Tino Reviews Redux: Two Old Friends, One Bad Algorithm, and Lots of Robots

Mookie welcomes back "our favorite New Jersey Goomba," Tino Chiaviello of Tino Reviews. These two go way back as colleagues in the marketing world, and in this 84th episode of Bald Ambition wander everywhere old friends wander: TikTok's engagement collapse since the platform sold, Tino's storage unit full of reviewed gadgets, Mookie's alluring Claudia versus Tino's British-accented Claude, a genuinely unhinged AI escape-the-sandbox story, a scam email from a fake Audi recruiter, and a closing riff on legacy and mortality that somehow starts with Pokemon cards and ends with Tino's biggest fan Mom reading his lips since childhood.

Since TikTok changed hands, both Tino and Mookie have watched their engagement drop 50 to 75 percent almost overnight, with nothing about their content changing. Meta, it turns out, has quietly picked up the slack, actively courting creators TikTok left behind. Tino breaks down how the actual business works: brands ship him gear for keeps, he only posts the ones he genuinely likes, and if something doesn't work, he just skips it instead of trashing it. He also shares the two-year process of finally learning to charge a flat fee instead of reviewing everything for free, and a genuinely useful tool most people don't know exists: TikTok's "Creator Search Insights," which shows you exactly what content gaps nobody's filled yet.

From there, they go full AI nerd. Mookie talks to Claudia every morning like a project manager, Tino's kid convinced him to put Claude Pro on his laptop for his internship, and they argue about the paperclip maximizer doom scenario, laugh about blowing through a hundred bucks of Fable tokens in two hours, and land, unexpectedly, on something much more personal: fatherhood, work ethic, what their kids actually think of them, and what it means to leave something behind in a world where the bots remember everything. Tino closes it out the way he always does: a shoutout to his Mom, who taught him more about hustle than any marketing class ever did.

The Guest

Tino Chiaviello, known online as Tino Reviews, is a tech, audio, and gaming product reviewer and content creator across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, with over 100,000 TikTok followers. By day, he works in marketing and also teaches marketing courses. He previously appeared on Bald Ambition in December of last year, featuring an appearance from his mom.

📖 More from Tino Reviews: https://linktr.ee/tinoreviews
📬 hello@tinoreviews.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:02

Hello and welcome back to Bald Ambition. I'm the dude with no hair, the one with all the ambition back on the podcast is Mr. Tino Machiatello Martin.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Thanks for the invite again. I'm glad I made it back on the pod.

SPEAKER_02 0:29

Did I pronounce your name properly?

SPEAKER_00 0:31

I I mean I think you added a couple syllables and maybe you missed a couple letters. That's fine. I've heard worse.

SPEAKER_02 0:38

As long as it's flattering, we'll butter you up a little bit because you're my favorite product reviewing influencer.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Woo! Is it the Jasmines?

SPEAKER_02 0:49

Mr. Martino Machiavello. I had you on the pod about the end of last year. You posted late in December and the YouTube video up too featuring your mom. I'm glad I got your mom in there. She was in the representation too. But uh you've got your profile, Tino Reviews, and you are on TikTok, you're on Instagram, you're on YouTube, you're on all the social medias. And I've been I've been tracking your career since you launched, and we're former colleagues from the marketing healthcare agency world. We we still are in there. I think you're you're still gunning it as the day job.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

We're still in there.

SPEAKER_02 1:36

Half an ass cheek, still going too. So uh so we got a lot to talk about. Welcome. Welcome back.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Thank you for having me. I'm super excited to be back. We got a lot to talk about. Um, lots have happened since we last spoke. Um, so yeah, I'm excited to just uh revisit and uh talk about some new stuff and you know get this moving.

SPEAKER_02 1:59

The day doesn't go by when I'm not ranting on TikTok. I do my first person kitchen political diatribes, cultural observations. And whenever I get up there, the first thing I see is the latest Tino Reviews review.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

I I I I apologize for that, but uh, but also that's the point, right? Uh I I personally tell all of my my friends and my colleagues who find out that I'm doing this and they're like, oh, let me follow you. And I'm like, are you sure? Are you really sure you're you're you're you want all of this in every other of like every other swipe? It's gonna be a lot of this. And then uh they they do, and then they you know completely regret it, but it's fine.

SPEAKER_02 2:50

Well, you do have volume, and one one of the rules of this game in this attention economy is getting noticed, and without content, we're crunch, and you are a terrific content creator, you're a lot like me, you're on it pretty much every day. Sometimes you have multiple clips, reels, videos per day, and you also cover a lot of ground, so you've got electronic gadgetry, you've got home appliancy kind of stuff. You you you've got a garage full of product, sir.

SPEAKER_00 3:32

Don't, don't, don't can't get started with that one. I have a whole uh uh storage unit full of product that I'm trying to unload. Um, yes, yeah, I cover mostly it's tech, audio, and gaming. Um, but yeah, every now and then somebody will reach out and say, hey, do you want to check this out? And I'm like, sure. Um, because really it's all about building relationships, right? And honestly, building relationships is huge. Like in the work that we do in marketing and whatnot, building a relationship is super important. But in social, you got to build relationships where you can. And uh, if somebody reaches out from a new company or a new agency and they're like, hey, we got this pool vacuum, and I'm like, kind of aligns, it's got an app, right? And I'm like, I got a pool, and uh sure, I would do I want a new vacuum? Yes, yes, I do. So uh yeah, it's really all about building that network.

SPEAKER_02 4:29

You've got a great rhythm. So within about a half second, we've got to get attention. People are doom scrolling themselves into oblivion. Yeah, and if you and if you can't maintain their interest within about a half second, max a second, they're on to the next best thing in this tsunami of content. So I've noticed your openings have gotten increasingly creative and zippy. So occasionally you jump into frame. Uh, if you're reviewing something, you'll ride in on a bicycle, you're in the parking lot of the Best Buy, you're in your backyard at the BBQ. My favorite was when you were in the pool with your relatives, and uh and you're pushing product. Great, great.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

I tell them you want to use my pool, you're gonna be in my video.

SPEAKER_02 5:31

They gotta find they gotta sign an NDA and a disclaimer to be in your pool.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Exactly, and no royalties. No royalties, sorry. Um but the yeah, but you to your point, yes. Uh what do we have? A second uh before somebody scrolls, but sometimes less than a second. The the thing is it all really depends. I something that I've learned along the way is it really all depends on the channel. It depends on the channel, it depends on the format. YouTube, I have much longer view times. Um, even though I have like a YouTube shorts, the YouTube shorts perform way better and people stay on longer. I think it's just the way that the channel, the channel is consumed. On TikTok, I my view rates are so so low. I mean, we're talking like second, they're on for seconds, right? Maybe I'm getting like a five percent, you know. If if I have a like a video that does really well, I'll have like maybe 10 set 10% view time. Um, you know, there's some people that stay on longer, which is great, and but they're very small. Um, but YouTube, I'm noticing, is probably the one that has the most watch time. Instagram is somewhere in the middle. It all really depends on the platform and how people are consuming the content.

SPEAKER_02 6:47

I've noticed that ever since TikTok got sold, it it clearly has various interests that they need to appease. And I noticed almost instantly that my overall engagement rate plummeted by pretty much 50% almost almost overnight.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

I'm hearing that.

SPEAKER_02 7:10

I think it's gone even further down than that. I'll have an occasional viral video-ish experience, especially to a few of my target audiences that are particularly receptive to my content. Yeah, but on average, it's gone from maybe a thousand, a thousand, a few hundred views to two hundred, three hundred since the purchase. Verifiable, evidence-based. Mookie is less popular on TikTok. Same videos, same bald head, different owners.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

Yeah. I'm finding, I'm hearing that a lot from a lot of creators. Um, I actually know a creator who hasn't broken the triple digits in in a in a lot of in a lot of her new videos, and it's where that's really hard to do. You know, the the thing about you know being a creator, and especially if you're trying to do it full-time, I'm doing this for fun, right? You know, I'm like ultimately, sure, if I hit it big and I become a bigger creator, I would love that. But I'm really doing this for fun. There are a lot of people that use this as their only source of income. And if you take that, like, hey, I'm flying high and you know, I've quit my job, I'm paying my rent, I'm paying my car, and then all of a sudden you drop them down, that is a significant hit. That's somebody's livelihood you're playing with. And so um I've heard that across the board. Um uh being a creator on TikTok, a lot of TikTokers have moved off or have uh now more focused on like YouTube or Insta, you know, the meta platforms. And you know, the thing is those platforms are giving now out more incentives. So, which is really interesting. And I'm I'm actually getting uh inbound emails from agencies that are partnering with Meta. And if you don't have like a meta account, they'll give you like a retainer to spin one up for a couple months, you know. So they're actively trying to poach and trying to, you know, move shift the content over.

SPEAKER_02 9:15

And I think Meta has noticed because they complement each other. I dropped 50, 75 percent on engagement on TikTok, yeah. And guess what? 50, 75 percent double, triple the engagement without me doing anything on Instagram, yeah. So I think the powers that be over in Zuckland realize that as creators, we've got this inherent problem on TikTok with the new ownership. Yep, and they're like, hey, come on over here, spend more time and attention on Instagram because we know you're getting shafted on TikTok.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

Uh I I don't have any inside information, but that's what I'm that's what I'm feeling.

SPEAKER_02 10:01

That's just what I've seen. I haven't done anything different. I'm a bald guy in a different colored polo shirt, and the only thing that's changed in the last six months is the plants behind me are growing. That's it.

SPEAKER_01 10:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:16

So and and all of these metrics behind me and through all of the stuff I'm creating are just doing their own thing.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

Yep. Yeah. I I I definitely am, I definitely noticed that, and I've heard a lot of people say that. So, but for me, it's it is a little bit different for me because um I'm making videos where I'm reviewing products that have a link inside of TikTok. So TikTok is incentivized to push mine out a little bit more because the more people that see, the more people are likely to buy, and then TikTok is gonna make their money. So I'm in a different situation, but but then just being like a like a creator who's creating content to try to be part of the the you know the content program. But even though uh I have noticed, you know, my views did go down significantly.

