00:00:00 John Daub: Greetings! Hello everybody! Welcome to Tokyo. It's a really hot day this afternoon and this is the Only in Japan Go channel where I'm gonna be live streaming an experience that I had in Japan. One that was so frustrating and yet such a good experience and set up the way that I deal with the media. Gave me a different way to look at life. It was when I got conned by this magazine Newsweek Japan! And happened in the glorious year of 2007 that's 12 years ago. This happened and since then it's still been a big part of my experience in Japan.

00:00:45 John Daub: All right let me go back and explain how all of this happened. It's not every day that you get asked by a major magazine like Newsweek to be interviewed about the industry that you're in. Why me that's one of the things I thought about when they contacted me and I of course said yes and what ensued over the next two weeks after the interview changed my life and changed a lot of stuff. All right let me get into this story this is the magazine here this is Newsweek Japan from 2007 you can see the date right there December 26 2007 it just came out like right during the holiday season. And you can see it's about Nova this is the time where Nova the English school failed and this eikaiwa (English conversation) school was the biggest in Japan it took a lot of money from customers from students and it created a massive scandal and they interviewed me about this because I was one of the top teachers at an English school.

00:01:58 John Daub: I was the one used in most of their media campaigns to promote them in 2006 and 2007. And then after this happened, I was no longer used by them. But I thought they were interviewing me because they wanted to learn about some of the aspects of what it takes to be a teacher in Japan. Some of the good things. Because I'm a positive person. I just thought it was about the positive stuff. I didn't know it was a hit job by the media.

00:02:35 John Daub: All right, let's run through this real quickly. I'm going to show you some of the magazines and we're going to start from the beginning. So I used to be a teacher at a school called GABA. It's still one of the top English language schools because they do something called man-to-man (one-to-one English lessons). This is the first magazine I was in in 2005, I believe. 2006? This is about Ikebukuro. And things to do in Ikebukuro for people in Japan would be to study English. And they used me. There I am, stiff with my finger gun. I like to be a little bit silly. Come on in and check out my lesson. Ikebukuro GABA. There's my name right there in Japanese. And I was used a lot in promotional stuff like this.

00:03:23 John Daub: It got even bigger. I started working. This is when I started to work for Shueisha. As a model. And I met a lot of the directors because when I did these shoots. This is just one of about a dozen magazines that I was in back in 2005 and 2006 and 2007. This is Kimi Mori. Who is a big model for Shueisha's Non-no and More magazines. And she came and took my lesson and she wrote about how cool of a teacher I was. So you could see here's the process and she really loved being a student of mine. At GABA. I worked for them and it was a big deal.

00:04:14 John Daub: This phone call comes to me from a news reporter. He was English and he was working for a publication called The Independent. I guess that's a UK publication and his name may or may not be David McNeill. We sat down at a Starbucks. There were only three Starbucks in Ginza at the time. It was the one not so far from Itoya the stationery store. I remember it very plainly. We sat down there for over an hour. He interviewed me about my company, about why I was making videos, about my experience being an English teacher in Japan, about the things I loved about it. The 99% of the time, it was about this.

00:05:09 John Daub: Then the interview finished. He closed his book. And he started to talk to me about some of the stuff like, how much do I get paid? This is what he asked me. So how much, John, do you get paid? Now, I was disarmed and I was young. I'd never been interviewed by a major publication like this. How much do you get paid? How much do you work? Do you like your job? What are the challenges? What are they doing wrong? Things like this, he started to ask me. And the interview was over. So I was opinionated because I didn't think I was getting a fair deal all the time. Just a kid. Who am I? I didn't realize that I was the face of the company on many fronts. And he was using me to promote his article.

00:06:02 John Daub: And in the end, he didn't use any of the 99% of the interview. He used the last five things that I said. How much I made? How do I feel about the company? All those things that I thought were off the record, he used those. The article was called McEnglish for the masses, which is pretty much what it was. And it says Japanese English language schools, it's a crazy system. And it still is today.

00:06:47 John Daub: I'm on, here's the report that starts. Here's the next page. So that was a pretty big part of their article. I was a pretty big part of this article here. All right. Now the photographer, I thought it was like, wow, they're going to take my picture for the magazine. That's so cool. They took a hundred pictures of me in different poses around Ginza. This is the one that they use. I look really angry. Again, 99.9% of the pictures, I was smiling and being my normal self. One picture, when I was in transition between a smile and like swallowing or something, they got me looking angry.

