Nick: All right, sick. When I first found your channel, it was, of course, The Caretaker video back during the pandemic. One of the most obvious things that I noticed about your channel in the last year or so is the visual push to stand out more. Why did you decide to change the visual style of your more recent videos?

Jake: I always kind of admired people who were able to distinguish themselves visually, not just from the things they discuss or anything like that. I like being able to look at something and see immediately that there is a style here. There's something that they're doing that’s a little different than most. So that's why I wanted to push more to be a little more out there visually, maybe not necessarily having the craziest editing of all time, but just do things that are a little out there and a little more interesting because on the internet, the video essay genre can get very repetitive when you get down to the brass tacks where it's just videos of a band they're talking about or clips from a movie they're talking about. So I wanted to shake it up and make it look a little more different so that people could have a reason to come to my video if I talk about a similar topic, because we might have similar thoughts and opinions on an album or a subject that I'm discussing, but they'll stay because it looks cool

Nick: What inspirations did you pull from when figuring out how to change up your style in that regard?

Jake: I really took a lot of inspiration from Van Neistat, Casey Neistat's brother. In full disclosure, I did not watch Casey Neistat until like two years ago. I knew who he was and I knew he was the big internet guy, but I was never huge on him. I actually got into Casey Neistat through his brother, Van Neistat, and the way he presented himself was so interesting to me with having title cards instead of them being crazy animated. It's this intentional lo-fi quality that generates this charm that you kind of lose when everything's hyper edited and very meticulous, like 15 person editing staff kind of meticulous. Whereas you can tell from a Van Neistat video that he cares about what he's saying and he doesn't need crazy graphics to get your attention. He'll write a title card on a little sheet of paper or he'll have a weird shot that just makes you think like, “huh, why did he do that?” It adds another element to him telling stories and I really liked his presentation. A lot of people have talked to me about my style change like, “oh you must like Van Neistat a lot.” I'm like, “yeah, I do.”

Nick: So, do you think that this has made you stand out more? Do you think that it's giving you more subscribers and views?

Jake: I Don't think the style change necessarily equates to more views and more subscribers. If anything, I’d say it’s doing the opposite. When I got my big start with The Caretaker, it was a very meat and potatoes video essay on an interesting topic. I didn't even show my face at the time and it was just me talking. So that's what the people who subscribe to me in mass were expecting. So this shift, if anything, is more out of nowhere, and people were probably looking at it like, “oh, well, this isn't really what I was looking for when I subscribed,” but in all honesty, I don't really care. I have more fun making videos like that.

Nick: I know that another huge aspect of this shift is the push for more IRL content. Could you explain what led to you interviewing people in New York City?

Jake: That was again out of me looking at the kind of niche that I occupied with video essayists, where it's very isolating. It's very one person in their room or whatever. So I was looking at, it like, “well, how can I be a little weird? How can I be a little different?” I've always appreciated street interviews. I always thought that took a whole lot of balls to do. It was half out of genuine curiosity of wanting to do it and another part of me being a little nervous to do this. I had my cameraman with me and I told him as we were walking there that I don't think I could do it and I almost kind of proved to myself. It was a little scary but once you get into it, it's just fun. You become the secondary character, whereas the people you're interviewing become the main character. I chose Central Park and Washington Square Park because that's where the wacky people are. Probably 95 percent of the people there started freestyle rapping and I just cut that out because that wasn't exactly what I was looking for. So in a long answer to your question, I thought it would be fun and challenge me to up the format and do something different.

Nick: Real quick, who was your cameraman?

Jake: My cameraman was my friend and close creative collaborator, Darren. Shoutout to him. He's a good egg. He really helps me when I need someone to hold the camera or do really stupid stuff with me like sit in freezing cold at Washington Square Park for like an hour and a half.

Nick: What video were those interviews used for?

Jake: That would be the album covers video.

Nick: Are you hoping to conduct more on the ground interviews like that in the future, maybe even in locations that aren't Manhattan.

Jake: Yeah, actually I even had to do kind of the extreme of that, I had to stop myself from doing it because as soon as I got done doing it like, there even might be footage somewhere that the audio wasn't recording, but I told my friend, “I kind of want to keep doing this. Like this is actually a lot of fun, but I know you're cold.” So as soon as I left, I was like, “I can't wait to go back,” but I don't want to tight cast myself as the guy who goes to New York for interviews. I think that it's a cool motif, but I don't want to burn it out. So I have to pick and choose my video topics when I go to Washington Square Park. It's a great spot for interviews because you get really fun people and everyone walks by there, so I have video ideas that would benefit from interviews. I'm just holding off on it so I don't niche myself into a corner.