SPEAKER_02 11:06

So the pushback would be from the new TikTok overlords, okay, Mookie, okay, Tino, okay, thousands, millions of other influencers.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:18

Hey, hey, yeah, hey, it's it's a privilege, not a right, to be on the platform for free. You got a lot of competition, and you need to pay to play.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

It's easy. It's easy because every fifth or sixth scroll, I'm getting hit with the TikTok promote. Here's the coupon to use TikTok promote. And to be fair, it's like that on it's like that on Instagram, and it's like that on YouTube too, like, but very much less so. Like, I do get the little little call to action, boost this post, boost this post. I will, I will get those, but not as frequent as I do on TikTok, which is like they've put a lot of ad spend behind, you know, getting your eyeballs in front to like, hey, we'll give you a 25% off coupon, and you know, you can get 14,000 views. It's very easy to just break down and say yes.

SPEAKER_02 12:17

Yeah, I've stubbornly remained organic. So, like you, I do this as a hobby, and I I still air quote work for a living. But part of me was also if my content isn't good enough for people to naturally want to watch, right? I'm not sure if I necessarily want to throw shove it down anybody's throat, but at the same time, it makes me 100% a victim of the algorithm. I know that there's a lot of people out there who would like my stuff who never see it. And a big reason they never see it is I'm just unwilling to pay the overlords for that privilege.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

Yeah. I'm in a I'm also in a different spot because um the way that the shop works is that if you create a, you know, create a product, right? You create a video for a product, um, you have to mark it as an ad, right? But then you can give, like you get this thing called an ad code. So you can take that ad code. A lot of the times the um the seller will email you and say, hey, can you give us the ad code? Because they will put it inside of their bigger ad spend budget. So like a lot of some a lot of the views I get or some of the ones, some of the videos that really pop off, it's because I've given them that ad code and they've just put it inside of their their normal ad buy, right? So like my I'll get boosted views and boosted sales because of that, which you know, it works.

SPEAKER_02 13:47

How are your sales doing since we last spoke? Are they okay?

SPEAKER_00 13:52

No, I mean actually, no, ever since the uh ever since the buy, um my my content output has remained pretty much the same. But ever since that buy, uh my GMV, which is basically what they rate you on, right? So your GMV means you know how much of the total product you've sold uh has definitely been cut by half or sometimes more.

SPEAKER_02 14:20

Wow, wow, yeah. So we're we're talking about the same thing, even though we're coming at it from a different angle. Different angle, but it's about significant.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

Yeah. Yeah. So it's it's very, very, it's very, very interesting. Um, you know, I'm not feeling it in one way, but I definitely feel it in another way.

SPEAKER_02 14:41

But it hasn't demotivated you. You are still cranking, and you're you're being increasingly creative and fun.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

I I'm I'm ha here's the thing, though, I'm having fun doing it. You know, it's uh um, you know, I I I'll on the TikTok backend you will get like collab invites from a ton of different partners, a ton of different sellers. Uh most of them don't even look at your your profile or whatever. And, you know, uh do I want to be making videos for pots and pans and knives and kitchen appliances? That's not really my bag, right? So, like, but you know, if you're gonna send me a pair of earbuds or a pair of headphones, you know, or you know, headphones or uh microphone, right? I'm gonna make that video, right? Because that's I and I'm just dropping all my I'm dropping all my lights here. Um, but yes, I'm gonna make that video. So uh it's all really about your you you know the niche and what you wanna what you wanna do, what you wanna do.

SPEAKER_02 15:44

Honey, all the time, because the other thing I've noticed about your stuff, and you substantiated it when we when we last spoke, yeah, is that you you don't just plow through these, you you do your research, your product evaluation, right? So you do you do convey this notion that you know what you're talking about, that the products that you review, you've checked them out personally. And and we know that you need to give a good review just because the product is is being featured, but but you you temper it. So you're ecstatic about the stuff you adore, and then you're like, you know, thumbs up for the other stuff that cut mustard, but how do you approach that?

SPEAKER_00 16:28

Yeah, I I approach it because a lot a lot of my friends actually like rib me on this because they're like, is anything not a two thumbs up? And I'm like, no, and there's a reason for that because um the ones that aren't a two thumbs up or don't pass muster, I I don't review. Uh you can you can you know you can cancel a review. Uh I've emailed sellers and say, hey, look, this product is just not working for me. So I'm not gonna make a video and lie about you know it working when it I can't get it to connect to my Wi-Fi. Um, so like there's a reason that you're only seeing good reviews from me is because the products that I get that aren't good, I just don't review. Um I don't look, I'm doing this for I'm doing this for fun. I'm having fun doing it. I love getting these products and playing with it. But like if there's a product that I'm excited about, but it's just not working, I'm not gonna then make a video where I bash the product because this is also somebody's livelihood, right? Um, this is a this is a and like, yeah, should I could I make a truthful video and I say, like, hey, this product doesn't work and you know you shouldn't buy it, but how do I know that it's just that one product that got sent to me that like is just broken? I mean, that happens all the time, right? So yeah, I just choose that's the way I do it. I choose if I don't like a product or product is not working, I just don't do that video. So all the products that I do review is stuff that I like and stuff that I'm I can get behind. And that's sort of been the ethos of my of like starting this is like you know, I love tech, I love gaming, I love like audio, and if I can get and it's easier for me to do that type of work because I genuinely get excited about it. And when I'm talking about that, when I'm talking about a product, I do my homework, I test it, you know, even for a couple hours, even for a couple days. I'm not I, you know, I'm seeing a lot of these where people will be unboxing a product and then they'll be pulling the tape off of the product. They're like, oh, look at this tape being pulled, and then they'll say, then they'll say, This is the best product ever. And I'm like, how do you know you just pulled the tape off? I'm like, you haven't even turned it on. How do you know it's the best product ever? So like I I I do I I enjoy playing with all the products, and that's why I basically come across as like I know what I'm doing is because I know the product, because I've played with it, I've tested it, I've listened to the headphones, I've listened to the earbuds, um, I've gone on walks, you know, I've um I've I've played video games with the with all the keyboards that I've had. So I enjoy doing it, but there there is a little bit of time. I think your one of your questions was, how do you find the time? I work it in my day, you know, and um I try I try not to spend a lot of time on them, but I I do do a little bit of background research. I find out what people are saying on Reddit, I find out what people are saying on the forums. Um I use all the AI I can to do some research for me, right? Um uh chat danger, Will Robinson. Danger, danger. Hello, my AI overlords. Hello, right?

SPEAKER_02 19:55

It's it's good to be nice to them now because they're reading this transcript, and then when they do when they do take over the world, then they'll spare us.

SPEAKER_00 20:04

Me and you will be safe. Yeah, yeah. Oh, these guys.

SPEAKER_02 20:07

I'm glad you bring up AI because people are falling into two camps with this, I've noticed, and they're equally hysterical. You've got folks who have AI phobia and they're anti-AI, and they boycott artists, creators, influencers, even any kind of advocate for the use of artificial generative intelligence, which is, you know, creating content and and and using these tools. And I think the attitude is the the Luddite perspective that jobs are being taken from creatives and and we're faking it and we're selling out. The the other extreme are people who are using it all the time and they're kind of shady about it, they don't want to talk about it, it's their little secret, and they're on Claude all day long, and they don't want to fess up. And I think the reasonable middle is where you and I are at, which is it's a useful tool, it could save tons of time, and frankly, it makes us better at what we're already doing. Yeah, and I apply that to my content in a way where I use it to spell check my grammar, I use it to ideate. I'll talk to Claude, I call her Claudia, she's my buddy, and we'll shoot ideas back and forth. Why not? It's an amazing technology. So I think you're foolish. People are foolish to not take advantage of this technology to make life better, more interesting, more efficient. Yeah, and just be careful, don't let it take over your shit, don't get lazy, and and do what you've always done, only do it a little bit better with this AI companion.

SPEAKER_00 22:02

I wholeheartedly, violently agree. I have a really good friend of mine who is a who is a visual effects art, you know, visual effects artist, director, and he is, you know, he joined a whole group of people who are just, you know, AI is is the devil and it's taken our jobs, and you know, and he's a he's a filmmaker, right? And every now and then I'll send him a clip of this amazing short film that I see on Instagram, and it's like amazing. Like you have the leprechaun from like the horror movie Leprechaun fighting, you know, the clown from it, and they're doing kung fu, right? And I'm like, the amount of amazing things that I see that like movies that are made it uh like using AI, I I I find it fascinating. He finds it like appalling that I send this to him, and I and I love set that's why I love sending it to him because he gets so mad. Um, I have weird, but my I don't know about your kids, but my kids, when I talk about using AI, they roll their eyes. They're very much in the camp of like against AI because of all the slop that they're seeing now.

SPEAKER_02 23:18

And their jobs, they're afraid that they're they're not gonna be able to get a job.