00:07:45 John Daub: And I say, they pay me 1400 yen or about $13 an hour, but they charge 7,000 yen per lesson. So the customer, let's just say pays $70. And they gave me $14. So they use the rest of it for their business and their promotions and signed my name down there. John Daub, American. This is awful. And then my name's down here. If you read it, you can see the close print on my experience. And I'm the pitch guy for this company. And there's GABA, the company I work for in print, talking about how awful they are and how little they pay. The McDonald's of English language. This is a huge scandal at the time because Nova executives walked off with the money.

00:08:37 John Daub: They got other people, some Nova teachers. He looks pretty angry too. Poor guy. Why they really make us look evil. There's Nova from back there. The Nova Usagi (rabbit) from the time. They make us look so evil, don't they? I'd never, I've made, I don't know, thousands of productions. I've made people look evil before. And look at the blur there. He had a flash going on. Wow. That was a tough day. I'm sweating because I'm reliving the memory and it's like 99% humidity in Tokyo.

00:09:12 John Daub: All right. So how did this change my life? How did this change myself? Being featured in a national publication about a scandal that rocked the country that was in the news 24/7 for like a month. As the executives were found hiding in buildings with pockets full of cash. And here I am on the front page. All right. Newsstand. I picked this up at the newsstand when I was going home for Christmas. This is how you ruin a holiday, okay? So it came out a week before the actual publication date, the 26th. So I think it was like the 18th or 19th it came out. I picked it up at Narita Airport and my jaw hit the floor.

00:10:28 John Daub: I was shocked. Do I have a job when I come back? What are they going to do? I just filmed. I was their pitch guy. I just filmed four episodes of their podcast, which was number one in Japan. And also had the number one video podcasts in Japan were mine. Like the prime minister of Japan. So I was a very little big deal in the country. All right. So my jaw's on the floor. I'm dragging my jaw across the floors of Narita Airport with this exact magazine. What do I do?

00:11:18 John Daub: My first thought is I'm going to call the head office and just talk with them and say, it's not my fault. And before I get on the plane, got to let them know like where this is coming from because they got to spin this. I may not love this company GABA. I may not love them, but they're my employer and I respect that. And I'm a team player. Except for that 20 seconds that they interviewed me at the end, I might not have been team player. They got me, but I didn't want to hurt the company because it's not just about me. There's a lot of other people working for this company. They're good people. And I didn't want to see the company go down.

00:12:04 John Daub: They were thinking about doing an IPO. What I just said had damaged their reputation. And in Japan, reputation is more important than money. Reputation is money. You have a bad reputation. You can't make any money in Japan. You have a good reputation. Then you can always have a job. You'll always make a living and people will trust you. So I called them right away. I still had about two hours before my flight. And I called and I said, look, I. And they just asked me what happened. And then they put me through to the vice president who's scarier than the CEO. Vice president was a very scary man. I think his first name was Bruce.

00:12:58 John Daub: He was kind of nice. I guess he was more reserved because it's out of his hands. And I told them exactly what happened. So they interviewed me about my business, about my company, about my podcasts, because they were number one on iTunes Japan. They asked me these questions about the English language. I didn't give them anything about the students or anything that was confidential. But I did tell them at the end off the record when they closed the books about how much I made, some of my experiences and some of the challenges. I say challenges because it's a positive way to say garbage about the company.

00:13:46 John Daub: The vice president took it pretty good. He just said okay. I understand that sometimes this happens. He took it better than I thought. Because there's nothing you can do. But I explained it right away. And this is so important to keeping your job and I told him I reminded him that I filmed four episodes. And maybe they want to change those episodes as soon as possible. And I was just really upfront and honest with them and I got to keep my job. That's the good thing about it, but I know I caused some problem for the company.

00:14:29 John Daub: Initially, it was a problem because whenever you have an evil-looking picture like this, it's not gonna be good for the company. And they write in the company's name. It's not gonna be good for the company because millions of people back then were reading this magazine. So I knew it wasn't gonna be good. So the fact that they let me keep my job that was sort of a big deal. All right, and I promised that I would never do it again. The CEO of the company would recommend me to his friends and to celebrities. I was the one who was teaching Japanese actors TV talents CEOs of major companies were learning English from me in a VIP room in Ginza at the Learning Center.

