Leaning a light. Man like this, Man, you letting butterfly flapping his wing big down in a force. Man, it gonna cause a tree fold, letting five thousand miles away. Man, nobody see it.
Nobody else. Let you see what you don't need? No, man, don't you follow? And you got back that? Man? Don't black a d on Panama?
Man, you don't don't matter?
Man anyway?
All right? William from in soel Riots Studios. How you doing man? Pretty good? Are you? Yeah? I'm doing well.
I mean I realized dating your podcast in the first twenty seconds, UH is poor form.
But if you're wondering less, sir. This is the day that the chat feature.
On x Scott pushed out, which means that UH, as someone whose job it is to basically coordinate things via dms on Twitter, today has been a disaster for me. Nothing has gone according to plan. But nonetheless are here so anyway, man, Obviously this was set up by our mutual friends at Antelope Hill.
But who are you and what do you do? Who am I?
And what do I do?
My name is William Dale? About just docs myself and I make board games. I've been making board games for I guess seven eight years now professionally, and before that I was a commercial illustrator. I guess we'll get into that story at some point. That it all came to a screechy halt in twenty sixteen when I backed their own candidate for president.
And that's sort of an interesting thing. I'm not really a board games guy, but I am in areas that are kissing cousins, right, Like I sort of grew up
as a you know, a war gamer. You're playing a lot of tabletop RPGs and there's a lot of crossover, right, you sort of see the same treatment happening, and uh, those faces got just absolutely overrun with like horrible progressive types sort of at the same time, slightly earlier even than we saw with you know, gaming, which obviously gamer Gate is how a lot of people ended up, you know, by getting pushed out of mainstream politics.
I think they were always there, I think I think I think the election brought them out as well, one hundred percent. It brought it out.
And you know, I was giving a teenager at the time, and you know, I had always been interested in kind of nerdy at nerdy whatever that means, you know, activities, Uh, and obviously to me, in my mind, if there were politics, it was sort of like nineties liberal politics, like generally be nice to people, you know, authority is generally negative. But it was all pretty background stuff, right, I mean, that's a very general thing to say.
But I guess I guess if you're in high school during the nineties, I suppose that's true.
I'm talking about in the in the mid two thousands, like that was the sort of politics that you saw, like I'm thinking about like uh like or like sort of before fifth edition D and D, you know, for for rough context.
Okay, okay, I lost track of D and D after second edition. I just just completely ignored it.
You didn't miss much.
All I have to say about that is some uh faco as cancer and uh roll to hit tables are the way to go. It's the way God it came to be played. It's a fair enough man.
So obviously you you you started out on your own, what almost ten years ago? Now, Uh, do you want to just briefly summarize your your cancelation. We don't need to get into the details, but.
Oh the cancelation. Sure, yeah, well, I guess you might not remember in twenty twelve when you had during when elections happened. So me working as a commercial illustrator, right, like a freelance I have. I had representation, but you know they only shot me like a project like three or four times a year if that. So I'm like completely on my own, like on the hands and dribble and on social media just posting things like to get
the attention of people. And one really way a good way to do that back then is like if a really popular franchise came out, like Breaking Bad comes out, you do some Breaking Bad fan art and people will spread it around because it's a franchise they like. And during an election like in the twenty twelve you had, like that was a way to do that. You could be like I'm an Obama guy or I'm a McCaine guy, and uh, I'm a Ron Paul guy, and you you do like fan art of your guy, and people who
also liked your guy like spread your guy around. It's a good way to get attention. It's a good way to get work. And so that's what I did. I did. Uh, I picked I picked Trump as my guy, like very on really we way way early in the election back when they were like seventeen candidates Republican and it was I was working on it during the uh that first Fox debate with mecon Kelly, like the Rosie O'Donnell that that one and the the mood as hours after I
posted it. So I posted, I went to bed, and I went to and uh I made fan art like the spanner of Trump, but I still have it on my on my website and stuff. But then I go to bed and then I wake up and he the narrative has shifted from clown candidate to Hitler and our age.
