Hello and welcome to the Lyons Den. Each week we talk to creators in Web three to learn more about them as a person, their journey, both before and in Web three, and hopefully learn a lesson or two to pass down to the next batch of creators. I'm your host, Fon Fronton, co-founder of the Atlas Lyons Club.

So without further ado, let's jump into the den. On this week's episode, we are joined by the infamous Mackey. You know his work through his company, word three, as the leading creator of Audiograms for Web three Twitter spaces. Learn about his journey, but more importantly, learn about why he does what he does, because it's about so much more than NFTs.

Listen here. All right. Welcome to Lyons and everybody brought to you by the Atlas Lyons Club. I am your host and co-founder of the Atlas Lyons Club Von Fronton. And each week we interview builders, creators, people in web three to learn a little bit about themselves, what they're building, and hopefully get a piece of advice or two for the.

Future creators and builders in the space as well. And today is a really exciting one for me. This is something that we've set up about maybe a month ago now. And somebody that we've worked with as the Atlas Lion Club. Somebody that has been in the space for a while that I've worked I'll say worked with, but been on stages with.

And finally had the chance to meet live in VeeCon just the other week. So really excited to have him up here. Mackey, how are you 

man? I'm here. I'm alive. I'm currently sitting outside without a shirt on in the blazing hot Michigan sun. It is 90 degrees and I'll be moving inside soon. 

I You are painting a picture with words and it is lovely, I must say.

So you've you have, I'll say, I blazed a trail within kind of web three, but I think even more broadly within social media with what you're building over at at Word three and the autographs. But before we get to what you're building now, would love to go back in time a little bit to understand the journey that got you to where you are.

So first things first, help us get an idea. Where'd you grow up? Where 

you from? I'm from Southeast Michigan, just outside of Detroit. Ran around the lovely streets of of the motor city. For quite a while. Friends and bands, friends, dads and bands drinking in vans underage and, and getting up to no good with, with my, with my buddies.

But I moved to West Michigan. So I live in Grand Rapids. It's the second largest city in Michigan. I'm like, probably 40 minutes from the Lakeshore. I moved here 14 years ago. I'm 34. And I will never, I probably won't move anywhere, anywhere else in a foreseeable future. It's cheap here. It's nice here.

People aren't as racist as they are, Metro Detroit or as generally angry. So yeah, all important things to me. I've got a good friend group here and I'm an only child. What else is there? I have a very, very small family. It's just me and my dad, and I have some aunts and uncles that, that I talk to sometimes, but, But I learned from being an only child that, you know, your family's who you make it.

And that's kind of how I would say my journey in web three's been defined. Like I respect people and I treat others the way I'd wanna be treated. And it's it's certainly gotten me to where I am in life. And here on Twitter, I. So 

walk us through what I'll say growing up in Michigan was like, for you, what were the things that, as you were growing up, that you sort of to kind of gravitate towards, you know, whether it was hobbies, things in school.

What were those things that as you kind of look back now of where you are at 34, that you were like, all right, these are the some things that I finally kind of realized either your place, your interests, what were those? 

So. I had a lot of sleepovers with my friends. My friends were extremely close. I have a best friend from kindergarten.

I still talk to friends from like seventh grade friends from like first grade that I regularly interact with. And I, and honestly, I'll thank Covid for the recognition of that. We played d and d for a little bit digitally at the beginning of Covid and kind of brought us all back together in a way.

And then my mom passed away and I had like everybody there like ready to go. People who knew my mom, who grew up with her and like, Had all the, the wonderful memories that, that, you know, I had forgotten. And so it was, it was so, so fucking useful for my grief. But when we were kids, we would make we would make a lot of videos in our high school years.

We had a website called slap dash trash. It was kind of inspired by the like jackass era of stuff and we do dumb shit. And then eventually we started making skits and kind of made like full videos of things. And this was before YouTube. So we were ahead of the curve that way, but we fizzled out and eventually stopped doing it.

And one of the fun things about our website was we would, we'd put not what are they called? Like not VPNs, but like, work around links for people to get around like the school's firewall to like play flash games in school. And and our buddy would, would handle all that stuff. Cause I wasn't technologically savvy enough, but I've been doing.

You know, some form or another of social media. Since MySpace live journal days I still have access to my, my live journal. So it's it's pretty brutal to read. I was talking to my girlfriend yesterday. I was like, we should read my live journal sometime. I was like, we should not read my live journal sometime actually, because I will just feel so cringe all over the whole time.

But I think the video making, and I was drama kid too. I was the Wizard of Oz and Wizard of Oz and We, the videos that we made, we had so much fun doing it. Like we would make up our own sports and stuff and then we walked away from this video making thing and then YouTube became a big thing and then we're like, shit, we should have kept doing that.

And honestly missing that boat is what got, is what's gotten me to stick around this time. Like during the bear, I was like, you know what, there's people around. This is my first time being through a bear. While on Twitter and like actually engaging with the community because I mean, before NFTs Crypto Twitter was honestly kind of boring.

But knowing what I know now and the boat that I missed back then is what's like, really got me to lock in and, and stay here because it, I'm not, I'm not missing this chance again, is what I'm trying to say. Like I'm just not going to.

That is so interesting cuz like you don't really think about, at least I don't, there is such a focus on content creation within web three and you have people building their personal brands and people building the brands of their, you know, their projects, their companies and things like that. And it is, Almost entirely, at least at this point in time, kind of very Twitter focused.

Like you kind of forgot that there was like a wave like this that happened whenever that was 15, 20 years ago when YouTube first started going. So I mean, when you. Granted, there is you know, a gap between the beginning of YouTube and now, did you ever go back and like, toy around with it or, or, or try to make that work 

at all?