00:15:23 John Daub: So I was glad that I could keep my job, but my career as their pitch man was over. I no longer would be in any of their publications. Not that that bothered me because I'd been in dozens of PR campaigns. They didn't even pay me for that. It just they said that by being in these PR campaigns and showing my face I would get more students and it was true. But still the payment every day for working really hard I never made more than like two hundred dollars a day. And that was really from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. I worked and the most I would ever get was two hundred dollars a day. But I loved the job.

00:16:10 John Daub: Post Newsweek what happened. I don't take credit for it but not very long after this was published GABA raised the wage that teachers made from 1400 to 1500 yen 100 yen more an hour per lesson which is for 40 minutes. I don't take credit for that but I do mention it here because something good came out of it. Maybe all this hardship and the pressure that they got for such a low wage they took 7,000 yen from a student and they only gave the teachers 1400 yen and they raised it up like 3%. I gotta say that that's a win.

00:17:01 John Daub: But not too long after this I ended up leaving and then focusing on just doing my show and it was the start of about two years of my life that were the most challenging where I was in a transition. I still made videos for clients I still was making videos but I was not making a lot of money my company was doing extremely poorly and I didn't have this job anymore as a vital it was sort of like a part-time job until I can get my company launched. But I learned a lot of stuff. One don't trust the media ever. If the microphone is off and you say it's off the record you need like a lawyer present or you need your own microphone so always record it yourself.

00:17:41 John Daub: If a reporter puts a microphone down you also put a microphone down and say off the record and then you have yourself recording so if they ever publish something you can sue them. Because I think that if I had done that Newsweek would have been sued or they wouldn't have published it or they wouldn't have used me. They flat out used me in this episode and to hurt the company. Bring a microphone and record it yourself anytime anybody for any reason a lawyer a reporter um a friend talking about sensitive information make sure you have a copy yourself. If not just record it with a video too everybody has a smartphone put it on a tripod and say I'm gonna record this by video.

00:18:33 John Daub: The second thing is to make sure that you understand the parameters of the interview more clearly like what exactly do you want to do what exactly are you going to ask give me the questions in advance. Anything that you can get from the media in advance is very very helpful and if they don't ultimately use you then you probably were going to be used in a bad way anyways. Now is there anything that like in Japan this is a big deal as I said reputation is more important than the money.

00:19:11 John Daub: In Japan you can't it's a country where it's very rare people who fall or do something bad they don't get a second chance. You're done because there's a dozen people behind you that are talented or they can do the same thing. Next man up next woman up. If it's a talent agency I guarantee you're not going to be with that agency for more than a couple of months they'll find the most convenient time to let you go and then good luck finding a job anywhere ever. But this was a big learning experience for me. I started this show this was in 2007 and I started Only in Japan in 2007 2008 and I really started it in 2012 about a year after the tsunami hit when Japan's tourism was dying so that was a really tough four years of my life.

00:20:25 John Daub: If you have any questions you can ask me right here in the live chat this is a live stream or you can leave it in the comments below I'm really happy to answer. Yeah it was pretty bad the exchange rate was pretty bad for Americans 10 years ago as well. Yeah that's true yeah they went after Lehman Brothers uh crashed in 2008 this is 2007 it wasn't very long after this it was a pretty bad year for Americans. Issue was that everything was going on like the economies of the world were crashing. All right and this was such a big deal in Japan this was part of it when like every kid in Japan every adult and kid was studying at Nova it was huge it's at every station front it's like the biggest thing it's a McDonald's of English language it was everywhere.

00:21:35 John Daub: I think they had as many locations as McDonald's you'd eat a burger and then go take an English lesson it was like ten dollars a lesson for like in a group of 20 or something. DP recording is last line of defense yeah I think you should always have a recording. How did this incident affect your next media interview. So I think I can get a sense this is a really good question. I don't and I tell you to take a recording of it and I probably didn't do that until maybe a couple of years ago I didn't start putting down my iPhone and start taking recordings.

00:22:08 John Daub: But what happened was in the next interview I could sense what the publication was and I could sense what they wanted out of the interview. After you have a bad experience you become a little bit more cautious and you can sense what they want. Anyways there wasn't anything big that I was doing after I left this English school that warranted being in interviews until I started Only in Japan and that's a whole nother story. This is a whole nother story that I can engage you with in another live stream it happened in 2013 or 2014 where I made the front page of a major national newspaper because the prime minister had just called for an increase of tourists to 20 million this lofty goal because Japan was so low in tourism and Only in Japan was one of the main videos on YouTube.

