Conversations With Christopher: Jeremiah McCoy

On this week's episode of the Press Start Leadership Podcast, we introduce Conversations with Christopher with special guest Jeremiah McCoy.

We discuss with Jeremiah growing up geeky, the secret to good leadership, where to find the best donut in Tenessee, and how to get started as a DnD TikTok sensation.

You can find Jeremiah McCoy at:
www.jeremiahmccoy.com
Twitter: Technoir
TikTok: basicsofthegame

Link to my FREE ebook: 5 Heroic Leadership Skills

Music by: Joey the Mad Scientist

Hit subscribe/follow and be sure to check out: https://pressstartleadership.com/

Transcript

Joey The Mad Scientist: 0:38

Hey there press starters and welcome to the press Start leadership podcast, the podcast about game changing leadership teaching you how to get the most out of your product and development team and become the leader you were meant to be leadership coaching and training for the International game industry professional. Now, let me introduce you to your host, the man the myth, the legend, Christopher Mifsud

Christopher Mifsud: 1:09

Hey there press starters and welcome to a special edition of Press Start Leadership Podcast Conversations with Christopher. On this edition. We have a special guest a longtime friend and former colleague in the videogame industry. A Tick Tock DND sensation Jeremiah McCoy. Now let's meet Jeremiah McCoy.

Jeremiah McCoy: 1:33

Greetings and salutations.

Christopher Mifsud: 1:36

Greetings, sir. How are you?

Jeremiah McCoy: 1:39

I I am doing all right, I guess I mean as much as well as anybody does during the play times. But yeah,

Christopher Mifsud: 1:50

Indeed, indeed. So, Jeremiah, I know who you are. I've known you for a very long time. But most likely most of the listeners here and those watching have no idea or have only heard rumblings of the man that is Jeremiah McCoy, also known as basics of the game on Tick Tock in tech Noir, on Twitter and other social media places. So perhaps, perhaps could give us your your origin story. Who is Jeremiah McCoy, where have you emerged from and how long have you been on the scene and doing what do you do? Um, well.

Jeremiah McCoy: 2:27

I am originally from the Tennessee Valley. I grew up around Oak Ridge, Tennessee, but I moved around a lot too. And I have been around for time immemorial, I guess. It's actually kind of a fun joke to joke that I'm far older than I am. So I never really actually admit to how old I am. But yeah, I've been around for a while. I bounced around Tennessee for a while. I lived in Atlanta for a bit and moved out to North Carolina to work on a video game, which is where we work together course and move back to Tennessee after that sort of fell apart. And yeah, I've been back in the Oak Ridge area. For a while I am a part time game writer for like d&d content. I am a tech talker. Like he said, I've been in podcasting since the early days, making gaming related podcasts, YouTube. I just do a lot of different geeky things.

Christopher Mifsud: 3:59

Awesome. No, that's great. And so like, I mean, your journey has basically been gaming in some way, shape or form, right? I mean, like you have, I mean, you grew up with gaming. I think you didn't really mention it there. But if I'm not mistaken, you have like a family heritage.

Jeremiah McCoy: 4:14

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Um, my mom got me started in d&d, and I was 8. Um, she bought me my first d&d set, because she got tired of me getting into hers. She was playing with some old college buddies. And she kept coming home with a little bit sort of magenta colored box basic set, and it had this really evocative art from arrow Otis and I just kept getting into it. And she got tired of me getting into it. So she brought me my own. She has long since quit playing because life gotten away for a while there and she just never picked it back up. But yeah, it's a story we all know. happens a lot of people but but yeah, I kept playing in gaming has been my through line hobby. My entire life, I did other things like, I've done it work. And I, when I was younger, I worked in security, done factory work, I've done lots of other things. But there's always been that three line of gaming as the thing I'm passionate about. I grew up going to science fiction conventions, mom did help run science fiction conventions. And so I spent a lot of time doing that when I was young, that also sort of shaped me.

Christopher Mifsud: 5:50

Yeah, it's in your roots. Yeah. I mean, I know we work together. You mentioned in North Carolina Actually, I met you in in another form of of the role playing games in the LARPing realm. So you know, you're a longtime larper as well, I know we don't always Yeah, things but

Jeremiah McCoy: 6:10

I can't remember when growing up, playing d&d was a thing that you get looked down on, right. And then larpers it's it's almost like the d&d players could look down on larpers.

Christopher Mifsud: 6:27

Exactly. It was. You didn't even admit necessarily with your friends that played d&d, which now now it's way more accepted.

