The following is an interview with former Café Staff member and longtime YouTube Pooper and forum-goer known as RAKninja. Unlike in my past two interviews I had with some (former) infamous members, I decided to do this interview the old-fashioned way of asking one question and waiting for an answer privately. This is in part to show some honor to the user in question since we at YouChew respect his wishes and services throughout his time here. While some parts might be edited (mostly for grammatical purposes), the messages that RAK conveys still remain the same throughout the interview. We at YouChew hope you learn something new out of this and hope you have a happy 10th Anniversary for YouTube Poop! Let's hope the next 10 provide some more fun for years to come.
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CL: To older members of YouChew and the first YouTube Poopers in general, they more likely know you are. However, for newer, post-2010 members of YouChew and YouTube Poopers, they probably look at you and wonder what makes you... you. For any newcomers at hand, could you care to give us a brief description of who you are and how you might describe your style of Pooping?
RAK: I am the one and only RAK. Though I had been watching poops for months beforehand, I became active in both Poop and Youchew right after the "Boomer Generation" (around 2006-2007). The strongest bonds I've forged here were with people who joined Youchew contemporary with me. Those people included the likes of Emperor Ing, NS2, and Crash2991. Yet, for some reason, we pretty much all ended up serving on one sort of staff or another at some point.
I'm probably most well known for my service on the tennis staff. because i was the most outspoken and visible Fuck, people assumed i was actually the "leader" of the staff, but this isn't really true. Well, it is sort of true, but not really. Does this make sense? Even today, it is obvious I greatly influenced the tennis community here. After all, two awards are based off of my former avatars.
As for my style of Poop, I like to call it "source enhancement". I typically only work with source material I like, and I'll make whatever edits necessary to enhance the native comedy of the source material. I'm also a bit experimental. I'd like to think I've influenced "brain-rape" or "rapecore" as you know it today. Back when I started, that style didn't exist (not even MycroProcessor used it). My hand may not be felt as strongly as Mycro, Gamebop, Imaperson, and many others, but I did pioneer a few things.
CL: You've mentioned that there were some awards that your avatars helped influence. Care to explain what they are and why they got to be like that?
RAK: First, there's the Robo-Racquet Award (![Posted Image]()
). This is awarded for participating in 5 multi-way tennis matches. Although I was not involved in its creation, I would assume the title and the image were being references to me is because of the doubles variant I invented. Assuming players A and B are on a team, and players C and D are their opponents, round order is A,C, B, D, A+B, C+D. This is the format I used for the doubles cup. I'm pretty sure we used it in the season, as well.
Second is the Cafe Staff service medal, awarded for serving on the Cafe Staff (![Posted Image]()
). As I introduced YouChew to Stampy, the Maxamal Rabbit and his amazing bunny boobies, and as I am most often represented by a golden Megatron, Shadow Blaziken (most recently known as Shockwave) drew me up a golden Stampytron. Once again, I had nothing to do with the creation of the mdeal, but for a very long time, I was the most visible and outspoken member of the Tennis Staff.
I can only speculate as to why these awards are the way they are, but knowing most of the mods and admins for as long as I have, it is probably because I personified these things, to a great extent, to them. I'm glad to say they hold me in such high regard, as they are the few who can possibly see the extent of the work I've done.
There was a medal I was involved in the creation of, if only out of the concept. The Tennis Fuck Choice Award (![Posted Image]()
) grew out of suggestions made by me, among other members of the staff at the time.
CL: Any particularly special examples (besides BROS.) that you hold in mind when referring to your "source enhancements?" If so, why do they hold such prominence?
RAK: Actually, my "non-enhancement" videos are the minority. Those would be a few tennis videos where the round I was volleying is deconstructed so much that if I were to use "source enhancement," my video would feel more like a serve than a volley, and that's something I strive to avoid in tennis.
A few examples though, are "STUART'S CALCULATIONS," "HIS BRAIN IS GONE," and "ENZO'S AFTERNOON HOBBY IS NOW BUNNY BOOBIES."
CL: Oh, so basically the innate looking or sounding a source is (like that Star Trek scene with that brain being surgically removed), the less likely you'll end up using the source as a video that requires "source enhancements?"