00:23:00 John Daub: And I'd had two or three viral hits including the Japanese amazing toilet and the Japanese vending machines exposed. This is like way in the beginning of Only in Japan they put me on the front page of the newspaper explaining what I did and then I started to become a regular analyst not a talent not through an agency directly between me and the TV stations and analysts to tell them about tourism to Japan. And that was a second part of my media life that started in 2013, 2014. It's now five, six years ago. But I learned a lot from this. This made me a man because it really hurt me. I mean, look at the picture. It's like, this is not me. Did they Photoshop that? How could they make my eyes even darker? It's awful. I get paid 1,400 yen and the company makes 7,000 yen. John Daub. In my defense, it's true.

00:24:07 John Daub: I got so many stories. The last 21 years, as I said, have been incredible. It's been like a massive rollercoaster ride. So there's no end to the drama. But most of the stories are really good. But this one was one chapter. It's a chapter that I'll never forget. And going home on that airplane to the United States. Again, like I got this at Narita Airport. Picked it up and I'm reading it again and again on the flight. It's a 14-hour flight. I'm out of communication for 14 hours until I get to New York. And when I got home, the emails, I just had a ton of them. Nothing from Newsweek. No official apology. But I learned that you cannot trust these news media people to tell the truth.

00:25:07 John Daub: This also happened when I was in Europe in 1998. Let me take you back another 10 years. I was in Hungary. I got a visa to go to Yugoslavia to Serbia, which was a country that was being bombed by NATO. And I went there the day before a bomb. The bomb was dropped on Novi Sad and it was fine. I never really saw. I think the media overblew what was going on over there. There's some bad stuff happening in the former Yugoslavia, but I don't think it was as bad as the media always made it out to be. Because I remember arriving in Novi Sad and everyone was just so happy, so friendly. And then I went to Zagreb in Croatia and Slovenia and the Croatians and Slovenians were talking about the experience. Yeah, it's pretty bad, but it's not quite as bad as the media is bringing it out to be. It's not like a war zone because I was hitchhiking. With some Croatians and Serbians were picking us up. There were Serbians picking up Croatians and Slovenians who are at war with each other. And they're like, yeah, it's not a big deal. I was like, oh, my God, the media kind of exaggerates a little bit.

00:26:49 John Daub: This comes from personal experience, everybody. This is why I'm not such a political person. I try to avoid politics. The things that you see. And I'm not going to reiterate fake news and all that. I think that that does happen, but I don't think it's as prevalent. But I could see why the president would call them out more often because it covers everything. And it's like as an insurance policy. But I see a lot of fake stuff in there. And I can understand that because I've experienced it myself. They do what the media will do what they can to sell a story. On the other side, there are very responsible journalists. But I know that they have to. It's a business, too. And same with YouTube.

00:27:37 John Daub: Actually, YouTube is a business. I see more and more like sponsored ads, Squarespace. And now I'm giving them free airtime like everyone's adding stuff in. It's a business. You have to make a living out of this stuff, just like the reporter did. And I don't fault him. That's just his way. I'm very forgiving because there's nothing I could do with this at this stage except for learn from it. And if I ever meet Mr. McNeill again, I would shake his hand. What's your new project, Mr. McNeill? That's probably what I would talk about. And I probably would be more friends with him than I would with the company that at that time I was a part of. Once you leave the company. I don't have too much loyalty towards them anymore.

00:28:41 John Daub: What TV station can you recommend? I don't recommend any. Look, I think if you're going to this is my two cents on this. I don't watch any of the opinionated shows where it's a talking head every time and say that this is the person you trust. I think you can trust people because reporters are people, but you have to trust the institution that's behind them as well. It's the reputation of the institution and the editor that is most important, not just the reporter. This is how I feel. And I think since I left America, it's just become even more segmented and it's sort of heartbreaking for me to see. And I don't get into the politics. I never ever vote for president on party. For example, I would say I'm neither left nor right. I'm like that when it comes to president. When I vote. I will listen to everything that they have to say and vote for the best person. Never for a party automatically because the job is not follow party lines all the time. It follows the ability to get things done and work with people and do the best. Who is the best person to get things done? Whether you agree with them or not, sometimes.

