Wykie Etsebeth (00:01):
I am at the down on the championships in Wollongong, the Gong.
Sevan Matossian (00:04):
No shit. Is something happening there or are you just doing work there?
Wykie Etsebeth (00:09):
Dude, when you canceled last week and I got the new time, I was like, this is going to work out perfect. I’m going to arrive in Wollongong the day before the down on the championships and we’re going to have the call of this glorious backdrop. So yeah, I’m not working as wiggy, I’m just watching some CrossFit.
Sevan Matossian (00:25):
Dang. What’s going on? And that’s the event called The Down Under Championships.
Wykie Etsebeth (00:31):
Yeah. So Rob Forte’s event and Yeah, got some indies, got some teams, got a bunch of Americans came over.
Sevan Matossian (00:39):
That’s awesome. Hey, can you guys hear? Oh, no sound. You can’t hear Viki well, hold on. I’m going to turn up his mic. We’re having some problems with guest sounds. How about that? Are you guys good with that? Hello?
Wykie Etsebeth (00:49):
Check.
Sevan Matossian (00:50):
I hear him. Good. How’s
Wykie Etsebeth (00:50):
That audio team?
Sevan Matossian (00:51):
Yeah, you used to work with Vey back in the day. Excited for this. Am I pronouncing your name right? Vey.
Wykie Etsebeth (00:57):
Kyki. You got it?
Sevan Matossian (01:00):
Yeah. Viki pronounce your last name for me.
Wykie Etsebeth (01:03):
It
Sevan Matossian (01:06):
Ebe. What is that
Wykie Etsebeth (01:06):
Like Elizabeth? Like Elizabeth, but it’s Dutch. German, I believe is the origins. Yeah, but I’m South African. Yeah, yeah.
Sevan Matossian (01:15):
And we only knew each other from Instagram and then we met at the games and then we got to say hi at the games. Just informal but intimate
Wykie Etsebeth (01:25):
Just
Sevan Matossian (01:27):
Because everyone’s kind of in an intimate state there, but there’s not really time to interact.
Wykie Etsebeth (01:34):
It was amazing watching you at the games actually, because I’ve only really seen you on the podcast and you were very different at the games. You were very focused. You were very, what’s the right word? You were very reserved. You were just focused on your work and I don’t know. I feel like you were different at the games. I liked it and it was good.
Sevan Matossian (01:50):
Oh, cool. Thank you. What’s funny is when I looked around, I’m glad to hear you say that I admire your work and I view you also as a hard worker, and I was amazed at how little most of the camera people actually worked around me. Our peer group, I’m like, the fuck are you guys doing film? Some shit?
Wykie Etsebeth (02:11):
Well, I guess to their defense, most creators will have an athlete or two to focus on. I guess you were telling the story of all 80 athletes. I guess what happened to the footage? Have you lost your footage to the behind the scenes stuff? Yes.
Sevan Matossian (02:25):
Don’t tell anyone. This is breaking news. You’ve
Wykie Etsebeth (02:27):
Lost it.
Sevan Matossian (02:29):
The thing is this, I hear you and I appreciate what you’re saying. You’re right. And there is something like you don’t want to come home with too much footage, but the window is so small, so you only have seven days. So I’m like, motherfuckers keep that record on. I was scrolling through your Instagram extensively and back a couple years. You’re like, Hey, I’m paraphrasing, but you said something like, Hey, sitting around today, just dug up some old footage and put this together and it’s a crazy rich froning reel, right? This is from two or four years ago. You’re not going to get that crazy. You didn’t get that because you were sitting around being like, well, here, I’m only here to work with Matt. You know what I mean? When you were there, if I said to you, Hey, do you have any footage of Ant Hanes? You’re probably like, yeah, of course. I shot him. He’s beautiful. You know what I mean? Have a slow his shirt off. And so I just felt like I was surprised in the warmup area, and I know it’s also very intimidating, but I was just surprised to see a lot of people standing around. That’s it. Maybe I’m old
Wykie Etsebeth (03:38):
Also now. I think the landscape’s changed a bit as well. In the past. You could just film whatever you want and use the footage as you please. I feel like these days, brands and camps, they put more limitations around, more restrictions around the creators. They outline before the event starts. How you only shooting for us? So you can’t be posting stuff from other athletes or, so there are other restrictions now that maybe wasn’t,
Sevan Matossian (04:02):
Are there really rules like that? Are there rules like that? I didn’t even know that. Yeah.