And yeah, everything, And I remember that that was sort of a funny, funny like transfer, I guess you were talking about, right, the pivot from Donald Trump an inherently comedic to he is Orange Hitler Because again, like I was in height, like I said, late high school at the time, and so you know, when you're like seventeen,
you're like, this guy's hilarious. He is my favorite presidential candidate ever because he, you know, makes fun of people on the Internet and says rude things, right, just kind of core interests at that stage in life. And you know, at first it was sort of this like attitude of like, oh, boys will be boys, like whatever, no one cares. But then it shifted into you don't know what you're saying, You're you're promoting something dangerous. It became even more fun.
Right obviously there's no career tied to it, but I remember exactly that moment you're talking.
About it, this sense of becomes fun. Yeah. Oh man, it freaks me out how people like like like schools of sardines in the water, just the the media shifts course and they all shift course and they don't realize that they've shifted course, and they say, well, you know I was always against You're like you you meet like a democrat, wh Well, I always hitted Trump. I always
knew was a racist, you know all. You know, all the way back in the eighties when he was making appearances on you know, the Fresh Prince of bel Air or whatever, like, No, you didn't. Everybody left him, even you.
Well, it's like this is much later in time. But do you remember when they made a big deal Disney did about editing him out of Home alone too, you know, like he remember that.
And they just like roll my eyes and keep scrolling because there was so much of that. Well, it's weird.
And the only reason I remembered this is because like that's you know, that's back page news even when it happened. But right, you know, last holiday season, I was watching it that movie with you know, some family members, and it got to the part where you know, Kevin walks down the hall and he's supposed to, you know, Donald Trump is supposed to point him in the right direction, and Dale looked at me like a crazy person. I
was like, where did Donald Trump scene go? Because admittedly that does sound like a crazy thing.
You know, there's just a scene. Oh, they'll get Mandela if they don't remember it was ever there, And so I was easily justified.
But to that point where it's like you really can just rewrite history through like selective media application, And when you're the one guy, you're like, there's no way, I'm crazy, Like I remember this happening.
Even if something is induging bunchel as that really terrify me. But that is one of them, like like's be like living with pod people, Like how did they erase that part of your brain? How does that work? Why am I the only human? Yeah?
Well man, so obviously you got pushed out as a as a commercial illustrator. Uh Ay, I mean look like that's a that is a a crowd with a certain culture. Perhaps I'll leave it at that.
So who do you go next? Yeah, you don't go anywhere. It's like, well, let's see, well, what of the options are starve to death? That's one. Put a pin in that. The other one is, uh, did you starve to death? I haven't starved to death yet. We are we are operating on much, much less money than we used to. But then I thought, well, let's see if I can find a new audience, which has been an ongoing Uh. I don't want to say struggle, it's it's been very interesting. Yeah.
So obviously there's at least some crossover with doing you know, board games if you can do the art yourself, obviously that's a big part of it, especially in the era of Ian and you probably know more about this than I do, but you're the era of you know, sort of bespoke hobbyist board gaming right where you can there's an audience for well illustrated, expensive board games.
Right, Well, there's that. Okay, but yeah, I what am I saying? Uh? Well, as a you know, on an illustrator, I've worked with a lot of I had worked with a lot of companies and uh, like a lot of stuff got printed. I had relationships with a lot of factories who made things. You like you do a show, uh a convention, right, we need we need our branded swag in this location. We need like all the specifications, blah blah blah blah. You take it to the printers.
You know, you know all about the you know how to pick the colors and uh, you know and how to how to get it all. So, okay, I have this skill set. Maybe I can just apply it to something. And I also like board games and listen like strategy games, so so that works out well. I just I guess I was referring to, Uh, I guess I'm very liberal brained,
if that makes any sense. I'm a liberal brain person with conservative values among conservatives, And I don't know, I'm just constantly aware of, like how I don't connect with people, and how things don't land and help people don't care about the same things that I care about.
Does that make sense one hundred percent? And like I even say that as someone who has right wing politics but is not particularly conservative for whatever that term means. And I think there is an important difference there, you know, yeah, even see this with like Honestly, I think that in many ways, current millennial culture is actually quite conservative in the sense that they are very interested in maintaining a certain type of status quo, like the values handed down
to them by wider society. They want to preserve those. It's just they grew up in, broadly speaking, very left wing culture. So I think there's there's important distinction to be made there.