00:30:11 John Daub: And when it comes to TV news, I wouldn't if I were you, I would just watch them all. And if you hate one or the other, if you hate like MSNBC or you hate Fox News, then maybe you're missing the point. You just take whatever they say with a grain of salt on both sides and something whatever's in the middle is probably what's true. And I think in this article and this is what I'm going to end with right here. In this article, I even made a copy because I don't know how long forever. This is a copy. It's still kind of cool. I kind of like having been used because it's just this cool thing that happened in my past.

00:30:51 John Daub: OK, this is my takeaway. My ultimate takeaway. Whatever is there is some truths in this. All right. The way that Mr. David McNeill wrote this article, it was a hit job. It really was. But with all hit jobs, there is an ounce of truth in it. And I think for everybody who's reading this article, you should read both sides of it and find what's in the middle. What are the things in the articles that are the consistent things between the left and the right and the far left and the far right and the center left and the center right? I think in the center of all of those things is probably the truth. And that's what I've learned. That's my takeaway from this, because it is true. Exactly the caption here. I did truly make fourteen hundred yen per lesson, which is like fourteen dollars. And the company truly did make seventy dollars from the students. Seven thousand yen.

00:31:51 John Daub: And I truly was underpaid because they recommended me and I was their pitch guy and I never got paid for being in any of these magazine modeling shoots or anything like that. But I was grateful anyways, because I know that the Japanese system is that if someone trusts you, that's actually a good thing. And in the end, you will do better from it than saying no and having nothing come to you. At least I got my lessons are always full because the system at this English school was that a popular teacher got a lot more money and non popular teachers. If you stunk, then nobody would take your lesson and you have a reputation of being a bad teacher. I was always booked like my schedule was released and I was booked solid for the entire month. That's how incredible it was and how quickly it changed. Just dissolved after this.

00:32:40 John Daub: But my takeaway is whatever is in the middle, read more than one publication and whatever is in the middle is probably the truth. And I think that that goes even today in 2019. David McNeil has a Twitter account. Go write him a nice tweet. Yeah, don't bother him too much. Just say that I'm grateful for the lesson. And this is my message to Mr. McNeil. Hey, Mr. McNeil. I'm now a YouTuber. We got a million subscribers. Hundred fifty thousand on this channel. And what I have to say to you is thank you because you introduced me to the reality of what the media is today. And I'm grateful for the chance to have learned it from you. You were very nice to me in the interview. I never heard back from you after the hit job, but I'm still very grateful for the experience and for you contacting me and for giving me the story to tell the people.

00:34:45 John Daub: Any last questions? Hi from Arizona. If you do a couple of notes here, I have a Discord server. If you're a gamer or you're not, download the Discord app. The link is going to be provided in the comments as well as by our moderators right now. Do go in there and follow. I usually will do sometimes telephone chats, but I often go in there and talk to people in the chats and answer questions in our Discord server. It's free to use for everybody and it's 24-7 Only in Japan. If you're interested in coming to Japan, a lot of the people in there have been to Japan and will give you advice.

00:35:24 John Daub: We have about 2,500 really great community members in there. Yeah, and if you want to support the channel, there's Patreon. And I'm going to be adding emoji into the live stream. I'm going to be adding the sponsorship thing through the channel, through the Go. And it's not going to be really expensive stuff, just the ability to get special emoji and you get badges to be cool. People said it was something that would be really fun. So I think it'll be fun and it helps to promote the channel. It helps to keep the channel going.

00:36:11 John Daub: The other thing is that I had a lot of other news. There's another new episode on the main channel that's going to drop. I'm going to be doing a little bit of a new episode this week on conveyor belt sushi, but from a different angle. I'll be making a trip with Kanae Daub to Awaji-jima in Hyogo Prefecture, as well as going back to Niigata and doing another trip, I think, down to see Kevin Riley, our friend with the beard, the king. I'm going to be doing a little bit of a trip to Osaka and Kansai once again in the middle of the month, next month. So it's going to be extremely busy over the next 60 days for Only in Japan.

00:37:00 John Daub: The summer heat is starting to break a little bit. It's still hot if you're in the sun, but when autumn hits, that's when I get super, super busy because there's just so much stuff to cover. And it's an endless story that's coming to me. I might go to Tokyo Game Show as well on the 12th, which is the media day because there's some more stories with gaming. The industry has changed a lot and I want to cover that again. So it might be a Tokyo Game Show in September as well. I think it's September 14th and 15th is for the people and 12th and 13th for the press. And I'll be at the press day, not the people day because I got to do some other stuff. Tokyo Game Show takes place at Makuhari in Chiba every year.

