YouTube creator and former Forbes Under 30 lister Sean McLoughlin "Jacksepticeye" spoke about why he's giving fans at least two more years on his channel before retiring. However, McLoughlin is already testing other business opportunities with his coffee company Top Of The Mornin' Coffee and his comic book series The ALTRVERSE.
0:00 Introduction
1:14 On Starting His Creator Career
3:24 Jacksepticeye On Creating New Content And Keeping Audience Engaged
5:10 Jacksepticeye On Making The Jump To Hollywood From Influencer/Creator
9:23 "My Personality Is My Product"
15:26 Jacksepticeye On Mental Health & Sustainability
20:16 Jacksepticeye On Writing Comic Books And Love Of Characters
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0:00 Introduction
1:14 On Starting His Creator Career
3:24 Jacksepticeye On Creating New Content And Keeping Audience Engaged
5:10 Jacksepticeye On Making The Jump To Hollywood From Influencer/Creator
9:23 "My Personality Is My Product"
15:26 Jacksepticeye On Mental Health & Sustainability
20:16 Jacksepticeye On Writing Comic Books And Love Of Characters
Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
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Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Hello and welcome back.
00:04 I'm Sarah Mueller, a reporter with Forbes.
00:06 And today I am joined by Sean McLaughlin,
00:09 otherwise known as JackSepticEye on YouTube.
00:13 Thank you so much for joining me today.
00:14 I appreciate it.
00:16 - Thank you.
00:17 It's awesome.
00:18 - Well, I wanna read off your resume
00:21 because it's quite lengthy.
00:24 Over the past 10, more than 10 years on YouTube,
00:27 you've amassed more than 30 million subscribers.
00:30 It's landed you on the Forbes top creators list,
00:33 the Forbes top influencers list,
00:36 and you were also listed as a Forbes 30 under 30 lister
00:39 for gaming in 2020.
00:41 Now you also have a coffee brand
00:45 called Top of the Morning Coffee,
00:46 which not only boasts being ethically
00:48 and sustainably sourced,
00:50 but also gives back to mental health price lines,
00:54 which is incredible.
00:55 And if that's not enough,
00:57 you have a podcast and a comic book series.
01:00 So that is a lot to dive into just in this conversation.
01:05 So let's get started with your YouTube career.
01:08 Did you ever have another career in mind
01:10 or how did you decide to upload that very first video?
01:13 - Oh God, no, I had no backup plan.
01:16 I was miserable alone in a log cabin
01:20 in the middle of the woods.
01:20 And I was like, I don't know what else to do
01:22 with my time and my life.
01:25 And I was watching other people do YouTube
01:27 and I thought that that was cool.
01:29 And I was like, I'll try it out
01:30 because I was always kind of like the young one
01:33 at the table when I was in my family
01:35 and making jokes and cracking jokes at everybody
01:37 and making everyone laugh.
01:38 So I was like, maybe I can do something with that
01:40 and just started recording.
01:42 I guess out of boredom more than anything, I started.
01:47 I didn't really have a plan for it.
01:48 Didn't think it would be a job.
01:50 Didn't think it would turn into anything.
01:51 I was like, I'll try it out.
01:52 Editing seems fun.
01:54 Manufacturing content like that seems fun.
01:57 The whole process of it.
01:58 And I really didn't have anything else in mind
02:01 of what I would do.
02:02 I would hope that I'd be somewhere in film or sound design
02:05 or something like that.
02:06 I think I always kind of leaned towards media like that.
02:09 So probably somewhere there, but this is way better.
02:13 - Yeah, what was the moment that you realized
02:15 this is no longer a hobby?
02:17 This is now my career?
02:18 - Funnily enough, it was on my way back from college one day.
02:22 My mother had picked me up and we were driving back
02:25 and she went in to get groceries
02:26 and I was sitting in the car
02:28 and I was looking at, I got like my first ever payment
02:31 from YouTube, which was like, I think it was like $50
02:36 at the time or like 50 Euro 'cause I was living in Ireland.
02:38 And I was like, whoa, I actually made something off of this.
02:41 This is cool.
02:42 Now I can buy like a decent microphone.