RAK: Oh, no. What I do is take the funny that is already there, and amplify it. In the Star Trek video (the middle video), this was mainly for William Shatner's hammy acting. That particular video also highlights another of my hallmarks, repetition. I love sequences like this that are four or five bits of video strung up in a semi-random order, with the pace of the repetition gets faster as the sequence goes on. Another little gag from that video that I'm not sure anyone got was the pulse monitor beeping sound. That cracks me up almost as Shatner's softly whispered "what?"
I can do "enhancement" regardless of source, there is just a point in a game of tennis where any given footage will become too edited to "enhance" the source itself.
CL: Alright. You know, it's also funny you mention the last video in that earlier question, because that bunny scene has also been one of the pioneering moments that YouChew has had during its early history! I have wondered for the longest time what that source was all about. Now as a moment of revelations, would you care to tell me what that source was and why you first decided to use it in one of your YouTube Poop Tennis matches?
RAK: Ahhh, the source is Beast Wars Neo. I want to say it's episode 22. Now, as to why I used it, it has to do with how I play a game of tennis with someone i know well. Every aspect of my tennis videos is part of a coded conversation with my opponent. I get pretty detailed on it in the tennis theory threads. In this particular case, I was playing Future's Passed. Our match was a "signature source" match; I was to only use Transformers, and he would to only use ReBoot.
So, as I knew Future's Passed was into furry stuff, I decided to use bits of Transformers with "furry" things. I didn't want the match to be all mainframe entertainment, so i avoided the regular Beast Wars. I got the kid "wrestling" with his faithful Burro from an episode of Headmasters, and I got Stampy and Break from Beast Wars Neo.
Japan had two Beast Wars anime shows. See, it took forever for them to translate Mainframe's Beast Wars (and later, Beast Machines), so Japan decided to slap together some cheap anime to hold the fans over for those years they translated it. Stampy is the rabbit and Break is the penguin.
I picked this particular scene because I happened to pause right on the very frame, and I noticed "Stampy, he has tits.... and Break is staring at them!" I made sure that I could get the image as a thumbnail. I forgot who started spamming the edits, but the rest, as they say, is history.
CL: Yeah, I figured that the idea of tits came into motion for that video. Anyways, one thing that I remember in particular about you is the BROS. videos you had. I mean, if "DRAGONFORCE" used to be the king of YouTube Poop views at one point, then "BROS." was the king of video responses before YouTube destroyed that feature! Could you describe what had gotten into your mind when making the first "BROS." video?
RAK: "BROS." was a joke that everyone took seriously. I pushed Future's Passed to use the source before I did mine. His video's title was "SEND THIS VIDEO TO 5 PEOPLE OR YOU ARE NOT A BRO". When I made "BROS.," the description there was "post 5 video responses or you are not a bro".
With that said, so people started posting video responses. After a little while, somehow it was like the 20th most responded to (with videos) video on YouTube. When "DRAGONFORCE" got removed, I offered up "BROS." as the go-to spam response video, reasoning that the copyright on the source "BROS." is not something we'll ever have to worry about being enforced.
As to what i was thinking when I made it, as it is an old bootleg Atari game, not a whole lot is visually happening in the source, so I concentrated on the sound design. After the audio became hilarious to me, I edited the visuals.
CL: Ah. Well did you ever expect it to have the reputation it had during that time?
RAK: I never expect anything I do to go on to earn any kind of reputation. My goal and philosophy has always been to make what I like. As long as I'm making something that I enjoy watching, that's all I really care about. I do like it when things that I like and have shared with everybody catches on a little bit. Kind of like Godfrey Ho. I love watching other people use that source.
CL: I can understand that sentiment. If you really do enjoy a video you make, you'll have no regrets on it moving forward. However, keeping that in mind, do you have videos that you personally view above any others you made as some of the best material you've ever made? If there are any videos like that, why are they like that in particular?
RAK: "NS2 IS MY NINJA BRO" is the best video I ever have created for several reasons. Firstly, it is the most technically complex video I have ever edited. Secondly, it was a part of a tennis match with NS2. Despite my love of tennis, and how active I've been in it, I've only rarely have had the opportunity to play a match with the people I most want to play personally.