Jeremiah McCoy: 6:33

But back, yeah, back back then. It was it was one of the things that like you, you do what? Yeah, but I started. Well, if you want to count the parlor, larps I think

Christopher Mifsud: 6:40

Well, he, I mean, yeah. Are you talking 93-94 Okay. Um, so. Yeah. And then, yeah, we met it. Was it What? There was a crossover from LARP I was playing. And LRP you ere playing like, Wildlands Sout as well. And Wildlands south a d Nero. Yeah. There was a c ossover there. Yeah, yeah. B t it's, it's also funny. In t at same group of crossovers. T ere's a guy who we both know wh is now a game designer. I think Last I heard he was working at lizzard and was like a competiti e Magic the Gathering player. about? You're talking to talking about a guy who actually played a character named Blizzard? Yeah, he was a fan. And then maybe Brian Kibler. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we I used to drive him the larps. Before he had a driver's license. And yeah, we, we definitely had an interesting crowd. Yeah. He's still going to call. He was in college in Atlanta, and I was driving him to the larps. So yeah, like a white tiger and beat up people. But yeah, he still shows that he's definitely he's, what's great about him. He's such a character he does he he's not even embarrassed by the photos of him dressed up like a white tiger. You know, and like in sweatpants, but yeah, he's LARPing again, and the dude is in Super shape because he works out every day and he he shows his workouts on twitch stream so good for him. I wish I was working out every day, tick, tick, tick, tick the pandemic, the heart and decided to become a beast. So So now it looks like Tyrion Lannister. That's your Jamie. Jamie Lannister. Yeah, a little different. There's there. Yeah. with long hair and the beard, everything going on and look like a bad so good for you. Brian Kibler. Yeah, so yeah, yeah. So. So this is, uh, yeah, I'll delve into another question. So this is a leadership podcast for the most part, like 90% of the time. But because I'm big old geek and everything, I talk about gaming, because that's been a huge part of my life. Like when I describe things, it's like I do leadership, because I love leadership, the gaming part that's associated with it is just because it's also the other part of my life. But since it is a leadership podcast, I do have to ask questions about leadership, because that makes sense. Right? So the question here is, what do you consider in your, in your experience, you've been through a lot of different jobs you've described work for different companies. You've been through different experiences, where like, leadership does come off, like in LARPing. So for what do you consider good leadership, right, like we can talk about bad leadership all day long. But like art, I like to point to good leadership. So maybe, you could describe, you know, in your own words, what you consider good leadership for those that are listening.

Jeremiah McCoy: 9:43

I think that the best leadership is about communication. Right? I mean, I think that the, the, so many failings can be cleared up by just clear communication, communicate what you want and accept communication from people who work for you or work with you. And that means learning how to say things Yeah, in a, in an open way that is clear. To try and avoid letting your assumptions shape your conversations. That is, I think the heart of good leadership is is is instead of. I mean, it happens all the time, right? We all sort of assume people know what we're talking about. Yeah. I'm the big one. Yeah. And and some of that you have to do, right, like, you're working with a bunch of people, you sort of assume that they share some of the knowledge in the field that you're all working. Um, you know, yeah, one would hope. If you're at a primarily English speaking company, you assume all the other people in the company that you're talking to speak English. Things like that are can't avoid making some assumptions. But so often I've seen things get skewed in. Yeah, everything from non work, sort of social projects to actual work. That got messed up because people just assumed people were on the same page. And they weren't,

Christopher Mifsud: 11:46

as they say, when you make an assumption, yeah. Have you in over Thurman. So I don't think that's the I'm pretty sure that's not the same. That's Stuart Smalley said. That's okay. Yeah. But it is true. And it's it's something I actually bring up a lot. It's people aren't mind reader's, right. Like, we, there's so many times that I think you're touching on a great, it's like, there's so many times like in work or outside, like, you think stuff and this comes up in LARPing quite a bit. I've had this conversation with people that run large all the time where players are disappointed because something didn't happen in the game. And they're like, what, what didn't happen is like, well, this thing that i i thought in my head was going to happen. Did you tell anybody that you wanted this app? Well, no. Then it didn't. Why are you why it's the same thing where it's just like, man, I really want this position at work, right? And like, cool. Have you told anybody that you want this position at work? No. So you're just gonna assume that, and I get it like, a lot of people think that if you work really hard, and you do everything, right, that you're gonna get the attention that you need. The thing is that we're not where we like I tell people this all the time. We're not the center of everybody else's world. We're the center of our own world, right. So the amount that I think about you, Jeremiah, well, recently, it's been quite a bit because of my preparing for this podcast. Usually, not so often. Right? Like, I think sometimes if there's like an idea that it's attached to something that's important to me, I think about it. And it's the same thing at work, right? Like if you're, you're working, the idea that someone's going to necessarily think of you and you haven't made people aware that you want something or whatever. And then we get looked over and like, you tell your boss Oh, but why don't I get paid? Oh, well, did? Did I didn't know you wanted it right. Now, sometimes there are unfair things that work, right. Like we're a position isn't even open to everybody. And nobody even gets a chance. Right? And so you told me like, Look, but Yeah, I agree. Like if you do patients huge. It's so huge. It's the most important thing for any relationship, work, life, love, friends, family, everything is communication. So I, I think you're 100%. Right. If at the core of the if it's important for everything, it's definitely got to be at the core of leadership.

Jeremiah McCoy: 14:01

Yeah, I think if you're going to work on any skill for a workplace in general, work on your communication skills first. Learn how to speak clearly learn how to write clearly. I mean, I'm not talking about be a grammar nazi. But, you know, learn how to convey what you're thinking in writing. It's worth the time, it will get you much further than just assuming everybody understands what you're talking about. 100% don't use emoticons ever? A little bit, but don't assume like that's, again, don't don't use a sad face to communicate. Like if you're unhappy with a bill that we just sent you. I might. I might have gotten that once. Yeah, yeah, I could see that. Yeah. Oh, sad face. What is that? I occasionally. Yeah, you should words don't communicate non sequiturs. Don't Don't put too Chupacabra without any explanation, because we won't know what you're talking about. That's true.

