Clean Comedy and Creative Pursuits with JD Creviston

Jaclyn: 00:00:00

Hello and welcome to the Faith and Family Filmmakers Podcast.

Jaclyn: 00:00:02

My name is Jaclyn Whitt and today James D.

Jaclyn: 00:00:05

Creviston is with us.

Jaclyn: 00:00:07

He is a standup comedian, host and writer based in Los Angeles, California.

Jaclyn: 00:00:12

James began his standup career in 2016.

Jaclyn: 00:00:15

He is the producer of the Los Angeles based Clean Comedy Hour, a monthly live standup comedy production that showcases some of the top comedy talents in Los Angeles.

Jaclyn: 00:00:25

He is also the co host of the Clean Comedy Podcast.

Jaclyn: 00:00:28

As well as the author of How to Produce Comedy Shows for Fun and Profit, A Guide to Making Money in Stand Up Comedy.

Jaclyn: 00:00:36

Welcome to the show, James.

James: 00:00:38

Thank you.

James: 00:00:38

Thanks for having me.

James: 00:00:39

This is awesome.

James: 00:00:40

I'm very excited.

James: 00:00:41

You guys are awesome.

Jaclyn: 00:00:42

So you and I actually met through a project.

Jaclyn: 00:00:45

We both got hired to work on a sitcom.

Jaclyn: 00:00:49

And that was so much fun.

Jaclyn: 00:00:51

Oh my goodness.

Jaclyn: 00:00:52

I had not done a sitcom before, but we had a great time just coming up with different ideas and how we approach certain things and, but, uh, let's, let's just back up and get to know you.

Jaclyn: 00:01:03

Did you always want to be a writer?

Jaclyn: 00:01:06

Where did this start for you?

James: 00:01:08

Uh, I think I did always want to be a writer when I was a kid.

James: 00:01:11

Um, I was kind of an introverted kid for most of my life.

James: 00:01:14

So I would, I actually wanted to be a comic book creator.

James: 00:01:17

Like I wanted to do comic books when I was a kid.

James: 00:01:19

So I would draw and write stuff in class until about third and fourth grade.

James: 00:01:25

And then teachers started taking my stuff away from me.

James: 00:01:28

And then when I had, when I couldn't draw or write, I started making other kids laugh because I was bored.

James: 00:01:34

So I would finish all my work and like, look around.

James: 00:01:36

Everyone's like, I'm going to entertain myself.

James: 00:01:39

By that way, I'm going to entertain other people, which led to one year of me.

James: 00:01:43

We, we got a different teacher when our teacher got sick and we had a replacement sub for the rest of the year and she did not like that.

James: 00:01:48

So she put me in the corner with a dunce hat.

James: 00:01:51

She made a construction paper and made me sit in the corner for the rest of the year and still I would perform to the class whenever I had a chance.

James: 00:01:58

Whenever I could try.

James: 00:01:58

Of course

Jaclyn: 00:01:59

he did.

Jaclyn: 00:02:00

Of course he did.

James: 00:02:02

Of course.

James: 00:02:03

A for

Jaclyn: 00:02:03

real dunce cap.

Jaclyn: 00:02:04

Oh my goodness.

Jaclyn: 00:02:05

A for real

James: 00:02:05

dunce cap.

Jaclyn: 00:02:06

Oh, that's so sad.

Jaclyn: 00:02:08

I'm sorry that happened.

Jaclyn: 00:02:09

I'm glad that you worked through it.

James: 00:02:12

It was Texas.

James: 00:02:13

They still spanked at that time.

James: 00:02:15

So it's okay.

James: 00:02:16

Yeah, we're good.

Jaclyn: 00:02:17

Yeah.

Jaclyn: 00:02:17

Okay.

Jaclyn: 00:02:18

Well, you know, I think we're from that last generation where that kind of thing happened.

James: 00:02:23

Yeah, I don't think either of my kids have been spanked or even threatened with spankings or anything like that.

James: 00:02:28

So, yeah.

Jaclyn: 00:02:28

So how did things go then into your teens and into your young adult years?

Jaclyn: 00:02:33

Like, did you continue with performing?

Jaclyn: 00:02:36

Was it always comedy or did you get into other genres?

James: 00:02:39

So I did.

James: 00:02:40

I was always like the funny person in groups of friends or whatever.

James: 00:02:44

I was always that guy, like, you know, light in the mood.