Oh, and that video actually had some effects that MycroProcessor couldn't decipher right off the bat, and confounding Mycro had long been a goal of mine.
Pretty much everything else I made I have a roughly equal level of pride in, but "NS2 IS MY NINJA BRO" stands head and shoulders above the rest. I seriously doubt I'll ever make anything to match it.
CL: That's pretty interesting to know about. Since I asked what looks like a fair amount of questions relating to your YouTube Poops and your styles with them, let's a bit more about you in general. What kinds of things in particular help shape you into being who you are today?
RAK: I am more than the sum of my interests. Unlike many, I do not attempt to define myself from some singular aspect of my life. You could call me a Transfan (Transformers fan), a Homestuck fan, or even a Juggalo, yet I am most likely not much like the majority that apply those labels to themselves.
Who I am today is more a product of my past. From growing up in a military family, to the small but closely knit circle of friends of my adolescence and young adulthood, to my own military service: these are the things that had the biggest impact on my personality.
If you want to get really specific, I'm set for interactions with a now defunct group of friends. A lot of the things that I do that no one gets are very analogous to an amputee attempting to move the fingers of his missing hand.
CL: Cool. I noticed that one of the biggest highlights that came out of your response is the fact that you grew up with a military family. Could you care to describe what your family was like there?
RAK: My mother and father divorced slightly before my ability to remember began. The man I always knew as "dad" was actually my first stepfather. He was known to be an airborne ranger. When I was four, we first moved to Hawaii. I don't really recall having too many friends back then. Afterwards, we moved to North Carolina when I was 8. A couple of years later, I went from the near upper-middle class to abject poverty as my parents divorced.
That's about when I started getting beat up because I was white (even though I technically am not. Remember, appearance is everything). I was an easy target; being one of the few "white kids" in the neighborhood, I was more interested in reading and video games than basketball and "hanging out." I was also more into soft rock than rap in those days.
We ended up moving around a bit more, and then ended up in Tennessee by the age of 11. My mom married another solder. That's when I met the guy who was my best friend for most of my life. By 17, we had a very insular group of 6-7 core people, and another 10 or so associates. We discovered the Insane Clown Posse together, and realized we were all Juggalos.
However, prior to that bit, I had stopped being an Army brat. My step-dad was also medically discharged because the same car wreck that took my teeth shattered his femur.
I can't compare growing up in the Army to not, as I have never done that. You for sure learn discipline, though. Despite how caustic I can get on the Internet, in real life you'll be hard pressed to find someone more courteous. Unless I'm given a reason to not be, of course.
It's definitely given me a diverse background. After all, how many computer techs do you know of that can survive (and well) in just about any given wilderness with just a utility knife? How many that only know how to kill and maim in hand to hand combat? (That's a reason I don't fight these days, by the way. I am unsure in my ability to not cause permanent damage). How many that are skilled in the maintenance, service, and use of every conventional firearm the Army fields?
CL: You do bring up a good point on that combined with an interesting aspect of how racism could work the other way as well. Not to mention you answered at least one question I probably would have asked later on altogether. Getting back to what I was going to ask now, though, you said that in spite of no longer being a military brat, you ended up going to the military anyways. Was that partially because of the influence of your past? In addition, what was your time in the military like?
RAK: I never wanted to serve, myself. When I was 19 or so, I did some shitty things to my parents, and they gave me an ultimatum. I had 2 weeks to either find a job or join the military... or else I would end up homeless for a second time. After a week, I had no leads on a job, so I said fuck it, take me to the recruiter.
Because of my criminal and education history, I could not join the Air Force. I damn sure was not going to be a sailor, and I am nowhere near crazy enough to be a Marine. So in the end, into the Army it was. Because of the aforementioned criminal and educational past, I didn't get to pick my job, or first duty station, nor did I even get a bonus. In fact, I had to write an essay on why I would never smoke pot again. So unlike most people, I joined the Army for three square meals a day.
