31: Gabe Whaley - Playing the Crowd & Outlasting the Hype

[00:00] Welcome to Dialectic Episode 31 with Gabe Whaley. [00:04] Gabe is the CEO and co-founder of Mischief. [00:08] Mischief is hard to pin down, depending on who you ask. It's a startup, a fashion brand, [00:13] Performance artist. [00:14] cultural commentator, [00:16] The virality machine. [00:17] There's probably a long list of other descriptions. Any given beholder might see them as too. [00:22] Over the years, they've become a category of their own, and people will often describe mischief for X when talking about spectacle marketing or the viral drops they're known for. [00:30] For nearly six years, they released a new drop every two weeks.

A product, a website, an art piece, or something even weirder. [00:38] You may have come across Mischief by way of some of their most famous releases, stuff like The Big Red Boots, [00:43] The time they cut up a Damien Hirst print and sold it for parts... [00:47] At the time, they created 999 forgeries of a Warhol drawing, mixed them all together, and sold them all. [00:53] And the Jesus shoes, the Nike Air Maxes they filled with holy water back in 2019 that were probably the first time Mischief went supernova on the internet.

[01:02] I've known Gabe for years, and Mischief and he are at an interesting turning point, I think. [01:07] It made it a particularly interesting time to sit down with him and reflect on where they've been, what they've learned, how they do what they do, and where they might be going. [01:16] I think any creative person and [01:18] Anyone who's interested in how the Internet is changing us, our attention, and what we value will find Gabe's philosophy at the very least thought-provoking. [01:26] He and the mischief team are keen to say that nothing is sacred, and they are definitely always finding new ways to be irreverent.

[01:34] And yet... [01:35] This conversation, [01:36] Meet it. [01:37] Even more clear to me how much they deeply care about the act of creativity and making sure to find new ways to stoke that flame and begin anew. [01:47] As always, if you enjoy this episode, please give it a rating and share it with a friend. Here's Gabe Whaley. [01:54] All right, Gabe Whaley, we made it. Oh, are we live? Yeah. All right, let's rock. Thanks for making time. Anytime. And hustling back from the doom land of Tribeca. I'm a menace on a city bike.

Yeah, yeah, it's the beautiful thing about three quarters of the year in New York. Right, right. Winter comes and like everything is thrown off. No, I'll do it in the winter too. [02:16] I'm not from the East Coast, so it's a great struggle. Okay, we are going to start. [02:23] with a line from Sean Monaghan in the Made by Mischief book. [02:28] describing you guys he says to the venture capitalist mischief is a startup to the sneaker head mischief is a brand to the collector mischief produces art virality is the only mutually intelligible language understood by all three well that and money there's two things that this kind of brings to mind for me one is [02:51] the notion and it kind of comes up in every time you guys have to talk about this is that you're constantly playing with legibility and illegibility.

And then the other is that maybe beyond spectacle, which is very obvious. I think the other thing that really stands out to me about you guys and your work is that you're playing with value, the idea of value and what we value and how we value the things we do, something that itself can be kind of legible or illegible. And so my first [03:21] across all this stuff. And how do you think about legibility, both with regard to that idea and more broadly, this whole container, what this thing is? Real quick, can you clarify a little bit what you mean on legibility, illegibility?

[03:34] Yeah, it's an idea that I've thought about a lot. One of my friends even brought up in the context of this podcast, as I was pretty early on, and she's like, you... [03:45] are currently kind of illegible, meaning like it's not totally clear what the thing's about and like who the guests are and what the pattern is. And her point was, [03:54] there will be a time for legibility. But right now, you're actually kind of in the oven. And to me, there are a few things, few things at the level of scale and cultural impact as mischief that are constantly dipping in and out of legibility.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, got it, got it. Okay, so the... [04:12] I'll start with the legibility, illegibility, and then we can talk about value. The [04:18] The way that we've internally described our practice with regards to being legible or not is... [04:24] At least it used to be the black box. Why did the black? Well, what is the black box? The black box is this idea of we're not transparent. We do not tell people how we do things or why we do things. [04:37] Are we trying to hide anything? Not necessarily.

It's because the mystery lends more to the imagination than reality ever could. [04:45] The second part to that, which is less thrilling, is that maybe we're kind of lazy. And it takes a lot of work to document and tell a story when why not create enough of a spark and put it in front of enough people so that they tell the story for you. And then they have conflicting stories which will oppose one another. Some will create factions. Different communities will form. [05:15] more, they have consumed the idea, they have become the idea.

And I think in a lot of Mischief's best work and most of the work that we've aspired to do is how do you create this handoff to an audience and let them run with it and turn it into something else, something else that is their own. [05:34] So I think there's an element of this black box. There's also this element of giving up control so that the meaning can be defined by that end audience, which selfishly is also a thrill to watch. Now, for the value part, I think... [05:52] Thank you.

[05:54] When you look at a lot of our work, you see that we co-opt objects or systems that [06:01] to either define or comment on most people's daily lives, their relationships with objects, their relationships with technology, their relationships with people via technology. One thing that we've constantly said here is the only point of being a human is being able to eat, sleep, buck, and flex on your neighbor, which some people have counted me on, but I think is pretty true. I think that's like a universal truth. It's always been that, and it always [06:31] gives you a lot of good material uh especially like the tail end of that statement and i'm [06:38] The funny thing about mischief, and this is kind of what Sean was getting at, is we can put our tech startup hat on, we can put our footwear brand hat on, we can put our fine art hat on.