Wykie Etsebeth (04:05):
Oh yeah. With some brands, like some brands and Cams will outline the kind of parameters that you are allowed to film and shoot and release stuff, for sure. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (04:15):
I guess I can’t be under there shooting footage of Crin and then selling it to Puma. Here you go.
Wykie Etsebeth (04:24):
That’s it.
Sevan Matossian (04:26):
Go ahead. Go ahead. Exploit the shit out of her three shows in one day. All warm up for this one baby. All warm up for baby. Let’s go.
Wykie Etsebeth (04:39):
Stop it.
Sevan Matossian (04:41):
Vicki, how old are you?
Wykie Etsebeth (04:43):
I am 37 years old.
Sevan Matossian (04:45):
No shit.
Wykie Etsebeth (04:45):
37 years young. I just say. Yeah, dude. Young as youngest man alive,
Sevan Matossian (04:52):
And I used to accuse you of being older than me.
Wykie Etsebeth (04:55):
You did. I think it’s one of the first things you ever, when you mentioned my name for the very first time on your podcast, you said something along the lines of, oh, that’s an oldest African dude, right? Or something along those lines. And so I was compelled to make a video about that. I dunno if you remember the video I made about you.
Sevan Matossian (05:12):
I do.
Wykie Etsebeth (05:13):
Saying that.
Sevan Matossian (05:14):
Love it. First sight, please. Everyone in the chat who thinks he looks older than me, please speak up.
Wykie Etsebeth (05:23):
There’s no way, bro.
Sevan Matossian (05:27):
37 years old. When I rolled back in your Instagram, 2015, you were coaching, and now nine years ago you were coaching. Tell me where were you nine years ago and how’d you get to that spot?
Wykie Etsebeth (05:45):
Yeah, I was a affiliate owner for eight years. I owned two affiliates, so I started my first affiliate in Auckland, New Zealand back in 2011, and I sold that gym in 2009 team. So I ran that for eight years, coached maybe five classes a day straight for eight years, so hundreds of hours on the coaching floor and every CrossFit certification imaginable. In the early days, I just went into every single CrossFit cert that was out there. I did all the way from kids to endurance, to weightlifting the whole lot. So I lived and briefed affiliate ownership and coaching for a long time. So that’s why you saw the coaching stuff. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (06:33):
So many questions around that. First, why did you get into CrossFit? Why’d you get into coaching?
Wykie Etsebeth (06:39):
So I knew I was maybe eight years old when I started going to the gym with my dad, and I knew from a very young age that I would do something in the sports or fitness realm. That’s kind of what I loved to do from a young age. And so straight out of high school, I went and studied my sports science degree. I did my three-year sports science degree, and then just went on to be an instructor at Global Gym for two or three years before I found CrossFit. There was three of us at the same global gym that found crossfit.com. Around the same time, around 2009, we found we stumbled across crossfit.com at the global gym, started doing CrossFit workouts at the global gym. Oh, it’s my dad.
Sevan Matossian (07:17):
Yeah, this is, yeah, but you knew you. You mentioned him, right? This is the guy that got you going. Yeah,
Wykie Etsebeth (07:25):
That’s it. That’s it. That’s the man. Yeah. He dragged him to the gym with him as a youngster, 8-year-old, and he was doing just a circuit. He was doing like a strength circuit, like eight machines, 15 reps, three sets type of thing. And I remember sitting in the gym as a youngster thinking, this is cool, but something’s missing. I knew that it could be done better. This is before I knew about CrossFit. And so when I stumbled across, when I came across cross.com, I realized that this is it. This is fitness with community, this is what it’s supposed to look like. And so three of us instructors left the same gym in the same month and started three affiliates in Auckland in the same month. Back in 2011, we actually filled up a shipping container from China together. We chipped in. There was no equipment companies back in those days. You couldn’t buy kettlebells or barbells from anywhere. And so we all just filled up a container from China and brought that over and started three CrossFit gyms in Auckland. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (08:26):
Hey, did you guys all do your level one at the same time?