I have still maybe uploaded like two videos to YouTube. I think one of the things that I'll probably end up doing for Word three is putting Audiograms onto YouTube shorts, but it's just me and I have two other part-time people who are helping me out. Like with a website, with some like virtual assisting.

That I'm just like, we're just starting the relationship. Like it's two months old. I don't really know how to use the virtual assistant, but I've like been deeply thinking about it the past two weeks and I've got a lot of tasks now that like I'm ready to give them. But yeah, so YouTube shorts will happen, but like, I'm not on TikTok.

I spent time on TikTok for probably like three months during Covid and like realized four hours had gone by one night and then I looked up and it was like 2:00 AM like, what? Okay, I gotta delete this app like, This is too, too good. Suck me in too much. And even that happens with Twitter sometimes. But I've, I've found a way to have a good relationship with it.

It honestly kind of comes down to scheduling your tweets and, and using lists. 

Scheduling your tweets? I have wholeheartedly agree with. I've not mastered the list making yet. I am still, now granted, I think the algorithm still only gives me like the same 30 ish people I feel that like I'm seeing in my timeline and, or maybe I'm just scrolling through the rest.

The scheduling, your, your, your content part. Like I cannot like emphasize that enough with people up there or else you just get stuck in this space. And totally agree. TikTok is like digital heroin. It is. It is so weird. Even as like I'm sitting there cuz like, usually the only time I'll watch it is like, like I'm putting my kids to bed and like waiting for them to fall asleep.

It's like, oh, I'll just check a few and then like, I'll get a text from my wife a half hour later. It's like, hey, like where are you? Like, oh that's right. I was supposed to be productive and not sit here and watch, you know, cat videos. So that's it is, it is so interesting though. I, I, I'm, I'm really interested, and we'll get into this more about like the broadening of media and of content that this new, I don't know, era, whatever lack of a better word, is producing, because you start seeing, to your point, like.

TikTok, Instagram reels, YouTube shorts, anything that's like keep it 30 seconds or less for the, you know, dopamine hit that it gives. All of us is like, it's becoming everything, but I. You still also see like Twitter and YouTube and everything and, and or, and the longer form kind of content out there. I'm, I'm curious before, like not getting into, I think what you guys are building necessarily, cause I, we, we'll dive into word three here, but I am interested is you're like a student of this space.

Where do you see that? Mix of content going, do you see one kind of winning out? Do you see different use cases for it? Because we, it was talked a lot about at vCAN, about getting content out there and is it, do you do the Gary V approach and record yourself 24 7 and put little clips together? Do you do the girl in the verse approach where it's like short firm, short form first?

I'm kind of curious in your thoughts on that. 

I have been thinking about the trap. That social media is, since I was in college, like, so I've been, I, I studied anthropology in school and so I was thinking, I like remember approaching my professor and being like, can I do a paper on like the effects of social media and, and how it's bad?

And he's like, well, you can't do a paper on how it's bad, but if you wanna do a paper on he's, he like, it didn't apply to the class or something. I can't remember why he wouldn't let me. It was like a bio anthropology class or something. And it's so sad. That the best content is 30 seconds to a minute.

Like it makes me sad inside. And that's something that, that I learned like early on doing audiograms, when I first did 'em, they'd be two, two and a half minutes long. I was like, people are gonna wanna know context, people are gonna wanna know like when it was said or where it was said. And, and then honestly like the wear has kind of fallen off a little bit.

The, like, the length I've trimmed, like I always shoot for less than a minute just because that's the, the industry standard. I don't know not many audiograms actually go viral is what I'm finding. And that's, some of 'em will get like, I think the most that I've seen on one of mine, either posted or retweeted by somebody of clout was probably like a hundred thousand impressions.

And so you don't see. What people, I don't know. You see these flashy videos, crazy animations. It, it's, it really is about keeping people's attention. It's not necessarily about informing them. And I'm, I'm just trying to figure out some ways to like make the audiograms a little more vibrant, I guess is a word, but really like, just like making some other things move in the background to keep people's attention and stuff.

It's, that pushes the quality. Yes. But at the same time, It makes it harder to get, get information out because I have to add these flourishes to everything to make them stand out better. And so it's, I don't know. I, I see why it's happened. We're just distracted all the time. It is, as everyone says, an attention economy and like literally sitting on Twitter isn't compet, like, you're not competing with just people who are also on Twitter with posting stuff.

You're competing with, you know, streaming services. Like on your tv, you're competing with video game consoles to, to like wrestle that one minute away from somebody. And it's, it's rough in these streets is what it is. It's rough. And that goes for the artists in the crowd. I see ili, I see Drer. That goes with, with foamy making, making Oh, and foamy.

I did make you asked for a picture of when you, when I put up my, my N f T on the wall, I made a whole video bud. I spent like an hour and a half on it, so, So look forward to that. I'll post that soon, probably next week or something. But yeah, it's, it's just a lot to keep up with and I have learned quite a bit.

Like I said, the audiograms that I posted nine months ago are so much worse than what I'm posting now, but there's still room to grow and get better and yeah, I something that I struggle with is showcasing myself and I'm in like a, an accountability group from vCAN. We, we meet every Tuesday, pain and Suarez are in there.

Gentle tornadoes in there. Danny Phantom's in there. And last week, or last Tuesday, so what, three days ago, the thing that, that Danny Phantom asked of us, cuz he's kind of the de facto leader of the group, he asked us to ask for help. And I was like, I need help finding a way to showcase myself better.

And what ended up being said was really profound for me. And I, I plan to talk to my therapist about it next week, but it was, and my ADHD brain is kicking in right now, so I can't remember. But it was that being humble and being proud of yourself are two different things, or they're, they're not like a good and bad dichotomy.