02:44 And it was like a couple of paychecks after that
02:47 that it started to like grow a tiny bit more.
02:49 And it was the first time I got like,
02:52 I think it was like $3,000 from YouTube.
02:54 But I was like, I can afford to live not at home anymore.
02:57 And I can afford to go out and pay rent
02:59 and live somewhere else.
03:00 And this is like a feasible job
03:02 and I can actually earn this much a month.
03:04 And I was like, I see how far it goes
03:05 and how much I can make out of this.
03:07 But at the time I was like,
03:09 I'm just gonna take it and see what happens.
03:12 - I've always wondered as somebody
03:13 who does love to game as well,
03:16 how do you decide what you're gonna do for your channel
03:18 versus what you're just gonna enjoy privately
03:20 and just do on your own time?
03:21 I mean, it's kind of weird mixing a hobby with a career.
03:24 - Yeah, it gets a bit tricky
03:25 'cause I know a lot of people who do the same stuff,
03:28 like friends of mine who do gaming
03:30 and they don't really game in their spare time anymore
03:32 because either everything goes up on YouTube
03:34 and they don't have time
03:35 or they've kind of lost that interest in gaming privately
03:39 because doing it as your job
03:41 does kind of take away from the hobby for a lot of people.
03:45 But for me, I just love games a lot.
03:47 I think I would just be playing games constantly
03:49 even if I wasn't doing them as my career.
03:51 And I think whichever ones I pick,
03:54 it used to be I just played everything
03:55 and anything because I was doing nonstop content
03:58 all the time, like five years ago.
04:00 These days, there are certain games that come out,
04:03 like an "Alan Wake 2" will come out
04:05 and I'm like, I waited 13 years for the sequel to this.
04:07 I kind of wanna keep it for myself
04:09 and not have to perform or have an audience
04:11 kind of like give feedback on it
04:13 or kind of have to think about outside influences
04:15 outside of myself.
04:16 But other things are just easy,
04:19 like a "From Software" game
04:21 or like "Elden Ring" DLC is coming out
04:23 and I wanna play that for my channel
04:24 and things like that.
04:26 It just kind of depends.
04:27 I can tell what my audience are into and what they like.
04:30 And horror games are always an easy shout for anybody.
04:34 So I just kind of pick and choose and see what happens.
04:38 - You've been on YouTube for over a decade now.
04:42 That's something you addressed in your video last week.
04:45 What are some of the most potent changes
04:48 that you have experienced over those 10 years
04:52 dealing with a platform?
04:53 I mean, I work in social media as well
04:55 and it just feels like now algorithms,
04:58 it's like we're guessing on algorithms
05:00 every couple of months
05:01 and you've got to roll with all these punches
05:03 that you don't even know what they are.
05:05 So how do you, I guess,
05:06 what have you seen in those 10 years?
05:08 - It's interesting 'cause it kind of swings back and forth
05:13 all the time.
05:14 When I started, everything was very edited
05:17 and people were trying to go from YouTube to Hollywood a lot
05:20 and there was a lot more production that people were doing
05:22 and sketch comedy was really big.
05:24 So people were definitely trying to do different things.
05:28 And then when gaming sort of took off
05:29 in my generation of doing YouTube,
05:32 I think things kind of swung in a different direction
05:34 where it was just people in their bedrooms
05:36 with very little production value
05:38 and you were just playing a game.
05:39 And sometimes for just 10 minutes at a time,
05:42 which is just, it's so crazy to think about now,
05:45 I'm uploading like "Dark Souls" that's six hours long.
05:48 And back in the day,
05:49 you would be able to upload like one episode of a game
05:52 that was 10 minutes long and then be like,
05:53 "Okay, see you tomorrow."
05:54 And people were fine with that.
05:56 So I think in terms of the production qualities,
05:59 those have skyrocketed.
06:00 There's so many more people now that do it
06:03 who start with editors,
06:04 they start with thumbnail designers.
06:06 People are more in tune with what the system is doing.
06:10 There are certain like templates
06:11 or certain things you can kind of do
06:13 to make the algorithm sort of bend
06:16 a little more towards your favor.
06:17 Whereas when I started, everything was a lot more nebulous.