Did you know that even if you are aware that you are being "brainwashed," this does not make you any less susceptible to it? I went into basic knowing all about "being broken down and then rebuilt." I was lucky. "My" drill sergeant was not only a cavalryman, but also a ranger. He took the oaths he swore upon very seriously. You wouldn't know from casual observation, but thinking back and thinking of the words of not just the Drill Sergeant's Creed, but also the Ranger's Oath... he was upholding both to the best of his ability.
He made sure we understood what it was we had sworn our own lives to defend, and prepared us as best he could for committing murder on an industrial scale. It kind of makes me sad, thinking back. Especially because statistically, half of everyone that graduated basic training with me is dead.
I got shipped off to Korea, and it was there I managed to permanently injure myself on my first field exercise. They stuffed me into the personnel office. I worked in there for a year, got to where literally everyone on our two bases knew me. Then they put me back into a "line troop." Said troop tried putting me into their HQ office, but I was a fifth wheel there, so they placed me where I should have been at that rank: the gunner on a Bradley fighting vehicle.
I did very well there, and my vehicle commander just so happened to be the drill sergeant of another platoon in my basic training troop. We were a great team, and shot about second best in the entire squadron on our first gunnery together.
Still, things are always changing in the Army. My sergeant came down on orders, so I was paired with a different commander. He was good, but we didn't have the same kind of rapport as before. It was after my first gunnery with him that I broke my kneecap.
That effectively ended my military career. I had vague plans of becoming a drill sergeant. I was raised by three different combat arms soldiers. Yet it is not for me to be in the Army and not be combat arms. Since I was so close to the agreed upon end of my term of service, rather than pushing for a medical discharge (which would have kept me in longer), I just rode out my time and got out "normally."
CL: Well that certainly sounded like quite the ride you had there in the Army. It also sounded like you ended up losing some fingers during that time as well, based off of an earlier response you made. Is my assumption on that true? How did that even come to happen anyways?
RAK: No, I still have all my fingers and toes. I just have a broken kneecap and something wrong in the ankle of the same leg. The ankle is the first and less serious injury. A buddy of mine asked me to turn his Bradley off, so I climbed up on top of the side-skirt and leaned into the driver's hole to shut the thing off. I then tried to push myself back and jump off, as I was only standing 3 feet or so off the ground. However, my boot got caught in the side-skirt, and I went down hard, with a pointy rock impacting my ankle as I fell.
That one was not so bad, as it just destroys my ability to distance run. Only if the ankle is aggravated by heavy impacts will it affect me at all. The knee however...
As I said, we had just come out of gunnery. Basically, the part of coming in from a field exercise as "services." Part of this is pulling the engine from the Bradley, and cleaning out the engine hole. To do this, you must remove the section of armor analogous to a car's hood.
I was always either tasked out, or assigned a different duty in previous gunneries. So it came to pass that as I was sitting on the "hood," happily turning bolts, the whole thing fell down. I was never told you have to have a crane hooked up to the "hood" to prevent what ended up happening to me.
As the "hood" was in two pieces, a very short piece past the hinge and the longer "hood" proper, it looks kind of like an L when open and viewed from the side. I was sitting on the shorter piece, so when it fell, it acted like a catapult. It launched me a few feet into the air (peaked at a total height ~13 feet) where I did a kind of backflip. I distinctly remember looking up at the ground rushing to me and realizing, "this is going to fucking suck."
My right knee was the first thing to impact the super-dense concrete of the repair bay. It broke into two pieces. The pieces fused together at an offset of 0.25mm. Please note, you need an offset of 0.5mm to get surgery from the military for this kind of thing.
Thus began the pain that never leaves me. After it healed as well as it was going to, it only gets worse. During the winter, especially, it gets so bad that I sometimes must use a cane.
CL: Damn, that really does sound terrible! Glad to hear you still got all of your fingers intact and all, but still! I hope this doesn't come off as hurtful or anything like that for continuing the subject for just one last question, but you did mention that you ended up losing some teeth to a car accident. Could you care to tell us what happened there?
RAK: Now that is a simple story. I was 13 or so, and had actually just grown the last of my adult teeth. My parents took me to a lake one summer day. I fell asleep on the way back, and woke up on the side of the road less some teeth.