James: 00:02:46

But I was more of a sports guy, so by the time I got to like middle school and stuff, I thought I was, I literally thought I was gonna make the Major League Baseball.

James: 00:02:53

Like, I thought I was gonna play for the Texas Rangers.

James: 00:02:55

I played baseball, I was an all star catcher.

James: 00:02:58

I played football.

James: 00:02:59

Again, this is Texas.

James: 00:03:00

I played football starting in seventh grade.

James: 00:03:02

I was good at that.

James: 00:03:03

I was so good at being a catcher and a receiver that I was recruited my freshman year to play soccer to be a goalie because they needed somebody to be a goalie who could catch and throw.

James: 00:03:12

And so I put, I did that my freshman year, but I always did that.

James: 00:03:16

And in addition, I played in band and choir a little bit.

James: 00:03:19

Like I, you know, I sang in choir most of middle school.

James: 00:03:22

I played, uh, the clarinet in sixth grade and I played saxophone seventh, eighth and ninth grade while I also did sports.

James: 00:03:29

So I did a lot of that stuff.

James: 00:03:30

I didn't really do drama or anything like that.

James: 00:03:33

Um, I was just the, the funny guy, like that lasted forever.

James: 00:03:38

Like that's been my thing.

James: 00:03:39

We, even when I was in the military, I was the funny guy who like, there's tension, everyone's stressed out.

James: 00:03:44

I'm going to crack a joke and we'll all.

James: 00:03:46

Get, get back to a good baseline.

Jaclyn: 00:03:48

So it was more about like, uh, performing when the moment called for it rather than learning the discipline of performing.

James: 00:04:00

Yeah.

James: 00:04:00

Yeah.

James: 00:04:00

I actually didn't have any performance discipline.

James: 00:04:03

I, the only performing I ever did, I think it was about fourth or fifth grade.

James: 00:04:07

We did a play.

James: 00:04:09

And I played one of Santa's elves and I had to sing this song called We Are Santa's Elves and I had, and I like hammed it up on stage.

James: 00:04:17

Like it was my moment and I like went for it.

James: 00:04:19

There used to be a tape of it somewhere.

James: 00:04:20

I have no idea where it is, but

Jaclyn: 00:04:22

yeah, well, I'm sure if, uh, if tick tock or Instagram was around at the time, you would have been a star.

James: 00:04:30

Well, funny enough, when I was about.

James: 00:04:33

I want to say 11 or 12.

James: 00:04:35

We went to Nashville, Tennessee, and I'm, I'm a big Elvis fan.

James: 00:04:39

I grew up on Elvis.

James: 00:04:39

I love Elvis.

James: 00:04:40

And we went to the world famous Gillies and they have like karaoke out there on a secondary stage on the outside.

James: 00:04:47

But I sang Elvis songs.

James: 00:04:48

Now, keep in mind, I'm like 10 or 11 years old.

James: 00:04:50

And this record executive that was there came up and gave my mom a card to say, Hey, why don't we get him going in records?

James: 00:04:58

Like if he can sing like this now, A little training and a little stuff we can get up and my mom totally turned it down and then the next year Leanne Rimes blew up with Patsy Files Blue, right?

James: 00:05:08

I could have been blowing up like Elvis songs, but yeah, yeah,

Jaclyn: 00:05:11

yeah, it would have it would have probably been the right time for it, but You know, maybe God had other plans and your mom was in on that.

Jaclyn: 00:05:18

So, yeah, yeah.

Jaclyn: 00:05:20

So when did you get to the point where you started to actually decide, okay, if I'm going to pursue this as a career, I need to, you know, learn some skills and then actually start the discipline side of things.

James: 00:05:30

Well, I started writing like screenplays or I tried my hand at screenplays in high school where we had to do a project.

James: 00:05:37

And so I grew up loving movies.

James: 00:05:40

I love them.

James: 00:05:41

And I grew up in the era of.

James: 00:05:43

Indie movies got big, so Clerks, Pulp Fiction, all that stuff, Reservoir Dogs, those kind of movies were big.

James: 00:05:48

So I learned how to write a screenplay by buying the book of the screenplays of Clerks and Pulp Fiction, and I wrote a screenplay that was based on, it's the Scopus Monkey Trial play, I forgot which one it is now, but like, I, so what I did was I rewrote a scene, And I made it like the blues brothers where it's like very silly and campy and whatever, and we filmed it in a park near my house and we did that for school.