06:21 The algorithm was there,
06:22 but it was just kind of hiding in the background.
06:24 You didn't really have to think about it.
06:25 If stuff clicked, it was great.
06:27 But most times everything kind of went out
06:29 to your subscribers anyway.
06:30 But nowadays everything's a bit more pick and choosy
06:34 with the way things go out.
06:35 Like I'm not sure if my content will go out
06:37 to every single subscriber.
06:39 I'm not sure if it'll be picked up by the homepage.
06:42 I'm not sure, like swearing, censors, advertising,
06:47 all of that stuff has kind of changed over the years
06:48 to make it a bit more,
06:50 I don't want to say corporate,
06:52 but it's a bit more business focused.
06:55 A lot more people now know it's a job.
06:56 They know they can get into it to make money.
06:58 Whereas when I started, I didn't really,
07:01 it was kind of on the cusp of starting
07:03 to become a job for everybody,
07:05 but it wasn't as well known as it is now.
07:07 But now kids want to be YouTubers as their main thing
07:11 when they grow up, which is really cool to see.
07:15 It's cool to be kind of at the forefront of that
07:16 back in the day and now kind of pioneering content
07:19 to bring it to new people who are now able to do it
07:22 as a full-time job and just try it out
07:24 and you don't really need much to get started.
07:27 - Yeah, and I can confess that as I sit down
07:31 and watch a YouTube video,
07:32 I'll see like six hours on the Bloodborne video
07:34 and I'll think, I'm not gonna sit here
07:36 and watch this for six hours.
07:37 And guess what?
07:38 Six hours later, I'm still watching it.
07:40 It's like a dark hole you just go into
07:44 and you're like, oh, it's been six hours.
07:46 So last week you uploaded a video
07:49 because rumors were spreading about
07:50 whether or not you were gonna retire.
07:51 And you said, I'm not retiring yet, but someday I will.
07:56 You also address a lot of your mental health struggles,
08:01 how you've kind of worked through those,
08:03 you were super transparent.
08:05 And I mean, like I said,
08:06 you've been doing this for over 10 years.
08:08 And when we talk to entrepreneurs and creators
08:10 and we ask them, what's your advice
08:13 to people coming into the career?
08:14 Typically a lot of them say,
08:16 oh, know that your career is not going to be linear.
08:19 It's going to have ups and downs, right?
08:21 And so I think it's interesting
08:23 that you're talking about this
08:24 because even 10 years down the line,
08:26 you are having a non-linear career path.
08:29 So can you talk a little bit about
08:31 how that's happened for you?
08:32 - Yeah, it's kind of weird
08:36 because there's no sort of handbook for it.
08:38 There's no training.
08:39 There's no, like I was just a guy in my bedroom
08:43 playing games for most of it.
08:45 And I didn't even really have friends outside of it.
08:47 So you kind of have to learn as you go.
08:49 And I was very fortunate that my channel grew so quickly
08:52 around like 2016-ish.
08:54 But at that same time, it got really scary
08:57 and I'm a very anxious person on a day-to-day basis
09:00 and like dealing with depression and things like that.
09:02 And kind of second guessing myself
09:04 at every turn of life in general,
09:06 not just for my content, but also with anything I do.
09:10 And then having that many eyeballs kind of put upon you
09:14 and that much feedback and that many people
09:16 kind of seeing who you are.
09:19 'Cause when I do content,
09:20 my personality and my content is kind of merged.
09:23 It's kind of the same thing.
09:24 Like my personality is the product.
09:28 There are plenty of channels that don't do that.
09:29 But for me, I didn't really have a barrier
09:31 and it was kind of hard for me to learn
09:33 how to deal with people and how to deal with that feedback.
09:36 And I would always kind of buckle and bend
09:38 to whatever social media was saying
09:40 or what people in the comments were saying
09:42 and believe everything that people were saying about me.
09:45 'Cause I'm like, well, you're seeing a version of me
09:46 and I don't know what I'm like.
09:47 So it was a lot of learning in that front.
09:50 And I think the older I got,
09:51 the better I got of kind of putting up my walls
09:53 and putting up my boundaries and saying like,
09:55 hey, this is not okay.