There as these pseudomorphosis at work. Yes they are the millennials are becoming what they are. No, certainly and so.
But but so when you're speaking about that, that's sort of like, I guess real latitude, right, how does that affect your work?
I guess, well, it's it seems to me just to start out that the political divide right now has less to do with politics and more to do with personality. Certainly personality types like if you are extremely left brained, you're probably a Republican Now, I don't think it would be it would have been that way twenty five years ago.
And if you're extremely right brained, like a creative type, you are easily you are very susceptible to imagery and emotion and propaganda, and you will be on the left currently right brain on the left, left brain on the right. So when I approach your project, like I'm really interested in like the aesthetics of the thing, right, and I find that my audience really isn't like they don't care even if they notice. Well, that's always a tough thing.
And I noticed this as well someone who's maybe not a creative themselves, but it's surrounded myself with creatives, is that it's always tough when it's it's like the thing you care about, the thing that you want to be perfect, has very little determinate value on what you actually need the project to do. But it's like I can't let it go. It has to be perfect, even in a way that doesn't matter.
Well, on the back of my mind, I tell myself that they actually do perceive it, even if they it doesn't register, if that makes sense.
Like one hundred percent. And actually this is a horrible podcasting form. Will what's the game that you've most recently made?
Right, because this is what we are supposed.
To be talking about twelve minutes into a conversation.
Yeah, you mentioned currently are we are promoting Civil War two, which is my most recent release. It is just about to cross twelve thousand out of of a goal of seventeen thousand, seventy six, which I thought would be immersive, very immersive. It is completely an arbitrary number.
Fair enough, Yeah, that's what platforms are you using to promote that? Because I understand that there are some platforms which or friendlier than others.
Well, I decided to do it on Kickstarter, which may have been a mistake. I think they're very I think they're very hostile to us. I kind of I got it in my mind that this time I would do something that would be appealing, appealing to a broader cross section of people, and that the curmudgeons that the pearl clutches a kick Kickstarter would give me a fair shake this time. I think that might have been a mistake. Well see, I mean, look, the Kickstarter is still up,
so it's true. It's still up. Yeah, let's business.
Model of Kickstarter, if you will, because I think it's actually an interesting thing because I know, well, and here's the angle I want to take it. I think this is interesting. I think the there's a much heightened skepticism around crowdfunding than there was ten years ago because of well of no good reasons masters.
Right, like how do you do it right?
Like how do you run a kickstart in a way that actually that people can feel like they're not wasting their money or they're going to get scamed.
Well, I have built up a base over time. I have the mailing list. It's got about three thousand people on it, former and former and current customers. Most of it comes from that. I guess I've done done right by them enough times that they want more. I've got to get a lot of repeat buyers, not as many new ones as I would hope. But as for reasons that you say, yes, the kickstarter model is throw up some slop, take the money and moved Costa Rica. Yeah, fair enough.
I mean, look it's a goal, right, So that's a good answer. And honestly, I think that that's sort of the And you see this in any sort of like online environment, like I remember forum culture back when that still existed, would have like a rep kind of yes and no, it's been eaten by social media. So if you go to your favorite forms, yeah, like if you go to your favorite forums, there's just no volume anymore. You know, a lot of them unfortunately have been fully
killed off, like they don't pay for hosting anymore. But there's just it's still alive, but not like it used to. See I think of you know, like the REP system that used to exist, right just asper to.
The successor to the successor of the forum that I ran and used to frequent is Kiwi Farms. And they're fine, but buying and large. I believe you're correg guess oh.
That's that's actually really interesting. I had Josh moon on not too long ago.
Yeah, very few of them actually remember me. Some of the posters might. It's all overrun by millennials now.