Wykie Etsebeth (08:30):
Around the same time? Yeah. Probably all around the 2009, 2010 mark. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (08:34):
Do you remember who taught your level one?
Wykie Etsebeth (08:37):
I actually think Adrian Bosman came over to our level one in New Zealand. I think he was at my level one or my level two. Yeah, we had BO at one of them, and then yeah, Mike Berger came over for the weightlifting.
Sevan Matossian (08:51):
Do you remember why you signed up for the level one? I know it’s a long time ago, but do you remember what finally had you go, okay, fine. I know it’s two days I’m going to spend this thousand bucks.
Wykie Etsebeth (09:02):
Yeah, I mean, I knew I wanted to own an affiliate, so to do that, I had to have my level one to apply. So that was the motivation. Initially, I didn’t think I’d learn much. I had this three year sports science degree, and I can honestly say with all confidence that I learned more in those two days at the level one. I couldn’t tell you what I learned in my three year four science degree. I can’t recall anything. But the stuff I learned in my two day level one still is with me now, and I still believe in and preached. So yeah.
Sevan Matossian (09:33):
How fascinating is that? The first time I heard that was at Tennessee Tech, and it was from the strength and conditioning coach there that Rich Froning was working under. What was his name? Kip Kip Hughes. I think I have his name wrong a little bit. Why do you think that is? How do these people go through these 2, 3, 4 year degrees in kinesiology, the health sciences, and then they do this two day CrossFit course and they’re just, they have their eyes just popped open.
Wykie Etsebeth (10:06):
Yeah. Well, its theory versus reality. I think CrossFit has such a real life application. It’s a lot more applicable to everyday life learning. As an 18-year-old out of school, you don’t know what you want to do. You go and do the sports science degree, not really having the passion or the buy-in, I guess, that you do when you decide that you want to start across affiliate or you want to become across the coach. Yeah, I dunno. I just think it’s simpler and it’s more applicable to everyday life than the science stuff that you learn, but you can’t really see it take place in real life if it makes sense.
Sevan Matossian (10:45):
Yeah. I like way you said that. I’m sorry I’m using your brain. Thank you though. Applicable and not abstract.
Wykie Etsebeth (10:56):
That’s it.
Sevan Matossian (10:56):
Yeah, applicable and not abstract.
Wykie Etsebeth (10:59):
Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (11:01):
Why did you sell your gym vey?
Wykie Etsebeth (11:05):
So mainly because I fell in love with grading content, but also I moved from Auckland to Australia in 2016. I didn’t sell the gym until 2019, so for three years the gym in Auckland ran without me being there and ran with a manager in place.
Sevan Matossian (11:23):
Okay. And Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. I’m, I don’t know what wrong with me. I’m 51. Okay. Auckland’s in New Zealand.
Wykie Etsebeth (11:31):
Yeah, that’s it.
Sevan Matossian (11:32):
Okay. 2016, you opened the gym in Auckland, or sorry, start over one more time. Say that again. I wrote it down so I can look at it while you say it.
Wykie Etsebeth (11:40):
Yeah. So the gym opened in 2011.
Sevan Matossian (11:42):
Okay.
Wykie Etsebeth (11:44):
In 2016, we moved away to Australia from New Zealand,
(11:48):
And I didn’t sell that gym in Auckland until 2019. So there’s a three year gap where I was over in Australia running the gym remotely. And I think when you are removed from your gym that far, you kind of lose touch of the community and it’s just not the same when you’re in there coaching and you are doing life with the people in the gym. It’s your life. And then when you move to different country, you lose touch of that. And yeah, I just felt like it was time to sell that by saying that I also started a gym here on the Gold Coast in Australia when I moved here, and that gym went horribly. It just never grew. I ended up closing that three years later. And so I think the combination of having a failed gym and being so far removed from my original gym, I think I felt like I’d done my years, done my dash, and was ready to move on to something different. So yeah.
Sevan Matossian (12:42):
What year did you leave South Africa?
Wykie Etsebeth (12:46):
2002 as a 15-year-old with my family. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (12:50):
Were you guys leaving hardship?
