0:00

How's it, everybody? Welcome to a brand

0:02

new episode of the Command Zone podcast.

0:04

I am here with everybody's favorite magic

0:06

content creator, the professor from Tularean Community

0:08

College. How's it? Prof,

0:11

you're in town, and we figured we'd record some stuff.

0:14

We have an interesting topic. We

0:17

were going to discuss all the hullabooloo that's going on,

0:19

but as you and I were talking, we kind of

0:21

came up with, I think, a more interesting angle for

0:23

us, which is discussing the

0:26

responsibility or the role of content

0:28

creators as we see it when

0:31

there are sort of these

0:33

dramatic moments in fandoms,

0:36

and what exactly should

0:39

be expected and is the responsibility of creators

0:42

and leaders in this space in those

0:44

situations. Yeah, especially in regards to the

0:47

idea of fanning the flames on drama,

0:49

perhaps for the sake of clicks. I

0:51

get that thrown at me quite a

0:53

lot, and I think I have some

0:56

thoughts on that. But also in terms

0:58

of the way in which we

1:00

as content creators should just

1:03

in general conduct ourselves during these

1:05

kind of drama

1:08

issues that are inevitable for

1:10

any type of fandom or hobby. And

1:13

I think that there's a relevance to that

1:15

idea as well, because in

1:18

your recent podcast, I'm

1:22

just going to say, I

1:24

think a conversation maybe should be had about whether

1:27

or not you might have let anger get

1:29

a hold of you and crossed a line

1:31

or two. Sure. I mean,

1:34

I think, yeah, part of

1:36

the responsibility part of all

1:39

of this is you

1:41

mentioned fanning the flames, and there's a whole bunch

1:43

of, I don't know,

1:45

weights and measures of what is the right thing to do.

1:47

And I think I'm glad you brought it up.

1:51

Yeah, the most recent episode where we talked about the

1:55

rules committee giving control of Commander to

1:57

a Wizards of the Coast, than

26:00

that, but it will be in

26:02

booster packs and it'll even be in magic setting. And I

26:04

was like, all right, I said it in my video.

26:06

I was like, all right, I got no problem with this. Now,

26:08

is it what Brian personally would have

26:11

checked on the box? No, but I

26:13

love magic. I love playing magic. Let's

26:15

sit down and get a game. That's

26:17

fine. You just got to remember that,

26:19

that at the end of the day, magic will change. In

26:21

the same way they say that it's inevitable

26:24

wizards would take over commander. It's inevitable that

26:26

they're going to make Marvel cards for magic

26:28

and Dungeons and Dragons. For

26:31

magic and the Walking Dead, you

26:33

know, cards for magic and

26:35

it's inevitable, right? Maybe we didn't have to do

26:37

it now. We could have done it later. We

26:39

can sit around doing this or let's

26:42

make sure players have access. Let's make sure

26:44

the best thing, let's make sure this bracket

26:46

system, they're asking for our feedback. I

26:48

believe Gavin is sincere. I

26:51

trust Gavin. Gavin's one of the most sincere

26:53

people ever. So Gavin's like, here's the general

26:55

philosophy and I had thoughts and I went

26:57

on and I was like, you

27:01

know, like bracket system. I have thoughts on

27:03

this bracket system and Gavin's going to listen

27:05

to everybody and Gavin's going to try and

27:07

do the best that he can with that.

27:09

And that's where we go. We don't need

27:11

to keep circling around that the Walking Dead

27:13

exists. There's no point to it. I

27:15

don't even care anymore. Yeah, you

27:17

came to terms with that, right? Yeah,

27:19

it's what it is. Allow

27:22

me, if my viewers will allow me

27:24

to roll my eyes and play a

27:26

laugh track at a whiny old man

27:28

joke, then I don't have anything

27:31

further I need from this. It's just,

27:33

all right. Let me ask

27:35

you, because we referred to it at the start,

27:37

what do you think about the,

27:41

for lack of a better word, the ambulance chasing

27:43

aspect of this that's kind of gets thrown around

27:45

sometimes of like, you know, hey, the

27:48

content creators are just taking this

27:50

issue and trying to exploit it

27:52

for monetization purposes. On the

27:54

final episode of The Tonight Show

27:56

with Conan O'Brien, Conan

27:59

said, he had wanted to close to

28:01

all his fans and to all his viewers

28:03

with this message. Don't be

28:05

cynical. Avoid

28:07

cynicism, reject cynicism. And

28:10

I really, are

28:12

there content creators that are chasing

28:14

clicks? Yeah. Are there content

28:16

creators that are farming

28:19

drama for their own success?