We're really just a reflection of whatever is going on in any space at any given moment based on the project that we choose to do. [07:00] I think a lot of the work regarding this idea of value, it comes out because we're not creating... [07:09] paintings that live in a white wall gallery. We're actually taking objects and systems, twisting them, contorting them, and putting them back into the systems that we're critiquing. And so they are real. There are real interactions. And in order to interact, you must give up time or money or both.

And so the value equation starts there, and then it sort of takes a life of its own. Yeah, it's interesting to think about a kind of [07:36] almost sacrifice in the consumption of a mischief thing and sacrifice can mean a lot of no totally [07:44] i interviewed eugene way who i think you've met um earlier on on the show and one of the things he talked about is how sort of speculation is increasingly becoming kind of like more and more entrenched in what culture is especially for young people obviously in the case of sports betting and crypto and gambling but even like dating apps are like this sort of notion around [08:04] living is like, why bother doing anything that's going to slowly compound?

I should just sort of like put it all in black. And I'm curious if you've thought about that at all to the extent that sort of plays into, it's an interesting cut on value at the very least in terms of how we value things. Interesting cut on value or just interesting statement on like the desperation that everyone's facing and just kind of how not, not even like bleak because we're past that. It's [08:34] It doesn't matter. Like why not? And maybe some people are actually kind of having fun and getting some joy out of this and finding some community out around it, which is kind of cool, still bleak, but kind of cool.

And, uh, [08:50] I think we've even seen elements of this play out through a lot of the projects that we've done where different communities will form around this and they are speculating and they're like, this might be worth a lot on the resale market. And I know there's a picture of a guy with a warehouse full of big red boots that he did not manage to unload. [09:20] like, oh my God, like I got my bots ready. I'm going to like get all these out. And they didn't know that we were going to unload a little bit.

Um, and so some people really got left holding the bag and then all of his friends turned on him and said, which is so brutal. Um, but you guys, I mean, you guys have literally played into this, like speaking of sort of like people gamifying that you have the, the sock queen into the hat guy. Yeah. Yeah. That, that was so, that was so [09:50] time a long time ago where we were so full of ourselves, we said we would never make merch. And so we created a loophole for ourselves where we said, well, instead of selling merch, we'll sell a monopoly to the merchants.

Someone else can sell the merch, which tells you a lot about our personality, I guess. And so we had this design of a mischief sock sort of in the style of Costco. I would argue very in the style of Costco. Extremely in the style of Costco, like straight up in the style of Costco. But instead of [10:20] selling one pair of socks at a time, we bundled them into a pallet of, I think it was 1,000 socks for five grand. And the idea was whoever buys it first owns the supply.

They control the market. Let's see what they do. This lady in Florida bought them actually before the drop release. Somehow she bought them. [10:40] I don't know. Something went wrong. We were like doing a test. Oh, it prematurely sold. Yeah, it did. Wow. I think I like... [10:45] 2 m the night before wow early days still had some kinks anyways she got it and we were like who is this person and it turned for the next week we started seeing this account show up on twitter on reddit the socks were showing up on ebay and stock x this lady was not internet native [11:06] Uh, but somehow she knew, and maybe it was from her son who was the one who told her to buy these.

She knew enough to create a Reddit account, find the mischief subreddit, find other subreddits for like collectibles or hype or resell or whatever. She was sending her kid to school with the socks to sell the socks. And she, she ended up something like three X-ing her money over the next couple of weeks. It sort of seemed like it was actually like you couldn't have drawn it up better. [11:36] And then she started sending us these crazy emails of the dream she had last night where she was like a queen on a bed of socks and people were coming up to her to like give her offerings.

And she was tossing socks to peasants. And that's when we were like, maybe we don't talk to her anymore. And then we actually found her and interviewed her for our magazine. Right. So the whole thing is actually a photo of her in the room with all the socks is pretty. So she was sending this those to us unprompted. [12:06] a bed of socks in that position. But yeah, and that's the great thing about these projects is you don't know what's going to happen. Like the hat guy that you mentioned. So we did the same thing with hats.

But it was a little bit after, right? So he had gotten the weakness. It might have been like two years later. It was like a good chunk of time. So there was prior work on the hat. Prior work, there was lore, there was a result, there was documentation of the result. And the dude with the hats could not do it. And also you could just kind of tell like a little [12:36] Thank you. [12:37] They were both thirsty and desperate, but there's like different flavors of it where some you can kind of embrace and be like, all right, this is a little chaotic.

And then this one is just sort of like sad. Like you could tell she was having fun. She was a nut. This guy was like doing all the – I think he had a bot set up to like catch any tweet of mischief and reply to it saying, buy this hat. There are sort of different ways to be authentically a sellout. Yes. Or maybe just different ways to be a sellout. There's an art to it, to be honest. [13:07] And the guy did not nail it. He also wasn't being creative in the communities.