I learned soon thereafter that we were making a left hand turn into a store to get some matches or something like that, and some asshole came flying down the highway at roughly 90 mph, and hit the side of our car. The passenger door ended up around the area of the exact middle of the car. As a result, my step-dad's femur was shattered, and I lost some teeth.
I was not wearing a seat belt, and in a way, it was a good thing i wasn't. If I had been, I would be less some feet, not just teeth.
CL: Wow, that does sound scary! Even though I haven't been victim to one (yet), I can understand the problem there just fine. Now to not make this sound like a completely depressing second-half of questions, many members noticed that when you came back this year, you had Homestuck characters as your avatar and signatures. Care to tell me when you got into that fandom?
RAK: Hrm... it was about two or three years ago. I blame Crash2991 for this one. I'm actually going one step beyond, and am currently making a Homestuck fangame. I don't know if it still holds true, but I have made more progress than any other fangame of its type so far.
Homestuck was what made me realize that I was a "natural troll". If you didn't know, a bunch of characters in Homestuck are literal trolls, based on Internet troll archetypes. This is why I often say I am the best troll. It's because I manage to provoke such an extreme reaction by just sharing my honest thoughts and opinions.
Also of note: I fit in there as well as I fit in with any fandom, Which is to say not at all.
Oh yeah, I also discovered one of my favorite pieces of fiction ever: a "fanventure" called Deep Rise. I made a thread about that here, I think on the Internet board with a link somewhere. Everyone should read that thread.
CL: Guess that fangame stuff could come into account with your experience with computer programming, huh? By the way, what kind of computer experience did you have over the years?
RAK: I got my first computer at 3 or 4. It was some sort of Tandy computer. All I remember about it was playing some kind of 1st person wireframe RPG. I think it was called the "Eye of the Beholder."
Then at 5-6, I got a Commodore 64. It had a lot of great games like Airborne Ranger, Ultimate Wizard, Wizball, Phantasy, and an RPG maker type thing that included the first Wolfenstien game. I learned some BASIC back then, with my crowning achievements being making a sprite bounce abound the screen and a "snare drum" sound.
I've always been a "power user" in Windows. After I got out of the Army, I went to school for computer operations technology... being a hardware and software repair tech, as well as going the extra mile and leaning how to set up and admin networks.
I only have a basic education in web development stuff. I decided to learn Python, as I wanted to write "Lucha Manager," a text based manager simulator. Python is really similar to scripting for Elder Scrolls, and I had already learned that in order to mod Morrowind.
I am by no means a master. IQ is only my second program, and the first to use a GUI. The GUI toolkit is very hard for me to use. Oh how I wish I could find a dedicated GUI guy so I can focus on the programming tasks I enjoy!
CL: I could understand that. Well anyways, I think I might have asked a good assortment of questions for everyone to look at here. Care to give any newcomers some advice on YouTube Poops or life in general before signing out?
RAK: On the matter of YouTube Poop: always make what you like. Don't make something just to be popular or to fit in. Just make whatever it is that you want to see. Also, never forget that no one wins at tennis. Ever...
On the subject of life: always be yourself, and never let something external define yourself. Your self is the one thing that can never be truly taken from you, unless you allow it to.
CL: To older members of YouChew and the first YouTube Poopers in general, they more likely know you are. However, for newer, post-2010 members of YouChew and YouTube Poopers, they probably look at you and wonder what makes you... you. For any newcomers at hand, could you care to give us a brief description of who you are and how you might describe your style of Pooping?
RAK: I am the one and only RAK. Though I had been watching poops for months beforehand, I became active in both Poop and Youchew right after the "Boomer Generation" (around 2006-2007). The strongest bonds I've forged here were with people who joined Youchew contemporary with me. Those people included the likes of Emperor Ing, NS2, and Crash2991. Yet, for some reason, we pretty much all ended up serving on one sort of staff or another at some point.
I'm probably most well known for my service on the tennis staff. because i was the most outspoken and visible Fuck, people assumed i was actually the "leader" of the staff, but this isn't really true. Well, it is sort of true, but not really. Does this make sense? Even today, it is obvious I greatly influenced the tennis community here. After all, two awards are based off of my former avatars.