Wykie Etsebeth (12:53):
No. No. We had a great life. Dad had his own business. Mom was a teacher. I think dad just had the foresight just to know that for the kids, for the kids’ future, it wasn’t a great place to stay. And so, yeah, thank God we got out of there and now have amazing life here. So it’s pretty tough going over there in South Africa. From what I understand, it’s too extreme. You’re either doing really well or you’re doing very poorly. There’s no kind of middle class as such. You’re either on the street or you’re doing really well. It’s tough place to make it these days.
Sevan Matossian (13:28):
And people talk about Gaza as being the world’s largest open air prison. There’s a strong component of that. Also because of the violence and the tensions in South Africa, when you’re there, at least the times that I’ve been there, there’s a very serious component of that. You’re like, how come there’s no one on the streets? How come no one’s walking around? How come no one’s sitting at these outdoor cafes? Because shit could go horribly wrong. There is a prison feeling there when I’m there. Like, oh, shit. Shit’s tight. Shit’s too tense.
Wykie Etsebeth (13:58):
Yeah, sure. I mean, I never experienced that growing up. We were in a pretty safe little town, and you kind of just grow up there. You don’t know anything different.
Sevan Matossian (14:08):
Right, right.
Wykie Etsebeth (14:09):
Yeah. So I never felt threatened or in danger or anything. I had a great upbringing, missed other country.
Sevan Matossian (14:17):
But even in the nice parts there, I mean, even fortunately for us, the United States is massive, but we have these pockets now that have grown in the last couple of years that just have become, I mean, we’ve always had pockets, but now they’re growing big. Now we used to have one section of San Francisco, now it’s all of San Francisco now. San Francisco’s tiny 10 by 10 miles compared to all of California. But what I’m saying, I guess, is that South Africa’s had that for a while.
Wykie Etsebeth (14:40):
Yeah, a hundred percent. Hundred percent. It’s always been lots of tension, not only between the whites and the blacks, but also between all the tribes within Africa. There’s always been tension there for sure.
Sevan Matossian (14:54):
Yeah. Isn’t that a true, and in this country, just to be clear, it’s off subject a little, but in this country, it’s not even necessarily between the whites and the blacks. It’s just huge swaths of our country have been taken over by drug addicts. Now that I think about it. They’re all white.
Wykie Etsebeth (15:12):
Yeah. Larger thanks to the pandemic. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (15:15):
Yeah. And we got a border problem. It’s really easy if you want to bring drugs in. I know a guy, so at 15 you move and you come to guys, go to New Zealand, Auckland, and then,
Wykie Etsebeth (15:31):
Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (15:32):
Is that fair? No.
Wykie Etsebeth (15:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Started in a smaller town and then moved to Auckland. Yeah. Okay. New Zealand’s pretty small. That’s one big city, really.
Sevan Matossian (15:39):
And then where did you meet your wife and how old were you?
Wykie Etsebeth (15:44):
Yeah, so she’s Auckland born, Andre, she’s a Kiwi, as they call ’em, a New Zealander. We met at the gym at the church slash gym in 2000. We got married in 2010. We probably met in 2009, around 2009. So around the same time. I can’t cross it really. In fact, we actually, we went to the States in 2011, just a trip we did around the world trip, and we were in the States, and I went to a bunch of CrossFit gyms on that trip. I actually bought myself a rogue timer for the new gym that was going to start later that year. And at customs, they pulled me over, they saw this timer. There’s the clock that I was taking on carry on, and yeah, they thought it might be something suspect. So that was a rogue timer that I bought on now around the world trip. So yeah, met my wife in about 2009, got married in 2010, so I would’ve been, what’s that, 13 years ago? I would’ve been 20, 24. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (16:46):
When you opened your first gym, Vicky, did you have another job?
Wykie Etsebeth (16:51):
Yeah, I actually was working for the New Zealand police, not as a police officer, but as a civilian. So I was working in the recruiting department doing all their fitness testing for them. So I would take the police, young police officers or officer, the guys that want to become police officers, and did the test, did the 5K run test and the pushup test, and took them through that. So helped with the recruiting department. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (17:13):
And you did both for a while. Did your job at the police department subsidize your gym?