09:56 We can still have fun,
09:57 but you're not allowed to encroach upon my personal space
09:59 and my personal life.
10:01 And thankfully the audience got very responsive to that.
10:05 They were very positive about that.
10:06 And I think nowadays it's a lot more normalized
10:09 that yeah, don't go poking into people's private lives
10:12 when you see them online.
10:14 Just because you see them every day
10:15 doesn't mean you actually know them.
10:18 But I think in that learning curve,
10:20 it was very tricky for me 'cause I,
10:23 I don't know, I overthink everything I'm doing.
10:25 I second guess everything I'm doing.
10:26 So to try and navigate that at the same time
10:29 was quite tricky.
10:30 And I think it's kind of interesting
10:32 that if anybody was doing a job for 10 years,
10:36 you'd be surprised by it.
10:37 Like anybody doing the exact same job for 10 years,
10:40 there's no like promotions or demotions or anything.
10:43 I'm my own boss, I can do whatever I want.
10:45 So I think it's also difficult to figure out
10:47 how to navigate away from that
10:49 to keep your creativity flowing.
10:50 And that's why I was attracted to this job
10:52 in the first place.
10:53 So that's why I'm doing things like coffee,
10:55 coffee, coffee books, comic books and coffee
10:59 at the same time.
11:00 And just trying to like flex my creative muscles
11:03 in a different way
11:04 and try not to get bored with what I'm doing.
11:06 I think when you start getting complacent with it,
11:09 the creativity kind of goes
11:10 and you start getting exhausted by just regular stuff.
11:13 So I'm trying to avoid that.
11:15 But yeah, it's been,
11:17 some people are able to power through it.
11:18 I don't think I have that personality type.
11:20 I do one thing and I try and do that well.
11:23 I'm very bad at splitting my attention
11:26 across multiple different things
11:27 and doing them all incredibly.
11:29 So that's why I've said that
11:31 I probably have like two years left in me
11:33 where I'm like, I've been doing this a long time
11:34 the exact same way.
11:36 I'll change it somehow.
11:37 I'll try something different.
11:38 I'll go in a different direction.
11:40 I'll always be creative and bring the audience with me.
11:42 But the way I do it right now, I'm like,
11:44 I'm pretty sure I've done about as much as I can
11:46 with the type of content that I do right now,
11:49 at least for me personally.
11:50 - Yeah, I think what's interesting there
11:52 is that you said,
11:53 we'd be surprised if we saw anybody
11:55 in this career field for 10 years,
11:57 especially in our current job market, right?
12:00 Like we're flipping as somebody who works for a company,
12:05 we're flipping jobs two to three years.
12:07 You know, that's common.
12:08 10 years is a dedication.
12:10 And I appreciate you bringing out
12:12 that kind of two year mark that you have in your head
12:14 'cause you said that in the video as well.
12:17 But you said it was pretty close to retirement
12:19 when you sent out that tweet
12:21 about being interested in retiring.
12:23 So what kind of pulled you back from that little edge?
12:27 - I think because it's easy to be like,
12:30 I'm kind of tired of the way I'm doing things now.
12:33 And it's easy to just be like,
12:34 I'll go do something else and not upload anymore.
12:37 But I kept thinking about it.
12:39 I'm like, well, I don't really wanna
12:40 just leave the audience.
12:41 I don't wanna abandon people.
12:42 And I don't want to,
12:43 like I still enjoy it,
12:46 but it was me trying to figure out how to enjoy it again,
12:49 because I had just gotten so,
12:51 it got so repetitive and it was easy
12:54 to just sit down and record a let's play
12:56 and just pick a game and go.
12:57 But I didn't really want it to be that way anymore.
12:59 I didn't want it to be monotonous and just by the numbers.
13:02 So I think just taking a step back,
13:05 realizing what I wanted to do,
13:06 which was just longer content,
13:09 played the types of games that I like,
13:11 like Dark Souls and Bloodborne and Elden Ring,
13:13 and really focus on the things
13:15 that kind of filled my creative well a bit more.
13:18 Instead of just being like,
13:20 like throwing my hands in the air
13:21 and walking home with my ball,
13:23 like just actually give it another shot
13:25 and figure out what else I wanna do with it
13:28 and keep the audience engaged and excited.
