Rising with the Sun and Riding the Waves of Web Woes

Ever wondered how a viral TikTok can stir up a hefty debate on morning routines and work ethics? Well, we're tackling that head-on as we swap stories about our own haphazard starts to the day—be it the white-collar scramble for a tie or the blue-collar search for the steel-toes. It's a candid look at the myths and realities of our daily grinds, sprinkled with a dash of humor and a touch of chaos. But the conversation doesn't stop at coffee and commutes; we delve into the high-wire act of balancing streaming, full-time jobs, and family, all while pondering the role of AI in jazzing up audience interactions. The ebb and flow of motivation play a starring role as we dissect what it takes to jump back into the streaming saddle after a hiatus.

Swapping the hustle of convention floors for the ease of our studio mics, we reflect on the shifts in our content creation journey—from live events to the intimate setting of our podcast. The charm of meeting listeners face-to-face has given way to a preference for the straightforward recording sessions we've come to love, albeit with the occasional technical gremlin. But as we navigate the intricacies of platforms like Twitch and TikTok, we're not shy about examining the hurdles of timing, content moderation, and the looming shadow of data privacy issues. Join us for a thought-provoking session that doesn't just stop at social media's future but also casts a critical eye on the influence of voting systems in our political sphere—and the weight of our choices when it's time to cast a ballot.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Turning off normal human male mode. Switching to dad mode. Welcome in to dad mode with your hosts Bearded, nova and Morph.

Speaker 2: 0:19

Explain to me what happened on TikTok? I'm opening up TikTok this morning and I see a video of you talking to someone replying to a comment about sleep hours and white collar versus blue collar.

Speaker 3: 0:34

So you know. So I commute to work on a bus every morning, right, and I catch the bus at about 7 30 and I hate morning, I'm not a morning person. So I usually get up, I get out of bed at seven, I take a quick shower, I grab a quick bite to eat, I head out the door and I get to the bus stop, which is about 10 minutes away, by 7 30. Yeah, and so power ready, just making a quick video on my on my. Well, okay, I wasn't driving. Sure, pretend I wasn't driving, I just made a video there. I I'm like you know, I have a super power of being able to shower and get dressed and get out the door within 10 minutes every morning and still make the bus. That was literally the whole TikTok.

Speaker 3: 1:14

And then some dude's like yeah, well, you know I'm a blue collar worker and you know that's cute, but we do this all the time. And I'm like what the fuck are you talking about? And I'm like let me just make a video reply because I haven't been salty with anyone in a while. So I make a video reply and all of a sudden, like I've been having shit views lately, all of a sudden it's like 2,000, 3,000 views and like what the fuck? And all these people are commenting like, like just giving this guy a hard time because he's like saying blue collar work is like amazing or whatever he's trying to say, and like I'm like dude, I didn't say anything about blue collar workers. Like what are you talking about?

Speaker 2: 1:53

no, he just brought this up yeah, I probably would have been sarcastic and responded with something like hey, I lost my license to drink driving so I have to take a bus to my blue collar job every day.

Speaker 3: 2:06

To make him feel bad right.

Speaker 2: 2:08

Yeah, make him feel bad. Yeah, I have a drinking problem.

Speaker 3: 2:11

When I did my reply I made sure to record it while I was in the office, just to be a dick. It was a really dumb comment he made. I don't get it at all, but that's the thing.

Speaker 2: 2:26

Like social media is, just like that it but in itself, that's, that's a sense of nearly any streamer, any streamer that has a job. You know, I mean that's, that is the lifestyle that we're all in. We're in that um, that constant grind, I guess, of having to do long hours, minimum sleep and empower it on the morning, especially when you add children to the mix. You know, I mean, yeah, you just you're taking it to another level, because it's not just you that you go to and get motivated, it's, it's everyone else in the house yeah, yeah, it, it, it is the life, um, it it's so like the hours.