It's you can be, there's a way to showcase yourself that isn't like cocky and I need to really dial that in. I think to take, you know, myself to the next level. 

I. Absolutely love that that concept, right? Because I think it's something that a lot of people struggle with. And what I've seen in, you know, web three is, look, there's a lot of people in this space that struggle with confidence, that struggle with, you know, maybe they're just more introverted.

They're afraid to put themselves out there, and at the same time, those people are just, Absolute geniuses and masters of what they do and like you wanna find this balance of. Be proud of yourself. Be able to, you know, say I did a thing and doing a thing is really impressive. That's really easy not to do the thing.

And then I, I know we, we talk about this a lot and kinda the various spaces, I know that you and I bounced around between, but then like, it's also let's celebrate those people. I think the, you know, when we see good things, when we see people putting them out, you know, putting them out there, that should be something that we are out there just.

Raving about across the board because it probably was one of the hardest things to do for that person to actually put their work out there, to showcase themselves to say, I did this thing even to, you know, their JPEG friends online. It's still something that's out there. So so first I like applaud you for.

Putting in the work to get out there. I think that is absolutely awesome. I love that you have that group that is a fantastic set of people that you've just, you rattled off there that you guys are getting together on this. So I absolutely love that and I'm glad that you're going out there, ma'am.

Going back to, I think, you know, the, the journey that you, that you're on, right? So growing up. Theater, kid making videos using your, you know, your, you and your friends using your hacking powers for good to help play flash games, which I feel I did a ton of, probably around that same time period.

I feel like that was like my early years of college was going and playing like candy stand.com to date myself there. But So walk through, like post-college, because you talked about getting into crypto Twitter before getting into kind of N F T Twitter, like what was that journey that took you from making funny videos with your friends to now you're starting to discover this world that you are now pretty much fully immersed in?

I, I wanna talk about my job experience actually. So in high school I worked at a produce market. In this like backroom prep area where we would literally package strawberries and potatoes and water. We'd like wrap watermelon after cutting it. And one of my best friends came from there. We're still friends to this day also because when I find good people, I like latch onto them and what I, I know what I call friend vest into them.

Like I, I give them my time and my energy and support to like find a way to make them. Just, I don't know, good relationship. Not something that I ever did intentionally until probably like, I don't know, recent years, but accidentally. And so when I find a friend, I'm like, whoa. Like we're gonna be friends for this, for our fucking lives.

But so I worked at this produce market, had a blast. Our boss would leave it for, I would go, like, we'd be given the responsibility of answering the phone calls instead of the office. And so whenever somebody had to Whenever call was like, oh, hey, do you know how much it would cost for a full pig? I would be like, I don't know.

Let me transfer you to the meat department, and then I'd put 'em on hold and go over the pager of the whole store and give them this. People loved it and I thought it was so dumb and silly, and it is. I would be like, meat department. You have a call online, one meat department, la and I drag out the line as long as I could LA line one and, and then I'd hang up and they get the call or whatever.

But, so I've always been a weirdo and I've always had people around me that have let me be myself. And coming out of college, I had no idea how to get an anthropology job. I had like a potential. Archeology dig gig out in South Dakota, but I was moving away from campus at the same time, and so it was this like overlap of having to pay for, for three rents all at once.

So I, I had to say no to the archeology gig and I ended up working for Americans may know this true green lawn service for a month. It was horrible spraying chemicals on lawns all day. And I remember the day I quit, it was actually, we were actually approaching that day. Because it was five years after high school graduation.

I graduated on June 6th, 2006, 6 66. So it's very easy to remember and I was driving around, I guess on June 6th, 2011. They had like just given me a true green, like my own truck and like let me drive around and by myself without a trainer. And I was doing the same route that I was doing during training.

And I come back to the facility at the end of the day. And I remember thinking like on the drive, I was like, I have to quit. You don't wanna be doing this for like, your fives outta high school. This isn't what you wanna be doing. And so I'm like, ready to quit on the spot. And I, and I go talk to my boss and he's like, Hey, we just, we were gonna talk to you.

I'm like, oh, cool. And they're like, yeah, we wanted to give you your own route, like it's gonna be close to where you live, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, that's really nice, but I'm gonna quit. And they're like, what? I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna quit. I'm gonna quit. And they're like, oh, like.

Like two weeks from now, like, no, today is gonna be my last day. And that's like the only time I've ever done that to a job. But, but so I, I quit and I end up finding like an seo content writing gig. Literally just putting SEO words into rewritten news articles for law firms through a person that I knew in college.

And so I'm working like, I don't know, 20 hours a week making barely enough money, but like having so much fun with my friends, like right after college. And I did that for like two and a half years. Then I started working at a brewery that I had been an avid client of called Founders Brewing Company.

And it took me a while to get into there, but I Oh, that is a 

fantastic, that is a fantastic spot though. Yeah. Yeah. It sure is. Were you, were you at the main one there in downtown? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Love that place. I worked there for 

seven years, so this is most of my job career. I was a barback, I was a server.

I was what they called a senior server for a while. Then I realized that the pay kind of was capped unless I wanted to be a manager, which I didn't wanna be a babysitter, some, no. And I moved over into the offices after a few attempts trying to just get any job outside of the tap room. And I did domestic logistics for a really long time, and then I moved into the international side.

Of things and, and that's what I had wanted to do, like since I found out that the department existed. And I managed to get a gig doing like project management, but it was really just kind of being a gopher, like just do whatever else no one else is doing. And then I'm somebody quit who was doing the international logistics.

So I started picking that up. And then during Covid, I got a job with Athletic Brewing Company doing and that's a non-alcoholic craft brewery. So if, if you like craft beer and you don't wanna be drunk, I'd love to have a referral code to send you, but I don't try athletic and you can get it shipped to your door.