13:30 And I have so many other things going on at the same time
13:33 that it was hard for me to still break that mentality
13:37 of like, okay, every single day,
13:38 every day a video, every day a game.
13:41 And that goes all the way back to when I started,
13:43 which was two videos every day.
13:44 And then it went down to one video every day.
13:47 And now it's one video whenever I can,
13:50 'cause I have so many other plates
13:52 that I'm spinning at the same time.
13:53 So I think just giving myself a bit of slack
13:56 instead of, I have a very all or nothing personality,
13:59 which my therapist loves pointing out to me,
14:02 that I either go 100% on something or 0%.
14:05 And I'm trying to kind of like change that
14:08 and realize that it doesn't have to be
14:09 all or nothing all the time.
14:11 - Yeah, and you talk about those spinning plates.
14:13 I wanna transition quickly to your coffee business.
14:18 I mean, top of the morning coffee,
14:21 if anybody watches you,
14:22 they know you intro your videos with top of the morning.
14:25 And so, I mean, it's a natural,
14:28 it was a perfect name for a coffee company.
14:31 So when you talk about it, it makes sense.
14:32 But tell me a little bit about
14:34 why you got interested in that
14:35 and how that transition from going from a creator
14:39 to now creating a business in coffee.
14:42 - Yeah, I just wanted to do something that wasn't,
14:47 like everybody at the time was doing merch
14:49 and doing clothing and doing different things like that.
14:52 And I was like, there's other avenues that we can go down.
14:55 And I always loved coffee.
14:58 It's weird 'cause Alan Wake was the reason
14:59 I started drinking coffee in the first place,
15:01 the first game.
15:02 And now Alan Wake 2 is out
15:04 and I got to hang out with the creator of it
15:06 and drink coffee with him.
15:07 So it came full circle,
15:08 but I always just kind of loved coffee in general.
15:11 I liked drinking it.
15:12 I just loved everything about it.
15:14 I loved learning about it.
15:15 And then as soon as I came up with the name,
15:18 me and my manager were sitting down at VidCon,
15:20 at the last one I was at actually,
15:22 and I thought of the name, top of the morning coffee,
15:25 and it just clicked in my head.
15:26 I was like, that's the most perfect name for coffee.
15:28 And I don't, I did a quick Google search
15:30 and couldn't find any.
15:32 And then we went off and we searched like trademarks
15:34 and copyrights and everything.
15:34 It was like, no one has claimed this.
15:36 Why hasn't anybody claimed this?
15:37 And I, it just seemed so perfect
15:39 that everything sort of fell in place.
15:41 And then learning how coffee was made
15:43 and learning, like doing the taste tests
15:45 for different things was really fun to do.
15:47 So it was just a fun endeavor for me.
15:50 And I thought we can at least do something
15:53 that like we're not gonna be in debt to.
15:57 But I like being able to do something that was just,
16:01 it was something I hadn't done.
16:02 It was a space that I wasn't in.
16:03 I didn't see any other YouTubers kind of do
16:05 bigger companies like this instead of just,
16:09 hey, I played a game, here's a catchphrase from that
16:11 on a t-shirt, which was fine for the time.
16:13 But I just wanted to do a bit more
16:15 and try it out and see how it went.
16:17 And thankfully it's been very successful.
16:18 So I'm very happy that people enjoy coffee.
16:22 - It's more than the coffee too, right?
16:24 You've got the sustainability aspect
16:26 and you've got the mental health aspect.
16:28 And so kind of talk me through how you made
16:31 a holistic approach to your business plan.
16:34 - It was just kind of looking at,
16:37 I've always sort of had people in mind
16:39 whenever I do anything.
16:40 I was always good at sort of empathizing with my audience.
16:43 And when I would go out on tour,
16:44 you'd see so many different walks of life
16:46 or at a convention.
16:47 So I was always very well aware of my audience,
16:50 who they were, sort of age groups
16:53 and knowing what it was like to be a viewer of YouTube
16:57 and kind of be in a hole in my life
17:00 and not really have anything else going on.
17:02 And I didn't know where to go or what to do.
17:04 I always just kind of think about those things.