Speaker 3: 3:11

You know the hours are what they are, you know. Um, yeah, you know, if we kind of transition that to streaming, like you know, uh, I've been streaming for this year will be four years, um, but you know, I've taken and I I've cut down, like all of last year, and through this year I've cut down to like one day a week, most of last year, yeah, but the last three weeks I don't think I've changed at all, um, because I just aren't right now. You've been out for about a year right, yeah, 10 months, 10 months and like 11 months you're like it's oh, it's hard to get back.

Speaker 3: 3:43

It's hard to get back. And like now, now that I've been, having done it for three weeks, I'm like oh, it's really hard to get like. It's very difficult to get that motivation up to do it again. Um, even though you like people, you are reminding me of the good times that I had like it's the holiday, feel, yeah, yeah, you take a holiday from your job.

Speaker 2: 4:06

You know what I mean. Like you take more than two. I find if I take more than two weeks off work for a holiday, I don't it's a motivation to go back to work. You know what I mean. Like I've got to, really, because I get into a rhythm of just I'm comfortable, I'm happy.

Speaker 3: 4:23

Yeah, yeah, it just I'm comfortable, I'm happy, yeah, yeah, it's like when during christmas time I usually take about two weeks off, right, yeah. And then when that's winding down, literally you're thinking wait, can I afford to never work again, because I don't want to go back, like I might have to eat like canned cat food, but like at least I won't have to go back into the work. You know, yeah, with streaming it's like I wasn't making much money anyway. You know, nah.

Speaker 3: 4:50

But, and so, like, what's the motivation? Like what was it? What was it? What am I to get out of it if I put myself back to three or four streams a week? Like what am I going to get out of it? You know?

Speaker 2: 5:06

That's what it's funny, because we were talking about me going back. Like I still have it. I'm actually in the process of refreshing everything on my stream, like I thought I could just fire upstream, but since I've been away, I think it's time to just go over everything again, probably. You know I'm going to keep my logo the same, but I'll probably just tweak the colors a little bit, tweak all my overlays, tweak my alerts, go through, uh, mix it up now has an ai component where it ai can respond to chat. So I want to investigate that as well. You know what I mean. Like I want to. I've moved the streaming setup three times, so I need to, I need to redo this whole thing as I don't need, I don't have to, but I want to and I'm taking as a re-launch and I'm getting back to it and I want to do it more so for myself. So I've got one night. I'm not looking for three, four nights a week, I just want one night to begin with, and that one night is more my game time.

Speaker 2: 6:00

Yeah, and it's funny because I was talking to my wife about this and I've been thinking about mentioning to her hey, I might want to go back to do some streaming. Yeah, and she's said it to me multiple times over the thing why don't you just go game? Why don't you just go stream? Why don't you go do this? Yeah, I thought it was because it was out of frustration, because she's pissed off at me and she just wants me to get out of the fucking room. And when I brought it up to her the other day and I said, hey, I'm thinking I'm going to stream one day a week.

Speaker 2: 6:34

What do you think? Like we talk about the negotiation stage? Yeah, and she turned to me, looked at me. Just, I've been telling you for months to do it. She goes. Only reason I've been saying it is I actually missed the me time that I got when you were streaming. So I thought she's pissed off. No, she just wanted me to get out so she could have her own time and I stopped lingering around it for the last few months.

Speaker 3: 6:57

Yeah, that's funny um, so I've never fully stopped, even the last three weeks, like you know. I'm coming out to go ahead and she's like, are you going to stream? I'm like, either that or game, and so the last few weeks I've just gained. So it hasn't really ever really stopped. So, um, I don't, I wouldn't get that, that response. But you know still, if I ever said I wanted to go back to three days a week again, why?

Speaker 2: 7:25

why, are you gonna do that Unless there's this increased bump? I guess with people it's not worth it.

Speaker 3: 7:37

It's not. Look, I love streaming. I really, truly enjoyed it for a long time and if you're thinking of getting into streaming or you are a streamer, if there's things you like about it, then do it, because it can be a lot of fun. Just keep it light unless you want to get super serious because you'll burn yourself out. It's what I did.

Speaker 2: 8:00

Getting into it. I'm getting back into it for the same reasons I got into it to begin with, and that was the social aspect.