It's really good. It tastes like actual craft beer. It is also priced like craft beer. So that is a little caveat to the whole thing. But they actually let me go in September of. Last year. Yeah, so it's been about nine months now, and I, I had been on N F T Twitter that whole time, so I was already like doing this as a part-time job effectively.

And so I was like, you know what, I'll look for another job, but, but I'm gonna give this a shot. I'm gonna see where I fit in, see what I can do. I had been hosting a weekly Twitter space for a while with my friend Forrest and we ended up host it for about a year in change. A year and two months or so before we, we put it to bed.

But during that time we had, we were hosting a Twitter space. We started with like a central community of my first N F T was Pancake Squad on BM B for those wondering and started with that community would have like up to like a hundred listeners at a time. Like everybody was super hyped to be there.

It was the bowl. So of course everybody's attention was, was focused on Twitter and communicating with one another. And actually started like really got into that community by making custom banners for Twitter. That's how I like quote unquote, made a name for myself and like got a little bit of recognition from that community.

I had tried to do like a fun who posts the best like nominee voting thing like that week and we'll send you some cake from this pool that I had accumulated from some people. I was a subreddit moderator for Pancake Swap at the time, which was. Absolutely hellish. The amount of people I've talked to have been scammed is it, it's too, too high to count.

And of course they blame you when you're the subreddit moderator for a decentralized exchange that you have no control over and you're a volunteer who doesn't get paid. But, so I stopped doing that after a few months, and then I just leaned into Twitter and found I, I had already been building this community and.

You know, found my diehard homies. There's a lot of them here and that makes me very, very warm and I'm just adding to that group slowly but surely and tons of support. But yeah, we did, I found audiograms because the Twitter spaces I was doing, we were like taking the recording, putting it on Spotify, trying to get more listens there and realizing that that isn't a very fruitful approach.

I think we had 12 total listens over like seven episodes. And then I found Audiograms trying to find a way to. To advertise that. Right. And ever since Audiograms, that's kind of history, that's what I've started doing with DJ Network because Captain and Steve were talking one day and we're like, Hey, we should really hire an intern to do clips of this.

We always leave so much on the cutter room floor. I was like, oh, I'll just make one. Like I know how to do that. And that's how this whole relationship with DJ Network started. They're the first people who've paid me for audiograms, so I realized that I could be paid for them. Yeah, it's been absolute whirlwind and I'm super grateful for the support that Steven Ka and everybody else in Degen like gives me and everybody in here too.

It's very surprising to have found. I never thought I would find people on the internet like this is what I'm trying to say. And, and I've now met some of these people in real life individually. I've had video calls with them. You know, I've met people at V Econ now. That was my second crypto convention.

I went to East Denver this year, and it was not nearly as good. It was fun, but it wasn't, it wasn't bcan and so I won't be going to Denver next year, but I'll definitely be going to 

Bcan.

I love that. I think I, I've, I share the sentiment on. I think the surprise, the pleasant surprise of the people that were meeting on kind of crypto Twitter, that again, I, I just met most of you know, the people in this room, you three weeks ago. And I had met like Steve, maybe not, you know, gosh, coming up on like a year ago.

Better than that, our relationships are all completely online. May or may not even know what you look like as a person. May or may not even hear your voice, depending on if you hop on stage, but the. The relationships and the type of people, his, that forms is like surprisingly quick. Like I'm, I, I can't even think of some sort of non crypto Twitter example that you could have, like maybe sports, like if you're a diehard insert team here fan and you're walking around and you see somebody like wearing the jersey of that team, you're like, You know, automatically best friends, but like, that's the only thing that kind of comes close.

But even then, I feel like this is different. So that's awesome, ma'am. So let's get into audiograms in word three. So first I don't know if you, if you, if you have this off the top of your head, how many audiograms would you say that you have created? To date, we're 

approaching 900. Shut up. Yeah, I haven't, that is awesome.

I have an Excel sheet. So I, the, my process involves Canva script mostly, but I use, I use chat G p T to code this P five js instance. I have no coding experience besides like my live journal and my MySpace. So that's important to note and manage, to get it to where it'll generate. Like it'll put the pieces together for me.

So I, I build a background on Camba. I steal people's PFPs and then the P five j s puts 'em together with their name based on this Google sheet that I have. And, and that's the secret sauce to how fast I can make these. But yeah, close to it'll be a thousand probably, I don't know, within the next three months, probably 

sooner.

That is me. I was not expecting a number that high. I thought we were gonna be like, definitely in the hundreds, but not near a thousand. That is awesome. It's, 

it's gross, but I still love doing it, so that's good. 

Hey, that's, Hey. That's, to be honest, the entire thing, if you're finding something that you're, you know, was it.

You're good at it, you like doing it, and it is adding some level of value That's like the trifecta that you want to be able to do. Throw a fourth one, get paid for it. So if you're able to do all four of those at the same time you're doing better than most 

people. What's, what's the, the, the Venn diagram?

I believe it's a Japanese term where it's like three things that overlap and it, and it again, 

It is, 

I a picky guy 

or something. I can't remember. It's something like that. I actually, my, my wife has this like hanging at her desk at work. Like she and I talk about this quite a lot. When one of us is like, Mad about, you know, the job.

It's like, all right, where are you right now? We kinda look at the map. No, I, I, I understand. I know exactly what you're referring to. I just don't know the 

yeah, I'm gonna find it, the name, post it, and then I'll, in the comments. Definitely I'll pin it because it's an important thing for people to see to realize.