Yeah, well, I mean I think with Kiwi Farms, it's sort of its own, sort of its own thing now, you know, Like whereas the model for forums, and I was around for kind of the tail end of it, but as someone who had specific interest, it was a
great way to collate information. But the reason I brought it up, it's not just a reminisce about when the Internet was more fun, but to say there there was, you know, either in an informal or formalized REP system, you know, like you see, like, yeah, your postcount how people rated you, you could sort of sort information. And I've talked to other you know, artists who fund their
work via crowdfunding. I think of you know, Matt Cotts, who's you know, five hundred pages into a graphic novel series now in a decade and uh yeah, stuff's great, like genuinely great. You. I'm sure you would like it. It's uh, i'll we'll we talk about it later. But the uh, that's one of the things he spoke about, which is that that exact thing of you having people who have bought your products before having a track rad record saying you know, here's what I do. I deliver
on time. I'm not gonna scam you, right like that. That is in a way like building up a customer base. And uh yeah, that's a very valuable, very valuable tool for creative right yeah.
Hey, being honest. Actually, you know, it's it's a good way to live your life. Turns out, Yeah, controversial opinion. Don't want controversial opinion? Yeah yeah, yeah. And now with just to uh, you know, shout them out as that would you say it? In hip hop culture? Uh? Uh? And Lapill they're great, they're great, straight shoot, Yeah.
And that's the cool thing I was actually, you know, I was actually talking to uh, you know, the founder of analy Uphill actually less than a week ago, and uh, I'm not gonna tell tales out of school obviously, but that was one of the things that he spoke about that I thought was really exciting is that he's, you know, now at a point where he spends a significant amount of time telling people no, which like, Okay, you could look at that and say, well, that's bad for those
individual people, but it's exciting from the perspective of, well, now there is a large amount of well there's obviously a market to sustain it, but on a secondary level, now there is a large group of people who maybe aspirationally want to create for that audience. And you know, you look back at, you know, a previous model. I was talking to an author earlier today where your one choice for getting your workout was you know, the two big companies in whatever your industry was, Right, You're not
beholden to that anymore. And it means you can do interesting and exciting things, right, Yes.
It does. Some of my exciting ideas are still too a radical randal uptil I'm going to work on them. All right, all right, let's.
See, So what are your other games? Right, And obviously we don't need to go into detail, but like you speak about building up some sort of rapport, so like how do you do that? How do you get your initial audience and build from there?
One my first campaign was in twenty seventeen, I think, I think that's right. Yeah, think twenty seventeen. Oh maybe later, maybe it's twenty, I don't remember. It's but it was Virtue sing of the game, which was a game that I had been working on on the forum that Kiwi Farms is a successor to the Successor too, and I had been working on for a long time. Which is it?
It simulates the infighting in liberal groups. If if from the outside it may not be a parent, but inside those groups they are buckets of cannibal maggots, just devour each other and climbing, trying to climb to the top. There. It's a it's it's a very vicious environment. Well maybe you do. Maybe maybe it disapparent.
Yeah, I mean they seem to be largely, completely and totally miserable.
Right, I mean actly miserable all of the time, terrified if you step one toe out of line, you know, the the rest of them will turn on you in a minute. You thought you were your friends. And to top that off, the narrative is constantly shifting and you have to pay extremely close attention. This actually isn't a funny. This is a funny story. I've told this.
I don't know if I've told it all on air before. This is one hundred percent true. It sounds like made up bullshit. I've I've been doxed, been docked for a long time, okay, and uh, literally the week or two after I was doxed, I was hanging out with some friends who were the plans had already been made. They sort of disassociated after the politics changed, you know, but it was sort of this awkward like everyone knows, but no one really wants to have the conversation sort of thing.
And we're sitting around playing board games, and of course the game Secret Hitler is there, and I'm like, all right that I'm looking at it right now, mylf. Literally, I've never played this game in my life before. William the first hand this, there's this kind of uncomfortable, you know, cloud in the air. I'm there with some friends who were aware of what I am and didn't care who are kind of on my side? And the hints got at the beginning, and of course it's Werewolf right or mafia.
You know, there's one guy who's him. Obviously there are differences to it. But for people who don't know, you're looking for secret Hitler, right, and uh literally the first round, I'm secret Hitler and I'm like, oh no, this has just happened. It's happened twice, right first, this tragedy then is farse right, I have the literal Nazi in their midst, I don't know which was just like incredibly odd the nose.
But I think that that is sort of a you know, an interesting counterpoint, right of like their their game is rooting out the Nazi, you know, like that's the that's the ha ha, funny edgy party joke or party game rather, And I think that sort of indicates an interesting bit of psychology there.