Speaker 2: 8:18

Yeah, into it for the same reasons I got into it to begin with and that was the social aspect. Yeah, but I miss that social aspect that I got from gaming and streaming. Um, and like we talked about a few weeks ago at the end of one of our casts, that even though I haven't streamed in ages, it's nice I can still go into people's dreams that I haven't been into in ages and be like yo and everyone's excited over there. I get a chat like if it's, it's very heartwarming, it's nice feeling. Um, I don't want that to go away either. I guess if the more I hang away I feel like, the more it's going to go away as well, um and like I see everyone going off the dream hack at the moment.

Speaker 2: 8:49

People who created it have stuck with it over the time that I've been away with family and they've elevated themselves. They've stepped up to this next level and I feel like I'm still. I know I am. I'm still down here because I chose my family over it and there's nothing wrong with it. A lot of these people that I have been watching that I got off, don't have family. That's fine. That's fine. It's a choice, it's a personal choice, but I'd like to step it up in a way. But baby steps, yeah.

Speaker 3: 9:27

I've seen there are people that I super close with us when a lot like pastor deans um yo nug, um blue thunder, you know, uh smash, and I've seen a lot of them do some really amazing thing.

Speaker 2: 9:39

You know, in the in the in the last year I've been like very limited my experience with it no goes out your way the other way, like no goes out your way the other week, huh, nuggles out your way the other week as a creator for PAX, that's cool.

Speaker 3: 9:53

I know I saw them. I really need to go to PAX because all these people the year that I went, last year no one went LA Dream and I saw Pastor Games and BBJet right, which is great. I love seeing them. But this year was even more duty. Beard was there and I'm like it's duty. That's wrong, I know, like I knew I was done with it to a sense because I had no real passion to go, even with all my friends and all these people I know going there and I could have hooked up with them and that we could have like talked about collabs. But I'm like I'm tired. I'm, I'm just tired of that grind.

Speaker 3: 10:29

Some people say, well, isn't your podcast a grind? No, it's not. We record. People don't know. We usually record twice a month for two hours each of those times, sometimes once a month. Bearded does all of the editing. It doesn't take him that long because it's fairly straightforward how we usually do it, except for tonight because of the technical issue. But besides that, I do come that long because it's fairly straightforward how we usually do it, except for tonight because it's a technical issue. I do a lot of the social media stuff but that doesn't take me long either. This shit's not hard.

Speaker 2: 10:59

No, it's straightforward, it's simple and I like what we have how it rolls.

Speaker 3: 11:07

Yeah, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2: 11:08

I like the simplicity of it, but at the same time it's just like this little thing on my phone that wants to go. Hey, you should be doing this live. You should do this live on Twitch, Just click live.

Speaker 3: 11:27

Yeah, we talked about that too. We've talked about it multiple times and just doing like a live stream, yeah, um, and I don't know why we haven't done it yet. We've talked about it. Like, I created a dad mode twitch channel and there's a dad mode tiktok account if you want to do there, but I think the timing is hard Figuring out. When would you do it?

Speaker 2: 11:47

We'd have to be now, we'd have to just do it now, the same time as we know it, and I think that works 9pm in the US on a weekend.

Speaker 3: 11:55

It's like a late night show, probably pretty good viewership.

Speaker 2: 11:58

It's a pretty good slot really.

Speaker 3: 12:00

Yeah, honestly, the streaming landscape has changed just in the few months that I've been less active. Yeah, tiktok might not be a bad idea, except it'll probably get banned here in the US in about nine months.

Speaker 2: 12:13

I was about to make it. I haven't posted on TikTok properly, besides making fun of you the other day.

Speaker 3: 12:18

US gave TikTok a year or nine months to sell.

Speaker 1: 12:22

If.

Speaker 3: 12:22

TikTok is out today, we're not going to sell.

Speaker 2: 12:25

We're just going to sue you for it. Yeah, they're going to take them up high. Did you see? There was talks about them possibly signing it over to an American company by keeping the algorithm? The thing that makes TikTok great was all right, we'll keep that, but we'll give you the program. It's like you get nothing from us, right?