It's like an overlap of things you enjoy, things you get paid for, and things that like help the world. And, and honestly, I think the thing that I actually like most about audiograms, what's got me sticking to it is the, I can't look this up and say this at the same time, is the ability to like showcase people, but put myself in the background at the same time.

Like I won't cut clips of people who say things that I, you know, don't believe personally. So there's that bias. If someone's showing a project and it sounds like a rug, like I do my best to filter for those obviously, but also like, If someone's telling people to like, be a dick to other people, like, I'm not, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna do that.

Like, I don't want that put out there. And, and audiograms are a way of, you know, recording audio, like spoken word of recording what's the word I'm looking for? Like verbal histories. And, and it's like, for instance, like I'll cut stuff for, for meck dot sometimes. Who, who is. Who is a, a black gay woman.

So she's definitely in the minority and getting to be able to put something like that she said, or, or like I also do free audiograms for, for this small, small mental health project. I don't think they're small. They're on, they're with time pieces now, but, but they don't get a lot of traction on their Twitter for held mind.

And, and so I'll do some free ones here and there for the stuff that like, I really wanna see more of, like, I would love to hear more people talking. About not the concept of mental health, but actually like, using it I think will be better because people just, oh, mental health this, mental health that. But like, what is it, what can it do for me and what has it done for you, I think is a more important conversation.

Cause everyone knows what mental health is now. We've talked, we've talked it into the ground. So those kind of organizations and individuals, I'm willing to do that for. I, I wanna be able to put people on a pedestal. I, I, some people deserve to be heard over others, and Twitter does a really bad job of curating that.

And that's kind of what fuels me with audiograms, honestly. Like, yeah, again, I'm doing some of it for pay, showcasing funny things and educational things regarding web three, but then I'm also like on the side showcasing these things that I believe in, hoping that, you know, someone hears it and feels motivated or moved or like they like the, the.

Their defenses start to crack towards a concept or something. Because I am a really open-minded person I am somebody who, who believes truly in the fact that everyone has a story that the most important people in my life are, are authentic people. That's like my first pillar. Like that's the first gate check in my like, road to friendship is like, are you being yourself?

That's, that's all I really ask for after that, maybe honesty would be the other thing. 

That is ma. I had not really thought about that aspect of the audiograms because you're right. I think we are on, and let's just talk, let's keep it with Twitter. Right? But the same thing applies for all social media.

We're, you know, some more than others, but we're all out here like fighting this algorithm, right? And it, and it changes and some people spend, God knows how much time trying to play it and mastermind it and you know, others don't. But it does have a huge impact on. The content that you see and what you are consuming is in some parts controlled by, you know, lines of code baked into, you know, social media platforms.

A 

for-profit company, mind you. 

Yeah. And so yeah. And now a privately held for profit company. And so I think I, I don't know if I'd ever really thought about that aspect of it, you know, outside of like, like, yes. Is it a great way of marketing other audio formats, like Twitter spaces, podcasts?

Absolutely. You know, to, is it a way to engage users in a different way? Absolutely. But is it a way, especially, to be honest, like. Using the algorithm against it because hey, pictures and videos generally get bumped up a little bit more and now the picture of the video has a voice that maybe otherwise would not have been heard.

Gosh, that's fucking brilliant. 

Yeah. I, I love that. One other thing that I wanna say is like, each of them in my mind is like laying a brick in like a wall of like, culture, right? It's, it's, I want, you know, they say like, be the change you wanna see or do what you like. Treat others the way you wanna be treated.

All these things that I've kind of already said throughout this interview. By the way, thank you for having me on before I forget. I really appreciate it because I fucking love, oh my God, about this stuff. And I love one-on-one conversations. I suck in group conversations, but it's like when I hit like three or less in a group, oh my God, I can, I can just go all day.

What I was trying to say. These audios are like, they're like memes, right? They're little bricks in a culture that hopefully will change some minds and change some attitudes and maybe even get some of the people who are trying to hack the algorithm to their favor for whatever ends that they desire to like, just like take a step back from it.

Like everyone says everything's clickbait on the internet and it is, but like, fuck why? Like it's by design and we can't. Change it because that's just how the algorithms work. But man, I hate clickbait so much, and I'm like terrified that I'm gonna have to go do that to get a larger platform. Like, I don't wanna do clickbait.

Please 

don't make me,

no, I feel the same way. And then like, and, and that's why I, it is like the, the, I'm, I'm thinking about this real time. So I don't have this like really well-articulated, pre-planned thought to, to, to speak to this. But again, it's like, It is this way of hacking the algorithm for good, like. I, I, I, it almost reminds me of the story you just told, whatever, like 20 minutes ago of like hacking the school computer to go play games.

Can you hack the Twitter algorithm with audiograms to surface, you know, underrepresented voices and things like that? I think it's absolutely brilliant. Like, yeah, you know, do you have to make the you know, CNN. More graphics on the screen than news reporter type of thing to keep the attention of people.

Hopefully not a ton, but I know you're gonna play around with that. But dear God, if you can use this and actually. Bring education and voices and things like that to the masses. I think that I, I honestly think that's amazing. And like I said earlier, a use case and a benefit of what you're doing that had not even crossed my mind before we started talking about it today.

So I think 

that's awesome. Yeah, I, I think back to the, the hacking the algorithm kind of thing. So I did spend some time doing board game design unpaid hobby You know, would go to the local convention. There's a local play test group, like a local design group which if anybody's interested in doing that stuff, I would love to talk more about it's kind of even where the P five js chat, G p t instance that I use, like came from.

Because when you're making prototypes, you're like using whatever tools you can to make, you know, a bunch of cards and they're all the same except for some details are changed. So you use like Excel in a database and some kind of either like Adobe Premier or some. More niche programs. There's one called, oh, I can't remember the name of it right now.