Christopher Mifsud: 15:21

All right, well, cool. favorite type of donut? Let's get to the hard questions here. I mean, my classic favorite is of course, Krispy Kreme fresh made glazed donut. That is, that is the the top of the pyramid, right. But beyond that, I really like going to a local donut place. Probably more than I should to be fair. We've hit a pandemic times, man, you know? Sure, sure we do. We do what we do to get through. Yeah. But tell me tell me more of this local place in their special doughnuts.

Jeremiah McCoy: 16:10

Yeah, it's called donut palace. Okay. It's an Oak Ridge, Tennessee on the Oak Ridge Turnpike, for those who are local to the area. And they have a dresser. Yeah, safe ish. Yeah, yeah. Um, and they have a great variety. And they they make all their doughnuts there. It's not a not a sort of a chain. They're just, they learned how to make donuts and they make donuts. I love their twists, which are basically kind of like the same doughy consistency of the Krispy kremes. But they're, you know, long twists. I like their white cream filled. It's kind of a vanilla cream filled. Those are nice. And I really love the old fashioned cake doughnuts that they make. They're, they're really good. Always a good classic.

Christopher Mifsud: 17:04

Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. So another thing that is important to me, I talk about spirituality on occasion mindfulness, though. And so I'm curious. How do you find what's How do you find your Zen? You know, how do you how do you find mindfulness, especially, especially with everything that's been going on the last year or so? And, you know, I know times, times aren't easy for everybody. So, you know, how do you how do you how do you find some balance in that headspace?

Jeremiah McCoy: 17:34

Ah, I, I've had I've had our time with it like, everybody. This past year, I think it's hard to turn down the the noise in your head. And, you know, this year may have actually driven home that I probably have some form of ADHD on top of having depression. But I think the ways I usually do it, if I, if I'm particularly overwhelmed, I can just step outside for a little bit. This is not going to be option for everybody. But for me, I live in a small town. smallish town in Tennessee. I can step outside and see the mountains in the distance, smell fresh, you know, air from an area filled with trees. And I can sit down and take a deep breath. And that's great. When I don't have that option, like the weather's bad or something like that. I like to I like to play a game that doesn't have a narrative. Something that that I can just sort of lose myself in is sometimes helpful for me to just sort of release stress. So something like Minecraft or something like, like, a card game that I can sort of do on automatic.

Christopher Mifsud: 19:10

I guess I know, for me Peggle and not in rock band back in the day, like Yeah, because it's very, like, you know, rhythmic will pay goes just my favorite. Like, if I just want to zone out. It's mindless, and it's yet incredible. But I get Yeah, yeah, nothing with a narrative. If you have to pay attention to a story or make hard decisions, I get that. That's not helpful.

Jeremiah McCoy: 19:35

But yeah, that's that's how I deal with it. And like I said, it's been hard this past year, like, a lot of my usual coping mechanisms. Were not really doing it for me. Or, probably,

Christopher Mifsud: 19:48

yeah.

Jeremiah McCoy: 19:51

And, you know, I, I've had the advantage of being able to work from home. Yeah. Um, but there are, which is interesting, because I can tell you that there have been days when I was in a bad enough place mentally, are bad enough place physically, that I probably would have called in, if I had to go to an office, but because I'm working from home I just roll into my office and, and do the job. grin and bear it.

Christopher Mifsud: 20:24

Right. Yeah, that's that's actually been, I think a lot of people's problems, right is and they had the statistics on it. So I think the people, people aren't using sick days as much this last year, because again, on where you would normally use a sick day, because you were feeling unwell or whatever, if you just you don't have to see anybody it is, you know, like you said, you just kind of go over to your desk and getting your chair and do and do the work. And, you know, that's probably not great. In the long term. I think people do need to turn off and take time out for work, whether it's for physical or mental, whatever the cases. Yeah, another one that's a big one is, and I have this problem is, is creating the day to day, right. So your your old routine is kind of gone, right? We see we get up, get ready, drive to work, go into work, do all those little things. Now, it's just like, I walk upstairs, I come over to my desk, I sit down, and I work and I get up to go get copies occasionally. But like, I don't take the breaks that I normally used to take. And then sometimes less, I forced myself and I'm paying attention. Like I won't necessarily end the day what I normally would have ended the day, right? So like, I mean, it's great for my, my company, but that's, that's a great for, for me, and they're like, yeah, they're getting more and more hours out of me or whatever. And it's just like, and I never turn off anyway. So it's not that big of a difference, but I think it eats away at you a little bit. Right?

Jeremiah McCoy: 21:46

Yeah. And I definitely, like the the lack of routine definitely has affected my health this year. Um, while I was working in the office, go to work, do my thing. Eat at my desk, which is maybe not great, but whatever I do. But on my lunch break, instead of going and eating, I would go for a walk. Like they had a nice little fountain with a walking course around it. And I was like, so I would spend cafeteria lunch break just walking around the fountain and it was good. It was got me away from the thinking about stuff. Whereas here, you know, on my break, I'll either go eat lunch, or I'll go take a nap. I mean, it's, I get it, it's there. It's convenient. And honestly, anything that's comfort at this point in time, right?