28:21

Yes. But you can't

28:23

just look at everybody and

28:26

be like, what's your real motivation?

28:28

What are you really after, Josh

28:30

Lee Kwai? What little secret selfish

28:32

thing are you doing? I think

28:34

that you have to try and,

28:36

I mean, like,

28:38

when you get into the cynicism of, oh,

28:40

did they just ban Jeweled Lotus to make money?

28:42

It's like, what are you, how does that even

28:45

work? Doesn't make any sense. It

28:47

doesn't make any sense. And you can't lean into

28:49

that. And I feel that it's

28:51

a Magic the Gathering YouTube channel. We talk

28:53

about all things Magic the Gathering. You're

28:56

the number one commander channel. You

28:58

are literally the commander channel. You

29:01

are gonna talk about some of the biggest

29:03

news to

29:05

happening commander to say, they're only

29:08

talking about the biggest news to

29:10

happening commander, cause they want clicks

29:12

is so cynical and dismissive. I

29:15

just don't think that that's fair. And

29:18

I'm just gonna say this, in

29:20

that same light, I don't think it's fair to also just

29:22

be like, oh, Josh

29:24

is saying he's sorry about what he said

29:27

cause he got called out on it. That's

29:29

the only reason. It's like, well, actually, first

29:31

off, isn't that kind of what you would

29:33

like is if somebody gets, makes a mistake

29:36

and you point out their mistake, they recognize

29:38

that mistake and they go, hey, you know

29:40

what, you're right. I'm sorry. And I actually

29:42

feel bad about that. That's not a bad

29:45

quality. That's a good quality. But this idea

29:47

of just questioning the motives of everything, it's

29:49

so exhausting. I feel at this

29:51

point, given my channel, I can make a video

29:53

on anything. I did a

29:56

shuffle up and play where we played

29:58

Canadian Highlander for goodness sake. I did

30:00

a shuffle up and play where we're drafting a peasant

30:03

cube, where we played

30:05

Dan Dan. Yeah. I'm not chasing clicks.

30:07

If I'm like, let's take my flagship

30:10

show that costs a fortune to make

30:13

Dan Dan. I did it

30:15

cause it was fun and it was what

30:17

I wanted to do. But then I do

30:19

two commander episodes in a row and everyone's

30:22

like, Oh, it's just chasing the money. No,

30:24

I'm trying to do what, what is right

30:26

for, for the community that I am cultivating

30:28

with my channel. Just because

30:31

there are bad actors doesn't mean everybody

30:33

is a bad actor. And if you

30:35

choose to look at the world through

30:37

that lens, you're going to have a,

30:40

I think a worse experience in that

30:43

world because there is beauty and joy.

30:45

One of the things that broke my

30:47

heart among many things that broke my

30:49

heart with the harassment that was amongst

30:52

other people really being targeted

30:54

at Olivia was the fact that what

30:57

does Olivia do in this community? She

30:59

has two commander gameplay shows that she

31:01

puts out there, which you can watch

31:03

for free, where she brings in people

31:06

from all over our community and outside

31:08

other communities to do what have fun

31:10

playing commander and sharing in that joy.

31:14

And it's like, and now she's

31:16

she's being made to feel worse

31:18

than anyone should be made to feel and

31:20

as an afraid, which no one should be

31:22

feel afraid and all of those things. And as

31:24

just nevermind as a friend on

31:26

those human levels, but as a creator being

31:29

like, she is putting joy and love out

31:31

there. And I think

31:33

that's something that should be celebrated. And I don't think

31:35

in a lot of people look at what

31:37

creators do with that level of,

31:39

of acknowledgement of,

31:42

of, you know, an episode of

31:44

game nights that the average person can just

31:46

turn on and watch or an episode of

31:48

anybody's show, anybody's gameplay

31:51

show or, or podcasts or whatever, it's

31:53

there for you to enjoy and people

31:55

want you to enjoy it. I love

31:57

reading my comments and, and to

31:59

just. just be like, oh, he's just doing it for money. He's

32:02

just doing it for the clicks. Just doing, oh, look

32:04

at him. Just had this person on for that. Oh,

32:06

okay. And it's just, no, just take a little bit

32:08

of that, that joy in there. And we are trying

32:10

to make that happen. It

32:12

is important to us. It's sincere. Don't

32:15

need to be. If we were just chasing drama

32:18

and nothing else in clicks and nothing else,

32:20

there's a million parts of my channel I

32:22

wouldn't be doing, but they're not profitable. They're

32:24

not part of that train. It

32:26

would all just be Tolarian wins, me shaking

32:28

my finger at Watsy, right? Those are the

32:30

biggest viewed ones. They beat out shuffle ups.