James: 00:06:12

And then when everyone, I got good reviews and people were like, this is amazing.

James: 00:06:15

This is hilarious.

James: 00:06:16

I said, Oh, I should write something.

James: 00:06:18

And at that time, one of my favorite movies was Can't Hardly Wait.

James: 00:06:21

I don't know if you have you ever seen that movie Can't Hardly Wait?

Jaclyn: 00:06:23

I remember it vaguely from the late nineties.

Jaclyn: 00:06:26

It was a long time ago.

James: 00:06:29

Still, it's still one of my favorite teen movies.

James: 00:06:31

It's a little weird.

James: 00:06:32

It's kind of like campy and people don't really like it, but I decided once I saw that movie and I, since I like Kevin Smith, I would write my own version.

James: 00:06:41

Of a can't hardly wait type movie that then what's funny is at the time I thought I could also film that movie.

James: 00:06:47

That's how naive I was at like 15 16 years old.

Jaclyn: 00:06:50

Oh Yes, of course you can you could do anything James?

Jaclyn: 00:06:54

You can you can be Elvis.

Jaclyn: 00:06:55

I wish I wish I

James: 00:06:56

could have

James: 00:06:59

But I actually what's funny is I didn't have a computer at the time because this is still like 97 98 I think computers weren't really everywhere So I actually hand typed a screenplay like it's all I typed it up on a typewriter.

James: 00:07:13

Wow.

James: 00:07:14

So that was my first my first like script that I wrote.

James: 00:07:17

Um, I have it somewhere.

James: 00:07:19

I know my wife found it one time.

James: 00:07:20

She's like, what is this?

James: 00:07:22

Um, and so that was kind of it.

James: 00:07:25

And then since I didn't make it, I just left it there and I Was like, well, maybe someday I'll do something.

James: 00:07:32

And I just never went there.

James: 00:07:34

I went back to focusing more on sports and I focused more on getting ready to be in the Navy and the military.

James: 00:07:39

Cause I was like, well, that's my career.

James: 00:07:41

I got to pick something that.

James: 00:07:43

That people can make money at.

James: 00:07:44

Not, not, not that people can't make money at that, but no one ever tells you, you know, people say, Oh, Hollywood's a dream, or this is a dream, like, you know, no one, 1 percent of people make it, whatever, so I kind of bought into that.

James: 00:07:55

Yeah, yeah.

James: 00:07:55

It's like,

Jaclyn: 00:07:56

it's like there's this, this world that some people belong to, but not everyone.

James: 00:08:01

Right.

James: 00:08:02

Yeah.

James: 00:08:03

That's, that's exactly right.

Jaclyn: 00:08:04

But, you know, I loved the movies, the teen movies from the 90s, like, that, they were so much fun.

Jaclyn: 00:08:09

Yes, they were campy, and they were weird, and they were crazy, but they were So fun and like there was so much of culture at the time like pop culture in it like clueless Yeah, I really liked clueless back then.

Jaclyn: 00:08:21

So Yeah, I'm not surprised that a teen movie would be your first movie to write.

James: 00:08:26

Well, as a teenager, that's the world that you're living in, right?

James: 00:08:28

So it's easy for you to write about something that you're living day to day.

James: 00:08:31

The groups that you're seeing, the kind of kids that you're, that you're interacting with, those, the things that you see at the mall, right?

James: 00:08:37

My kids don't.

James: 00:08:38

They go to the mall, but it's not like when we used to go to the mall and hang out at the mall.

James: 00:08:41

Like, they don't really hang out at the mall anymore.

Jaclyn: 00:08:43

Yeah, I know.

Jaclyn: 00:08:44

So much has changed.

Jaclyn: 00:08:45

And so I actually wrote a script a couple years ago that it's called Flashback Jane.

Jaclyn: 00:08:51

And so this woman actually goes back and relives her last year of high school.

Jaclyn: 00:08:56

And so she goes back to the early 2000s.

Jaclyn: 00:08:59

And so we get to kind of experience one of those teen movies again, cause that pop culture comes out.

Jaclyn: 00:09:05

The whole tone of those teen movies from the nineties and early 2000s, like that's in there.

Jaclyn: 00:09:10

And so I think it's unfortunate that like some things got lost.