And if there is no Nazi, you must create a Nazi from one of you. Yeah, someone's got to be crucify him. Yes, somebody has to be crucified all the time. And if nobody is a parent, right, if there's nobody, if you have to find somebody. It's got to be somebody you got to root them out for some reason, and you got to crucify that person. It's got to happen on a regular basis, right, So the game simulates that.
And I had no experience doing a Kickstarter. I had no experience like with the I had no advertising or marketing set up. I just threw it up on Kickstarter, and by the third day we were trending number seven across the entire site. I mean, that's not bad for a first attempt, right, it's pretty good for a first attempt. Like I didn't. It stresses me out like things like that. So I wasn't paying attention. But I had like a friend slash partner. He's like, hey, like we're going We're
number seven, Like oh in BAM's no across the whole site. Wow. And people start giving me, calling me up and I got noticed by the Feds and a whole bunch of stuff, and then then Kickstarter that obanned me hard. As soon as as soon as I hit funding, I set the goal of forty thousand dollars, extremely ambitious for a board game period, let alone a first time, and oh wait, no, no, no, no, I said it a twenty five thousand and forty thousands
what we ended up making. So I hit funding like in the first week or something like that, and then they bam, they brought the hammer down and we were last. We were last on the entire site, like after people with no pledges, the dead last, which is just great.
I mean again, it's like the very aggressive response from tech. It's sort of moderated slightly, but it bears repeating, right, very yeah, one hundred percent. It's like, look, just like, send a corporate hit team and paint my brains all over the wall. At least then it's like direct, you know, instead of this like corporate HR approved way of making me go away. But in all seriousness, is someone who's you know, played board games quite often, but wouldn't really
consider myself a board gamer. What goes into the actual process of designing a game from the ground.
Oh, good question, nobody's actually I never asked me that. Lots of revisions, I guess you start with that's a good question. I was not ready to answer that question. It's finding the game in real life, if that makes sense, and identifying games that are interesting right, games with them that are layers that appear to be self contradictory, if that makes sense.
Hmmm, so do you start Do you start with sort of like an initial I guess even say loop or like an initial like concept and iterate from there or are you looking for a more complicated idea? Again saying this is someone who's never designed a board game, I started out with, Okay, how do we simulate this? So it went through, Uh, well, I'll do virtual single because I think that went through the most revisions.
We're going to you. It's a contest to develop like your liberal virtue. It's a race. Okay, we'll start it out as a race. So I thought, okay, we can start out like Millbourns are familiar with. It's an auto racing game where you just like put down miles. You count up miles right, and and then other people can put hazards on. You can inhibit you by putting it on a hazard. You clear the hazard, and then you keep putting down miles. It's extremely simple game, not terribly fun,
very very luck based. So I had that for a while. It was just like a liberal count count count count count count counter of liberal points like this could be better, So instead of one counter, we're gonna make four counters. We're gonna divide it up into suits, red, yellow, green, and blue, and they will represent One will be feminism, one will be LGBT stuff, another one will be uh economics, and then there will be politics. So politics is blue
virtue within the Democratic Party. Economics has read how Marxist start you and no like LGPD stuff and then the feminist stuff and okay, rather than in generic points, maybe these points can represent something within that thing. So now instead of having like generic numbers, all the cards are going to be unique. It set a very high bar. All the cards are going to be unique, and they're going to be all individually illustrated. Okay, So all right, so I am an influencer now and I am my
points are people? Okay, and then and they're just going to go in a stack and go okay, maybe there's something better than going in a stack. Maybe I could do it like like Dominos or people accuse me of like ripping off Illuminati. I didn't. Actually, it really did start out as a Millbourne's game. What if like they I put my card down on the table and then like these different people like all the all the all the all the points used to be points. Now they
represent people. There are your followers, and they influence other people. Right, So supposing I'm the communist influencer right with, there are a couple of them, uh, I forget his name, but and I have like mostly like red valances on my cards. Like I'll attract all the communist guys, but those guys may have friends who are may have a Democrat sympathies, and they may have friends who are Democrats. So I can, I can, I can get those guys, and then I
can start adding. Right, so you add, you start with like a red card, and then you add some red followers which have some blue valances on the end. They can touch blue cards to those and uh and and branch off from there. So now it becomes strategic instead of just being a running count. And then the hazards which used to be against the uh the character personally. Again, this is just like Millboy's where you have a flat tire and then the remedy is to get a spare tire.