I think he was just trying to like... [13:13] The equivalent of just standing outside saying, will you buy this hat? Will you buy this hat? Will you buy this hat? Somehow the lady actually nailed it. Yeah. She has no idea how good she was. [13:24] Okay. We're going to talk more about a lot of that, but I want to talk a little bit about sort of just culture today before we dive into mischiefs role. There's a... [13:32] A line you guys have, I think, from Lucas in the book, he says, no one talks about the future anymore.

Instead, everything accelerates the present to a fever pitch, intensifying and weirding the horrid idiosyncrasies and dysfunctions of the current moment. There's a hole where the future used to be, and all that remains is the increasingly spicy present. I have no idea what that means. [13:56] Well, there's another line I think Lucas said in some interview. [14:02] in on itself and sort of dislike. [14:05] recursion almost. No, totally. I actually, I do, I do know where he's coming from. Well, I guess my question is, obviously, you guys have talked about this a lot.

So have a lot of other people. Slow cancellation of the future is not a totally new idea. [14:17] And I think like we all feel this. It's like, [14:19] Where is the new XYZ? I guess my question for you is... [14:24] How real is that really? And maybe to get specific, I'm curious for you to reflect on either... [14:29] 2014 ish when you really kind of first started the beginnings of what this was going to become with miscellaneous mischief or maybe as another benchmark 2019 when you guys formally started. Yeah.

[14:40] Like, [14:41] You produced a lot of culture in the meantime. A lot has happened, but is the future really canceled? I don't think so, but it's harder to see. [14:50] And I think that's the big distinction. It's not as legible. It's definitely not as legible. And you won't see it unless you go looking for it. Because we're... [15:00] We're at a time where... [15:02] You're just surrounded by the wrong incentive structures and the wrong formats that are going to immediately blind you to seeing beyond your own phone, the palm of your hand, unfortunately.

So back in 2014, that was a time where the news moved a lot less quickly. [15:19] And that was also the tail end of an era of the Internet where the Internet had been around just long enough for mass adoption, but it wasn't so mainstream yet. So it was still an era where people shared things because they were actually interesting. [15:37] Over the last 10 years, the incentives have flipped where people don't share things because they're interesting anymore. They share things to fuel their vanity. So instead of me sharing a link to something that's cool now, I'll share a video of me talking about a link that's cool now.

And I'm not even going to include the link. It's co-opted. You know what's funny is you're talking about, I think the first project, maybe the first project was the chat bubbles, but the Twitter thing you did, maybe it wasn't even a mischief project where you were giving bad advice intentionally. Yeah, yeah. That was even before the iPhone bubbles. Yeah. Yeah. [16:07] I don't know how intentional it was, but you were describing it. You said people started to comment on the product rather than engaging with it, which is like the seed of this idea.

No, it was starting to happen, right? And we also picked up on those incentive structures, and we're like, okay, if you design an idea in a certain way, the media is likely to write an article about it. And then pretty quickly, we found out that clickbait was an emerging format. So [16:33] It was a match made in heaven. It was like media companies are incentivized to create clickbait. We can create projects that have an amazing clickbait layer, even if we will defend ourselves to the end saying that there are more layers to most of our projects, if not all of them.

But there always is definitely like that sort of vanity driven clickbait line, right? You feed the beast and we co-opt media companies as a primary layer of distribution. [17:03] 2019, 2020, media has really lost a lot of steam, but that's sort of the rise of the influencer and the content creator. And that's when you start to realize like, [17:14] Those groups are the new media companies. They have very similar incentive structures, but also video is the prevailing format now, and it's quick. And that lends itself really well to physical objects.

And then that opened up this whole Pandora's box of where you can go with physical objects. And that's why, like, literally behind you, there's cereal, there's electronic devices, there are collectibles, there are shoes, there are swords. [17:44] Very specifically to objects that are amazing in person, back to the sort of their layers thing, but also jump off a screen. Totally. And even down to how it's packaged, how it's unboxed, how much information people have about it, what they can tell about it, how unique it is to them so they can tell a story or a lie about it that creates some friction.

[18:07] Yeah. [18:08] Yeah, I don't remember what the original question was, but the way that information is discovered and shared has evolved so much over the past decade. Yes. [18:19] And I think the... [18:21] unfortunate incentives of [18:24] the time that we live in which is you are [18:27] you are competing with everyone on the planet to create more and more content to drive more and more views and get more and more engagement and get more and more followers that we're all stuck like looking at our own faces now um

[18:39] And that makes it really hard to see, like... [18:42] what's next yes or even to care about what's next but i think that is a golden opportunity because everyone is stuck looking like two inches ahead of them [18:54] A few people will have the discipline to look 10 years away from now. And I think that is like, that's the magic opportunity now. Whereas I think Mischief's magic opportunity 10 years ago was we kind of understood how to work the organic distribution levers of the internet when no one else did.

But now that's table stakes. That doesn't matter. And the value of it is increasingly just... [19:15] Gross. [19:16] Yeah, I think you said this somewhere else. Virality used to be a skill, and now it's just shots on goal. Yeah, it's a numbers game. [19:25] That's kind of cool, too, right? Like there is good content that just comes out of nowhere. Yeah, yeah. TikTok, in many ways, is kind of the perfect version of this. It's like the true global talent show. Totally, totally. And, you know, kids are being creative. I think that's cool.