17:07 And when I make anything, I'm like,
17:09 well, I'm not gonna make something
17:10 just to turn a profit really quickly
17:12 and pull the wool over people's eyes
17:13 and try and do something that I myself wouldn't support.
17:18 So it's the same with any sort of brand deals I do.
17:20 I always manage to pick things that I believe in
17:23 or that I would use or that I would do myself.
17:27 So with coffee, I wanted it to be the same way.
17:30 I wanted to make sure that I was still aware
17:32 of people's mental health,
17:33 that we had a charitable aspect to it that we gave back to.
17:36 And it wasn't all just take for me all the time.
17:40 And when it comes to making coffee
17:42 and getting people into coffee,
17:44 it kind of felt like the coffee industry itself was a bit,
17:48 it was a bit kind of elitist.
17:50 Like a lot of coffee stuff is very like,
17:52 you need the fanciest equipment
17:53 and you need the best coffee and the tasting notes of coffee.
17:57 You need to know what you're doing.
17:58 And I'm like, it doesn't need to be that complicated.
17:59 Like we can make really good coffee
18:02 and get it in people's hands
18:03 without having to have all the fluff around of it.
18:06 So that was really important to me
18:08 whenever we were making it
18:10 'cause other people saw me talk about coffee.
18:12 And then they were like, I wanna get into coffee.
18:13 What do I do?
18:14 So I was like, let's bridge that gap.
18:16 People who don't really know coffee or don't drink it,
18:18 maybe we can get you some really, really good coffee
18:21 and put that in your hands
18:22 and hopefully create some people
18:24 who keep wanting coffee all the time.
18:27 - Well, I've been a journalist for over 10 years now
18:31 and I still don't drink coffee.
18:32 So maybe I need to give yours a shot.
18:34 Maybe that's the-
18:35 - I don't know how that's possible,
18:37 how you can wake up and not drink coffee in the morning.
18:39 - No, I have a cat that wakes me up instead.
18:42 - So transitioning now to your other business venture,
18:46 when Forbes spoke to you about a year ago,
18:48 you said that you'd be interested
18:50 in starting a comic book series.
18:52 Here we are a year later,
18:53 you've got your own comic book series.
18:55 What, and in your last video,
18:57 you even talked about wanting to write a novel.
18:58 So what interests you in the publishing world
19:02 that you feel like your creative cup will be filled there?
19:06 - I don't know, it's just cool.
19:08 I mean, look at them, they're awesome.
19:09 - They're great art.
19:12 - They are too.
19:13 They, I like stories.
19:15 I think that's why I'm always attracted to video games.
19:17 I like the worlds, I like the world building.
19:19 I like the lore, the characters.
19:21 I'm a huge fan of "Lost."
19:24 That was my favorite TV show.
19:25 That was my Roman empire when I was growing up.
19:28 So I always liked making stuff
19:30 that got people talking and theorizing.
19:32 And I was kind of doing that in my videos
19:34 with different characters that the audience
19:36 had kind of taken a liking to
19:38 and kind of developed themselves
19:39 and just legitimizing those
19:41 and creating the world.
19:43 People had been so hungry for like official story
19:45 and official lore of what was going on
19:47 with these characters.
19:48 So kind of putting my stamp on it to be like,
19:50 this is where they started
19:51 and this is where they're going
19:52 and seeing the characters interact with each other
19:55 is a very big goal of mine.
19:56 And it's just, again, it's like the coffee
19:59 where it's something that I've always wanted to do
20:01 but never really took the step to do.
20:03 And it always seemed kind of intimidating
20:06 but now it's just kind of a fun playground to jump into.
20:09 And kind of, I just like creating stories
20:12 and worlds for people to get lost in
20:13 because that's what I enjoy the most.
20:16 - So give us a little teaser.
20:18 If you wrote a novel, like what would be the concept?
20:22 Would it be totally different
20:23 from what you're writing with the comic books
20:25 or would it be on the same track?
20:26 Or what are you thinking?
20:28 - I think, 'cause I'm a big fan of sci-fi and fantasy.
20:32 I think those are like my two favorite genres.
20:35 I think the comic books and the stories we're doing,
20:39 they're kind of more leaning towards sci-fi.