So in the in virtue signal, you will have the microaggression. Right, this is the this is the competition part. You you accuse somebody a micro of a microaggression, you slap the microaggression card on them or on their on one of their followers, and this hinders your your liberal virtue. And the only way to get out of that is to
with a virtue signal. Right, some uh some some expression of liberal piety that makes no sense and doesn't actually help any everything anybody, but makes you look like a really good person. Okay, And now, but and now these are alignment coded, So if you're accused of like being bad at Marxism, you have to do something like extremely Marxist to remove that thing. And now you can now you can grow in that direction again. And and that's how it worked out. And then maybe there's one more thing,
so the shifting narrative. You gotta be able to uh simulate the shifting narrative too. So now there are add the plot cards, right, which which get played in the middle, and they alter the game state for everybody. So sometimes the competition is mostly cooperative, like like there's some game states where where there is not very hostile you accuse people, it doesn't really damage you very much. Then there's a but then there's the game state called race to the bottom.
Which is like a nuclear cloud with the angry face. And during race to the bottom, people get extremely vicious. And when they play the microaggressions against you to actually
damage you, is you actually lose followers. So things like that, and uh, and there are male characters and female characters, and like certain game states only the boys can play, certain game states only the girls can play, and boys have to sit and listen, right like that, So that that that was the final state of the game pretty much.
It's sort of an interesting thing. Uh, you know, the the psychology that goes along with with games. You know, I can think of I haven't played video games in a very long time at least seriously. But you know, one of the last games I played a lot on the couch, right, couch co op or guess couch multiplayer was actually, uh worms. You know, it's sort of like Tank Commander right heavily of all.
Yeah, a ton of fun.
And the whole reason the game was fun it's not the actual game, but it's it's the metagame of psychology, right of, like the wheeling and dealing of like well wait, wait, I've only got one worm left. Don't kick me off because I'll screw you next round, Like, how about we go together against the guy who's in first place? You know that sort of stuff that was entirely exogenous, right, it's not really built.
Into you know, the game itself.
But that's what I think is interesting about those systems is you're, basically, for a fun end, sort of manipulating your players into acting differently.
Yeah, oh, and should I do the uh okay? And then the one that after that. The sequel to uh Virtus sim of the game was Virtual Signal Deplorables, which is also my my shelf. I'm looking at it right now. People kept asking me, He's like, hey, what can we make where you make fun of the right left wingers? Why don't you make fun of the right wingers? Like that might be interesting, That might be interesting, but I'm
not gonna. They wanted me to just like trash them, right, which, so I thought, how can I do this in like an interesting way? So I basically made like an entire separate mini game of being a groper. Yeah, they're all frogs, they're all frogs. This was this was four or five years ago. They're all frogs and there's one groper player, Like it has to be proportionate. Right, you have to have you know, two lib tards to every groper, otherwise doesn't work. And his job is to just he's going
to infiltrate. So you have like these chains running off your character card, right, that represents your points. He's gonna infustrate those chains, right, and he's got he's got alignments too, and he's gonna he's gonna go in there and infiltrate. And by that, he's going to build up the toxicity level in your chain, right, and when it hits a certain level, he can do some epic trologe that that
earns him points. Every every one of his people that you kill of your people that he kills or kills you know, quote unquote, Uh, he triggers becomes a trophy for him, right, and he's so he wins by acquiring trophies from by trolling people. Yeah, that's an interesting thing. Uh, And I'm curious.
I just don't know anything about this this model. Right, So when you're when you're kickstarting something, right, obviously you know you need money to live. You can illustrate, you can do it yourself, but like, what are the economics of this, right, Like do you how much do you have to and genuinely I'm not trying to get you to divulge that, but like, how much does it cost to make a video to make a board game?