00:37:56 John Daub: Can we see Kanae dancing again? Yes. We've been talking about Kanae dancing again for us. She did that about a year and a half ago as I introduced who she was and what she does. It was a beautiful dance that she choreographed the night before, which is incredible. She's really good at dancing and that's what she does. She's a teacher for ballet and contemporary dance to children. So we're trying to get her to choreograph another dance for us to take place at the same place and I might invite people at a meet up to watch her dance. I haven't told her that part yet. But I'm also planning to do a meet up. It has been that long. And I'm also planning to do a meet up for those that are going to be in Japan in September, the end of September. Probably the last week of September. If you're in Tokyo at that time then we will do a meetup so you get a chance to hang out a little bit.

00:38:53 John Daub: I haven't done any this year the next midnight snack run I will do this week. The next episode of the show to be released so I'm just waiting on a couple of things the schedule for September is pretty much set October November is not but December Kanae and I are probably making a trip somewhere to do some meetups meet people we're not sure if it's gonna be like Hawaii Europe or back in the US Montreal again Canada we're not sure yet but it'll be on the Discord server Patreon Facebook you'll find out whenever I go anywhere.

00:40:23 John Daub: With that in mind if you have any questions just comment below I'll talk to you and everyone else we'll see you next time so I'll be right back. But that just means there's other opportunities in Tokyo so you can guarantee be guaranteed that I'll be filming events all around for the Go channel live streaming it finding 5G points to get amazing signal speeds to you and HD live so you can see you're gonna see some changes. Right now I'm using the DJI Osmo Mobile 3 gimbal iPhone XS the smaller one and a wide angle lens to give you a better bigger field of view yeah the wide lens is pretty useful but it's kind of bulky and a pain in the neck to balance out the phone so I'm looking forward to the new smartphones with wide lenses in them because I think nobody wants to see you like right in your face I think you need a wide point of view for your camera.

00:41:58 John Daub: Will you be able to get the coveted press pass for the Olympics the thing about the Olympics and this is a message to any of the YouTubers in Japan that are thinking about covering the Olympics it doesn't matter how many subscribers you have or your agency the rights for the Olympics all of the events are purchased by in Japan NHK and NBC and internationally so actually you're not allowed to broadcast live this opening ceremony with your smartphone technically so for if you get a press pass it has to be you're probably just going to be a writer or photographer but you cannot do video like live streaming it would be very very not possible for the opening ceremony and the closing ceremony or even some of the events.

00:42:47 John Daub: It'll just be taken down by NBC and you'll probably get a copyright strike we all know I think in advance that it's not the best thing to do however it's gonna be these stories around the venue and the athletes after the events that are available. I got in trouble broadcasting from a judo live stream at the judo World Cup last year and I just had the events going on in the background as I was filming myself and they asked me to turn it off and to take it down and they'd invited me I wasn't sure what I was doing there just ask that in advance too. But you won't be able to if you're a YouTuber you won't be able to video the events and it'll just give you a copyright strike if you're discovered it's a game of Russian roulette I guess.

00:43:41 John Daub: Taylor Mac remembers the judo livestream that was pretty cool to go and see but nothing really came out of it. I was hoping that I would get like a job being able to introduce the background of judo to you but I don't know they seemed a little bit uncoordinated with this I met some good people though had a good time with Kevin Riley. Yeah I'm with the phones check out one plus yeah there's a I think there's gonna be more in 2020 I'm probably gonna get another smartphone other than an Apple but I might get another Apple anyways this fall because if the lenses are wide again this is what I do this is my job so having this camera is a tool that makes money for me this is my job so it's an expense.

00:44:52 John Daub: And I get enough superchats that I should be able to bring you the highest possible quality of signal and the highest quality of coloring and phone and angle that's why I have the newest gimbal and the best wide-angle lenses available these are really just cheap so you get the best I guess it's a write-off I guess you can call that because it's an expense right if you are in this as a occupation YouTubing then you better invest in yourself if you're making money you have to invest in it or else people aren't going to support you they have to see that you're using the money to grow. That's why I have Hana who's working with me I have another editor who is helping me with setting up some of the videos he's in a couple of them for me that haven't release but yeah these are not expenses assets.