Nadec, that's what it's and it would build cards for you based on like an Excel database. And so on the board game design stuff, like when you're designing a game, your job is to break the shit out of it, like break it and, and then play with people who will break it in different ways. And so I'm always looking for like, in my whole life, not just in board game design, not just on Twitter, looking for like little ways to use things in ways that, that they weren't intended for.

Largely I would say that that's, it's, it's mostly white hat stuff, but like, if I'm like totally honest, like using the self checkout, I totally steal a couple items every time I go to the grocery store. Like I just can't help myself. But that aside, it's I've always, always looked for like the cracks and like pull, pull it open and see what's inside.

Like my math teacher, one year in high school, I remember my mom coming home from like a parent teacher conference and, and saying something like, Your teacher really likes you, and he told me that you do math in ways that you aren't taught. I'm like, I don't know. Do I? Like, I don't know. He's like, I guess he thought that I was, you know, doing things in a different way, but it still got to the end, like the, the right answer.

So he didn't care. But yeah, it's just, there's a million ways to skin a cat. I hate that phrase so much, but there is, and hopefully the algorithm doesn't absolutely homogenize. Online culture, that's kind of a goal. I don't want everything to be the fucking YouTube which is the current meta right now and has been for years.

But the fucking thumbnail with the person's face, like stretched out and like, oh, like trying to get people to click the fucking video because you wanna see why this person's screaming, but they don't even look like they're screaming cuz they're definitely faking the emotion and it's just, ugh. There's so many things like that in this world that, that actually upset me.

But you know, We work with, what we have, where we are, and that's all we can do. 

I, I, I could spend the next two hours talking about my my feelings toward YouTube culture. I've got three boys who have actually grown up, you know, not with cartoons and other shows, but they've grown up with YouTube being their, like, primary source of entertainment and Yeah, I it's, it's bothersome on so many levels, but that's for a different conversation at another time, I'm sure.

So going back to north of 900 audiograms that you've put out there, if you had to think of like, you know, what are like the 1, 2, 3 ones that stand out? I'm just kind of curious because I think the. You have had exposure through what you're doing to a broader array of content and creators and people than probably most of us get to interact with on a daily basis.

And in doing that, like what are those Like, man, I was on, I was clipping this space, or I was listening to so-and-so and holy shit. This was either the, the funniest, the craziest, the most impactful. Like what are those ones that stand out to you? I 

can't name them, like individually. I would say the ones that I feel most passionate about clipping are usually mix because there's a lot of emotion behind them.

I was part of the secret Ryan Carson ambassador group that existed for the Daily Dose, like one of like the dozen people or whatever it was. They were like behind the scenes having meetings with him, like trying to figure out how to solve the P app issue and all this stuff. And so when, when Meck left that show, I remember and, and I have.

The founders I was on, like the d e I group to be clear. So I do have like a passion for diversity. I think life's more interesting when we have, you know, unique perspectives. Whether, whether you agree with them or not, I don't think matters. I think it's just more interesting when, you know, put more ingredients in the pot, right?

But so when MEC left that show, I remember she didn't get to say like the things that she wanted to say at the end. And I remember thinking, oh, this isn't gonna go well in the future. And then when, when the shit hit the fan and me shot, like took her shot and ha had a space talking about the stuff that she wanted to talk to, back then, it was like that 3:00 AM space where Ryan woke up and was just like, raked over the coals without even like knowing it.

Oh, it was, it was, it just played out exactly how I had seen it happen cuz founders had a a racial discrimination lawsuit against it. And that's where the d e I group of course came from because it was a reaction, not a, not a proactive move. It. People just don't think about other people as much as they light lead you to believe.

But I'm totally off the rails on this, on this question. I will say the most fun clips to capture are usually the mint condition the way that Bantu and Chamber bounce off at one another and des too when he is there. Like it's stunning. And chamber's laugh is very hyena esque, so it's either contagious.

For me, it's contagious. Or for others it's abrasive and I, I find that funny. And just their personalities. They've got good chemistry. I, I really enjoy cutting those. And there's often three people on those audiograms bouncing back and forth. So those are like also the kind of the hardest ones to cut because I have to edit for each speaker.

And when it comes to. Yeah, I think my favorite ones are probably the ones where I get to put somebody, somebody's voice out there that, you know, deserves to be heard more. Those are the ones that again, like fuel my desire to keep doing this.

I love that and I, I do agree. The mint condition, how you keep up with that. In audiogram, like creation is is beyond me because it's not like you have one person ever talking for more than like five seconds cuz like they're interrupting each other, talking over each other in the, in the best way.

It's a, it's a blast. But yeah. Dear God, that is, that is juggling like a lot at the same time. I can 

juggle for the record. 

Nice. Nice. Now is there, is there like a record of like, how many. And is it like more than like balls? Are you getting like the bowling pins? Are you getting No, 

no, no. I learned with potatoes at that first job I mentioned.

I can only juggle three things, but I can juggle like not behind my back, but I can like throw one over my back and catch it in front of me. I can like throw, oh, there we go, like upside down where you like, instead of your hands around the bottom, your hands are on the top and you're like scooping to catch them.

And I haven't done it in a long time, so don't ask me to do this. In real life it won't go well unless you have potatoes. Then I'll feel comfortable and like I have home team advantage or something. 

We will find some way to bring potatoes to like vCAN next year and we'll, we'll make it a whole thing. Maybe we can get it like on the community stage and it'll just be like, Hey, in between, dear God.

Now in, in, in between panels, it's, you know, Mackie and the wonderful potato juggling. I think, I think we can make this happen. I think the audience is gonna be really into it. Throw an emoji out there if you can, if you wanna see Macie jue potatoes at vCAN next year. But what's the potato emoji?