Speaker 3: 12:43

So I don't think it really like yeah, you look at TikTok, you're like, oh, the look of it. That's nothing Anyone could do. That it's the algorithm that makes it work. Without the algorithm, it's just a video sharing app.

Speaker 2: 12:58

And no one really has worked out TikTok's algorithm properly, no, and how they're always constantly evolving and tweaking and changing dials and all that shit. Yeah, but that's what makes TikTok work so damn well is that algorithm?

Speaker 3: 13:15

Anyway, for anyone that thinks TikTok would actually go away in the US, they may ban it. They very well may, but after years of court cases. But even if they do, people are just going to throw VPNs at their phone and still going to use it. It's still going to be used by America, maybe not by as many, we're still going to use it. But the part I'm sorry.

Speaker 2: 13:37

The part that really confuses me is seeing all those TikToks as an outsider. Seeing all those TikTokiktoks as an outsider. Seeing all those tiktoks on the senate, the, the inquiry and the questions that they ask, and it's like they're asking over and over again and this gets the answer like really, are they that stupid?

Speaker 2: 13:55

yeah, look, how did we? Well, not, how did we? Because I didn't fucking vote, not my problem. How did you guys get yourselves into this problem, you know, is it? Is it the not compulsory voting situation that you have, because we have to vote here? At the end of the day, even if you, even if you do something stupid on the ballot in australia, you're responsible for whether you ticked, who got in power, who didn't get in power. And if you drew a penis on the ballot and submitted it, because people do that, oh, somebody voted for Trump, sorry yeah.

Speaker 2: 14:35

But people will do stuff like that. You still you can't take. You got to take a little bit of blame because your vote could make a difference. So you have the opportunity. Everyone's forced to vote over 18 years. So if you don't vote, that's your own problem. But you can't. It might be you can't complain. What's wrong with your nation If you didn't fucking do anything to help change it Absolutely?

Speaker 3: 14:56

Absolutely. Yep, you're right. Um, but, but yeah, so I don't think TikTok's actually going to go anywhere. No, that wouldn't be a deal. I don't understand. The whole thing is like oh, the privacy. They're selling our US data to Chinese or whatever. What do you think Instagram and YouTube and Facebook do and whatever apps they're getting? Twitter, yeah, you think they don't use that data for nefarious purposes or just to make money off it by selling it to whoever Twitch Twitch does.

Speaker 3: 15:31

Yes, I think this is something I talked about on a podcast before. Part of the revenue stream for a lot of big companies is selling data. That's how they make some of their money. It's huge.

Speaker 2: 15:45

No, it just. I see There'll be a fight. It'll be another fight. Tiktok will stay. I'm sure it'll get to the federal court where there's a lot more common sense and non-biased logic. I guess it's the best way about courts they're not very non-biased It'll and non-biased logic. I guess it's the best way about courts. And over a non-biased side, or it'll probably sway the other way where they look at it go what the hell are we doing here? You know this is this is uh and to be honest, it gives a fuck what you're doing on your phone. But to be you're not that valuable. Most people ain't that valuable to be that interesting in their data. You know what I mean, right, especially name-wise.

Speaker 3: 16:27

We've already given up privacy. If you're using your phone for anything anywhere, you have to already assume if you don't wake up, you've already given up everything. You've already given up all of your privacy. Everyone knows all of your stuff already. Just accept that, yeah.

Speaker 2: 16:42

Yeah, but knows all of your stuff already. Just accept that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but the honest truth is someone there's no one in china going. Huh, I need to look up john smith because he's not important. You know what I mean? Yeah, he's not. He's not, it's it's. It's a collective data as a whole. You know what's demographics doing? It's no different than everything else in life. It's about collective data, not not individual data yep it, um it and yeah it.