20:43 I think if I was to write a novel,
20:44 I think it would probably be a fantasy thing.
20:47 I'm just a big fan of like "Lord of the Rings",
20:50 "Dark Souls", "Shadow of the Colossus".
20:52 All of those things have such big, rich worlds.
20:55 I've been reading Brandon Sanderson's
20:56 "Stormlight Archive" right now.
20:58 So I just, I'm a big fantasy nerd in general.
21:01 So I just like that, like "Warhammer 40K",
21:06 like the universe is there.
21:08 It's cool to be able to create worlds
21:10 and have people sort of get lost in them.
21:12 And if it goes nowhere, that's fine,
21:13 'cause I'm lucky enough that I get to try stuff out.
21:17 There's an audience there to kind of test stuff
21:20 and we can all just kind of have fun together
21:22 and not have to worry about it.
21:24 - Yeah, I mean, obviously I'm in the Dune world right now.
21:27 So I totally get what you're talking about.
21:29 It's so immersive.
21:31 So tell us what's next for you.
21:34 What's on your radar next?
21:35 What can your fans, your subscribers, followers
21:37 see from you coming up in the next six to 12 months?
21:41 - A lot more FromSoft games on my channel,
21:44 'cause I have to get through every single one of them
21:46 in one video at some point.
21:48 That is my mission for the end of the year.
21:50 Other than that, I think we have a lot
21:54 of coffee stuff coming out.
21:55 We have a lot of new flavors.
21:56 We have decaf coming out.
21:58 We have matcha that we're testing.
22:00 So we're always kind of like pushing the boat out with that
22:03 while people want, kind of teasing them
22:04 with different limited flavors.
22:06 If they like them, then we can bring them back.
22:08 And in terms of this,
22:10 we have a lot more story to tell in the comic books.
22:14 I have other stories in that universe that I wanna tell.
22:18 I would love to be able to make some sort of animated show
22:20 or TV show based on these characters
22:22 at some point in the future.
22:24 And I have other stuff that's secret,
22:26 and I hate when YouTubers do this,
22:27 because we always have like, "Oh, soon, TM."
22:31 Like I have something that I'm working on,
22:32 but I can't talk about it.
22:34 But if they do go ahead, it'd be very exciting
22:37 for what I get to do in the future.
22:39 And I think that's, I'm kind of like setting up
22:41 the building blocks of creative projects that I get to do
22:44 so people can follow me in a lot of different paths
22:47 if they want to.
22:48 - That's awesome.
22:50 Now, before I let you go,
22:51 I wanna go through some rapid fire questions.
22:54 Are you ready?
22:56 - Always.
22:58 - Okay, what was your morning coffee order today?
23:01 - A skim milk latte.
23:04 - What is something you will always splurge your money on?
23:07 - Something got to do with my pillows or my mattress.
23:12 - Well, you do spend like a third of your life
23:14 on those things.
23:15 - Yeah, exactly.
23:16 And I'm old.
23:17 - What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?
23:20 - My inner happiness should come from me
23:29 and not from external sources,
23:30 because those are variable and can change
23:33 and inner happiness is the most sustainable form.
23:36 - Excellent.
23:37 Who's someone you want to collaborate with
23:39 that you haven't yet?
23:40 - Ooh, that I haven't yet?
23:43 Oh God, that's a very good question.
23:46 Hidetaka Miyazaki from FromSoft.
23:54 It'll never, ever, ever happen,
23:56 but if there was ever somebody, it would be him.
23:58 - This is the ask right now.
24:00 What's your favorite Tillis Art game?
24:02 - The one where you're a coffee barista.
24:06 I can't remember the name of it,
24:07 but I feel like that was the best accumulation
24:11 of what they do.
24:12 - Yes.
24:13 Bloodborne is your favorite game.
24:15 I'm a gamer as well.
24:16 Sell it to me in three words.
24:18 - He'll moon God.
24:25 (both laughing)
24:28 - Say less, say less.
24:29 Hey, thank you so much, Sean, for your time.
24:31 We appreciate you coming on today.
24:33 - Thank you, I appreciate it.
24:34 Thanks so much.
24:35 (upbeat music)
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