And creativity is democratized. [19:42] And for folks like us, it forces us to have to reevaluate ourselves and also change our own game or... [19:52] or just call it quits and be like, oh, that was a cool era, right? It's the world changes. You got to change with it. Maybe on a related note, you said people create what their gods are telling them to create. Damn. I said that. I believe so. Oh, that's pretty cool. Um, I think that's a really interesting idea in a broad sense. I think you were specifically talking about TikTok and Instagram, but I guess my question would be to, to go back to the maybe broader idea.

Like, are there other gods in this context? Is it really just like a few algorithms? [20:22] Yeah, yeah, good question. [20:24] Thank you. [20:26] Hmm. [20:27] I think the algorithms are a very prevalent part of this. I think... [20:34] You are what you see. You are what you want to become. And unfortunately, I think. [20:39] There's not a good diversity of things to look at now, and that... [20:43] That I think is not great. [20:46] The other interesting thing, too, and this is something that I haven't fully fleshed out, but there are content creators across so many different disciplines.

I was at a thing in A. this weekend for... [20:58] content creators somehow. And, uh, there was an electrician in the room who was a content creator. And, uh, [21:06] That sort of kind of maybe pulled me out of my own ass a little bit because I [21:11] he was looking at content creation as a compliment to his like primary trade, which is super interesting. And so, you know, I think we've all heard this thing about like kids used to grow up wanting to be like astronauts or firefighters or policemen or whatever.

And now they just want to be content creators, but maybe there is like another layer of abstraction that could be coming where it's a way to document a skill or a trade because hopefully you're [21:38] The kids are going to want. [21:40] something that's unique and novel and interesting versus everything looking so the same. So I kind of believe it's going to balance out. And even though the algorithms are sort of like driving towards one thing, I do have faith in human beings getting bored and being able to spot out like a lot of sameness.

And so in that sense, I'm cautiously optimistic. Yeah, it's interesting. [22:04] there [22:05] There's almost a notion, like going back to what we were just talking about, like the viral era is kind of over. Like it is also worth remembering, like we're like 20 years into this and really like 10 years into this and it's still really new. It's so new. It's so new. Every everything is it's like beginning stages. Right. But it all comes down to the some of the things that I said earlier, which is it's all about eating, sleeping, fucking and flexing on your neighbor.

[22:35] and share stories that resonate with them yeah [22:40] Like absolute truth like that that will always be the case. So now the question is, what are the formats? What are the distribution mechanisms? [22:48] I think an opportunity that more people should think about are the, we now have this opportunity to sort of zig while everyone else is zagging. If everyone is running towards quick, short form vertical videos, what can you do that's permanent, that's in the real world, that's like more tactile, more tangible? Or you can at least do a long two hour podcast with no video.

Amazing. That's so counterculture. It's great. We had this riff of an idea earlier of using, [23:18] we were going to bring back Vine and use AI to extend the six second videos into long form 30 minute videos, which is you're already on that wavelength. So, yeah, maybe one last thing on this that I was thinking about what you're talking is. [23:34] I can't help but compare the sort of people create what their gods are telling them to and the like eat sleep. [23:41] whatever your line is. Um, [23:45] Michelangelo like made the Sistine Chapel because of God, theoretically.

Maybe it was also flexing and yeah, whatever. [23:53] I have to wonder if maybe that kind of nihilism is one reason... [23:59] Not to get too meta about what motivates you guys, but there is something... [24:04] it feels like there's something sort of like bigger or more meaningful that you're pursuing or like underpinning what you're pursuing. It seems to me that the people who, maybe a ridiculous example, but I always talk about if you compare Zuckerberg and Elon, say what you want about both, lots of criticism, lots of praise, whatever.

I'm not sure what. [24:21] Zuck believes in, even though I think he's like much more responsible about a whole bunch of things. Elon, criticize him all you want. [24:27] definitely really believes in something i i would argue bigger than eating sleeping yeah yeah yeah and so yeah maybe whether it be capital g god or otherwise like that is one of the things missing yeah yeah i mean we see that in elon because of his uh swiftness to make irresponsible decisions right and and unashamedly so right the man has convictions and something that maybe we don't [24:57] Thank you.

[24:58] I... [24:59] I hope there's more of that. I get to say, what do you will about Elon? And I'm not picking a side on that. I'm just saying, uh, [25:07] To create art, I think, is an inherently very selfish act. And I think it's an amazing thing if people can embrace that and lean into it a little bit more. Yeah, believe in something. Well, you got to believe in something, right? And that [25:20] is [25:21] not that's not a thing that's talked about so much anymore because a lot of it is sort of audience driven community driven like what are you making for other people have you verified it with data have you done like user interviews or whatever right but to really make art don't let the crowd drag your vision down to like the lowest mean you know what i mean like take the chance and it could be [25:44] shit, but it could be great.

And that is, I think, always worth it. You guys make a lot of decisions by data here at Mischief, I'm sure. There's actually a huge data wall, but you just plug your brain into that. We have data. We'll look at it and then we'll be like, nah. I think it's from Steve Jobs. There's some old line where he's talking about Google and he's just like, yeah, you can explain the difference between us and Google because they [26:14] Let's talk about Mischief a bit. Cool. In many ways, [26:17] you are in this perpetual conversation with culture.