Jaclyn: 00:09:14

I mean, some things needed to change.

Jaclyn: 00:09:16

I, I agree that there were some things like that weren't so good, but, but there was a lot of actually like actual interaction.

Jaclyn: 00:09:24

Yeah.

Jaclyn: 00:09:25

So instead of texting and relationships being developed online, like there was the actually, like actual face to face.

Jaclyn: 00:09:33

Interactions from back then.

Jaclyn: 00:09:35

So yeah, writing teens now is very different than writing teens in the nineties,

James: 00:09:40

of course.

James: 00:09:41

And if I was going to write a teen movie, I would probably set it in the nineties.

James: 00:09:43

Anyways, there was not, we wouldn't, didn't again, didn't have cell phones, didn't have all the internet stuff.

James: 00:09:48

If anything, the only internet piece we had was like AOL instant messenger or something, you know, that was like the, the, the thing.

Jaclyn: 00:09:55

Yeah.

Jaclyn: 00:09:55

That was back when the internet was for the nerds back then.

Jaclyn: 00:09:58

Right,

James: 00:09:59

right.

Jaclyn: 00:10:00

It's not going to go anywhere.

Jaclyn: 00:10:02

Ah, the internet, it's a fad.

Jaclyn: 00:10:04

So, okay.

Jaclyn: 00:10:05

So we were following your story of how you ended up actually getting into a career of, you know, writing comedy.

Jaclyn: 00:10:13

So you went to the military and you, how long were you in the military?

Jaclyn: 00:10:18

I

James: 00:10:19

did four years.

James: 00:10:20

I served, um, two tours to the Persian Gulf, one pre 9 11 and one post 9 11.

James: 00:10:26

And then I got out and I decided, Oh, I should, I love history.

James: 00:10:29

I'll become a history teacher.

James: 00:10:31

And so I went to college for history.

James: 00:10:33

I got a bachelor's and a master's in history and I was finishing up my master's and I was getting ready to write.

James: 00:10:40

I just finished my thesis.

James: 00:10:41

I was getting ready to submit for my PhD program.

James: 00:10:43

My professor said, Hey, what are you going to do now?

James: 00:10:45

And I said, Oh, I'm going to be a history professor like you.

James: 00:10:48

I'm going to get my PhD.

James: 00:10:49

And he said, that is a terrible idea.

James: 00:10:52

Do not do that.

Jaclyn: 00:10:53

Oh no.

James: 00:10:54

So I'm like, Oh, okay.

Jaclyn: 00:10:57

All your dreams dashed.

James: 00:11:00

All my dreams dashed once again.

James: 00:11:02

So he said, I wanted him to write me a letter for my PhD program.

James: 00:11:06

Instead, I had to apply to law school.

James: 00:11:09

Or business school or both.

James: 00:11:11

And so I did apply to both.

James: 00:11:13

Uh, I took my LSAT one week before the, the exam results were due.

James: 00:11:20

So I didn't have any time to study.

James: 00:11:22

And it was also during 2008, during the financial crisis, where we had more people apply to law school, business school than ever before.

James: 00:11:31

So my normally really.

James: 00:11:34

Decent LSAT score of 151 would have gotten me into law school and my grades and everything, but it did not.

James: 00:11:40

So I ended up in business school.

James: 00:11:42

I got an MBA and, uh, I found out quickly that I hate business.

James: 00:11:48

I do not like,

Jaclyn: 00:11:49

well, at least you found out quickly, you know?

James: 00:11:53

Well, after I had an MBA and spent all that money, I found out that I dislike business.

James: 00:11:58

Um, And, but I helped do startups, which I did like because I like starting something new and kind of, I have a little bit of shiny object syndrome in my life.

James: 00:12:08

And, uh, during that process, I was about to turn 35.

James: 00:12:12

And, uh, my wife said to me, what is something you've always wanted to do in your life?

James: 00:12:16

And I said, well, I've always wanted to do standup and I've always wanted to write a movie.

James: 00:12:21

And she said, you should do that.

James: 00:12:23

And so I started by doing standup.

James: 00:12:26

And, uh, that really went really well.

James: 00:12:29

I met a lot of great people.

James: 00:12:30

I got to work with Preacher Lawson early on before he got super famous.

James: 00:12:33

And so I made a lot of good friends.

James: 00:12:35

And from that, I made friends with a really famous comedian who, unfortunately, I signed to NDA.