Wykie Etsebeth (17:20):
Yeah, so luckily my boss there, the inspector was really accommodating us. I was working five days a week, and he allowed me to drop down to three days to focus in the gym two days, and just slowly kind of switch the ratio until I was ready to leave altogether. But I mean, with across the gym, you can coach from five 30 till seven 30, you can do two classes, lock the gym up, go to work, and then come back in the afternoon or have another coach take the lunchtime class. So I was doing both coaching in morning coaching night, and working a full day at a normal job for years. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (17:50):
Yeah. That seems to be the route. Did you ever get to a place where you could just be full-time at the gym?
Wykie Etsebeth (17:56):
Yes. Yeah, absolutely. So probably only took a year, maybe the first year was doing both. And then I think from year two, I was full-time at the gym. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (18:04):
Did you introduce a CrossFit to that police department or to the academy at all?
Wykie Etsebeth (18:09):
That’s all I did with them. That’s the recruits own the CrossFit. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (18:13):
I wonder how many affiliates you spawned off of that, or how many L ones you sold? I bet you it was a handful.
Wykie Etsebeth (18:19):
Yeah. I mean, even we’ve probably put about 20 coaches through level ones, I’d say over the years. Yeah. So yeah, quite a few.
Sevan Matossian (18:30):
Did your wife, did she do CrossFit at the time? And what did she think about you going into the gym space? The boutique gym space?
Wykie Etsebeth (18:38):
Yeah, so as I said, she was coming to the global gym that I was working at. She got incredibly fit for six months to a year. There’re visiting the gym very frequently, but then they seemed to drop off after we got married. But no, she did come to the cross for gym. It’s not really her thing. So she would join the nine 30 months class. She’s super supportive. She just, whatever I’m into, whatever I do, she fully supports me and always cheers me on. But yeah, CrossFits not really her thing.
Sevan Matossian (19:10):
And you need that. It sounds like basically you’re an entrepreneur at heart and you’re taking not the easy road, opening a CrossFit gym and then going into content.
Wykie Etsebeth (19:23):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, very much so. My dad always worked for himself, and I was never comfortable working for other people. I always wanted to do my own thing and kind of create my own path in life. So yeah, very entrepreneurial and yeah, she’s been gracious enough to just come along for the ride and take the punches with me, and yeah, it hasn’t been an easy road. It’s been tough. Affiliate ownership is, it’s not an easy thing to do. It’s not only very time consuming, but it’s very emotionally draining. You got this whole community of people that you love and take on, not only as clients, but as friends. So you carry that emotional side as well. So it was a wild ride there for a few years with the affiliate, for sure.
Sevan Matossian (20:03):
I want to jump ahead here just really quick, and then we’ll swing back. Just so people don’t know, please. This is v’s YouTube channel. This is his CrossFit centric YouTube channel, and then, is that fair to call it CrossFit centric YouTube channel? This one?
Wykie Etsebeth (20:20):
Yeah. Yeah, a hundred percent.
Sevan Matossian (20:21):
And then you’ve also launched a golf channel?
Wykie Etsebeth (20:24):
Yeah, soft launch. Yeah. Yeah. Dunno what will happen with that. We’ll see.
Sevan Matossian (20:28):
Yeah. Tell me, did you just learn that term soft launch from watching that? Danielle Brandon, that’s where I learned that term, the Danielle Brandon with the, okay. Is that where you learned it? No,
Wykie Etsebeth (20:37):
No, no. I’ve always known the term soft launch. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (20:41):
Do you know what post I’m referring to?
Wykie Etsebeth (20:43):
No, I don’t. I missed that one.
Sevan Matossian (20:45):
There was a post with her hand, then a guy’s hand, and it said soft launch.
Wykie Etsebeth (20:49):
Ah, yes.
Sevan Matossian (20:50):
They were kind announcing something. Yeah.
Wykie Etsebeth (20:52):
Gotcha.
Sevan Matossian (20:53):
I thought that was so clever. Well, I’m behind the line. What’s the golf YouTube channel?
Wykie Etsebeth (21:00):
It’s called Raw Golf. So ROAR, golf, raw golf. It’s, it’s not, yeah, it’s not happening at the moment, but hopefully next year will happen.
Sevan Matossian (21:09):
Oh. Oh, roar Like, roar like a lion.
Wykie Etsebeth (21:12):
Yeah, that’s it. Roar Golf.
Sevan Matossian (21:14):
Now, is this inspired, you saw Nate Edwardson pivoted and he’s killing it, right?