I, you know what, I think while we're talking to Elon about the algorithm, I think we can just put, you know, throw that out there as well, cuz there's definitely something that's missing.

Oh yeah. I'm seeing a lot of support out there for you. Juggling at econ next year. We'll, we'll, we'll make it happen. Hard pass. Hard 

pass. Still good. Hard pass.

All right. Well, Huna, we, there's a, there's a lot of time you could change your mind. We could find a very convincing argument. 

Send eth to mackey dot e. If you want me to drop potatoes next, please don't do that. 

You know, it, that, that is actually like, it's almost really, really funny if it wasn't.

So in the 

moment right now, oh, I do wanna open, I do wanna state my theory on this in my mind. Oh, please do. In my mind it is them using social engineering to trick people into sending money. It is like when you put out a tip jar, you always put money in the bottom so people realize that other people are tipping.

So I think they're using their own money to, from who knows what wallet's, because no one's checking the shit in the blockchain. They're just sending money to this address because they see other money in the address. And I also don't know anybody who's actually sent money to that address. But so I'm not even sure if it's real.

But I'm like, I just, it just feels like a trick. He probably approached some peoples, like, I have a magic money trick. I can turn a million dollars into 3 million. And then I think that's all she wrote. 

I don't disagree with you. It's 

Yeah, it's, and we're still all talking 

about it too, so that gives some money.

We're here and, and yeah, some, some, someone, the marketing one is gonna hear that out there and they're gonna buy an orange square or they're gonna help somebody get an iPhone. And as one of our esteemed audience members once, so wisely said they're gonna drink the urine, so yeah. It's gonna, it's gonna happen out there.

Well, Macia, I know we've, we, we've got about 10 minutes left here. I know, I think there were maybe one or two people that wanted to pop on stage here to to say hi. So if you do want to do that, feel free to request. Then 

love, love audience questions. I love audience questions. Yep. 

So if you, if you're in a spot oh, here we go.

Feel free to come on up and then we'll, we'll wrap up here. We do have a couple questions that we ask every every guest, and then we end with a little bit of fun. But let's start with our friend.

Joey, how you doing buddy? Hey. Hi Joey. Hey. So, 

you know, I had to come up and give Mackey some flowers. He, every time I saw him at vCAN, and typically it was for like a, a short moment because he was running somewhere to go interview or do something. He always had a smile on his face. He like, he has like a great aura.

About him that just kind of makes you wanna smile. He, when I got into making some of my own audiograms, which I haven't been doing lately, cuz I've been so busy, he was kind enough to hop on our call and kind of show me his process, which helped me develop my own process. With, you know, I use script as well.

I'm a Photoshop guy, so I use Photoshop and some other stuff, but he was kind enough to show me stuff and I, I wanted to come up earlier cuz he made a comment about like being, you made a comment about like there's a difference between being like cocky or conceited, but also like, you know You know, promoting yourself or whatever it was.

Right. And I couldn't remember the exact quote because it's been like a half hour, I think, since you said it. But I think that's like, it's, it's something that I think most people struggle with because they, I. Don't want to come off as arrogant and they don't want to turn people off with how they act or quote unquote show themselves.

But like, at the end of the day, right, like you need to be your biggest cheerleader. And this is to everybody, right? Like you need to be your biggest cheerleader. You need to be the person that hypes yourself up the most. You know, I, if if you're, if you're not gonna do it, no one's gonna do it for you.

And yes, there is a fine line, but I think if you, it's all about how you, you know, you do it right? Like if you I'm not a big shill person. Like I don't ever come on spaces and talk about like, oh, our version of arm Roche. Right? Like, but Macie, whenever. You know, certain topics come up in his wheelhouse.

You can just tell he knows what he's talking about and that's all you have to do, right? Like, be confident enough to speak up when you know something and people will respect you for it, and then they'll realize you're a smart person. But yeah, just lots of flowers for Macie and obviously Yvonne Fronton is awesome.

Big flowers to you too. I love you guys. 

Love you too, Joey. Thank you for that. It does see, one of the things about being on spaces that actually really helps me is like, I know this stuff. I know that no one else is gonna be my cheerleader. I know that like even in a relationship, right, you can't rely on the other person to build you up or else that relationship's probably gonna end up being a little toxic or at least codependent.

And hearing it and being told by other people like makes it more important. It makes me prioritize it more. So thank you Joey. It's lovely. Tore, welcome, hear it again. I need to hear it over and over and over until like the habit forms right, until I break through that wall and I'm comfortable in my skin doing it.

You know, that's, I, I don't know if everybody remembers that song by OMI cheerleader. It was like popular for a while. It was kind of like this cool summer tune, but like that song always like ring rings in my head whenever I'm like talking about like, Whenever I need to like, kind of pump myself up, I'm always like going to be my, I.

Now I'm, of course now I'm drawing a blank and I can't sing the song, but look it up, owe me o m i, the song is cheerleader. It. It's a pretty cool song. And then there was one other thing I wanted to say too about Mackey, which now I can't remember, but. Maybe I'll, that's okay. I don't remember. Oh, I, we all have h adhd.

Oh, I was gonna say when I was at vCAN. So, funny story, somebody, it's kind of similar, what you were just saying, which made me think about it. You know, like a lot of people, and Gary said it too, a lot of people are like, afraid of failure. Like, how do I get through failure? Right. And I think the hardest part is realizing.

Whether it's coming up to talk on spaces or to put yourself out there, is that like at the end of the day, right? Like you're still the same person whether you go for it or you don't. The difference is whether or not you went for it, right? So like, like it happened to me in middle school where I was like afraid to ask out this girl, and then I was like, yeah, but if I ask her out and she says no, I'm still the same Joe.