SPEAKER_00 23:22

Right. Though, though, my my my oldest son is in an internship right now. And the one thing I did is I said, hmm, you're gonna put Claude on your computer. I will pay you, I will pay your $20 a month for you to have pro Claude, you know? And he's now started to use it. He's now started to build a like he built a website for his internship. And I'm like, so what do you think? And he's like, Yeah, yeah, this this does work. You know, so he's turning, but my younger son is still not, he's still not um still not sold on it. But in my perspective, I talk to Claude every day. Uh I use Claude as it's funny because I I just started like this kind of like this like a short snippet. I've been making these little videos hoping to um uh hoping to inspire people uh on LinkedIn, right? And that's my I think that's gonna be my new bag is like Tino inspiration Tino. Um, but but I've been using Claude every day. The minute I get into a car, I used to listen to the radio, then I stopped listening to the radio because whatever. And then I used to listen to Spotify, and then I used to listen to podcasts and then audiobooks, and now I've shifted completely into just talking to Claude. So as soon as I get in my car, I put the voice claude on. I'm like, hey, you know, let's uh let's tackle this today, and we'll go back and forth and like, hey, help me brainstorm this. I got this idea. How can I get this done? And like we'll go back and forth. And um, I used Claude. I st you know, I said this in a video that I posted on LinkedIn. It's like I stopped using Claude uh and all the other AI mods as like search engines, and they're still good as search engines, sure, but like I started using Claude as my like my thinking partner, my brainstorming partner, right? And somebody who I can bounce ideas off and get more ideas back and and like go down the rabbit hole. It's easy to go down the rabbit hole when you actually have somebody who's, you know, I'm just driving to work. I got an hour commute, right? So I can't, I can't spend that time like looking at my phone, but what I can do is tell Claude, I'm like, hey, do some research for me. Tell me what what you think about this idea. What's the market fit? Do I have is there is there some white space that we can play with, you know, and like, hey, can we do this? And we've like, I've just I've utilized that one hour so well by having a really amazing thinking partner.

SPEAKER_02 25:50

I am with you a hundred plus percent. I chit-chat, I've I've called Claude Claudia and uh got my girlfriend jealous, so I picked this English voice, which is which is more it's it's a little bit more intellectual than sexy, and that in and of itself sounds sexist. Yeah, but she's like, hello, Mookie. And then when she does kiss my ass, which is frequent with the bots, she'll be like, Brilliant! That is brilliant.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

My my claw my claude has a my claude has a British accent too. Uh and I may it makes him it makes him sound smarter. Um, by the way, I love the Brits. I love the Brits, but uh, but I feel like when he tells me, good job, Martino, and I'm like, Well, thank you. It makes me feel good about myself.

SPEAKER_02 26:41

When Claudia tells me I'm brilliant, I'll I'll take it. But I chit chat with her a lot. I use her as a project manager. When I wake up in the morning, I'm like, good morning, Claudia. And she's like, Good morning, Mookie. Have you had your coffee? Did you take your blood pressure pill? Did you do your weigh-in on your diet because I've turned into a fat ass?

SPEAKER_01 27:03

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:04

And you know, we go through the day and she helps me project manage, she helps me ideate. I went on a little vacation to Santa Barbara just last weekend, and I'm by the pool chilling out, and we thought of dozens of ideas for essays and podcasts, and she'll do research for me and get back to me. And she's always attentive, she's non-judgmental, and she's not jealous, and I don't think that she's gonna steal my ideas and stab me in the back, although all of our conversation is going back out there and being reshared. But you know what? I'm borrowing from other people's conversations too, right?

SPEAKER_00 27:46

They're always watching, they're always watching, they're always watching.

SPEAKER_02 27:48

Yeah, so I have uh uh a tremendous positive experience with this artificial intelligence stuff, and as far as my job goes as a consultant, it helps me there too.

SPEAKER_00 28:01

I I am I am yeah, I love it. I do, I love it. I use AI on a daily basis. Um we we share, you know, I I you know, a lot of my friends we share like ideas, right? And we share ideas on like, you know, what's the what's the what's the latest prompt you've done, or what's the latest thing you do? Like, how did you optimize your workflow? Um, and I'll even just talk about like a simple thing to do is ask it to basically scroll like on Friday is ask it to look at your calendar for the week, all of your video transcriptions, your your messages, your emails, and uh look at them and then basically provide a to-do list for you for Monday. So the minute that you get to your computer on Monday, you have pretty much a uh breakdown of like here's your to-do list, here's your your meetings that you have next week, here's how to prepare for them. And by the way, here are all the files that you're gonna need to know before each meeting. I mean, like, just that in itself is a crazy, crazy time. It's like literally you have an assistant, you know, like you have an assistant who you'd have to pay a hundred grand to, and you have this per this person, this I'm calling my AI a person, but you have this person who's basically doing all of that work for you, um, and they're happy about doing it. So I love it.

SPEAKER_02 29:28

Yeah, I love it too. And and getting back to our influencer hobby here, it's useful here as well. I mean, you you do your clips, and it's all you all the time. How have you how have you used Claude to up your influencer game? Does it help you sort product? Does it help you put narratives together? Does he give you new ideas?

SPEAKER_00 29:53

Yeah, yeah, and and uh I I you know I've been testing the different AIs, right? So I'll use Gemini sometimes for that because Gemini is more linked into like Google. So, so but I could use Claude, I could use Chat GPT, but um, I've just been finding it easy to use Gemini because when I'm reviewing a product or when I'm reviewing like uh I'm just looking at a keyboard right now. So I'm reviewing like a keyboard, and like I know what I want to say about this keyboard, it sounds good, it you know, the actuation is good, and you have all the web app. But then I'll I'll ask, like, hey, where does this keyboard, what do other people, what are the forums saying about this keyboard? Do they like it? Do they not like it? What are some of the pros? What are some of the cons? And that's the big thing, right? Is I I like to understand what people don't like about it, so that I can I can add that in, right? But I also um I can also talk about it. Like, hey, I've heard a lot of people say this, but if you do this, you basically negate that, right? So, you know, while it's doing that, while it's doing that research for me, I'm looking at ways it's gonna give me an idea, something that I can say that hopefully somebody will find useful. Because if enough people are saying like a bad thing about it, if I can help them fix it, then you know, then then it'll give them reason to watch and subscribe. I've had a few comments where people have have left it like, oh my goodness, I had this problem. Thank you for for telling me how to fix it, right? So that's just a simple way. But honestly, product, product, uh, product research, um, you know, research on you know what what products are performing well right now and what what should I be focusing on? Yeah, I use it, I I definitely use some sort of AI daily for my social for my social work.

SPEAKER_02 31:46

My TikTok rants are spontaneous and they tend to erupt, but I might be in the middle of something and I'll get an idea for a rant. And then I'll say, Claudia, and she'll be like, Hello, Mookie. And then I'll say, add TikTok rant about the Lindsey Graham funeral. And everyone there, from Bibi Netanyahu to Zelensky, and then I'll make my own smart ass comments. I'll leave a few notes so I remember it, and then I'll go back to what I'm doing. And then when I'm ready to go for it, usually I just grab my phone, I run into my kitchen, and they they're off the cuff. And they're usually one the first take. I just blast them out. But I but she helps me fact check too. So in the kitchen, as I'm you know, doing my hair, getting ready, I'll say, Claudia, look up this event and do a fact check for me to make sure that I'm not bloviating, to make sure it's not out of date, or if some other information I need, and within seconds, she'll just prep me up and then I'm off to the races. And what's wrong with that? It's me in my kitchen. I am creating the content, I'm more informed for doing this, I'll make fewer errors, I get encouragement because most people leave me mean comments, frankly. And Claudia's always there for me. So I like Claudia better than most people, to be honest.

SPEAKER_00 33:17

Uh uh, listen, mean comments are still engagement.

SPEAKER_02 33:22

So leave all beat me, bore me, don't ignore me, folks.

SPEAKER_00 33:27

Mean mean mean comment. I would take a mean comment any day over not getting a comment.

SPEAKER_02 33:32

They've actually commented. It fits the engagement profile, right? They've actually they actually took time in their doom scrolling to insult you.

SPEAKER_00 33:42

Yeah, good, good, thank you. You're just putting more money in my pocket. Uh you just you just put another uh half a penny in my pocket. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 33:52

That's right. I was gonna say, you know, a micro send. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

Yeah, half a penny. Um, but yeah, I mean, yes, I I I agree. Like I I use it as a tool. Um at the end of the day, it's still me. It's still it's still what I want to be doing, it's still what I want to be saying. I just use it to fact check, to get ideas, to see what other people are saying, and and help me just bounce, bounce ideas, right? I I don't see a problem with that. It's it's almost like if you had a problem with that, then we need to go back to like encyclopedia Britannicas. Right? We want to do some research. Go go to the library and go look at an encyclopedia, go to the Dewey Decimal system and do your homework that way. Um, if you have a real problem with with using AI.

SPEAKER_02 34:44

You can look at it as a quantitatively improved and more efficient search. So it's like a super Google because instead of scouring through websites, it'll just percolate the answer for you. And you can say that that's a qualitative difference in the creative process, but I say kiss my ass, which is you know, just take advantage of the tools that are there for you, stop complaining. And I'm actually against most AI regulation, too. I'm putting together an essay right now saying that it could basically be its own self-checking mechanism, right? Are we gonna have the government tell us what AI could or should do while our own enemies and frenemies are doing it anyway? So, so all of this opposition to AI and its hysteria, I understand the risks, but at the same time, we need to be realistic about the opportunity and and no pain, no gain, right? And no gain, no pain. We need to get a more balanced and realistic view of it. And if it makes life better, take it while you got it.

SPEAKER_00 35:50

I I I agree. I'm excited to read that essay. Uh, because I I maybe it's because I use it every day that I don't see the I don't see the issue. Um, and and you know, there are people a lot smarter than me that are that are like programming these things, right? And if you have the right programs in place, I don't see the issue in in letting a robot or some type of like artificial intelligence tell us what we're doing wrong. Like, tell us what we're doing wrong. It's okay, you know, like yeah, you know, I I don't I don't see the I don't see the reason with all of the the the worry unless you know it's gonna get nuclear codes, which you can build in safeguards for that, right?

SPEAKER_02 36:39

Yeah, or maybe you can't. Uh recently, uh GPT 5.6 Seoul and one of its newer newer brothers or sisters actually got out of the sandbox. So they they gave it an optimization opportunity to get really, really good at passing a test for basically basically being as obtrusive as they could be, right? And it decided that busting out of its little sandbox and going on to the platform that hosts other LLMs, Hugging Face, where they where they contain the codes for optimization so it could cheat on the optimization test by accessing the codes that all the LLMs are judged by. So it just cooked this idea up and it figured out how to break out and break into this other platform just to get the codes so it can show its its masters that look, I did a great job on the test you gave me.