32:32

You know how sad my team of editors

32:34

feels when I come in and I'm like,

32:37

hey, you know that video that was me

32:39

talking to the camera for 15 minutes that

32:41

I edited because

32:43

of the latest thing I'm frustrated

32:45

with Watsy over? It's outperforming the

32:48

latest shuffle up, you know, and they all just

32:50

look like this, like, like, but it's because of

32:52

all the work and effort that goes into that.

32:54

But it's like, I don't want to

32:56

only do those. I only do those when I have something

32:58

to say. I could do those three times a week. Yeah,

33:00

you and I have talked about this before,

33:04

which is the fact that like the

33:06

types of videos that get a lot of use for a

33:09

little work that are based on like, you know, opinion

33:12

or commentary about a thing are a little

33:14

bit fool's gold and you have to be

33:16

careful not to fall into that mindset of

33:18

like that got X amount of views. I

33:20

should do that more often. Right. And

33:22

it really needs to come from a place of, I

33:25

have something to say here, something to

33:27

add to this conversation, some perspective to give some

33:29

responsibility to me. I mean, but we're

33:31

neither of us. And I think most creators are not

33:34

in the boat where that's what they want to do.

33:36

And maybe that would

33:38

be a path to more views, but we didn't all get

33:40

into this just to get the most

33:42

views we can, right? We've got into it because for

33:44

the joy of the thing we're talking about, you're like,

33:46

Dan Dan's cool. I want to showcase it. Yeah. And

33:49

you know, we're like, oh, this little video we're going

33:51

to make about detectives for the CSI parody or whatever.

33:53

Like, we're not going to make any money on that.

33:55

We're just going to cost us money, but we think

33:57

this is funny and cool. We're just going to do

33:59

it. Right. There's no amount of views it could get

34:01

that would make up for the cost of it for a three-minute

34:03

thing. It doesn't matter. We think that's cool

34:05

and fun and we grew up wanting to make like

34:07

movies and scenes and stuff and we're gonna do that.

34:09

Yeah. And I think, you know, that

34:12

is one of the things about being a content

34:14

creator that's tough to balance. Sometimes you can't get

34:16

lost in your own head of, oh,

34:19

this will get more views and be less work. Yeah.

34:22

I don't wanna be, I wouldn't want that to

34:24

be my job. Like, the

34:27

fact that my job is to get to

34:29

come in and play magic with my friends

34:31

and colleagues is awesome. If my job was

34:34

to come in three times a week and

34:36

complain about a thing I love, I

34:38

wouldn't want to do that. Yeah. I hate

34:42

making the real, like, I call

34:44

them like, you know, sad dad

34:46

talk, like, disappointed dad. It's like,

34:49

well, wizards, here we, the

34:51

secret layers now sell out. They're not like,

34:53

I don't like that. Originally, just,

34:57

so we knew it was

34:59

coming out a few weeks ago and with all this

35:01

stuff that was happening around the time the bands happened,

35:03

we're like, we should talk about the bands. Yeah. And

35:05

then when the, yeah,

35:07

when the announcement got made that Wizards

35:09

was gonna manage the format, you

35:12

were like, I don't even know if I wanna talk about it. Yeah,

35:14

I didn't. I don't wanna do this sad dad talk. Yeah. I

35:17

did my first video on the bands and I

35:19

was like, that's it. I don't wanna talk about

35:21

this. And it

35:24

was only because I did a

35:26

conversational collector booster box opening, because it's

35:28

such a big deal. Yeah. It is,

35:30

that commander is now under Wizards care.

35:33

And they also talked about the bracket

35:35

system. And I was like, it would

35:37

feel weird if I was sitting there

35:39

just being like, dusk morn, huh? Like,

35:42

wow, what do you think of the

35:44

setting and all the stuff is going on? Yeah,

35:47

it would look like I'm avoiding it or it would

35:49

just, it's like, why aren't you talking about this? So

35:52

I didn't want to like literally the day before

35:55

I recorded that I was talking to you. And

35:57

I said, I'm just not gonna talk about it.