A lot? Well, uh, the the setup and the uh the cost and printing is mostly the labor, right, The paper and the ink cost virtually nothing, so you'll get you'll get priced for the labor. So if so, the depending on the the the price will scale radically depending on like how manuch of their there if there is right, so if you make one that the unit price is
gonna be astronomical, Like if you make a sample. If I make a sample, like one board game will cost me three hundred dollars, okay, But if the wider the the the larger the print run, the the the it goes down a lot. So if you make five hundred or if you make if I make, say two hundred and fifty, the unit price will be about fifteen dollars if I make If I make five hundred, it goes
down to like ten. And if I make thousands, like in the case of my first run of Virtue Signal, then I think the enterprise is two dollars and then sold it for sold it for twenty eight twenty eight dollars and says it's just me. I'm doing all the writing and the illustrating. Then all of that is profit except for well, except for thirty percent which I give to which I gave back. When I had promoters, I would give that to them. Is I promoted with people,
they all got canceled except fair fair. I mean, that's sort of an interesting, interesting thing of itself, right, is sort of the death of the middleman in certain forms of media, you know, like you've seen the several times. And I say this as a as a podcaster and technically is a YouTuber. My stuff ends up on YouTube, even if I don't spend a lot of time there. The business model, maybe sort of fifteen years ago, right, is you wanted to get on on a network.
Network works a lot like a record label. They would do a bunch of stuff for you. But what's interesting is, sorry, what's that.
I was gonna say, a few winners, a whole lot of losers in that model exactly.
And people got burnt, they wasted their lives, they they got screwed. And we sort of saw several versions of this, like the the guys who've been around for long enough on the site will remember. You know, Machinima was a big one early on. They were intamous for that, and you know there were there were dozens of others, right, Uh, you know the guys who made Red versus Blue turned into that before it exploded. Oh and what's interesting is it seems as if that that model is sort of
going away. Obviously, if you're famous enough, you need a manager, right just to tell people now, William, I think neither you or I is in danger of.
Ending up in that position anytime soon. Not soon.
It'd be nice if we were, but you know so. But point is, you can sort of get all of the both the benefits and the consequences of getting rid of like a middleman.
Right.
Like, on one hand, kind of sucks because everything is your problem, like you have to do everything, but also you get to do everything. I know, it's sort of a blessing and it curse there true true.
Uh. My problem is that as an artist, my solution to more most problems in dramare which really isn't the solution to most problems. Uh. You kind of want a second guy just to have like a guy who doesn't think like you you know what I mean?
Yeah, no, that's very true. Hey, maybe this is a dangerous question to ask, but William, are you worried at all about like generative AI's regard your work.
My work? Oh dude, I just I just posted this thing that that thing that the Elon's Musk, the cartoon that was terrifyingly good. Man. I had a mini freak out about that two weeks two days ago.
I mean, the will Stancil stuff, Like, I didn't think it's the funniest thing in the world, but but it's psch. It's within spitting distance of like lower end cartoon network shows.
It's good. And I did kind of a deep dive on it on I guess Wednesday to figure out if, like, maybe I could use AI to like, you know, on my own stuff. Turns out not really. So I fed a whole bunch of artwork into Grock, a whole bunch of my organs. Okay, make it like this, make it
like this, and it couldn't do it right. And I kept asking you questions and probing, And it turns out what happens is when you upload artwork to grock or an AI, it will analyze the image, it will describe the image and words or I guess on their side as data, and then it will go out on the internet and find other things that it thinks meets that criteria. Right, So it's not actually basing it on my stuff or
your stuff. So if you have a unique illustration style, h A, I can't hurt you and it can't help you if you have it an illustration style that is very uh. I don't want to say generic, but generic, I'll say it, okay, generic like if you want to do studio ghibli or like an adult swim style, like which what will stancel is that art style is a very uh, you know, adult swim cartoon kind of a thing. Then yeah, it can find lots of references and can cobble together something on that so well.
And also I feel like from the outside looking in, it's even in like even in like ship posting, which is the most I've used it for. It's like, okay for a certain type of high effort ship posting. It's kind of taken in away. But like AI memes are not as interesting or as popular as like the old.
Fashioned type, No they're not.