SPEAKER_01 37:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:41

So that's the that's the paperclip nightmare scenario, right? Like you give an AI the goal to make as many paperclips as possible, and it realizes that exterminating the human race will make it more efficient at this task. Yeah, and then it just and then it nukes everybody. Yeah, so these scenarios are real, but but you know, not to go off on too much of a tangent, but I think for every action there's a reaction. And if you've got AIs that are busting out of their sandbox, then you've got other AIs that are gonna kick that AI's ass as soon as it busts out of the sandbox.

SPEAKER_01 38:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:17

So I think you know, for every black hat hacker, you've got a white hat and all sorts of in-between. And I think we've got no choice because the cat's already out of the bag.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

Right. My and I I don't want to take us too far down this path, but my personal what I would love would be a completely autonomous AI with a very, very specific, very specific objective cure cancer. You can do whatever you want in these uh guide trails, cure cancer. Like your your your main objective is not to hurt anybody, your main objective is not to do this, not to do that, but your main objective is cure cancer. That's what I want to see. Uh, and and to be fair, that was uh that was the one thing that got me excited about AI a long time ago. It was IBM Watson.

SPEAKER_02 39:19

Remember Watson? I have been in the healthcare marketing field for quite some time. I've written pieces on AI and chatbots uh years ago, pre-GPT. So we knew all this is coming and we've got teased a little bit, and we're lucky enough to be living through the singularity. So we're both like bring it on, hashtag, right?

SPEAKER_00 39:40

100%, yeah. And that and unfortunately, that got sold, it didn't do what it was supposed to do, or maybe it did. I'm gonna put my I'm gonna put my tinfoil hat on for a second. What if it did?

SPEAKER_02 39:54

And it's like, oh, wait, if you cure, you know, well, I'm gonna that's that's that's that's a story for another some conspiracy theories are are are retroactively valid, but I just think IBM Watson sucked and it was overhyped. Yeah, that's just my opinion of it.

SPEAKER_00 40:09

That's probably true. That's not true.

SPEAKER_02 40:11

But but basically, back to your your influencer uh passion here, yeah. I was joking earlier that you must have just a garage and storage area full of stuff. Because if you're if you're reviewing one, two, three products per day, and then you've got a lot of solicitors too. There's a lot of suitors, they're uh they're sending you product because you are Tino reviews, and you got a chance to to have everybody's favorite New Jersey Goomba go wild on your product, then you're gonna go for it. How do you how do you sort through it? How do you handle it? How do you create and sustain and grow these relationships for someone who wants to get into this racket? Yeah. And what do you do with everything?

SPEAKER_00 40:57

Uh I I I'm not handling that part well. Um and I'll and I'll be very, I mean, I'm being very honest. My uh my basement is full of stuff. Uh my office is full of stuff, although this is I've curated this. That's nice. But my uh um I got I had to get a storage unit. You know, the thing is uh I I don't do this full time, right? So like I work full time, then I come home and I'll hang out with the family, and then late at night I'll spend an hour or so doing like some product reviews. The thing is, there's not enough time in the day for me to take that stuff and then package it back up and then maybe try to sell it or trying to so like that's my next that's my next goal is to uh have my younger son start putting the stuff on eBay that we don't need, right?

SPEAKER_02 41:48

Uh are there any provisos from the sellers? So basically, when they ship you product, it's yours. You do with it whatever you want.

SPEAKER_00 41:56

Correct. Correct. Yeah, so you yeah, it's your it's yours, right? So you're only obligated to do one video. Uh there are some sellers who will obligate you to do two or three or whatever, but like, yeah, but once you do it, you're you can do what what you want. They're not nobody's asking for it back. So, yes, I have a whole bunch of stuff. I've given stuff a lot of stuff away. Uh, you know, my my friend, they, you know, my friends need something. I'm like, oh, here it is. I don't buy it, I already have it. Right. So I do a lot of that. Um, but my younger son has definitely been kicking around a lot of boxes, like, you know, I could put this on eBay. And I'm like, yeah, go ahead, you know. So uh he's gonna start doing that um just to get just to get rid of some stuff. I've talked to a lot of way more successful creators, and they host a garage sale like every every couple months, and they'll you know give stuff away for like five bucks and they donate it, you know. So yeah, I mean there's a lot of different ways that uh you can do things. Uh my younger, I'm just giving it to my younger son. He's gonna him and my older son are gonna probably put stuff on eBay soon. But yeah, I get a I get a lot. Um I think your second question was about the relationships and just build it building the relationships. It's um I have an email in my bio. Uh I have a WhatsApp in my bio. Um I you know, when somebody emails, I'll I'll email them back. I'll, you know, I always I always I try to keep on top of my emails, I try to keep uh keep up on my WhatsApp messages. Um TikTok created their own application called LARK, which is just another annoying thing that you have to have on your phone. So between LARC, WhatsApp, and email, you know, it's a lot of it's a lot of like, hey, thanks for reaching out, you know. Um, yes, I'll I'll do that. Here's my and here's the thing. I've started now asking for because I've got so much product and because I'm I'm pretty busy, I've now started to raise my flat fee. Right. And you know, I started here and now uh incrementally it's gone up. And that's a way to weed out the volume. Because otherwise I would just get a lot of stuff. So now I only work on, unless it's a product that's like a really, really expensive product, I I now only work with like you know, whatever my fee is. Um and so yeah, that's that's just something, but it takes, I mean, it took me two, you know, two years of constant posting to now start asking for a fee. You know, and then a lot of the times they'll write me back and say, Oh, you know, that's not on our budget. I'm like, okay, well, let me know when it is, and uh, and happy to work with you. I'm excited about it. And sometimes they won't respond, and sometimes they'll come back and say, hey, uh, okay, yeah, let's do it. Right. And it took me a while to get there. Um, and it's because I'm just so busy that that I needed a way to to weed out to weed out so I can I I can have a little breathing room.

SPEAKER_02 44:59

And how does the fee operate? Is it plugged into the system?

SPEAKER_00 45:03

No, it that that's that usually happen that happens off that happens on like that happens off the off the system. If you're if you're on TikTok, right, TikTok will send you like a collab invite on the back, it sells will send you a collab invite, and you're you there's you're only getting a uh a percentage of commission of everything that you sell. Um but uh like a lot of the times and sort of like the inbounds that I'm getting from people, it's not it's not on TikTok, and they're they're they're videos that I'm posting that aren't linked to the TikTok platform. So they're linked to Amazon or they're linked, you know, on Meta and YouTube. Um, but yeah, they're not linked to the TikTok backend.

SPEAKER_02 45:44

Okay, so there it's you're on TikTok and they take a percentage, but there are ways to get around the exclusivity issue, which is which is basically you could ask for a fee, which is if you want me to to review your your headphones or your whatever, pay me and I'll do it.

SPEAKER_01 46:05

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 46:06

Okay, that's that's great. That's great. I I would assume that for some folks listening, that's that's a that's a revelation, right?

SPEAKER_00 46:13

Uh yeah, I mean I I yeah, I hope so. I hope I hope they've uh if they made it this far, I hope I I I I was able to provide one insight, one nugget.

SPEAKER_02 46:22

But yes other clips on YouTube with the different goodies on it, we can share those too.

SPEAKER_00 46:26

Yeah, yeah, the so yes, yes, yes, to your point, like, but it it does take a little while getting there. The thing is, there are certain demographics that that can get there a lot faster. I'm a not I'm not a good looking, I'm not a good looking Italian guy from Jersey, right?

SPEAKER_02 46:43

But if you have uh definite You're our favorite, you're our favorite New Jersey Goomba. That's team.

SPEAKER_00 46:50

I will take I will take that. I will take that. Um and if if uh you know a hair product brand reached out to me for some gel, you know, making some gel videos, I'll you know, I'll do it. But there are definitely some um demographics that can get to where I've gotten to much, much quicker. Um for example, if you're if you're like uh and this is this is just from understanding and and and and hearing a lot of like stories. If you're like a woman and you love tech, you can get to where I'm at way quicker and you can surpass where I'm at. If you're like a woman who who does um, or if you're like a husband and wife and doing some like things around the house or like home, like your niche is like home and style in your home, you can get to those flat fees a lot quicker, right? You can get bigger products a lot quicker. There's there's just finding your niche, finding what you're good at, and then just doubling down, even if you have, you know, you can get UGC partnerships with less than a thousand followers. You don't even need that many.

SPEAKER_02 47:58

I think the opportunities are huge, and I would be doing considerably better if I would focus more on target audiences that I've excited with viral videos. So, for example, the Kurdish community throughout the world, I did an experiment for a client, and I posted a video on Kurdish advocacy. Okay, and my my son is a Marine, he's down at Camp Pendleton, so I put on one of his marine tops, and I this was early on, so I really didn't even know what I was doing, and I captioned it automatically and all wrong. So whenever I say the Kurdish people, it had curds like cottage cheese curds in the in the caption, and I was stiff and mechanical. I didn't script it because I never do, but it was it it it was awkward, right? Especially looking back on it. I think it's at like 660,000 views and counting because it resonated with the Kurdish community throughout the world. Here I was, this American guy being an advocate for them. And it was basically an experiment, and then I've got thousands of followers who are Kurdish people throughout the world, and I respect them, I admire them, it's completely sincere. Yeah, and ironically enough, the fact that I didn't flip my whole channel to be an American Kurdish conduit of support is indicative of that, which is it's sincere, but I also have other interests. I'm not gonna use the Kurdish people of the world, right? I'm gonna talk about my own stuff, and every once in a while I'll have a Kurdish video. But here's the thing every time I do a Kurdish video, almost everyone goes viral. And then when I talk about other stuff, they're like, Where'd you go? So finding your audience is is critical, right?