[26:20] which is why I think it was important to set that backdrop. And in many ways, it's sort of like, to use almost like a religious term, it's sort of like being in the world but not of the world. Like you're sort of able to see the water, but you're also like, you'll come down from the hill and like play in the mud with everybody, which is a really interesting tension. Lucas said a couple lines I liked. Absurd amplification of the present and reflecting back our time and just turning it up slightly.

It's open-ended. What makes a good remix? [26:48] A good remix starts with good material. So you need a good starting point. And we use this term here, cultural ready-made, which is taking something that already exists and has a certain meaning in culture. [27:01] You take it, you co-opt it, you appropriate it, you mix it up, turn it on its head and you put it right back. To break it down into very pragmatic moves, though, I think one of the interesting frameworks that have worked really well in Mischief is taking a move from a certain industry or a certain category and then applying it in a different one.

And it just works so well because you solve that dose of novelty that everyone needs to have that sort of eureka moment. And then they talk about it and then they share it and they engage with it. [27:31] And typically, like we will co-op moves from worlds that don't really talk to one another. Like one great example is we made a TurboTax competitor in the form of an anime dating simulator. And I don't know if it was the most viral thing, but it was the number one game on Steam for two weeks.

Wow. And 20,000 people did use it to file their taxes in the 2024 filing year. Oh my God. How many number one Steam games have you had? Because I think the chair of Steam was also number one. The two games that we've done have hit top of Steam for like a week or two. [28:01] whatever that means. I don't understand Steam at all. But that Tax7 3000 was a great example of taking a move from one space and applying it to another one and creating something that when you see it exist, you're like, [28:16] It kind of makes sense.

It's sort of intuitive or obvious. Yeah, like I kind of get why this should exist. It makes sense, right? It's a free TurboTax competitor in the form of an anime dating simulator because when you do your taxes on TurboTax, you're essentially going through a questionnaire that mirrors questions that you would get on a first date. [28:36] Thank you. [28:37] Anyways, it's was that idea or I guess maybe are most of the ideas kind of like that where it's like presumably that idea when you see it on paper. Maybe not. But when you see it on paper, you're like, oh, yeah, the good ones tend to be that way.

And then there are totally other ideas where you're like, hmm, let's sit on it for a bit. Like, we're not sure. And typically the process is when you have an idea and we feel like it's good. We stow it away for many months and then we revisit it later. And then if it still hits for us, then we will start committing resources to doing it. [29:07] Maybe on that note. [29:09] You guys have talked about you're sort of like playing with the meta of the present, but not [29:14] What happened yesterday?

Mm-hmm. [29:16] Put another way, you've said mischief doesn't win as a first mover. Maybe capturing part of that. How do you sort of operate in the... [29:25] conversation but outside of the current thing because in many ways it is a little paradoxical no totally and then sometimes it becomes a current thing and then we're i don't even know what my stance is on that but that's sort of an amazing case when it becomes the current thing right [29:42] I always said, like, and we've sort of had comparisons to Saturday Night Live where people are like, oh, you must have this writer's room that meets every day to talk about what happened yesterday.

But I say, like, if you look at actually the roster of projects and works that we've put out, none of them respond to a current event that happened. And typically a lot of these things have some sense of not long tail value, but long tail comprehension. [30:09] which is super important. And I think it's because it does use long-term narratives, long-term mechanisms, long-term tools that reflect the, [30:21] Generations is too long, and that doesn't apply anymore. But had Mischief existed decades ago, it could have applied then. Now, because time is shrinking and the future has accelerated to the present and all of that, that window is a lot smaller.

And I think the meta is moving a lot more quickly. So it's... [30:40] That's a tricky one. Are you deliberately anticipating? [30:45] Not on like a what's happening tomorrow or next week sort of thing, but we are spending a lot of time thinking about, all right, now that the meta is moving so quickly now, right? Like what even is the meta right now? Yeah, it's red cream rice. Like who knows? So we actually have to do a lot of... [31:05] soul searching to figure out [31:09] What is that proper middle ground between the thing that gets us excited creatively and artistically?

[31:16] Plus the thing that is pragmatic for us to be able to exist and maybe even thrive if we get it right. And that is extremely existential. And I would say mischief was kind of existential when I started experimenting 12 years ago. [31:37] It got a little more existential in 2019 when we formally got going. And then... [31:42] Now it's just... [31:44] actually like the last year was insanely existential. When you say existential, you mean philosophically or you mean for the, for the existence of mischief? Philosophically. But that translates to the existence of mischief because you used to, [31:57] And part of it was, you know, we used to celebrate – [32:02] Well, not even really, but like there was a time where we would go viral and it felt amazing.

Right. Yeah. And then... [32:09] believe it or not, after enough times, you feel nothing. The good thing is we always celebrated before anything went out. So that was like a good habit that we had, celebrate the act of creation, not the response. [32:21] But over time, like you're – [32:25] your excitement starts to wane the novelty goes down like the addiction to that drug starts to wear off and that's when you have to pull your head up and be like well where do i find that feeling again and where did it truly come from did it come from going viral did it come from learning new formats did it come from collaborating with good people like where was the actual source [32:55] We have to rediscover that because the world is so different.

