuff that you won't look back at and cringe to some degree
years later if you are ever making videos or if you're ever in a public uh presentation sort of
situation or even just for anything that you're working on don't worry too much about whether
it's going to be cool or whether it's going to come across in a certain way just do your best
put it out there and uh have a cringe party watching it later because you will cringe this
isn't too bad but man those first videos who it's hard to watch it also has struck me that I've been
doing this now for 10 years which is uh I'm gonna die soon cut