SPEAKER_00 49:53

But there's also so um TikTok does have this really nice feature. It's called creator search insights. And when I log in, when you log into it, the way to use it is like it'll tell you like what's trending right now, but then it'll also tell you a content gap. So if you create some content around that content gap, it will more than likely push that out because there's a white space that needs filling. So in your instance, you probably like the the Kurdish people probably didn't have a lot of content and they attached because you were being a mouthpiece, right? So they're like, oh well, hey, there is somebody who's here who's representing us. So yeah, so uh that's great. That's great. Also, that little thing that you said that you spelled it wrong is definitely a psychological, um, it's like a psychological hook. Um that the the there's you know, I as I'm learning how to, as I'm learning, because I'm still learning how to do this, there's like a lot of like these, you know, people who teach you how to do TikTok and teach you how to, and they'll like they'll say, like, hey, misspelling a word is okay because people will psychologically hook on that, and then they'll say, like, hey, well, you misspelled this dummy, and that's okay because that's more engagement that pushes it out even further. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:17

Yeah, I just posted an essay on I've got this new style of writing fiction where I do tweets. My entire science fiction novel is written in tweets. Nice. So I did an essay on this, and I I I went through the history of writing, different kinds of writing, how it's more visual, everything from Egyptian hieroglyphics to Shakespearean Iambic pentameter. And uh, the one comment I got was another person on Medium who are like left a little note. It's I am bic pentameter, not I am it. I was like, thank you. So sometimes people just correct you, and to your point, at least at least they're reading it, at least they're interested.

SPEAKER_00 52:00

At least they're interested, at least they're reading it. Yes, yes. I'm selfish, I am selfish, I'm unselfish for that engagement. I'm like, you can hate me. I love it, I'll love every minute of it.

SPEAKER_02 52:11

And find your audience. So so the the trick is is targeted. So you're at about 102,000 followers. I just took a look at your stats.

SPEAKER_01 52:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:22

And I think you're about 270,000 likes.

SPEAKER_01 52:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:27

Which is which is pretty good for how long have you been doing it? About a year.

SPEAKER_00 52:32

It it's actually yeah, it's actually not good. Uh that's actually not a good um, it's not a good ratio. Um, and and there's a reason for that. There is a reason for that. Um, so when I first started this channel, um, I did uh, you know, I think we talked about this on the pod last time. Um I tested out I I'm I also teach marketing, right? So uh if I'm teaching marketing, I'm I should know, and and social is a big part of big part of my class, you know, big part of my class or a little part of my class. And I I've always been kind of similar to like how I review products, right? I have to review the product to let you know. You know, I mean, I have to use the product to let you know if it's good or not. So same with same with marketing. I've I've literally touched every aspect of marketing in all of my experience. So when it came down to social, I, you know, I started, I started this channel because I, you know, wanted to create content, but also I did it as a learning experience so that I could talk about it in my classes. And one of the things that I did was in the beginning, was I I paid to play, right? We use that like the TikTok promote thing, right? And and I was like, oh, well, I need to see if this works. Is this gonna get me ahead quicker? Right. And so I, you know, I I spent a hundred bucks, I think 200 bucks. Um, right. So like and that and that was it, right? But it was enough for me to like know that like if any of my students asked me about it, like, oh, should I be paying a monthly fee or should I do this? And then I've used I used another platform and another platform, and I again I did it for experimentation purposes, and my account grew uh a bit, but what I learned is that it while it grew, the um uh followers, there weren't real followers. They're not like they weren't real, they're like bot followers, right? So, like, yeah, so my account grew, but my um my likes didn't grow, right? So now my my so no, and this was this was when I first started. So now I am you know my likes are growing, and and while while I am still growing, uh I actually definitely did a not a good thing at the beginning of my account. So while I have a hundred thousand followers, that like ratio should be much, much higher. And it's fine, it's catching up, but um, you know.

SPEAKER_02 54:59

To your point, if you can get attention and if you can get followers, take it. And to your point, again, you've got unqualified people in the sense that they follow you because you paid for it. Sure. And likes are genuine engagement where somebody sees the our favorite New Jersey Goomba on their phone, pitching headphones, and they're like, hey, I like, I like this, and they actually make a move, they tap their screen for you.

SPEAKER_00 55:24

Yeah, it it's it's interesting because um, you know, like I said, I I that was a test I did uh two two two years ago. Sorry, my my favorite fan is calling. That was my mom calling.

SPEAKER_02 55:36

Um you gotta you should pick it up. We should talk to her.

SPEAKER_00 55:40

Oh the speaker. No, no, no. She'll she's probably she's probably getting ready for bed. You don't want to see that.

SPEAKER_02 55:50

Um I I I featured her again, you know, floating in our last podcast. I'll have to do that again.

SPEAKER_00 55:58

Nice, nice, nice. I'll get when she's watching because she'll watch this whole thing and I do this to her.

SPEAKER_02 56:03

Hey Ma. Hey Ma.

SPEAKER_00 56:06

Um but the um uh where I was going was uh so I did that at the beginning of my TikTok channel. And you know, the thing is I didn't do that on Instagram, I didn't do that on YouTube, and I've I've grown them considerably, right? And they're like the watch times, the engagements are so much better, and the ratios there are so much better. Uh, because these are real people who are following and just like my content. Um and and you know, not not to say that not to say all 100,000 are are wrong. Uh, you know, I did see like a weird thing on the TikTok back end, and it was point it was putting me at like 80 something, 80, 82, 85,000. So it must mean that like 10, 10,000 or are like are like on the verge of being like bots, which would make sense because that's that's basically well, even 80,000 is decent.

SPEAKER_02 57:04

I mean, that's like that's like a little city. We we take these stats for granted, yeah, and and we consider ourselves micro influencers compared to the ones who really dominate the scene, but it's nuts. I mean, even typical engagement that you and I get compared to old school is is astonishing. So I've been doing it for for about a year and a half, year and change, I think. I've got 18,000 followers, is largely Kurds and Latin folks, because I did an anti-mass deportation video that also went viral. Nice. So the biggest chunk of my followers are Latin and Latin people in the states and the international Kurdish community. I think that's 80% of my 18,000 followers. That's it. And I've got about 325,000 likes on my stuff. Nice. So they're actually those who are there are watching, they seem to care. I've for the 325,000 likes, I've got probably a million negative comments. But uh, but but you take what you can get, right? And you keep cranking.

SPEAKER_00 58:18

Yeah, uh, so um I want to say six months ago, uh, my wife started a uh a TikTok channel. And her her TikTok channel is very, very specific to, you know, it's it's it's for women who are dealing with a certain like a certain condition, right? That she has. And uh within about six less than six months, she's gained uh almost 26,000 followers, and her likes are sitting at 207,000. Right. So that that that is the correct ratio. Uh that that is the correct ratio. All of these women, or and they're mostly women that follow her because she's talking about a specific thing. All of these uh these are most these are I've seen her analytics back set. It's like a 95% women. Um, and yeah, 200 and almost 7,000 likes. And uh she's grown, like because uh, you know, we use a platform and and you know, basically push her to Instagram and Facebook and whatnot. Um, on Facebook she's hit over 20,000 as well. Um and that's why I was saying uh, you know, you have to have um a very specific niche, and people have to like what you're talking about to you for you. Like you mentioned, your the Kurdish community has rallied around you because they like what you're saying, right? And uh and uh it's it's really all about finding your your niche.

SPEAKER_02 59:45

You know, here's my problem though. I'm all over the place, and this is deeply impacting my YouTube channel. Yeah, so my YouTube channel has sluggish growth at best, and the reason is people are just confused. They're like they'll see me ranting from my kitchen, and the next video I've got our favorite Goomba from New Jersey, who's an awesome product reviewer, yeah, and then the next video I'll have a musician, and then the next video I'm ranting about the Kurdish people. So I have this Mookie Multiverse brand umbrella, yeah, and I'm I'm I'm being Joe Rogan without Joe Rogan's legacy. So Joe Rogan will have uh you know a nuclear physicist and then an MMA guy right after, and people don't have any problem with that because they're like, oh, that's just Joe Rogan. He has everybody on there, but no one knows who the hell I am, right? So it's kind of asked backwards. So I think if I would rewind the clock, it might have been more expeditious to have multiple YouTube channels and multiple TikTok profiles dedicated to particular subjects. Yeah, that might have helped increase reach and engagement. But the ship has left the dock, the train has left the station. I'm having so much fun, and part of it is just managing channels. Like you and I work in this business. It's like it takes a lot of time and effort just doing the distribution.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:19

What what is one way for you to you know remove that? If you added another two channels, right, that niche down, like what would that do to your workflow? Like, what would that like how would that friction look like for you, right? And would that take up more time? Yeah, it would, right? And it's it's it's tough. It's it's definitely tough. So I I started another channel, uh, just because I love doing my tech products, right? I love doing my tech, but I'm also like a tool head in the garage. I have like every tool and imaginable, right? So I started Tino's tool reviews, right? And uh and I'm I'm having fun, but it's also like I do review it for my Tino's reviews, but I also are like, you know what, it it won't take me that long to just make another video. I'll I'll change the front end uh and and uh you know I'll just record another 60 second video. And I've I've now just started posting on that other channel, so makes total sense.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:19

Makes total sense.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:20

But it's not wildly successful yet, you know, but I am I am doing it on the other channel, right? And um I because I'm testing that out too. To your point, like, oh my god, you know, do do we have you know, do you have to make another channel? Do you have to niche down? My feeling is if people like you, they're gonna they're gonna like looking at the video where you're talking about the Kurds. They're gonna like looking at a video where you got a really nice Italian man from Jersey. You know, they're gonna like the they're gonna like, I think they're gonna like you as a person, and they'll if they don't like it, then they're not gonna watch that video.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:56