Christopher Mifsud: 22:48

Yeah, I mean, and yeah, it's, it's not something to beat yourself up on. It's just something that's just that's there. Honestly, if I didn't have somebody who literally would come grab me at lunchtime and make me go walk for two hours, which I don't like doing, but I do it because, you know, I have to So yeah, I go I go for a walk. But otherwise I wouldn't. But I when I was Yeah, I get it. It's a and I and I'm glad I do it. I would rather do it maybe in the morning as like to fake the whole, like, work route to work thing and then maybe do it in the evening. The fake the route back home, right? So it's kind of like you could turn your head on. Okay, I'm going to work and then you can turn your head off. Okay, walking out of work. But yeah, it's middle of day. So it is what it is. Yeah. Well, maps are nice though. Okay. Okay. All right. Favorite, okay, cuz you do video games and you do tabletop? So we're gonna hit both. So favorite system for tabletop.

Jeremiah McCoy: 23:54

I'm gonna be lying if I say D and D isn't? Sure I'm just because it is. And I've said this for years. It's the lingua franca of, of the gaming world, right? I can put together a d&d game far easier than I can put together any other game. Because everybody, everybody knows the indie. I've been it's the game I started on. It's a game I played the most of it's a game I've written for. So d&d is going to be on that. And I say all of that, because it feels like people should give a proviso for saying d&d these days. Like there are problems with d&d and they're trying to address them. Yeah, they're doing some huge things that like two years ago, people weren't even be thinking about so yeah, sure. And like, and they still have work to do. Like nobody's says they don't. But because of that, it feels like you should add a qualifier. Yeah, at the end is still my favorite game, despite its flaws. Beyond the indeed, because everybody plays d&d. I think the one I'm the most excited about lately has been the age system by green routing. Okay. It started as a role playing game based off of Dragon Age.

Christopher Mifsud: 25:25

Really? Yes. Oh, yeah. That bought that box. That little box.

Jeremiah McCoy: 25:30

Yeah. And and they came up with a role system to support Dragon Age. Um, and it was a decent system. And I'm not sure the full story of how they decided, yeah, we should just separate the system off. But they did right.

Christopher Mifsud: 25:50

They probably lost the rights.

Jeremiah McCoy: 25:53

Maybe.

Christopher Mifsud: 25:56

I know that I'm speculating here. But usually when stuff like that happens, it's because they lost the rights but they like their system.

Jeremiah McCoy: 26:01

And so they're like, You know what? I know that Wil Wheaton wanted to do the game. And he liked that system. He wanted to do a game on on his YouTube channel. And he liked that system, but it wasn't going to be a Dragon Age game. So they use that. I don't know how much of that was he found out that they were releasing this separate or what I don't know the routine out, but they released his fantasy age, which is excellent. And then they and they have a setting for it. If

Christopher Mifsud: 26:32

THE Ian Lemke and thats T H E Ian Lemke? you want to use it called Blue rose, which started under some other system but got transferred over. Then they release modern age, which is the system that underpins the expanse rolling it, which is excellent. And a friend of ours both of ours is like the lead developer on it.

Jeremiah McCoy: 27:09

Yeah, yeah. But yeah, it's a good system. And they are currently working on a play test of an update the fantasy age. And front I've seen of the play test, it's not actually changing the core system. They're just adding some bits that make it more more interesting, more usable. But fantasy age and modern age have been the ones that I've been the most excited about. But I love playing all of them. Like to check that up because I picked up that box at for Dragon Age A long time ago. Yeah, it was good. It was good. And then yeah, I didn't I maybe that a couple supplements, but I don't think many. Um, they've really still a fair amount. And in. Yeah, and when Dragon Age Inquisition came out, they released like a big, thick book using the art from Dragon Age Inquisition, the tarot cards. Yeah. It's got that on the cover. And it was a much more realized version, and you can still buy it. So that's why I'm like, I'm not sure if they lost the license. Yeah, no, that made me I'm gonna go Look, look it up and buy more things that I don't need right this moment. Yeah, but the Yeah, fantasy ages. Excellent. And if I were running a fantasy game, and I was like, Alright, I don't want to use the end. It's probably where where I would start. Okay. Yeah.

Christopher Mifsud: 28:44

Very nice. Cool. What about we covered two questions for me because I was gonna follow up with what would be your secondary system, but that's it right there. What about from video game standpoint? console?

Jeremiah McCoy: 28:56

PC masteries. I I'm mainly a PC gamer. I played a little bit of PlayStation stuff, but mainly PC. Okay, um, and, you know, favorite favorite game on on PC? Well, I am a I'm a I'm a nerd for Bioware. So all of the Mass Effect all of the Dragon Age games are. Yeah. I i've i've got nearly 1000 hours in Dragon Age Inquisition alone.

Christopher Mifsud: 29:31

That's a lot. Yeah. I may have a problem. But twice, but I don't think I have 1000 hours in there. I mean, yeah. Yeah.