00:45:37 John Daub: These super chats go into supporting my wife as well I think that that's probably where they go especially when Ramsay Silent superchats when I'm on a location shoot those go straight into buying like flowers and candy and boxes of sweets to say hey honey. And Ramsay Silent was never here he's someone a lot of the people are watching my back to make sure that although I spent a lot of time on this job that I also focus on my home life and I take care of my health and I never forget my wife and I never will. But it's really nice that our community also does too because my wife is also a part of the live streams she's part of the series Only in Japan Go so I appreciate that appreciate that very much.

00:46:37 John Daub: How much do mobile plans cost what is even a super chat. Super chat is the ability to just have a question-answer process which is somebody just super chatted here. Anil Rivera writes in here, today is my birthday and getting a Note 10 as a gift. So Anil, happy birthday. Big shout out to you. I'm so glad that we can celebrate this together. I should be giving you a super chat today, but I appreciate the support. I hope that you enjoy your Note 10+. That's a pretty cool device. Let me know how it is, actually. I'd love to get some feedback on that. Yeah, super chat is an ability where you can give a creator money, and it also gives you a chance to highlight what you're saying so I don't miss it too. And it makes an impact.

00:47:38 John Daub: We have some amazing supporters who give big super chats that shock and awe our audience sometimes. And that's so cool because it makes us drop our jaws in a positive way and like, what just happened? That's what I love about live streaming. Anything can happen. Live is fun. Live is fun.

00:48:06 John Daub: Failed offerings, no one will drop that amount of money on a live stream. It's just unless you're like PewDiePie or something. But I always appreciate it. I was hesitant for a very long time to activate something called the sponsor button. I'd rather call it just another way to make the live streams more fun and to generate more revenue out of this as well because you never know. I remember in a Twitter post, there was another YouTuber in Japan who is a little bit critical of me and our moderators for always posting the Patreon link, right? Like I'm begging for money. And that's not the case at all. But I will tell you that YouTube is a very competitive platform and all YouTubers agree with me on this. You want to continuously grow what you have. You have to grow or else.

00:49:15 John Daub: Right now, a lot of celebrities in Japan are starting to become YouTubers. A lot of celebrities in the US are starting to become YouTubers and it's becoming even more competitive. It will never stop being competitive. And that's what's great about YouTube. Anybody anytime can go in and become a YouTuber. But it also requires if you're going to do this full time, living. So you have to find creative ways to eke out livings. And I say eke out because I know that there's other creators that aren't doing as well. But I think if you keep at it, like the beginning of this career was hard. Like as I said, I had four years after this article. Four years where I was making like less than $10,000 a year. Alright, I was really starving. And I worked my butt off. And that's how you kind of succeed.

00:50:13 John Daub: That's something I took from America, I think. Like anything is possible, right? And that's the I see too often people are very negative on the US. A little bit too much. But I see the positive thing is that there's always hope. There's always a chance. That's just the way I feel. And I took that and even with the hard times, I still kind of stayed positive. And now I'm where I am and now you have to grow that. Not maintain it. You have to grow it. You have to continuously grow and move forward. Evolve. Make it fresh for the viewer. Make it an improved experience. I hope that makes sense to you. Thank you Dave McNeill because I learned that from this experience. It all started with Newsweek in Japan.

00:50:54 John Daub: Why don't you do sponsorship videos like many of the others? I don't know, I think. Americans are the most generous people in the world. And with charities, I think the government does pretty good but when it comes to charities and tipping and taking care of everybody Americans do a really good job of that of each other I think and you don't hear a lot of stories like that and I wish there was some more positive stuff. Joshua hard work always pays off Joshua Skidmore thank you so much absolutely does. Yeah so you're always getting better and better and that's what you have to do as I get older and older and you have to become more competitive.

00:51:43 John Daub: I don't do sponsorships sponsors control the direction of the video. I have grown pretty well since I started because of a recipe that I put the viewers first. I work hard on each video almost to the point where I get very little sleep because I want you to have a good experience and I make money off of that mostly. My biggest source of income is through Patreon that's the biggest source of income fan generated and that connection that I have with the viewers and maybe you get through the super chats is the most important thing to me. So I don't have a problem with when a creator does an ad in the middle of it if they do it especially in a creative way. You don't just stop and do it openly you would do it in a creative way that I might do that but the bottom line is this if it's not a value to the viewer then it's a waste of time.