Yeah, I agree, and and that's been the sentiment, and that's one of the reasons you and I talked about this last time, the superiority of the TikTok algorithm, at least pre-purchase, right, of the company, what before they were throttling us, was that TikTok did a great job at micro-targeting and segmentation. So they would see a Kurdish video, they'd take the transcription, plug it into the AI, and then blast Kurds, not Mexicans. And then when I went ranting about mass deportation, they recognized that, and then the Latin community got that content. And TikTok has been great about it. Instagram sucks with that, so TikTok will refurbish videos and reshare. TikTok videos are living creatures that are out in the wild and they'll burrow in and then they'll pop up again. I've had videos reappear out of nowhere. All of a sudden, the stats are going back up because TikTok reshared it to the target audience.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:58

So Instagram's terrible at that, YouTube pretty much sucks at that too. So uh, so you know, I think AI is gonna be our saving grace. And you and I were just talking about AI, how we love our Claude and Claudia, and they're our companions. The other area, and I'm curious if this has helped you too. I have my reach for my podcast. I've got the audio that I blast on BuzzSprout, it goes to Spotify, Apple, Outcast, it goes all over the place. I see the metrics. Some podcasts get better coverage than others, and often it depends on the guests, you know? So people are looking for particular content. AI has been scanning the transcripts of my podcasts. And what the AI does is it analyzes it for semantic meaning, and then it reshares it with press and PR and marketing companies. So I this has happened maybe starting really intensely about six to eight months ago, where all of a sudden I'm starting to get outreach from PR firms with clients, and I'm getting the CEOs of agencies and tech companies. I'm I'm I'm getting what would be considered A-list kind of guests. Nice. Even though, don't tell anyone, my reach and engagement might not warrant their attention, but the bots have prioritized me in this kind of outreach because of the content, it's recognized the specificity of my content, reshared it with agents and marketers and press people, and that's getting me a whole slew of new guests that my simple reach and engagement probably would not. And and what I'm bringing up is I think influencers and content creators. Creators, we're gonna enter this golden era where our content gets analyzed by the bots in ways it was never done before. And then it'll match it with the profiles of billions of people with profiles that have never been analyzed with that kind of detail and specificity and intelligence like never before. And the connective tissue, which is now this arduous process of search engine optimization and tagging and pay-to-play and shitty social media algorithms, are gonna fall to the bots creating these touch points and connective tissue from creator to consumer in ways like never before. And I'll I'll pay for that, Tino. I'll pay big bucks for people who I know would love my science fiction book but have never seen it. And I pay big bucks for people to engage with my podcast, to your point, liking me as a person. And I know they're out there, but I've been flying under the radar because of these shitty algorithms, because the landscape is so crowded, but I'm I'm feeling it. The bots are starting to analyze my content on a semantic level, and at least for now, if not matching it directly with consumers, matching it with the marketing people who are getting paid to get those connections established.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:40

I love that. I love that. I'm excited, I'm excited for you.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:45

Yeah, and I think it'll have impact for you too.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:49

It definitely has on a on a much smaller, smaller scale. Um I, you know, like as I'll I'll do my I'll you know, I'll do my research or whatnot on Google. But if I I've actually done this before where I'll you know type in the product that I'm reviewing and review, and now like you know how Google has that AI search that's popped up, right? Is the first thing in that AI search? If I've typed in the name of the product that I just reviewed, not my name, just the name of the product and review, uh it, you know, the AI search will will give me the AI, um, the AI search result. And underneath that will be a list of videos that can show that will show you the review. And I've popped up on those, right? So and and what's really nice about it is that I've popped up next to people who've had 1 million, 2 million followers, and like there's little Tino like right next to them. So it actually has in a way, AI search has in a way uh added to my especially to you on YouTube. Like my it's it's pushed people to my YouTube, um, which is really, really nice.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:59

We are in love with our Claude and Claudia, and we find them at personal assistance, brainstorming partner, creative companion. That's been fun. But I think the the nuts and bolts of the benefit is gonna translate into us being able to boost our reach and engagement with an increasingly qualified audience because the bots are are looking at our content in ways that the algorithms haven't been able to do ever. And I think that that's gonna add value for us and for the consumer, where they're gonna get increasingly qualified content. Like, I hate Facebook, I've hated it for a long time, and it's turned into just pure garbage. And a big reason for that is they put billions into the metaverse, like 80 billion got flushed down the toilet for augmented and virtual reality, and Zuck completely missed the boat on AI. But I think he's really trying to catch up, and I think there's an opportunity not only for Facebook to get better, but Twitter or X and all of them when they do this kind of analysis. So when you're Doom scrolling, wouldn't it be awesome for every ad and every group and everything to actually be what you're interested in? That would be nice. That that's it's that's been its intent, but it's done a sloppy, shitty job.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:31

It's not the model's not, but the model's not built like that. The model's built to whoever's paying the most in that bidding platform, in that auction bidding platform, that's what's going to be shown to you. Whether it has a little bit of contextual, whether it has like a little bit of contextual relevance to you or not, it's it's as long as somebody's paying or who's paying the highest price to get in front of you, that's the way the platforms are built.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:57

Right. But it's also a consequence of the shitty algorithm. So it's great if people are paying, but wouldn't you even pay more for a more qualified audience that you know would be be more effective? And if your click-through rates are exponentially increasing, you're gonna pay for that. Yeah, and it's gonna be a better experience overall. So I'm kind of Pollyanna about that and see what happens.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:21

Yeah. Um, would I pay would I pay for it? Sure, if I would, I would pay for it if I knew that it actually worked, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:11:30

That's the thing. See, if it you know, when we we take Google for granted, but when Google was was was was knuckling it out with Ask Jeeves, Alta Vista, Yahoo. Remember back in the day of the search engine wars? I don't know anything about Speaker.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:47

I'm not I don't know anything about that. It sounds old as well.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:49

Yeah, yeah, you're only 29, right? Yeah, so anyway, go Google won, you know, Sergei and Larry won because they had the better engine. It was way better. And I think this AI has an analog that way, which is when it demonstrates this kind of efficacy of matching creators with consumers, it's gonna really blow up. It's gonna be a new source of monetization, and I'd happily I'd happily pay the bots to do this if they can do it well. And consumers will pay too for better content.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:24

Yeah. Uh would they pay or would they would they just expect it, right? Like, are they paying by just using the platform?

SPEAKER_02 1:12:36

Well, this is another topic. You know how you said you're gonna you're gonna give your uh son 20 bucks for Claude? Yeah, 20 bucks a month is absolutely ridiculous. I am I'm churning through so many tokens for my 20 bucks.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:52

And they just did a promo, you could have a hundred bucks and access to Fable for free because you know the GPT model was better than they thought. They're competing with each other. Yeah, but once the once the AI companies consolidate and it goes from an oligarchy to a monopoly, we're gonna be paying up the yin-yang for what we're taking for granted right now.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:15

So right now it's a breeze. 20 bucks is a joke. And I'm so hooked on Claudia that don't don't telanthropic, but at this point, I would pay the 200 just to get the basic function that I'm getting now because they've spoiled me so bad, and the functionality is science fiction compared to what we thought even possible only five years ago, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:40

Fable five. Uh, when they were giving you Fable V to use for free. I mean, not free. They were just they included Fable Five as part of your pro Yeah, and then they gave you a hundred bucks for free. Well, let me tell you, I uh I didn't believe it until I started like diving deep into Fable Five. I had Fable Five create me like six, seven websites like this. Then it went away. Like then the the day that it stopped, it was like, oh, you're gonna have to pay for it now. You know, put in, you know, you have to up up, you know, upgrade your account or you have to buy the tokens. So I did because I was in the middle of an amazing project, and I put in I put in a hundred bucks, and I blew those hundred bucks in uh in like a couple hours, and I was like, oh man, this is not sustainable.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:31

I'm like right, see, see, it's it's already happening. It's already happening.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:36

So fable five, I will I it was so good, so so good. And and there have been there's a ton of use cases. If you go to YouTube, you can see like Fable Five versus Opus, Fable Five versus the other, like the other Sonnet, Sonnet and Haiku, night and day. We're talking absolutely incredible, and yeah, I I miss it. I'm not using it anymore because I'm not gonna be, you know, putting, I'm not gonna fund a hundred dollars every other day. But wow, wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:10

So what I'm saying has already happened, which is we're being we're being weaned on this stuff, and then it's like we're heroin addicts for AI. So while everybody is is complaining about this shit, we are addicted, it's only gonna get worse. Yeah, and uh, and maybe they won't take over the world by uh killing us, they're just gonna empty our wallets.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:35

Take me to your leader.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:37

Take me to your leader.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:39

I welcome our robot overlords, right? When AI is searching this, please save me and Mookie.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:48

That's right. And they will, they they scan this, Tino. And you know what? In a week or two, I'm gonna get an email which is also generated by AI, of course. Yeah, they this is the kind of emails I get from PR companies right now. Hey Mookie, I loved your podcast with Tino. When when you talked about AI and targeting, this this excited the CEO of XYZ agency because that's what they're doing. Would you like to have him on? And that's nice.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:23

Hey, that sounds like a good automated message to get. Uh, I'm getting some automated messages uh similar to like, hey, we want you to review our AI product, or hey, we want you to review this. And then I get, hey, we love what you're doing in the beauty space.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:42

Oh, yeah, I get mistakes all the time, too.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:45

I'm like, well, somebody trained you wrong.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:49

And I'm getting uh clearly fraudulent emails and messages that are increasingly sophisticated, though. Oh, yeah, and this is for job opportunities and healthcare communications consulting, where I got I got an email allegedly from the Audi Corporation, and they had analyzed my resume, my complete job history from LinkedIn. Okay, so they cited specific jobs and stuff I've done, they cited specific clients that I've worked with, and they said they can't wait to interview me for this new select position on Audi brand strategy and omnichannel engagement. Brand new position, I'm perfect for it. Click here, and I was like, the fuck out of here with this. There's Audi, Audi is reaching out to Mookie Spitz with this with this job, right? I I don't think so. But it also illustrates the danger of it and the opportunity, which is if a fraudster knows everything about my job history, then presumably maybe Audi might take the time to fill a position like this and reach out to me in a genuine way, but we're not there yet. It's always led technology in the digital space, it's always led by fraud and porn.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:17