Jeremiah McCoy: 29:41

I mean, the nature the nature of their their game design is that they encourage you to play through it multiple times. So that you get different story results. And yeah, you could go on YouTube and watch all of the different endings, but it's much more fun to play it. And they're coming out with a new Mass Effect. Like a refresh, where you know, they're redoing out, the graphics are going to buy that I'm going to play that, even though I've got almost as much time into Mass Effect.

Christopher Mifsud: 30:16

I'm picking it up to you. I think it's The end of May, I think, yeah. And I'm looking forward to it. Or sadly, but that's okay. I mean, it's hard to. Yeah.

Jeremiah McCoy: 30:28

Yeah. No, no, it's, you can't either. And honestly, I think a lot of game companies have gotten gun shy about multiplayer because of the the rather public disappointments with some multiplayer, but these were these are all the players that are already awesome. They just couldn't bring them over, I think. Yeah. They they had to make some concessions, I guess the upgrade everything and then sure. But yeah, I think beyond that, the one I've spent the most time on recently has been cyberpunk. 2077. Yeah, I have completed two full playthroughs on that. And I started a third cuz I think you're doing all the all the different backgrounds or is the third one a double up on one of the other backgrounds? No, it's doing all the backgrounds. So I've completed Nomad and Corp. And I started as free good.

Unknown: 31:33

And

Jeremiah McCoy: 31:36

the failings of that game are rather public, everybody's heard about them. But I think it buries a lot of the really brilliant design work that went into it. It feels like a very living place when you're playing. And the stories are interesting and compelling. And and yeah, I was already a nerd for cyberpunk games. You know, I played cyberpunk 2020 back in the 90s. Like everybody else, those crazy kids that were born in the 90s. But yeah, well, yeah, but Shadowrun is one of my all time favorite games. Just like I love those settings. Like the rule systems. I was like, all right, or sometimes not. All right, in some of the editions of Shadowrun, but I loved those settings. I love those kinds of stories. So yeah, I was, I was on board.

Christopher Mifsud: 32:40

Very cool. So you born into the world of Geekdom and d&d. You've worked in video games, you play video games, you play d&d. And nowadays in the world of social media, there are all these things going on the Twitter's and the Facebook's, and now the TIC tocs. And for my, my limited understanding, but actually not that limited, because I've been following you for a while, you've become quite the quite a little bit of the sensation in the TIC tocs. As basicsofthegame, tell me Tell us a little bit about like, how you got started there. Wait, wait, what you're doing there? I mean, how many times you're on there. And what's so exciting about it? When

Jeremiah McCoy: 33:32

So back in 2019, I started seeing people share d&d related tic tocs on Twitter. And some of the more people I knew from like YouTube stuff, like Momo, Brian, and azariah, who, at the time was known as large house, on YouTube, and a few others. And I was I was like, these are really interesting. So I finally broke down and got tik tok app. I heard about it, you know, I follow the tech world, among other things. I've worked in technology. So I follow tech news and tick tock kept coming up. And I was like, I don't know it's not. It's probably just for kids, right? And I kept seeing these and I was like, Alright, I'll install it and see what I think. And I started going through it. And I think one thing that helped my experience early on, that not many people probably think of to do early on, is I immediately started searching for hashtags that I was interested in. So like d&d Dungeons and Dragons LARPing and then follow those hashtags because itgives you the option follow themso then my for you page was nothing but this stuff, love. It was less stuff that I wasn't interested in. It's not completely

Christopher Mifsud: 35:06

Yes, it's very it's very difficult to to prune. It's not like my Spotify list, right? My Spotify list knows my music. It makes beautiful suggestions to me every day I have multiple channels that have learned me, they know me, tick tock is a fickle beast. And I find that though I get a number of d&d related or role playing related stuff, and kung fu and some other crazy stuff that pops up there, the sheer number of other things that are much more common than Tick Tock still pop up on the regular. So I do I do wish, yeah, their algorithm would would tone it down just a little bit, but I get it, I get it. But I agree. Once you find the things that you're looking for, there's some really interesting tidbits there and you being one of them. Yeah, maybe, maybe tell tell it like so. You got there. You found that stuff. And so what, what, what made you actually start besides following it, start actually making your own right, because it's, that's the second step, right? Is, is admitting a problem. No. First step is finding the content that you want and the things that you resonate with. And then what's like, what makes you go you know, what the world needs 15 seconds, the 30 seconds of Jeremiah McCoy talking about d&d and ranting a little bit, sometimes the people that exists on the internet what, what what took you to that level,