00:53:01 John Daub: If anything is not a value to the person on the other side who's watching this don't do it it's not important. I told this to Jennifer said if you're going to do a live stream it has to be something that's not important just to you but it has a value to whoever's watching it because that's why they're watching it. David Kimura is here hey John and Nosh and UFO Bob and Ramsey Silent and hello hi Jim 821 how you doing. Field Offerings pledge of allegiance to Only in Japan you will never take the American out of me and if you're German if you're South African if you're French if you're Korean we would never expect that of you either. Wherever you are in the world, the country that you were born in and raised in, you should have pride in that. And you should be proud in who you are and where you came from. Even if it's not something that's good, that's who you are. Everybody evolves from that. I'm still John. But I'm American. And that's important to me.

00:54:47 John Daub: I'm happy to see new trade agreements with Japan. Yeah, you know, politically, I'm not, I watch the news, but I try to stay out of it. I'm just kind of hurt with what's going on between Korea and Japan right now. It's for me personally, I don't like the situation. I think so much more is possible if the two countries can put the past behind them. And asking for apologies from people from a generation that are gone is not a way to move on from it. It's too much what Korea is asking for. It's too much, what happened in the past is in the past. You have to put that behind and move on. And it's better for the people. And if your pride is that high, then nothing good comes from it. Then it becomes a sin, I think. One of the evil sins. Pride is one of the seven deadly sins. So, you can take it too far. Can't we all just get along?

00:55:45 John Daub: Koreans should have some pride because they have a long history and some amazing food. And there's some pretty incredible culture and they work really hard in Korea. I have a lot of critical things to say what's going on. But I have some wonderful things to say because I've been there many times. So, I don't think there's a country where I have negative stuff to say about. The past can hurt. You can either run from it or learn from it. I think we learn from it. We move on. Japan is a pacifist constitution. And nobody in Japan wants a military. But Japan wants to defend itself. That's why we have a self-defense force. 99 out of 100 young people are like we don't want an army. We want to be a peaceful country and just do manga anime video games and work really hard. Make cars and cameras and sensors and stuff like this compete.

00:57:15 John Daub: So I think that when you instigate and you push on things like this, it makes people do the opposite of what you expect. The bad blood is not good right now. It's really, really hard situation between the two countries. 2002 World Cup when Japan and Korea hosted it was like such a high point. And I wish we can go back to stuff like that. I'd like the 2020 Olympics where we would just say thank you to Korea. How about that? To give a shout out to our neighbors. And when the Olympics were in Korea, the Winter Olympics two years ago, it would have been nice if Korea gave a shout out to Japan. And we had that kind of love where America and Canada work together. I'd love to see that. Big things. Think big.

00:57:56 John Daub: I have to admit, though, I do like having our Navy and Air Force and Marines in Japan a little bit because I like them. A lot of them are such good people. And I get to meet them every now and then. And I get to go to the base and they got American supermarkets and stuff. So it's a chance to get stuff from home. So I kind of like that. I get mixed feelings.

00:58:24 John Daub: I appreciate all the questions, everybody. Once again, if you've watched this long, I was featured in this magazine in 2007. It changed my life. They duped me. I thought it was a beautiful article on the industry in Japan. It ended up being a hit piece with a picture like this that made me look angry saying that I make 1400 yen or $14 and the company makes $70. I was like, true story. Yes, the writer duped me and he did this off the record and he deceived me. But I'm not angry anymore. I've moved on and I've learned from it. And my takeaway that I expressed 30 minutes ago was that if you're watching the news, watch not one channel, watch them all, even if you disagree. And whatever is in the middle between the two news groups is probably where there's the most truth. Points and the facts of what they're talking about is there, then that's probably the truth. And that's who I am. I'm that guy in the middle that they always talk about like how could you not pick a side? That's me.

00:59:30 John Daub: Thanks, everybody. Have a good day. Have a good night. The last 20 seconds is dedicated to the Tokyo Skytree, which I was here just a few days ago with Dan and his wife, Enja. And it's a beautiful day in Tokyo. If you do come to Tokyo, you want to check out this area, Skytree area across the bridge. Thank you. I love the bridge here. It's really lovely area. Bye, guys. And thanks. Thanks so much for the support.