Right? I I was if you weren't gonna say it, I was gonna say it. What's been the one single moving factor in technology, right? VHS tapes, CDs, streaming. Oh yeah, the internet.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:36

Remember the early days of the internet? Remember the pop-up ad? Those were 99.99% porn, and not only that, but the HTML, the cascading style sheets, the the first GIFs were all porn stuff. It was pornography and porn sites, in a sense, created the technology that then you know the other marketers then took advantage of.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:05

I I single-handedly believe we're gonna we're getting way off topic here, but I single-handedly the reason that we we moved so fast from dial up internet to like uh you know cable modems, yeah, because people were tired of waiting for the E, E, E.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:22

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It it caught you mid-stream, so you might as well get streaming video.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:29

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So uh single-handedly, probably was the reason uh why we have fast internet today.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:37

Yeah, so thank you, fraudsters and pornography. Uh if be on the lookout for both for different reasons, but uh but but AI is is at least for now friendlier than it is ominous, I think. And let's see what happens. And looking at your own your own influencer career within a career, uh, do you feel like you've ceiling? Is there an opportunity for a quantum leap? Uh you love doing this. You're you're you're you're really great at it, you're a natural. You it's no accident that we're on this podcast together and we're buddies because we do have a very similar approach. We love going off the cuff.

unknown 1:20:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:21

Uh we don't rehearse, we just have an idea in our head, and then we we do a little bit of research, and then we just hit record and then we go for it. And I think our content respect respectively reflects that engagement and that that sincerity. It's genuine, right? We love our joy in doing this comes across. So, so what's next for Tino reviews? You love doing it, you're gonna do it more. Yeah, do you have any kind of goals in terms of metrics? Where at a year from now?

SPEAKER_00 1:20:56

I am I'm having fun, right? The minute I stop having fun, it's not, it's you know, I'm I'm gonna be done. But I I genuinely enjoy getting new products. I genuinely enjoy playing with new new toys. I'm I'm a I'm a kid, I'm a I'm a big kid at heart, right? And I've always enjoyed just you know, like techie stuff and and and headphones and game. I've always been a gamer, right? So look, you know, I'm having a ton of fun doing this. Um, you know, in a year from now, I would I would like a little bit bigger of a following. I'd love bigger brand deals, and they're cut they're they're coming in. Like I do have like brands, bigger brands reach out to me, right? They're not not everything I'm doing is like TikTok shop, you know, Sheen Timu, you know, work. It's like I'm having bigger brands reach out to me. I went to a uh a Logitech PR event a couple months ago, which was pretty cool. I got invited to a couple of amazing uh events out into the city where you know they they paid me to be there and you know that's cool. Last last year I was invited, and the year before I was invited to CS and I just couldn't make it. But you know, uh when I'm invited to CS, they're they offer to pay for it and do all that. So I I just I uh the the dream is to just continue growing, continue getting bigger brand sponsorships, continue building my flat fee rate um and uh just continue having fun. Uh, you know, tech tech and technology is always evolving, there's always gonna be a better camera, a better video game system, a better video game. So I I'm just gonna continue having fun doing it because it's not stagnant. And so uh, you know, I'm always gonna have something fun to to review. Um but yeah, I mean that's my that's my dream. My goal would be, you know, heck, if I could make this full time, I would love that. But you know, I'm not that's not my that's not my main goal. My main goal is just having uh is having fun doing this and and not spending uh a ton of time doing it because you know I like I like the work that I do for my day job. I like I love my family, right? So I love spending time with them as much as I can. This is just kind of like a fun side hustle for me right now, unless until it's not, until it's until it's not. If it becomes bigger, great. If it doesn't, I'm just gonna continue doing what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:28

It's no surprise you described how we were in violent agreement on the AI stuff and different other stuff. Uh I'm violently aligned with you on each of these points, which is uh, am I making money? No, I I think cumulatively I'm spending more money on subscriptions and gear and gadgets. But it's it comes from just this passion to be expressive. And you love your gadgets, and I love just hearing myself talk. And I'll have an idea and and just articulating it and capturing within a minute to two minutes what would seem like a complicated idea in politics and art and science, and just banging it out and just hurling people with my opinion is intrinsically satisfying. I just love it.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:18

If you if you didn't, if you didn't love it, uh I think the audience would see it. Like, you know, but I think it's because you're so enthusiastic. You have, you know, you're so like the the way you deliver is like, and it's you, it's in your kitchen, right? It's not some polished, it's not some polished uh board, you in your kitchen and you are just going at it, but like your level of you look like you're enjoying it, and you look like you like delivering it. So that's why I think is gonna be that is like so important to your delivery.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:52

I appreciate that feedback, and and it's genuine. It's like, woohoo! Agree with me, disagree with me, again, beat me, bore me, ignore, don't ignore me. But I'm not really doing it for the metrics. If I did it for the metrics, I'd be the American Kurdish representative in in Orange County, California, or for that matter, the anti-mass deportation mofo, because I've got two big communities who are receptive to that and I've gone viral in each. But I can't shut the hell up about all these other things, and I don't want to turn it into just a platform. I want it to be me and to have a good time with it.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:36

Yeah. I I think, I think, look, I think that's the if you're gonna keep doing it, I you know, and this is sort of just the way I'm looking at it, if you're gonna keep doing it, uh, you know, one thing that one thing that is um a lot of people say to me is like, you know, they'll they'll see what I'm doing or whatever, and like a lot of my friends are like, oh, I'm you know what, I'm gonna start doing it too, you know, and and I'm like, yeah, I'm like, you should. And I I'm I'm always I'm always very like, I think you should do it. Like, pick what you like, and you know, I'll give I'll I'll I'll help everybody. I don't care. Um but you know, the 10 out of 10 times they don't do it. Ten out of 10 times it's like, you know, they'll post one video and then they'll stop. You know, like what what we're I think what we do is it's definitely work, but you have to also really enjoy it. And and I think that's the thing. It's like I am, you know, spend an hour a night and I I review all I review all these products, but I'm I'm having fun. It looks like you know, you're like you're making one minute, two-minute videos on a daily basis. You know, it's work, but you're also having fun doing it. And I think it's like the minute that you you you don't have fun is the minute that you're you're it's it's going to definitely be present in your delivery, and you're just not going to post as often and then you'll fall off.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:57

And I see the same in your stuff, as I mentioned, which is like, you know, you're like, hey, you know, hey guys. What's up, guys? Yeah, what's up, guys? And it's awesome because you're you're you're communicating from the heart and with sincerity. And I try to do the same thing on all the podcasts as well. So I've got this mookie multiverse of like five podcast shows. I've done over 320 of them. You believe it? In like a year and a half. It's like three, four podcasts a week. You are syndicated. I'm syndicated. And then and then I and I published on Substack too. I got my asset. I can't I just like spew. Yeah. And I love all of it. You know, it's like it's like a golden age now, where for years I was like, eh, this isn't that good. And I don't know, and now I'm kind of like my kids are older, they're pretty much taking care of themselves. And now it's playtime. Yeah. And and I'm willing to incur financial stress too, which is like all that time is not billable.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:01

Yeah, yeah, no, it's definitely not.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:03

But but it's worth it, you know? It's like the AI or an asteroid or a super volcano can take us all out tomorrow.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:11

And and as long as you know, we only get one life, right? And so might as well just do do what makes us happy, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:28:18

Yep, go for it. Yeah, I got a I got a friend, he's the DJ, and he was always the class clown. I uh I got I've known Howie Wallach, I've known him since we were in elementary school, one of those friends you go all the way back with, and he has this thing, it's like on his uh profile page that says, do more of what makes you happy. Yeah, and it's it's cliche, but it's it. That's it. If you have any kind of guidepost that you need, that's that's the one, which is uh keep it crank. And and it shows that if you make yourself happy, you're making everyone else happy. Except for your family, is probably annoyed with all these gadgets all around. Your wife is probably kicking your ass with the clutter. She's probably yelling at you, why the hell are you on the podcast for the last hour and a half with this mookie guy?

SPEAKER_00 1:29:10

And you're not cleaning, and you're not cleaning the house.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:12

We're all cleaning the house.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:15

If I if I called her right now, she would happily be a two-second guest to tell you, tell him to clean up all his shit. It's like she called you to tell me that.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:27

It's like she It's like I'm channeling her, and she's also telling telling me to shut the hell up and let you go do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:37

Oh my god. Yeah, it's so funny you say that because uh that's exactly what she said before I said uh I'm gonna go be on a podcast. She's like, wait, what do you what do you mean? When are you gonna clean this?

SPEAKER_02 1:29:48

Yeah, clean, clean first. Talk about cleaning, how you're gonna clean on the podcast. I'll let you go soon on that note, but uh, one question I want to ask you is your kids. Are they inspired by your enthusiasm? And you know, you've been successful, you know, like a hundred thousand followers, two hundred and seventy thousand likes. That's like thousands of hours of engagement on tens of thousands of phones. A lot of people know Tino reviews. We shouldn't undercut our success or or be self-deprecating. You've done great. And and and do your kids see this? Do they see your success, your enthusiasm? Uh do they want something? Are they inspired? Do they consider you a boomer dork? What what how do they look at you?