Jeremiah McCoy: 36:30

um, to their work couple of things. The first one was, I kept seeing videos of younger people, often women or people of color, who were giving the horror stories, and they've heard the horror stories before being on tik tok. But I'm seeing people talking about it on Tick Tock of the gatekeepers, the people who essentially look like me, telling them that they don't belong. And that really kind of irritated me because I, I hate the gatekeepers who do that. I hate them with a passion, I want more people, I want new people, I I'm excited by new people. So that that was like, okay, maybe I should make something. And I had that in the back of my head. And I didn't know what I was gonna make. And then I was, while I was watching, I also saw that there were a lot of people making content about bards and paladins, but not a lot of people thinking content about wizards. And crate, I mean, yeah, I get it. The other paladins will actually don't get passes for whatever. But yeah, it's maybe I get that there's a couple couple people have fallen apart. Maybe they're thinking they're great. Yeah, but, and I'm just like, well, it's a visual medium. I'd look like a wizard. Log here be a grid. I look like a wizard. Okay, great here to be clear. And I was like, Okay, this is, this is something and I am a fan of wizards in d&d and Lord, you know, so I had opinions. So I was like, Alright, first I'll, I'll make some wizard jokey things. And people like them. Like they, they're like, Okay, this is neat. You know, I did a whole bit about necromancers where it's like, oh, yes, I understand you think necromancers are evil, but really, they just want to raise a family. it you know, people got that they laughed. Yeah, they thought that was great. Um, and, and I started getting that and then I would see videos from people saying that, again, that they were getting harassed for their opinions about the end. And I started commenting on on that. And slowly I've developed an audience based off of either me being silly about wizards or the fact that I've been around forever by their comparison, at any rate, and and they're like, you know, what, what about this? I've heard this and I can I can go get the source, right, which is awesome. Yeah. I was like, Yeah, I've got the original box set back here. It's fine. Here. Let me tell you what it says. And yes, I did play back in first position and yes, that that was different back then. And this is where that idea comes from. And no, it's no longer valid in the game or you know, and I became the friendly d&d uncle. And and

Christopher Mifsud: 40:03

not creepy one.

Jeremiah McCoy: 40:04

Yeah, I'mnot the not the creepy guy like. And I sort of cut out my nice as the guy who talks about d&d and other games. Yeah, to be fair, I'd be talking about other games.

Christopher Mifsud: 40:17

And also being willing to talk about social issues, which awesome. I mean, well, more people that we have to talk about him, but I think it's awesome that you do and yeah, and I do appreciate your stance against people and, and I love that, that people for whatever reason feel like they want to get into the arena with you and answer your comments and say things and I I'm impressed that you you take them to town, even even when even when they do I people I follow that I follow your responses on a couple of them. And they've been interesting where like somebody's like, oh, but uh, you're like, no, and they're like, but what about? Uh, no, like still? No, still no, like, yeah, if anybody ever gets a chance, if not to just watch some of the amazingness of Jeremiah on basics of the game of tic Tock. But then after he does one of these, these statements, then follow along in the comment section because it is, it is a ride in and of itself, I must say. And I feel like some of your some of your audience are obviously good natured folks. And some of them are obviously masochists that just want to get beat up because like, I don't, I don't see. I mean, it's the internet. So obviously, these people they, you know, that's their, their joy, they get attention somehow. Right. And I guess it's cheaper than some of the other ways they can get abused. Because it's free.

Jeremiah McCoy: 41:50

But yeah, yeah, I mean, part of that is allyship doesn't mean anything if you're not willing to step up and talk. Right? I'm an ally, but you never say anything. You never like make the people you're being an ally to feel like they're not alone is less useful. That said, I understand it is a lot of emotional labor to get into that fight. Um, it is but I thought it was worth doing. The other thing is, I have the advantage of being without being egotistical, somewhat eloquent. And well spoken.

Christopher Mifsud: 42:38

And it sound nice.

Jeremiah McCoy: 42:39

Yeah, I have I have a nice voice and so I allow myself to use that as a weapon sometimes when I have to it's good one but in a lot of weapons out there that's for sure. Yeah. If you're doing even doing a lot of besides a lot of really like I said, well well spoken and we'll spread topics and so forth. You also you do some duets and some some other things so like what's been like some of the more more fun things I guess that are that could be fun to but we the more entertaining for yourself things that you've done maybe recently are like overall and since the time you've been on tik tok. I love so I'm not very good at cosplay. And cosplay is a lot of DND Tick Tock I like boy,

Christopher Mifsud: 43:33

what do we what do we mean by like, I mean, are you just talking about like going hardcore into like, a like because all the cosplayers that have like their Spider Man and like spider Gwen suits that pop in and do stuff like that's kind of unfair, because that's like their professional cosplay.