James: 00:12:41

I can't say their name, but I worked on a script with them.

James: 00:12:45

And they said, you're a great writer.

James: 00:12:46

You should write more stuff.

James: 00:12:48

And that was kind of, The movement of like, Oh, I should write more stuff.

James: 00:12:52

And then they paid me to write stuff with them, right?

James: 00:12:55

Jokes, right.

James: 00:12:56

Scripts.

James: 00:12:57

So like, Oh, I can get paid for this.

James: 00:12:59

And it's, it's spiraled from there.

James: 00:13:02

And I just started doing things.

James: 00:13:03

I had, uh, connected with people on the internet.

James: 00:13:06

Uh, Twitter usually was, was good back then.

James: 00:13:08

Now I don't, I think it's not as good.

James: 00:13:10

I don't, I don't know.

James: 00:13:11

I'm not on there anymore, but, um, it led to a writing gig for a Facebook watch.

James: 00:13:17

Facebook was going to try to compete with YouTube.

James: 00:13:20

And I wrote a whole series called Abracadabra.

James: 00:13:22

So it's on, it's still on Facebook.

James: 00:13:24

If you go look it up, we wrote eight episodes.

James: 00:13:26

It's about a magician or a guy who's a, who's worked at a bar, a magician gives him a car, and then he wakes up a card and he wakes up and he has magical powers.

James: 00:13:35

And so it's all, it's him dealing with like, think of like, if Spider Man was a magician instead of Spider Man, basically, it's really funny.

James: 00:13:43

So.

James: 00:13:43

Nice.

James: 00:13:43

And it just spiraled from there.

Jaclyn: 00:13:45

Nice.

Jaclyn: 00:13:45

Well, you know, I think it probably worked out well for you, cause I had a thought when you were talking about, like, pursuing law school.

Jaclyn: 00:13:53

I was like, James Creviston in the courtroom.

Jaclyn: 00:13:57

Hmm.

Jaclyn: 00:13:58

I mean, I'm sure you would probably make great arguments, but you might have everybody in stitches while you're trying to defend someone.

Jaclyn: 00:14:06

Oh, man.

Jaclyn: 00:14:08

That would be a funny comedy.

Jaclyn: 00:14:09

You should write that comedy.

Jaclyn: 00:14:11

Courtroom comedies.

Jaclyn: 00:14:12

It

James: 00:14:12

would be My Cousin Venny.

James: 00:14:14

Let's just be honest.

James: 00:14:14

It would just be My Cousin Venny, so we're good.

Jaclyn: 00:14:16

Mm hmm.

Jaclyn: 00:14:17

Well, it sounds like you've pursued a lot in life and you've had a lot of things that you've done well, which is really cool because sometimes I hear stories of people where it's like, oh, it's the only thing I could do.

Jaclyn: 00:14:27

So, you know, I did the best I could do at it.

Jaclyn: 00:14:30

And you're like, well, I did this and then I did this and I could have done that.

Jaclyn: 00:14:34

But then I did this and it's like, wow.

Jaclyn: 00:14:36

So you're, you found your way here because this is, this is like your passion.

Jaclyn: 00:14:41

This is what you love.

Jaclyn: 00:14:43

You would have gotten here even if you ended up at law school.

Jaclyn: 00:14:45

I'm sure of it.

James: 00:14:47

Probably.

James: 00:14:47

I would have probably ended up as like, uh, what's the guy who wrote all the lawyer books, I forget his name, you know, uh, but I would have probably ended up writing like law, law humor, law novels or something like that, but it probably happened.

Jaclyn: 00:15:01

Yeah, a comic book about, you know, something to do with courtrooms.

Jaclyn: 00:15:05

Right.

James: 00:15:05

Super lawyers.

James: 00:15:06

Legal battles.

Jaclyn: 00:15:07

Yeah.

Jaclyn: 00:15:08

Or maybe you would have gotten into entertainment law.

Jaclyn: 00:15:10

Who knows?

Jaclyn: 00:15:10

Who knows?

Jaclyn: 00:15:11

But I love that it was your wife that was that support and that encouragement, um, you know, to get you out there and give it a shot.

Jaclyn: 00:15:20

And then, you know, it's awesome that you met somebody that knew what they were talking about and told you keep going rather than like with your history professor.