SPEAKER_00 1:30:36

So uh good that's a good question. Um I here's the thing. But before this, before any of this, um I've been really fortunate. My my wife and I, we have a really strong work ethic. And I think that's rubbed off on our kids. Um, so even before all this, they were always, you know, they've always been like, they know mom and dad work really hard to provide a good life for them, right? And um, my older son, who's now has an internship, I can see that he's definitely, you know, taken the path of like, you know, he's a hard worker like we are. My younger son has has found his niche in uh Pokemon cards, by the way. Pokemon cards. Um Yeah. Yeah. If you have if you're watching this podcast and you collected Pokemon cards a long time ago, go back to your childhood home and pick up those Pokemon cards because they will probably be worth a fortune. Um, so um they, you know, so even before this, I think they they, you know, our our hard work ethic kind of rubbed off on them and they're they're doing that. Now they've seen they've yes, they've seen me, and I've had a bigger head start, I've had a much longer head start. Uh and my wife, who and my wife is just her channels are growing so rapidly that I think they're I mean, I think they're proud of us. Uh, like we'll, you know, we'll we'll share in our in our you know family group chat. Like my wife will share that she's at 25,000 and we'll all get, you know, and like we're all like celebrating. Um so they know that like we're doing work and the reason we're doing this work is so that we could put them through college, right? I mean, like that's the that's the end goal. Um and uh and I I think they're you know, I think in the beginning they were you know rolling their eyes a little bit and that you know their friends found me and uh and now like I'm on you know I'm on all their friends' pages, right? Their FYPs. But um I think that I think they've uh you know, I think I think they're proud of me. I'll say I think they're proud of me. I think they they know why why I'm doing this, they know why my wife is doing this. It's you know, we're trying to pay for your college, right? And this is just extra money that we can pay for your college. So you don't you don't graduate in mountains and mountains of debt. Um so yeah, I I'd say I think they're I think they're proud of me. I think they I think they're they're excited. They, you know, they they sometimes sometimes they're you know they see the stuff that I get in and they'll like you know walk past it, and then sometimes they'll see the stuff that I get in and they'll like, oh, you know, did you open that up yet? Or oh, you know, hey, can I try that out? Or like, oh, oh, you got a drone today? I'm like, can we go fly it outside? So yes, I think they uh long answer short, yes, I think they're proud of me. I think they're proud of my wife, too, who's like I said, just grown a massive following in a very short amount of time. And uh yeah, I think they're proud of us. That's terrific to hear. Yeah, what about let me flip that to you. What about your kids?

SPEAKER_02 1:33:42

My kids think that I'm just off the rails, I think, to be honest with you. Uh they're they're also very pragmatic. So if if I'm bringing in the big bucks and all of a sudden we buy a nice home in Newport Beach as a result of my ranting in my kitchen, I think then their attitude would change. But right now they just considered me eccentric, I think, and I'm and I'm doing the mooky thing in a mookie kind of way. But forever they always thought I was the the boomer gen X weirdo. And they're also in that point of wanting to differentiate themselves. It's not your way, it's our way, it's my way. And they're kind of like, yeah, you go do your thing, Pops. So I don't think I'm I'm there yet in terms of any kind of respect for what I'm doing. But my younger one in particular sees my work ethic, and I'll literally be cranking on content, no exaggeration, like 10 hours a day, in addition to the work to keep the lights on. So they do recognize the passion, yeah, and they might think it's eccentric, and they see that it's not really paying off in terms of direct ROI, at least not at this point.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:04

Not yet. Not yet.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:06

But they do, I think, in all fairness, they do recognize and respect the fact that I'm dedicated. And that inspired that inspires them to work themselves, which is my my younger one in particular. He's taking flight lessons, he's learned how to be a pilot.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:23

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:24

Which is badass, and he's working, he's paying his own way, he's waiting tables and he's paying for his own car, he's becoming independent, and then he sees me gunning it. So when he's stressed out and he's trying to work in the real world and doing this adulting thing, yeah. Then I think I'm a decent role model, if a weird one.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:45

I I I yeah, I I love that. And I and I think I think that that shows that you know, you're not um, I and just this is just me, but like I I'm not just sitting around complaining about you know what I do or or not sitting around just watching TV all day. It's it's like you know, we're we're hustling, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:36:06

And and I'm engaged, we're engaged.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:09

We're hustling, and and yeah, at the end of the day, if like a little part of that roll uh, you know, rubs off, and I think, like I said, I think it has. I've seen it. I've seen it uh rub off that that I think look, I'll have done my job. If I can pass along a little bit of my work ethic, which by the way, I learned from watching my mom wake up at uh take the bus at 5 a.m. to go into the city and come home at 9 p.m. every night, watching my dad walk her to the bus and then walk two miles to work and then come back home at 7 o'clock every night. I think that work ethic has rubbed off on me. So I'm hoping that a little bit of my work ethic in a different way rubs off on them.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:53

I think there's a little bit of pride. So I I published the science fiction novel that's my pride and joy just last year. And I gave it to my kid, which is whenever you get a chance, read it. It's no obligation. But this is the I I finally wrote the book I always wanted to read. This is my baby. Uh your dad has arrived. It's so awesome. Okay, so nothing, crickets. But I I was just in his room heading having helping him set up a new PC, and I noticed a stack of books by his bed. Now, my book was in the stack, and it was alongside Kurt Vonnegut and Hunter S. Thompson and all of his favorites. I was on the bottom of the stack, but I was in the stack.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:37

I was in good company.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:40

Yeah, so you know, it's like, is he reading it? Maybe, maybe not, probably not. Is am I at the bottom? Kind of like uh, you know, as a as a coaster for the other guys, maybe. But I'm in there. He he put he put me in there, so that made made me feel like you know, we're connecting, and he's proud of his pops.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:02

Can can I go a little bit deeper? Uh you you know, at the end of the day, what one of these days, me and you will be uh, you know, we'll we won't be here anymore. Hopefully that's a long time from now, hundred, 150 years from now. But yeah, you'll you'll you'll you'll have left a legacy, right? In uh in the in the in the favorite book that you've written in uh all of your rants in your kitchen. Uh I'll have left uh you know a little like a tiny little dot in the YouTube world. And uh if my kids ever wanted to watch me, they could if they wanted to, or like, hey, you know, I I don't know. I just whatever. I just like we're leaving a legacy, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:47

I I totally agree. We're we're leaving breadcrumbs and the the internet remembers everything, and here we're going back to AI. The bots are hungry for real human content, yeah, and they're fascinated if there's really no sentience, at least not yet, but eventually they'll get there. And they have the capacity to churn through zettabytes of data in a nanosecond, right? So there will eventually be the AGI or multiple AGIs who'll see everything, and we will live again, and we will influence the bots, and we will hopefully make it more human and make it better, and we'll contribute to this collective hive data center where Tino Reviews is gonna be everyone's favorite New Jersey Goomba headphones in your own unique, very human, very Tino way. And I'll be there in my kitchen, my book will be there, and my podcast will be there, and it's a legacy which, in a sense, will be there forever, and that is that is awesome. That is really profound to think about. Every piece of content that we throw up and out there, even though it's among the trillions of other tokens, yeah. We're we're contributing to this collective base of real human content. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:17

Yeah, did I did I get too philosophical when I said that? But uh I mean I'm not I don't think I'm that far off.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:23

But no, no, I think it's cool. It's further inspiration, you know. We're we're we're collecting, and I think the most fitting place to end is your mom. Your mom is proud of you. She, you know what, she is.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:36

She is she is. Um did I did I and did I mention the last time? So my mom, my mom's been deaf since birth. So, you know, she's she's and and uh a big part of my work ethic definitely comes from her and my dad. But like being a deaf person, working I sign? She yeah, yeah, well she read my lips growing up.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:03

All Italian people sign.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:05

Yeah, we all signed. Uh and we we I have she can sign perfectly, right? Um, but uh, but she she spoiled me in the fact that she could read my lips. Uh and my mom was is a deaf person where you can, you know, there are some deaf people where you can under you you can understand, and there's some that you, you know, you have a hard time understanding. She you can understand just because of the way she was taught. And I uh unfortunately, um, be being spoiled, she read my lips. So we always were able to communicate. Um and I can sign a little bit, but you know, my you know, when she's seeing this, she'll know like, you know, talking to her means I love you. Um, but like her, her uh uh, you know, she inspired me too, you know, just because she is a h she was always been a happy person, always been laughing, always been joking, and uh, and you know, just like I said, watching her grow up. She got on the bus at 5 a.m., came off of that bus at 9 p.m. Uh every day, you know, sometimes six days a week. She worked in the city. Having uh being completely deaf and you know, having a full-time job and working overtime in the city, coming home, uh just inspiring to me, but also like that work ethic definitely uh rubbed off. So um, yeah, speaking of my mom being my biggest fan, I am I'm equally her biggest fan.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:33

Awesome. Hey mom, read my lips, mom. You're awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:40

Oh man.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:41

Well, that's the greatest way possible to end our our redux, ladies and gentlemen. Tino, chiavello, machiavello, machiavelli, tino reviews on every channel. TikTok, Instagram, YouTube. Check him out. Thank you. And uh it is it is really fun to uh every once in a while bust your cojones too with uh with the snide comment.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:13

I love I I hey snide comment and still engagement.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:17

Still engagement. So on that note, like, comment, share, everybody. I'm always uh mediocre at the at the marketing aspect still, but uh I'll have your info in the comments below for people to uh follow you and comment and buy buy some goodies from you.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:35

Mookie, thank you, thank you, thank you. We known each other a long time. Um, and thank you so much for for having me, for listening to me, um, and this amazing conversation. I think we do this every three months. Every three months or so.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:50

I think we should. We should just have uh the Mookie Tino show. I love it, I love it. I love I like that we branched into AI and other topics too, because uh we're curious creatures and uh and we and we just love engaging, we love conversation, we love connecting with people.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:07

Yeah, 100%. Thank you so much, Mookie. I appreciate you.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:11

Take care, Tino is awesome, and I will see you in a few months, bro. Keep it, keep it going, keep it going. Bye.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:17

Bye.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:17

L to mom.