[32:59] Like everything's so different. [33:02] So, [33:02] It's interesting, too, because... [33:05] I don't know. There's lots of advice. Like, [33:07] It's like the classic Rick Rubin thing. It's like great for you, not for the audience. [33:11] And I've heard you talk about that. I'm sure you guys really do embody it. My experience of you is very much like, [33:16] something close to an autotelic, like we're creating for ourselves. And yet, [33:21] for anyone, but maybe especially you guys. [33:24] So much of what you create is [33:26] As we'll talk about, like not...

[33:27] done when it's [33:29] released. Yeah. Like it's actually in explicitly, if not implicitly kind of in conversation. And, and, and so that's a really fascinating question. Yeah. Yeah. It's, uh, [33:41] It's a fascinating thing to have to ponder, which is like, what is this? If I'm not really getting the dopamine from the external thing, the virality, but what are we trying to say? And also, by the way, it kind of needs to go viral to, I don't know, there's a quote I found somewhere, I think in Mauricio Cotillon's essay at the beginning of the book.

He was quoting Sherry Levine, who I think was quoting Roland Barthes, but neither are there. [34:11] destination. Yeah. Which is like [34:14] Yes, it's about like I love to paint, but also how do you hold these things? 100%. It is a total mindfuck. [34:22] And, you know, [34:23] Look, we always saw virality as a means of distribution to achieve a critical mass that could carry certain types of concepts to completion. Right. That's that's all it ever was. There was also a lot of value in how powerful it made us look behind the black box.

Yes. Right. Like people couldn't figure out, are they 200 people or is it like one guy? Yeah, it's a magician. Yeah, it was like that. [34:49] We've been around long enough where I don't think the black box exists as much anymore, nor does it need to, because nothing lasts forever. We are fluid, just like the world is fluid. And so we are... [35:03] Certainly evaluating, like, what do we want from the work that we put out now? And what is the scale of the relationship with an audience that that work is going to have?

[35:12] I actually believe that – [35:16] It will be very cool to spend the next three, five, maybe even ten years. [35:20] engaging with much smaller audiences. [35:23] It's going to take a lot of discipline, though, because, you know, we built this muscle for larger audiences. And what that came revenue came a business model, the ability to hire a team. [35:34] Yeah. [35:35] But like we said earlier, the virality has lost its sheen. Yes. It's not as interesting. And the staying power of anything that goes viral is also pretty rough.

I mean, look at the little boo-boo guy now. He's like... [35:48] personal net worth is just tanked all of a sudden did it yeah no way yeah he's like six billion less rich now and no way investors are pissed because like the stock plummeted and i'm like damn i know exactly how that feels we did that with the big red boots except i sold all of mine [36:08] to that one guy um and like [36:11] I'm so not surprised, right? Like that's just what's going to happen. But you know, when the Lububu thing was happening, all the team and leadership investors were like, okay, how do we build Disneyland for Lububu?

And like, how do you keep this going? But like the world just doesn't. The staying power of these things, it's not as sticky anymore. And I think you can only really get staying power if you focus on a relationship with a small group for as long as you can possibly hold on. [36:41] And maybe, maybe you have a chance of something with like really... [36:46] significant staying power it's interesting to think about if you're playing the game of spectacle there's only sort of one path forward which is more or bigger yeah yeah yeah and mischief trapped ourselves in that own game like we've we built the game we designed a game and we've [37:03] We won it because we're a player of one.

And then we essentially are trapped by the game unless we reinvent ourselves out of it. But to do that, we have to break a lot of our own rules, which I'm at peace with now. And I think it's very exciting, but it was hard to get there. It's interesting to think about when we brought up Elon, like, [37:24] This sort of having to sort of [37:27] play to a bigger and bigger spectacle is not only the case in [37:30] the art and culture world either like yeah i think it's a sort of rat race that everybody falls into it's just the invisible hand man like it's it's everywhere like mr beast has to keep doing it just the same way like exxon has to keep doing it like everyone has to keep growing and growing and growing but that's that's sort of the one of the existential questions of mischief which [37:52] on one hand is certainly an artist but on the other hand is absolutely a business and [37:57] do we want to grow broadly or do we want to go deep?

Yeah. And go as deep as possible and sustain that as long as possible. [38:08] That's that's sort of the question. But also, I think the opportunity. [38:14] I think there's also just something... [38:16] Almost everything that actually reaches extreme staying power and scale, it has to sort of – [38:23] start small enough that it can actually have room to compound. Yeah, exactly. There's a, um, [38:29] Something that you are, the only, the two people I know who are best at this are you and Peter McIndoe, who you recently met, who created Birds Aren't Real.

Oh, yeah. I never knew his last name. Oh, there you go. And when I say best at, I guess I mean, it's not quite this, but there's an interview with David Bowie in, like, the 90s where he's talking about the internet. And they're like, this is just another technology thing. And he's like, no, no, no. Like, this is an alien life form. Like, the creator and the consumer of the content are going to be so into Patico. You guys have talked about this in different ways. [38:59] the finish line somewhere there's some mantra somewhere like buckle up this is no longer in our hands.