Jaclyn: 00:15:29

He knew what he was talking about and he was like, get out.

Jaclyn: 00:15:32

So it does make a difference when, when people get behind you and, you know, encourage you in a direction.

Jaclyn: 00:15:38

And I, I think it's, it's wise to pay attention to those things.

Jaclyn: 00:15:41

Not that you listen to everybody, but, you know, pay attention, you know?

James: 00:15:45

Yeah.

James: 00:15:45

Well, that's the thing is there will always be people who will try to stop you from doing something and there will be people that push you forward.

James: 00:15:53

And if you have more voices, Saying, go forward and you believe that you can do something moving forward, then I always say go for it.

James: 00:16:01

But if your inner voice is saying, don't do that, then it's probably good to listen to your other inner voice because inner voice, as I call it, you know, the Holy, the Holy Ghost and the Holy Spirit is telling you, Hey, you, you probably shouldn't do this.

James: 00:16:13

You probably, you know, I've had those moments in my life where you shouldn't go.

James: 00:16:16

Yeah, you shouldn't go there.

James: 00:16:17

You shouldn't be there.

James: 00:16:18

You shouldn't be part of this.

James: 00:16:19

And I go, okay, I know.

Jaclyn: 00:16:20

Yeah, for sure.

Jaclyn: 00:16:22

Yeah.

Jaclyn: 00:16:22

So, okay.

Jaclyn: 00:16:23

So then you started doing standup.

Jaclyn: 00:16:25

Things started going well.

Jaclyn: 00:16:27

You started writing and writing took off for you.

Jaclyn: 00:16:30

You started getting paid for, for that.

Jaclyn: 00:16:32

And so then when did you start the podcast?

James: 00:16:35

I started the Clean Comedy podcast probably about nine months into doing standup.

James: 00:16:41

I started with my friend Luke Lacoy who now no longer does a podcast with me sadly.

James: 00:16:45

But we actually met at the Clean Comedy Challenge hosted by Leslie Townsend.

James: 00:16:52

And I met Robert G.

James: 00:16:52

Lee and a bunch of, uh, Queen Christian comedians there.

James: 00:16:55

And so we bonded over that.

James: 00:16:58

And my idea for starting the Queen comedy podcast was I'm going to use a podcast to pick the brains of people better and smarter and further ahead than me and use that to one, cheat the system, right?

James: 00:17:11

To be able to like skip ahead some things and also disseminate that information to other people who might not have access to those same comedians.

James: 00:17:19

So that, that was my whole goal behind it.

Jaclyn: 00:17:21

Yeah.

Jaclyn: 00:17:22

Yeah.

Jaclyn: 00:17:22

Awesome.

Jaclyn: 00:17:23

You know, I'm taking advantage of the same kind of idea because we interview people that have a lot more experience and knowledge than, you know, what we have in this industry.

Jaclyn: 00:17:32

I learned so much.

Jaclyn: 00:17:34

It's, uh, yeah, it's been fantastic.

Jaclyn: 00:17:37

So I'm glad your, your podcast has been going so well.

Jaclyn: 00:17:40

You've got like over 300 episodes.

Jaclyn: 00:17:42

Like it's, you've been doing this a

James: 00:17:44

while.

James: 00:17:45

Yeah.

James: 00:17:45

Once a week, every week for a while.

James: 00:17:47

I think we're at 379, 380, something like that.

James: 00:17:52

So yeah.

Jaclyn: 00:17:53

Congratulations.

Jaclyn: 00:17:54

And then you recently started another one, um, which I actually, uh, subscribed to both of them.

Jaclyn: 00:18:01

But the, the second one is like, it's such a minimal investment, but there is so much value in it.

Jaclyn: 00:18:07

Tell us about the other podcasts that you have.

James: 00:18:10

So the other one that I have is called the funny money podcast.

James: 00:18:13

And, uh, I always want to help people.

James: 00:18:15

I get a lot of people reaching out and saying, how are you making money, James?

James: 00:18:18

How are you making money?

James: 00:18:19

And when I go places with other comedians, they go, man, you always seem to be making money.

James: 00:18:23

What are you doing?

James: 00:18:24

What are you doing?

James: 00:18:25

And I'm like, Oh, I should probably share this information.

James: 00:18:27

Cause I don't want to be a hoarder, right?

James: 00:18:29

I don't want to hold onto stuff.