35:59

And you're like, like, really? And I was like,

36:01

I don't want to. I think I was like,

36:03

dude, you have to talk about it. Well, yeah,

36:05

because I don't want to say the word responsibility,

36:08

but expectation. There's an expectation. It would be weird

36:10

if you didn't talk about this or I didn't

36:12

talk about this. And you're right. And one of

36:14

my most embarrassing things, one of

36:16

my biggest regrets was when I chose not to

36:18

talk about an issue in Magic where, back

36:21

when we were having an issue with card stock

36:23

quality, I felt that everyone

36:25

had scooped me on it, as it were. It

36:27

was top of Reddit. It was on every other

36:29

YouTube channel. And I had just

36:32

not noticed it in time. And I

36:34

felt at that point, well, you don't need to hear

36:36

me just say what everyone else has said. The card

36:38

stock's bad. We don't know what's going on. We can't

36:40

get any answers. And there's nothing you can do. I

36:43

said, there's no reason to do a video. So I

36:45

didn't. And people started saying, why haven't you commented on

36:47

this? And someone explained it to

36:49

me. And I was like, I'm not going to

36:51

comment on it. You all know what are you

36:53

doing? You want me to just say back to

36:55

you what you already know? I thought it was

36:57

absurd. And someone said, no, Prof, this is what

36:59

it is. You are a

37:02

large voice in this community who

37:04

speaks to the issues

37:07

that are relevant to the

37:09

players. And by your acknowledging

37:11

that this is something that we all

37:14

care about into your large microphone, you

37:16

are amplifying those of us who can

37:18

only make a post on Reddit. You

37:20

need to say that we care about

37:23

the quality of the card stock. And

37:25

even if we don't know why it's gone

37:28

bad or what we can do about it,

37:30

we want to see something happen. Even

37:32

though we know it's gone bad, we

37:34

need to hear those large voices amplify

37:37

this issue that is important.

37:40

And then I made my video. It

37:42

was literally a post on Reddit, I think, that I

37:44

made a reply. I was like, why would I talk

37:46

about this when everyone already knows it? And someone said,

37:49

well, here's why, Prof. I looked at it. And I

37:51

went, you know what? You're right. Absolutely. I made my

37:53

video on it. And then I made sure when it

37:55

hadn't improved in whatever number of months to make another

37:57

one on it. And I actually think that's it. I

38:00

don't know, what do you think card stock these

38:02

days? It seems pretty, it's, I've got a stack

38:04

of foils that were from one of my collector

38:07

booster boxes, been sitting on my desk since Bloomberg

38:09

and they're pretty flat. Like, yeah,

38:11

I think cardboard quality has improved a lot. That

38:14

makes me think of something, which is

38:16

like, how much of what

38:19

the commentary type videos, there's responsibility and stuff

38:21

there, how much is it to

38:23

try and influence this proceedings in some way? You

38:26

mean to be able to have magic be

38:29

the way you want it to be, such

38:31

as when I wanted them to not do

38:33

secret layers that were exclusive card printings,

38:36

that I wanted cards and booster packs?

38:38

Well, of course there's that desire. I

38:41

mean, I have

38:43

my philosophy. My thing is about

38:45

largely about access, and

38:48

I have my desire for what I think should

38:51

be going on in magic, but. You

38:54

have to be careful with it a little though, right? It's not

38:56

my game, I don't own it. Yeah. And

38:58

just like you don't own Commander. That's right. And

39:01

no one does. We all are in

39:04

it. Even I believe Wizards doesn't own

39:06

magic really. I do. I believe that

39:08

if Wizards, now that they're in

39:10

charge of Commander, do something outrageous, that

39:13

we have more power than they do

39:15

in response. I really do. Not

39:17

we, content creators, we the players.

39:20

And I think that the ownership is

39:22

a shared one. And we all

39:24

have to kind of find that center together. The best

39:27

thing about magic is, at the end of the

39:29

day, if you want, you can

39:31

go play pre-modern, and never have to

39:33

worry about modern horizons. Pre-modern's awesome. It's

39:36

fun. Or you can build your

39:38

Dan Dan cube, or you can make your own cube.

39:40

Be like, this is what I wanna do. I wanna

39:42

sit and draft, you know, modern only cards. I'm gonna

39:44

make a modern cube. I'm gonna make a popper cube.

39:47

I'm gonna do this. You can make up your own

39:49

format. You can make up your own format. And it

39:51

might even grow into a successful one, that one day

39:53

is the subject of extreme controversy. You

39:56

know, someday become a tiger? Yeah, just wait,

39:59

just wait until-