They're obviously trash you know, and may change, but like to me, it's like, yeah, sure, it will get rid of a lot of the like joyless grunt work, like in the same way that like low level graphic designers have been hit hard by AI because like a handyman, business just wants something that looks okay. They don't care
about something looking you know, perfect. But for someone who has a specialty product like you, it's sort of a different It doesn't I don't see it feeling that niche at least as if yees it probably can't.
I really tried hard to get it, to get it to match my style. Cannot do it. They can't do it. Uh. But yeah, but it's interesting you mentioned that because it's uh, it's true. Millennials have a very interesting aesthetic. It's very interesting to me, and I think about it a lot, and it's it's kind of amazing to me that nobody's really analyzing that.
You bring up the memes like go ahead, no, no, I think that that's actually an interesting point. I've just spent the it had extended weekend in Portland, and Portland is sort of like a rent fare for millennials, you know, it is it is twenty ten forever there.
I'm kind of there, and I would say it's nineteen ninety seven forever there.
But yeah, fair enough you could say that the h I mean that is the line from Portlandia, right, the dream of the nineties is alive in Portland.
Yes, indeed I graduated in Portland.
Date Oh wow, yeah, don't go back is my one piece of advice. Okay, no, in all series of Portland's actually a very nice style. It's just fun to make fun of. My point is that I think that esthetic vision you're talking about is very identifiable.
It's not just that. It's not just that you mentioned that millennials do not like the polish right, because AI, if you're if you're an AI engineer, your goal is to make things look polished and cinematic. And I think I think millennials are very mistrustful of that, of anything
that looks like that, and they will intentionally destroy it. Right, make the editing choppy, throw on some uh some some some deep fried like like VCR lines or or or grain to it right, distort the music right, distort, distort and slow down the visuals. And this makes it, uh, this makes it palatable for millennials just kind of wreck it, if that makes sense, wreck that polish, Yeah, well, one hundred percent.
And that is like the esthetics of authenticity, Like I think, really this is explosion of podcasting, and obviously there exists at the very top of it it kind of like ultra polished like New York Times podcasting with you know, a million producers. I question how genuinely popular that is if it weren't boosted. But like even look at you know podcast in the top ten, like yeah, sure Rogan has a producer, but the form of it is very
you know, low fi. Right, it's two guys sitting around just talking and there's yeah exactly, there's a level of authenticity to that that you can't get with kind of AI.
Polish, right, yeah, true. And uh well, and also like the memes that uh that that are most popular that everybody uses, right, like uh just going back to like like the like we had very polished, like a very professionally drawn memes back in the back in the two thousands, but people people prefer the ones that look like they're made an MS paint with a mouse.
Look as someone who has created multiple famous wojacks, which is the dumbest thing I ever say, should be compared. I drew the Uh, there's a David French wojack that I drew. Uh, there's a Dreer one. There's multiple ones that have sort of staped containment. Uh, literally all of those. I drew with one line weight on my laptop touchpad in Microsoft Bait. And I believe a hear that way it does.
It looks funny, it looks more authentic. It looks like it's made by a person. Yeah.
Yeah, to make fun of some guy with a you know, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year job, and you know, somehow it makes me feel better that I can make.
Fun of him on Twitter. But uh, can I brag for a minute my memes. Of course, you're not gonna believe that. You're gonna laugh at me, roof Koreans. I invented that fair enough. I believe it.
I've actually had that moment with with Bog Beef the Good Old Boys, a veteran poster where I quoted a meme he made to him, you know, because it's just one of those great like you know, throwaways, right, and they sort of enter the common lexicon. Yeah, I'm not surprised by it, William. Unfortunately, I'm gonna have to step out a little earlier than normal. I have real world obbligations and it has really been an interesting conversation. I'll make sure to leave the links to your Kickstarter I.
Mentioned roof Koreans and you get into the podcast. No, but I'm sorry man, I do have to step out early.
Unfortunately. Where else can people find you? Obviously, other than on.
X I just look for well, it's dale about William my name on x now because I lost so many accounts. This is my ninth account insol riot dot com and also on the the Antelope Hill website in the board game section. That's all me. Well, sure thing. I will make sure to link to that again. William.
Sorry, I had to to let you go early. Unfortunately, I have a real life. As gay as that sounds.
But it was great talking to again, and be sure to check out his work all right.
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