[39:05] performance that makes the audience complete the work, not consume it. And to the point of what we were just talking about, this can happen in really big scale or really small scale. In Peter's case, I think it started with, I don't know, initially it was like taping up Barbies around Arkansas. So these things can start. But in many ways, what I would call the skill is sort of like, can you create some kindling [39:27] that is going to fan into flame yeah yeah [39:30] And in many ways, it's sort of like the most internet native way to create something interesting.

I'm curious, like what maybe I think you guys have used the kind of all encompassing language of like, [39:43] creating something the crowd can play. And so I'm curious, regardless of scale, what goes into creating those types of instruments that, [39:52] a person actually wants to sort of like take and run with and make their own versus just like consume and move on. Yeah, yeah, totally. A lot of it comes from a place of deception, which is kind of great. And for better or for worse, one of the early mantras of mischief was never fall into the trap of building for your community.

Because we like quickly got this big, passionate kind of fan base. And naturally, a lot of the wisdom that's passed along from the [40:22] to your audience, listen to your fans, cultivate your community. And we were like, you know what, we're not going to do that because – [40:29] the first thing you'd have to do is start repeating things that worked well in the past. Right. And we're like, we're never going to do that. In fact, we're going to make things and you're either going to love it or if you hate it, we're going to tell you to shut up, love it, and then you're going to love it even more.

And so that look, it could be wrong. I think it's unique for different people in different groups, but it was good for us. And somehow the audience [40:59] The first product that we put out with that kind of mentality was our Blur Collectible, which is essentially this – [41:08] brick-shaped hunk of plastic rubber that looks like a stack of cache that's been blurred out with the Blur tool on Photoshop. [41:17] We thought it was really funny to put that on a website with the checkout button that says pay to reveal.

[41:25] So it's like there's a $25 checkout button with a blurry stack of cash on it. But what the user and user doesn't realize is it is a. [41:35] perfect resolution photo of a real object. And we're like, this is going to be so funny, but also we're going to get so many chargebacks. We're definitely going to get a lot of angry emails. And so we like made sure we did this under a different LLC because we're going to get the chargebacks. So we didn't want that to affect mischief's ability as a merchant to handle like we did all the precautions knowing that this was probably going to fuck us, but it was going to be worth it because we had to like lay down the law.

Guess what? It's one [42:05] market like people i think we made a thousand on that first run of the s dollar and people got it and they just ran with it they started making so many different videos of conspiracy theories and some people like broke broke theirs open and there were drugs in it some people ate theirs live some people like they they just came up with so much lore that we could have never predicted [42:35] that ended up becoming sort of like a franchise in and of itself. [42:38] ironically with no more meaning though, because the gig was up.

So then it just became an object that looked cool, which is interesting and totally fine by the way. Kind of the half-life of most mischief objects, I would presume. [42:53] at least most of them that hit some kind of escape velocity. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's why this was interesting because it, [42:59] It hit for... [43:02] it hit at the beginning because of the, the gotcha. And then you, [43:08] It carried itself on its own just because it was a cool-looking object, which is not really a... [43:15] business that mischief engages it.

Interesting. But we ran with it. I was like, all right, it kind of works. And that [43:22] That actually has been seen in a lot of the things that we've done, which is interesting. So the Big Red Boot, for example. [43:29] Only made 300 pairs at the beginning. And when it really first started to pick up heat, it was in this sort of cool kids, avant-garde, like art design fashion crowd. That very like, if you know, you know, right? And then it started to really pick up steam and it started showing up on celebrities.

Then it started to show up on content creators. And by that point, we figured out how to make like 20,000 pairs. So we sold a bunch of them. [43:59] Atoning for the sins of the Jesus shoes? Yeah, exactly. So all these content creators realized, oh, wait, this is a tool to get me more views and engagement. So the meaning of the object changed. Wow. I can go viral if I wear things. Yeah, exactly. It became a tool, right? Versus at the early stages, it was a cool kids flex for the cool art kids.

Then it became a tool for the content creators. And so same object, completely different meaning, completely different values. [44:29] actually ironically goes through that cycle. [44:31] Actually, or maybe culture in general. I think you're probably right. Yeah, we probably like compressed decades of fashion wisdom into one very hectic two week time span for myself. [44:44] It's funny, too. There's. [44:47] All of these things are an invitation to, [44:50] that the person willingly opts into. [44:52] But you... [44:54] Sort of subvert them on the way. They were kind of making fun of you.

Right. But you still like it. That's okay. Maybe on that note and on the note of the boots, you make lots of objects, but you also make [45:05] fashion objects and things people can wear, which [45:08] not definitively, but to me at least feels a little different than something you can play or consume in part because yeah, of course there's going to be the, I can use this as a tool or status object, but like, [45:19] whether it's utility or... [45:21] like symbolism or even fantasy costume, like fashion is somewhat tied to identity.