Speaker 3: 17:10

Whole thing is freaking weird. I really don't understand it um it. My kids ask me about it, like they're not on on social media. They're only 10 and 12, which is probably another topic. But um, you know they're asking about. I'm like oh, you know, the government's just being stupid. I don't understand it, I can't. I can't explain it, boy no, I mean, we don't.

Speaker 2: 17:32

We don't have that problem here. Touch wood yet, um, but yeah, there's. Segue this a little bit back to where we were from tiktok, streamlabs, me setting back up to stream besides Streamlabs and OBS, both fucking ruining this podcast earlier with not letting me be able to do anything that aside. That aside, the vertical ability is now in Streamlabs the same as you can get from ADEM with OBS. Yeah, it's not as refined. I guess there's a little bit more involved in it, um, but I'm enjoying setting everything back up and you do not need to pay for streamlabs premium to multicast, to tick tock and your platform. So vertical tick tock is counted as separate. Obviously, if you're doing YouTube and YouTube, it will just do that as one. But you can do TikTok and Twitch if you want to with stream layers without needing premium, and you can pick which one goes where.

Speaker 3: 18:40

Yeah, that's very cool. So when they first announced it, I tried it out and it wasn't as clean, but apparently it is now. So, like I said, I tried it out and like it wasn't as clean, but apparently it is now. So, like I said, I've taken the last couple weeks off. I'm going to go back on Monday and I'm going to try it out. I'm going to try to do a whole landscape for Twitch in my vertical to TikTok. Let's see how it goes.

Speaker 2: 19:01

I'm so keen to try it. They can pick up your sources and you know Streamlabs has, so you would know, because you've done a lot of stuff for streamlabs. It's got the ability to send stuff to stream, to record or both. Yeah, it has an extra icon next to that to send to full screw landscape portrait or both, so you can filter that way. Um, that's, that's the only clankiness. So your whole list of sources is stacked on top of each other, and then you got to look at that individual icon where it's not a a stack for vertical and a stack horizontal. That's probably my only gripe with it. Yeah, um, you don't need a stream key, you just need to log into your tiktok. But it's only stream labs thing, no one else is doing it. Streamlabs has made that happen, oh, that's awesome.

Speaker 2: 19:50

So no more agency, no more using tiktok, no if you are a streamlabs user, you can skip all that agency shit. If you're an obs user, find your agency. Yeah, um, that's awesome yeah massive, so massive.

Speaker 3: 20:05

One thing I will say about the setup is when I last played with the vertical and horizontal at the same time, I had to. There's a problem with the sources. Right, it doesn't transform. So I had to bring in a duplicate source and transform it, for whichever one.

Speaker 3: 20:20

And so is that a pain in the butt it is, but it's a pretty good. Once you get it set, it's set. It's not a big of a deal. You know, I've been to make it easier for myself. Like what I did is I created, instead of having multiple scenes like you do, I created one theme and I just added buttons on the stream deck to hide and show sources when I wanted to like, quote, unquote, change scene. Uh, yeah, we do the same thing. When I set it up this weekend to stream on monday oh I, I can't wait, I can't wait.

Speaker 2: 20:50

Well, I think that's a cool place to end it. Anyway, we have someone waiting, so I reckon we wrap this one up a little bit shorter than regular.

Speaker 3: 21:00

But Alright, so we have a special guest coming on. I don't know the order when these will be Probably as recorded. We have a special guest coming on. I don't know the order when these will be published.

Speaker 2: 21:12

Probably as recorded, that's how I've been doing.

Speaker 3: 21:14

Tune in next time. You can cut this out if you need to Tune in next time, and we'll have Dan back here again talking to him. It should be a positive conversation.

Speaker 1: 21:27

You've been listening to Dad Mode. Our passion is navigating this wild journey of parenthood and modern life, from balancing family time to managing your career and still squeezing in some gaming and content creation, and no matter what the women say. And no matter what the women say, they will never be able to pry the controller out of our cold dead hands. Anyway, we hope you enjoyed the show. If you did find us on Twitter, tiktok and YouTube at DadModePodcast, and we can be found on every podcast site at DadModePodcast. Y'all be cool. See you next time.