Wykie Etsebeth (21:21):
Yeah, he’s doing really well. I mean, I definitely won’t be doing any commentary on his channel’s very much about, yeah, you go. Thanks, buddy. I appreciate that. Yeah, Nate’s very much commenting on the YouTube golf space. So he comments on or delivers commentary on other golf YouTubers channels. I guess I definitely won’t be going down that route. I just enjoy playing golf and I enjoy creating, creating content.
Sevan Matossian (21:49):
Were you inspired by his channel?
Wykie Etsebeth (21:53):
Not really. I mean, Nate’s not a, and he would agree to this. He’s not a cinematographer. He’s not a videographer. He can turn a camera on, and he’s good at talking a lot. My thing is more about creating beautiful video. I’m more about the cinematics, making things look really pretty. And so with the golf channel, that’s what I’ll hope to do is make really beautiful golf content in the future. Hopefully. We’ll see.
Sevan Matossian (22:20):
I guess inspired by the fact is because he’s having so much success at it. I mean, it’s such a massive space, right? Compared to CrossFit.
Wykie Etsebeth (22:28):
Yeah, it’s a big market for sure. I think my motivation of the golf is more because I love playing the sport and I want to document it. I don’t really care too much about how much channel grows or how the channel performs and such. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (22:41):
Tell me, did you open your gym before you met your wife, your first gym, or right around the same time you said which came first, your gym or your wife?
Wykie Etsebeth (22:50):
My wife came first and then we opened the gym together. Yeah, got married in 2010, opened the gym in 2011, one year later, had a child the year after 2012. So we got married, opened a business, had a child.
Sevan Matossian (23:03):
Wow. That is moving. And how many kids do you have?
Wykie Etsebeth (23:09):
I’ve got one. We had a little boy. We’ve got an 11-year-old girl. She’s 11. We had a little boy called Benji back in 2014. He, unfortunately, at the 20 week scan, we found out that he had some pretty severe brain formalities, and so we were told that he would be a very high challenge, or actually, I said, look, he could be very high challenge disability, or he could be fine. We don’t know. And when he was born, it was actually a lot worse than they thought. He only lived for 13 hours, and so he passed away. Yeah. So that was 2014. That was just two years after. And so yes, if it got carris, we haven’t been able to, tried to have more kids after Benji, but this wasn’t happening. So yeah.
Sevan Matossian (23:55):
When did you name him
Wykie Etsebeth (23:57):
Benji? Yeah, pretty early on. I think when we found out that he was sick, we shared with our community that, Hey, we’re expecting this little boy, and obviously we asked our church to pray for him and stuff like that. So we kind of felt it was appropriate to share his name. We already had chosen his name at that stage, but we shared his name and just wanted to involve people in the story and really believed that he would be all right. So, yeah. So I think we kind of gave the name pretty early on. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (24:28):
Do you remember how you came up with it?
Wykie Etsebeth (24:34):
No. I don’t know why we chose Benji. Yeah. Real. Not in any of the families. I think we just both just love the name. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (24:46):
Why did you decide when, you know, at 20 weeks, that he could have some severe disabilities or he could, oh, I guess they said, or he could be okay. They did well.
Wykie Etsebeth (24:56):
Yeah. So with the condition he had, there’s such a wide variety of kids that have that disability or that condition. Some of ’em come out with very minor, minor issues. Some of ’em come out with very major issues. It’s really hard to tell. They can’t really, it’s basically when the rigids in the brain are accentuated, they really deep rigids. So yeah. So they couldn’t tell us how severe it’ll be or what is, they said it’ll be to do with his ability to speak and swallow. So it was kind of like from the neck up. But yeah, they couldn’t tell us how severe it would be. So we were just committed to have them regardless and just deal with the challenges as they can as they came. So
Sevan Matossian (25:36):
Let me pause here for a second. This is completely off topic. Rambler says, Viking and Craig Richey have similar content. I have an immediate reaction to that, but I’ll tell you one second. And then he says, am I right or wrong? And then says, Vike using green screen. So I think that I’m going to take a stab at this and then we’ll let you go. There’s two kinds of Vikings who’s in front of his camera that’s a vlog, and he’s in his beautiful office, and he talks to you, and then you get to see him work out, and he shares some thoughts with you, and it’s very soothing content. Maybe that’s the only similarity I seen between him and Craig Ritchie. I think Craig Ritchie has very soothing content. He’s very just, there’s something soothing about him. I just watched one of his videos. If it was 20 minutes long, I have no idea what I fucking watched, but I was calm afterwards.