Yeah. 100%. I'm curious what. [45:30] How your approach changes, if at all, for things that people can actually wear and kind of put on themselves? Yeah, unfortunately, it didn't change much. And so we didn't go into the mindset of, all right, there's an identity to design against, which in the industry they call it the lifestyle. Yeah. And then you create content around that lifestyle to sell the things that you're depicting in that lifestyle. We totally did not do that. [46:00] out that clearly do not work for one specific lifestyle so the way that i would describe that is one part conceptual practice but many parts a design exercise which is sort of this other part of

[46:15] people might not realize but [46:18] we are some of the best designers in the world, like full stop, just across the board from like graphic branding, but also object design, material design, packaging design, web design. And, uh, [46:30] I think it gets lost how good we are at it because you're thinking about the concept and the response and everything. Many of these concepts are so loud. Exactly. They're so built to jump off the screen. Yeah, exactly. Maybe that's something that's interesting that opens up. [46:45] And you can be more subtle if you're playing to a smaller audience.

I think so, too. And I think there's... [46:50] you know, [46:52] Part of my existential crisis is coming down to this notion of the act of creation and craft as maybe the solution for the thing that we were always looking for. Maybe that was the source of that euphoric feeling we've had from the beginning because the virality and being able to control so much attention, that wore off. But we still get the high from the act of creation with new formats that we haven't touched yet. Mm-hmm. [47:20] We are also addicted to higher stakes and bigger ambition.

So there, there is some risk there, but that's kind of what makes it fun. [47:30] I'm going to get a little heady for a minute. She officer, forgive me. There is a, [47:36] essay that came up a bunch as I was doing research that I think particularly is influential to your two creative directors. But [47:43] It's just a fascinating lens to look at mischief, which is this athletic aesthetics blog that or essay that Brad Trammell wrote all the way back in 2013. I would recommend people go read it. It's amazing.

I want to read a couple of excerpts. [47:57] Versi says artists using social media have transformed the notion of a work from a series of isolated projects to a constant broadcast of one's artistic identity as recognizable, unique brand. That is... [48:09] What the artist once accomplished by making commodities that could stand independently from them is now accomplished through their ongoing self-commodification. And then this has reversed the traditional recipe that you need to create art to have an audience. Today's artist on the Internet needs to have an audience to create art.

An asthete's audience, once assembled, becomes part of their medium. [48:33] The sort of metaphor that came to mind reading this is like traditional art or production or creativity is sort of like creating a special meal. And this is almost like an IV drip of just like steady nutrition or something. Yeah, for sure. Two other excerpts. To maintain the aerial view necessary for patterns to emerge, one must cultivate a disposition of indifference. To be indifferent is to believe that any one thing is as important as any other. [49:03] and a former high school friend's lunch in the same format with the same gravity.

Obviously, it's very 2013, but so representative. And then finally, caring too much about any one item to the exclusion of the others readily available now seems to jeopardize the viewer's ability to understand the whole. [49:16] And the fascinating thing about this piece that hopefully is captured in those quotes is like... [49:22] this shift almost perfectly straddles this with like one foot in and one foot out like you're sort of [49:27] playing this really deliberately and very deliberately subverting it. Yeah. I'm curious, like, [49:34] I mean, so much of what we were just spending the last 30 minutes talking about, but it's like this hyper online ephemeral, like nothing lasts.

We ship new things every two weeks. Like you are the athlete, but then you're also playing with ideas that are way more substantial and permanent and maybe even where you're going now. That's kind of what we're trying to figure out is how do you not get trapped by your relationship with an audience? How do you maybe go to a place where the individual works can stand on their own? [50:04] stand on their own even if Mischief's name isn't on it the way we started. And I think that's actually the challenge that we've set forth for ourselves is don't fall into the trap now of what you might say Supreme did, which is...

[50:20] Now it's just put the name everywhere and instead of a good idea necessarily, just put the logo on something in. [50:28] Call it a day, right? [50:29] whether you like their move or not, I think it's totally fine. But for us, I don't want us to fall in the trap of just writing on the name that we've cultivated over the last seven years. I would rather throw it away and create work that stands on its own. So how do we do that? Because then we're no longer trapped by the paradigm that Brad so accurately described and predicted like over 10 years ago, because it totally exists.

And maybe it's most apt for people who remember the piece, [50:59] content creator, but in some ways it's sort of like, does Supreme even need the shirts? Yeah. It's actually like drop the product entirely is the way things seem to be swinging. Yeah. [51:09] There's one other, uh, line from the mischief book. When making things at high frequency, people remember the first thing they saw, the best thing they have seen, and the most recent thing they saw best and last both benefit from volume. [51:23] How does, again, maybe you're moving away from it, but how does that articulation play into your strategy?

[51:29] Well, it was really useful since 2019 because our business model was a cycle of reinvention. So we were always iterating the best and the last. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was something always... [51:44] We knew that [51:46] Just anecdotally, we would meet a lot of people who discovered mischief through different points, right? So like they work in different industries or exist in different pockets or communities on the internet, and they all had different entry points. But then they would follow along and maybe realize that many things that they had seen on their feeds or in the news had also come from us.

And some of those would be sort of like what they would rank as the best. [52:16] So, yeah. [52:17] Now they have a last, but we reinvent the last and maybe we also reinvent the best. And so that's sort of how we looked at our relationship with our audience. We adopted a model where we're just constantly iterating on the best and the last, which was cool.