James: 00:18:30

And.

James: 00:18:30

Did not help other people.

James: 00:18:32

So I, uh, started the funny money podcast, teach people how to make, how I make money, how I've been making money.

James: 00:18:37

Now, some things are changing.

James: 00:18:38

I'm about to put out another episode about saying how Fiverr is actually dying.

James: 00:18:42

It's actually, it's not the moneymaker.

James: 00:18:45

It was for me for the last couple of years.

James: 00:18:47

Over the last six months or so, it is slowly dropped.

James: 00:18:51

I was making 5, 000 a month.

James: 00:18:54

No problem.

James: 00:18:55

Last two months, I've made maybe 200, which is just, they changed so many things in their system.

Jaclyn: 00:19:03

Wow.

Jaclyn: 00:19:03

I wonder, is that because of stuff going on?

Jaclyn: 00:19:07

Like is, is Fiverr changing things to make it harder for, for people or businesses?

Jaclyn: 00:19:13

Or do you think that there's just a trend of people going elsewhere?

James: 00:19:16

Fiverr is actually pushing a lot of AI stuff.

James: 00:19:20

So actually writers are losing money because they're pushing towards AI people to do stuff.

James: 00:19:26

Now, I don't know if you've ever worked with ai, like try to do something in chat, GBT or whatever it is terrible.

James: 00:19:32

It's not, it's not there.

James: 00:19:33

It's not a human, it's not creative.

James: 00:19:36

It doesn't have any of those things, but, uh, people are willing to try it and they're, the sad part is a lot of websites, a lot of things are using AI to generate blog posts and content.

James: 00:19:46

So people are gonna try it.

James: 00:19:47

Um, and until they either get slapped on the wrist or it stops making them money, they're gonna keep using it.

James: 00:19:54

So, sadly.

James: 00:19:55

Uh, the big thing that I'm seeing money being made, and this is for people.

James: 00:20:00

I just released this episode.

James: 00:20:01

Uh, user generated content is big.

James: 00:20:04

If you're familiar, are you familiar with the user generated content?

Jaclyn: 00:20:07

No, please explain.

James: 00:20:09

So if you ever go on Tik TOK, you see people like doing like, I'm using this face wash or whatever, and they like show them using it or whatever and stuff.

James: 00:20:17

What companies do is they take those user generated content and then they have somebody write a script to put that together so that you see the words pop up to get people to buy those things.

James: 00:20:26

The ones that work the best, that trend the most are humorous content.

James: 00:20:30

So they take the user generated content and then they make it humorous, right?

James: 00:20:34

Do you have.

James: 00:20:35

Do you have blemishes that make you look like an ogre?

James: 00:20:37

Well, you know, blah, blah, blah.

James: 00:20:38

And then they like do the thing.

James: 00:20:39

So you laugh a little bit, but then you're also educated at the same time.

James: 00:20:42

And they're using user generated content.

James: 00:20:44

That is becoming.

James: 00:20:46

A bigger market.

James: 00:20:47

I am not a fan of TikTok, but, uh, if you can, if you understand TikTok and you can write those things, there is money to be made in user generated content.

Jaclyn: 00:20:55

Okay., thank you, James.

Jaclyn: 00:20:57

This has been a fantastic conversation, and I'm looking forward to continuing our conversation in the members only portion.

Jaclyn: 00:21:03

But for now, do you have any final thoughts for our listeners?

James: 00:21:06

My, my final thought would be Don't see your journey as a single line.

James: 00:21:12

It's going to meander like a river and people go, Oh, I'm supposed to be here.

James: 00:21:17

I'm supposed to be there.

James: 00:21:19

No, you're supposed to be where you're at in that moment, right?

James: 00:21:21

We, we are too often focused on the end result and not on the journey.

James: 00:21:26

Enjoy the journey.

James: 00:21:27

A lot of times I've skipped over enjoying the journey and I've gone back and going, man, I wish I would have enjoyed that more.

James: 00:21:33

So just remember where you're at right now is not where you're going to be at forever.

James: 00:21:37

And you're going to keep moving forward.

James: 00:21:38

And it's that you're there for a reason to learn something, to grow, to be better and to move forward in the journey that you do want to go on.

Jaclyn: 00:21:45

All right.

Jaclyn: 00:21:45

And we will have the links for the Clean Comedy Podcast and Funny Money Podcast in the show notes.