(26:22):
I’d been petting a dog or something, but’s videos. His video work is nothing, not even in any way, similar to Craig Richie’s like his content with athletes, because Craig Ritchie makes what people call reaction video content. It’s about him. I just watched a video where he visited Justin Maderis, and it’s 80% Craig Ritchie and 20% Justin Maderis. Yours is not that. Yours is beautifully shot cinematic stories about maybe Karin and Matt’s relationship at the games, and you might see some movement and then some deep conversation, and then some movement and things like that. Is that a fair, those are your two, and then go, now you tell me.
Wykie Etsebeth (27:08):
Yeah. Look, I don’t know what my YouTube channel is
Sevan Matossian (27:10):
All, he’s a vlogger. And you’re not a vlogger, per se.
Wykie Etsebeth (27:14):
Yeah, I think in the past, I’ve done a lot of sit down commentary type stuff on the sport. I’ve kind of lost interest in that. I dunno, if you follow my channel, you’ll notice there’s no real, I haven’t done any of those videos for a long time where I sit down and talk to the camera. I’ve lost interest in commentating on the sport, talking about what’s happening in the sport. I do now do more vlog style content where I like being out and about and telling a story with athletes, or even just by myself. So I think the last, yeah, I can’t even remember when the last one as I made down. So
Sevan Matossian (27:48):
Is he more right than I am? Is your stuff more reaction stuff now?
Wykie Etsebeth (27:52):
No, no, no. So I think I’m leaning into just vlog style more so just being just a vlogger that is taking you along on my day or at the event. I’m not sitting down in front of the camera with a tripod and talking about the sport of cross anymore. I used to, I’m not saying I won’t do that again, but I’ve just lost interest in doing that. Yeah. So I’m a vlogger like Craig is in a sense. But again, Craig would tell you, he’ll be the first one to tell you he’s not a videographer. He’ll hire someone to shoot the B-roll for him to add to his logs at the games or where I’m a videographer by. This is my job. So, yeah. But I guess that content similar,
Sevan Matossian (28:32):
People can hire you out. People have hired you out to make high-end commercials for their products.
Wykie Etsebeth (28:40):
Yes,
Sevan Matossian (28:40):
Yes.
Wykie Etsebeth (28:41):
Yeah. So Craig and Nate, that’s not what they do. They’re YouTubers, but they’re not videographers by trade. Yeah,
Sevan Matossian (28:47):
Right, right.
Wykie Etsebeth (28:49):
I’m a videographer having a crack at YouTube, having a go.
Sevan Matossian (28:53):
Did someone pay you to go to the games this year? Did you work for Matt this year at the games?
Wykie Etsebeth (28:59):
Yeah, it’s my third year working for H wpo as the main kind videographer, creating their vlog for that week. Yeah.
Sevan Matossian (29:05):
Yeah, dude, that is fucking awesome. I want to come back to that. That is so awesome that you do that.
Wykie Etsebeth (29:10):
It’s
Sevan Matossian (29:10):
The best. Yeah. What an amazing gig to get to work with Matt Frasier. Okay, so your second child, that happens and crazy change your life, or you’re at peace with it, or does that change your trajectory? You’re headed this way and you ricochet off in another direction. All of a sudden you go to seminary school,
Wykie Etsebeth (29:35):
Not quite that passing. Passing. You’re kind of in this bubble of hurt that you feel like you’re never going to come out of.
Sevan Matossian (29:48):
Sorry. You had him for five months?
Wykie Etsebeth (29:50):
No, no, no. Sorry. No. We had him for 13 hours. He passed away 13 hours after he was born,
Sevan Matossian (29:54):
20 weeks he was diagnosed. Okay. You had him for 13 hours. Yeah. Yeah.
Wykie Etsebeth (29:57):
Okay. Yeah. Did you actually bring.
The above transcript is generated using AI technology and therefore may contain errors.
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