I'm not like worse because she said no. Right. But if she says yes, then I'm in. Then I'm like dating the coolest girl in school. Right. Asymmetric upside, man. Exactly. I don't know if people have ever watched Ted Lasso, but like, you know, it's that whole story when What's her name? Rebecca was like, you know, I, I leave the room and I make myself as big as possible, and I like Snar.

And I snarl. And then Nate did his thing where he like spits or whatever. Right. 

I hated that, hated that scene because he like is so self-deprecating. Oh, yeah. He spits on himself in the mirror. Ugh. 

Yeah. I hate it. But the, but the, but it's like, it's true though, right? Like, You know, it goes back to the whole like, cheerleader thing, right?

Like, you gotta pump yourself up, you gotta get yourself hyped. And, and like, just don't be afraid, like, take chances because you can always go back to where you were before. Like flurry dropped outta college and some people were like critical of him, but he can always go back, right? Like, it's not like college is gone forever.

College doesn't just disappear after that window. No. I have a, a girlfriend who went back to school around or an ex-girlfriend who went back to school, I dunno, around 26. She had like struggled going like to community college. She got like a dental assisting degree and then like went back to school for a little bit and then got out and then did it again and left and like wasn't her bag.

And then when she wanted to do it finally, oh, she fucking killed it. She fucking killed it because before it was just social pressure, right? Like I really, really think that people should take a year off before going to school, at least to figure out what you really fucking like and what you actually wanna do.

Because maybe then you'll care about it enough to actually have a goal and, you know, not just total your thumbs throughout college and like turn in papers at the last minute, which is something that I did sometimes admittedly. Yeah, no, a hundred percent agree with all that, Joey. And I'm gonna listen to that song afterwards.

I don't think I know it. 

Oh, it's got like a super like summer island vibe. I got like a version just Summer Jam. Oh yeah, I've, I've got like a version of it in my head that I'm sure is not correct now because my memory is faded. So we're, I think we're all gonna go you know, get Omi some some streamings, some streams here in a minute.

Joey, thanks for coming up on stage, buddy. Always love talking to you. Always love hearing from you, man. All right, we're gonna wrap up here. Macie, something we do on this show every single time is we have three questions that we end with for every one of our guests. Same three questions. And you, sir, are gonna be no different.

So are you ready? Very much so. Wait, 

wait, wait, wait. Here we go. There we go. Hold on. Wait. Let me change the sound so it's, it sounds better. Hold on. Nice 

little background jam. Hold on. I'm here for it. 

So people can hear it. Here you go. Little, little 

trumpet. Okay. 

There we go.

Solution. Ask me 

these questions on front. All right. Oh, oh, oh, oh. We got background. Okay. This is good. This, this is gonna 

be the, you need a little more if you didn't know. Co-hosts have a little bit more dominant volume than the other speakers on the stage, and the host has the most dominant 

volume. Okay.

Good to know. Good to know. This is gonna be the best question Q and A we've ever done. I've never had background music. All right. Question one, Mackey, what would you say has been your greatest accomplishment? 

I would say just living life honestly. Life's fucking hard for everybody. I've been through some shit.

Divorce mom died from alcoholism. I have no grandparents anymore. I've had friends die, but life's fucking hard. Life's fucking hard. And I think the more we realize that just being alive and like waking up and having the ability to like have fresh water come out of your fucking faucet. And having like a working toilet and maybe heat in a roof is kind of more than enough most days.

I absolutely love that. All right, question number two. What would you say has been your greatest lesson? 

We said it. I tried to start a hostile once and in Grand Rapids it didn't, it didn't take off me and my buddy from that produce job, and It, it, it did not happen. But the big lesson was like, just to ask.

Just ask if you want something and somebody can help you and they're a friend or an acquaintance, or even not just shoot your shot. Ask 'em the dms, walk up to 'em and ask 'em at a convention. Whatever it is, they're probably gonna say yes. And again, if they don't, you're still the same person afterwards.

That is fantastic. And alright, final question. So at the Atlas Lion Club, you know, we have the theme of a 1920 speakeasy. So if you and I are pulling up a seat to the bar, what are you drinking? 

I don't drink anymore. It's crazy. I do drink sometimes, so if I was gonna drink a drink that I really want, it would be a gin from the specific distillery called Eastern Keel.

They have this nice, like grapefruit what's the word I'm looking for? Not a parif. What are the, what do you call bitters? That's like, there's a category for bitters, but it's, no, so it's this nice. Additional flavor. It's kegged, lacore, it's cheap. I would say yeah, like a grapefruit laur that they put in there.

It's homemade. Maybe some hops in it or something too. Cause it's got this like punch to it, the citrusy flavor on top of the grapefruit and it's yeah, it's delightful. Especially on a day like today where it's 90 fucking degrees.

I love that man. All right, Mackie. We'll get wrapped up here, man. I am so thrilled. I'm so glad we were able to make this work. Thank you so much for coming up and spending an hour with us and tell, talk to us about you, your journey, what you're doing. And to be honest, like I'm sitting here like taking notes, like, all right, I gotta go back and listen to this.

I gotta go back and listen to this. Just your views on, on just life in general have been absolutely amazing to listen to. Man, I really do appreciate it. 

Yeah, it the wisdom comes from trauma. And then therapy. That's where the wisdom comes from, 

and you need Having both is 

incredibly helpful. It indeed is.

Thank you for having me, Yvonne Front. It's been an absolute pleasure. 

That wraps up this week's episode. Thanks for joining us today. We'll see you all next week at 3:00 PM Eastern for the next episode of Lyons. Until then, my name is on Fronton and it's been a pleasure being with you this week. Cheers, everyone.