Jeremiah McCoy: 43:46

Sure. No, you mean just putting on your arm you don't even like Yeah, yeah. Like, I'm not as good at you know, the garb and makeup as, as some of the people on d&d Tick Tock who do cosplays a lot of them do cosplays of critical role characters and so on. Every once a while somebody will do something that's like, I could play off that. I try to avoid the ones where it's like the creepy romantic stuff. Cuz Yeah, because you don't want to be creepy uncle. Yeah, yeah. But comedic stuff. Um, I have. I think one of my favorite recent ones is I did a bit from the court jester. So that for those who are not familiar with how Tick Tock works on the audio side of things and the cosplay things, people will load up audios for movies and TV shows, and recontextualize them using that audio with their own characters. Um, and I I've done one from the court jester where I played the Danny Kaye character and somebody playing off of somebody else's doing other lines of the whole vessel with a pestle routine. Um, that one was great fun. I did another one where I I like using the doctor voices from Doctor Who, um, because that sort of aligns with wizards and when I do do the cosplay thing I do wizards so I will do do there's that there's the familiarity t right like sure. People that play d&d. Like dog food, so it's it's not not too bad. Yeah, yeah. Um, but yeah, I've done some that those are fun. Probably the most fun one I did. It is not me debating someone else. It's me creating something for somebody else to do it off of because you goes either way, like you see one you're like, I can make a duet, your your videos next to somebody else's video and you're both playing off the same audio. I created one where it was based off of an old Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck routine. And I was the Daffy Duck. Okay. And it was so much fun to use that audio, and it's a ha pronoun trouble. edits this back and forth. The classic back and forth were Elmer Fudd. Shoots Daffy Duck, and Daffy Duck is like no, no, no wait season. Yeah, we're having season. Rabbit season duck season, right? And Daffy Duck pauses it and is like, Okay, how did this happen? And he does this whole routine. It goes Haha, pronoun trouble. That's it. And I use that audio. And it was so much fun to get to Super animated and just play with it. In full wizard garb. My you know, like, I'm dressed like a wizard. Next door.

Christopher Mifsud: 47:08

You even so speaking that dress is a wizard, you actually had a fan make you like a whole wizard kit? Right? Like, oh, yeah, on everything.

Jeremiah McCoy: 47:17

Right? The wayfaring wizard guy made it for me. He made me a wand, which was nice. It was a very nice one. I had a little symbol on the bottom. He made me a hat. And I had this big, giant wizardly hat with the little grouping thing on the back. And there was really very wizard like any maybe a like a leather and boss book. Yeah. Um, and that, like that made my my month. about it now.

Christopher Mifsud: 47:51

And I can see the smile on your face. So yeah, obviously, it's still making your day. So you know? Yeah. Well worth it. Yeah, I know. And that's, I think that's, you know, that's the social part. Let's, I mean, not the gifts, the gifts are cool. But I mean, like, right, we're talking about community, we talk about social media and everything like that. This is like the heart of it, right is where you really connect with an audience and the audience connects with you. And through the things you're doing, you bring entertainment, or joy, or social awareness, or consciousness, or whatever the case might be, right, like you're tapping into your audience. And so like, that's, that's super awesome to see. Because I've known you for a super long time. And I know what an awesome human being you are. And it's great to see that you found an outlet for other people to kind of like, see that too. Right? And, you know, like he said, you get to be, you have to be the uncle, the uncle wizard, for so many other people, right. And I bet you know, the number of people that you were able to help and touch before was good, because you've always been a good friend. I know that and seeing that now, there's all these people who, you know, you can call them acquaintances you call whatever you want, but still you're able to help them out and, and do things for them that, you know, without this technology that we have today. Now, this platforms that we have today, we wouldn't have otherwise. So I think that's, that's awesome. Right?

Jeremiah McCoy: 49:15

Yeah. I mean, I think one of the things that resonates with people is that I'm open with my own struggles. And it helps, I think, for some people that are like, okay, yeah, he, he also struggles with depression. You know, the fact that I'm open about the fact that I'm bisexual was, you know, I had lots of people messaged me were like, you know, say, hey, it's good to see that I don't have to fit into a particular image that that, you know, you can get to, you know, a gray haired old guy and, and keep your identity safe and secure and be open. Yeah, that's awesome. I think a lot of people need to hear that and need to be exposed to that. So you know, thank you for being one of those voices.

Christopher Mifsud: 50:16

Speaking of like, if so, Somebody was wanting to get into Tick Tock right now. I mean, he touched on a little bit all over the place, right? Like you found it through people who were doing YouTube through via Twitter.

Jeremiah McCoy: 50:28

Right. So other social medias as you were already at. But you know, tick tock still growing, it's still still, you know, people are finding their audience and finding the prize and everything else there. What would you What would you suggest to someone who is listening to this and is like, Hey, you know, I've got things to say maybe not about d&d, but other stuff, you know, what are they wanting to try? Tick Tock? What would you suggest,um,learn the tools. There are a lot of tools in built into tic toc, you can look at your own analytics and tell when you've had a good week. And when you haven't, you've got different effects that you can apply to your video, you can edit your video, you can add music, they put it in the app, you can learn how to do that, learn how to do captioning, whether it's within the app, I typing it in yourself, or using a third party tool, like threads by Instagram. But captioning helps people who you know, are maybe a little bit hearing impaired to be able to translate what's been going on. So that's also useful, it expands your audience quite a bit. Figure out what you want to talk about. Don't just chase this trend, don't just do what everybody else is doing, because everybody else is doing it. And there may be people that are doing it better than you because they've been doing it longer. Instead, figure out what you want to do, what your thing is, what you want to talk about what you want to demonstrate, and, and then go into it, and throw yourself at that.

Unknown: 52:19

And, you know,

Jeremiah McCoy: 52:21

once you've done it for a while, the other big thing is if you don't have to worry about numbers don't I joined the creator fund last year, towards the end of last year, and I don't make much money off of it. You know, maybe a dinner a month, maybe, maybe if a good month, a new game book. But I don't make much money off of it. During the pandemic, a lot of people lost their jobs. And they fell back on the money that they could get from the creator fund as a means to pay their rent those people I understand why they have to stress about the changes in the algorithm, because the algorithm changes all the time. Your viewership will go up and down. Big time. It is normal. But if you're making your primary income off of that, that's a problem. Yes, predictability is not fun, especially when it comes to money and your livelihood. Yeah, so have a different means of income is definitely high up on there. So that you don't have to stress about those numbers quite so much. Gotcha. Yeah. I think the most recent payout was 1/5 of my previous. So but but your numbers were higher, probably right? No, no. Okay. I thought maybe I thought maybe also, it was like your numbers have gone up. But like, just because the way things have shaped up, cuz I've heard that before, where people like, you know, things are getting better. But for whatever reason, because they're changing the way payouts work and this and that. I don't want to get too far in the weeds for you. But what, what happens is, the algorithm is based off of the fact that the videos are a minute or less. So the engagement is easier to track. Sure. And as they're constantly changing, tweaking the algorithm to sort of determine what they're going to show you. So what you end up with is a rapidly changing environment. Where what was giving you lots of views last month, gets you nothing this month. As far as like the type of content you're making, yeah, yeah. Like the same content can give you wildly different when the algorithm changes. Add into that. There are some moderation issues on the app, like moderation is hard. It's super hard. I mean, Facebook and Twitter and YouTube. We all have teams of people for human moderation. And they have to cycle them out all the time, because it will burn them out. They see the things that on the internet that you don't want to see. They're the, they're the folks who go through and remove all that stuff that you don't get to see because it's so terrible. Yeah, okay, fair enough. Um,and so that will burn through people really fast. So human moderations hard. So they try and rely on algorithms to do it. And the algorithms give you all kinds of false positives. And then, on top of that, trolls will use reporting systems to remove perfectly reasonable stuff. Sure. And then it's down for long enough that whatever gains you would have made is too late. Right. Right. So there's a whole sort of technical background to what's going on. what the experience is, is I'm making content that people liked. And now they're not even seeing it because the app isn't showing them anymore. True. True. True. Yeah. Because a lot of times, I mean, I know, it's probably, I'm assuming it's the same on Tick Tock is, anyways, for YouTube, is most of your discoverability actually doesn't come from your followers. It's actually like, new new new people.

Christopher Mifsud: 56:40

So yeah, if if what you were doing before that was getting shown to new people doesn't work anymore to show new people then? Yeah. You're stuck with your followers like me?

Jeremiah McCoy: 56:49

Just like, yeah, yeah. And like I crossed a milestone last night. of half a million lights. Yeah, that's huge. Actually. I mean, I mean, I mean, if I if I view that's huge. Half a million I gave you think about that's, that's absolutely people, I think I'm only responsible for like, 100 of those. So the weird thing is, like, there are there are people on the app who have a million or more followers, like, 2 million. I'm I'm at around 34,000. Yeah. So that I mean, that speaks volumes, right? If you're just, you know, percentage wise, assuming and all this, we're only coming from your followers, but I'm assuming they're not. Yeah. So not great numbers. But, but yeah, and you end up with people like Hank Green, who, for those who don't know, popular author YouTuber, like he was already popular before he got on tik tok. He didn't need the money from tik tok. So he contributed all his money to a charity. That's awesome. Yeah. And he posted the numbers recently. And he's got, you know, millions of followers and lots of engagement. Over the past, like eight months, he's given $35,000 to charity. That's awesome. Yeah. So if you get a big following, like a huge following, you can live off of it. But yeah, most people are somewhere in the middle, it helps them a little. But if you can avoid having to worry about it, and just enjoy the process, which is where I'm at. Like, I just enjoy my interactions. then it'd be a fun thing. Getting into social media to make money is harder. Yeah, I mean, your expectations are there. Right. And anytime you have expectations, yeah, you're gonna get some disappointment.

Christopher Mifsud: 58:58

Yeah. Fair enough. All right. Well, thank you so much, Jeremiah. Just a couple questions. How can people find you? Somebody was looking for the Jeremiah McCoy. Where could they find you?

Jeremiah McCoy: 59:12

Well, I have a website. Jeremiah McCoy, calm. I got that a while back. Cuz I figured why not? Where I actually do some writing about games and stuff. And it's a good sort of central point to find a bunch of my things. I am on Twitter as tech Noir. I've been on there for forever.And on tik tok and Twitch I am basics of the game. And I actually do have a YouTube channel I haven't added much to in a while. If you search for your my McCoy on YouTube, you will find me there.

Christopher Mifsud: 59:53

Excellent. That's so great. Well, thank you so much, again for taking the time to chat with me and my wonderful press starters here and the press star leadership podcast. And hopefully, we'll chat again maybe once you hit a 2 million, I don't wanna say a million because I think you're gonna hit that faster than that I say, but maybe we need 2 million. All right. So we'll get you back on and see how the The wizardly uncle is doing. I'll be glad to anytime. All right, excellent. All right. Thanks again. Appreciate your mind. Sure. That's this week's episode of press star leadership podcast. As always, thanks for being awesome. If you haven't yet, make sure to give us follow. Till next time. If you haven't downloaded my free eBook five heroic leadership skills, click on the link in the description. Tune in next week for your next episode of press star leadership podcast. Thank you