As for my style of Poop, I like to call it "source enhancement". I typically only work with source material I like, and I'll make whatever edits necessary to enhance the native comedy of the source material. I'm also a bit experimental. I'd like to think I've influenced "brain-rape" or "rapecore" as you know it today. Back when I started, that style didn't exist (not even MycroProcessor used it). My hand may not be felt as strongly as Mycro, Gamebop, Imaperson, and many others, but I did pioneer a few things.
CL: You've mentioned that there were some awards that your avatars helped influence. Care to explain what they are and why they got to be like that?
RAK: First, there's the Robo-Racquet Award (
). This is awarded for participating in 5 multi-way tennis matches. Although I was not involved in its creation, I would assume the title and the image were being references to me is because of the doubles variant I invented. Assuming players A and B are on a team, and players C and D are their opponents, round order is A,C, B, D, A+B, C+D. This is the format I used for the doubles cup. I'm pretty sure we used it in the season, as well.Second is the Cafe Staff service medal, awarded for serving on the Cafe Staff (
). As I introduced YouChew to Stampy, the Maxamal Rabbit and his amazing bunny boobies, and as I am most often represented by a golden Megatron, Shadow Blaziken (most recently known as Shockwave) drew me up a golden Stampytron. Once again, I had nothing to do with the creation of the mdeal, but for a very long time, I was the most visible and outspoken member of the Tennis Staff.I can only speculate as to why these awards are the way they are, but knowing most of the mods and admins for as long as I have, it is probably because I personified these things, to a great extent, to them. I'm glad to say they hold me in such high regard, as they are the few who can possibly see the extent of the work I've done.
There was a medal I was involved in the creation of, if only out of the concept. The Tennis Fuck Choice Award (
) grew out of suggestions made by me, among other members of the staff at the time.CL: Any particularly special examples (besides BROS.) that you hold in mind when referring to your "source enhancements?" If so, why do they hold such prominence?
RAK: Actually, my "non-enhancement" videos are the minority. Those would be a few tennis videos where the round I was volleying is deconstructed so much that if I were to use "source enhancement," my video would feel more like a serve than a volley, and that's something I strive to avoid in tennis.
A few examples though, are "STUART'S CALCULATIONS," "HIS BRAIN IS GONE," and "ENZO'S AFTERNOON HOBBY IS NOW BUNNY BOOBIES."
CL: Oh, so basically the innate looking or sounding a source is (like that Star Trek scene with that brain being surgically removed), the less likely you'll end up using the source as a video that requires "source enhancements?"
RAK: Oh, no. What I do is take the funny that is already there, and amplify it. In the Star Trek video (the middle video), this was mainly for William Shatner's hammy acting. That particular video also highlights another of my hallmarks, repetition. I love sequences like this that are four or five bits of video strung up in a semi-random order, with the pace of the repetition gets faster as the sequence goes on. Another little gag from that video that I'm not sure anyone got was the pulse monitor beeping sound. That cracks me up almost as Shatner's softly whispered "what?"
What?
I can do "enhancement" regardless of source, there is just a point in a game of tennis where any given footage will become too edited to "enhance" the source itself.
CL: Alright. You know, it's also funny you mention the last video in that earlier question, because that bunny scene has also been one of the pioneering moments that YouChew has had during its early history! I have wondered for the longest time what that source was all about. Now as a moment of revelations, would you care to tell me what that source was and why you first decided to use it in one of your YouTube Poop Tennis matches?
RAK: Ahhh, the source is Beast Wars Neo. I want to say it's episode 22. Now, as to why I used it, it has to do with how I play a game of tennis with someone i know well. Every aspect of my tennis videos is part of a coded conversation with my opponent. I get pretty detailed on it in the tennis theory threads. In this particular case, I was playing Future's Passed. Our match was a "signature source" match; I was to only use Transformers, and he would to only use ReBoot.
So, as I knew Future's Passed was into furry stuff, I decided to use bits of Transformers with "furry" things. I didn't want the match to be all mainframe entertainment, so i avoided the regular Beast Wars. I got the kid "wrestling" with his faithful Burro from an episode of Headmasters, and I got Stampy and Break from Beast Wars Neo.
Japan had two Beast Wars anime shows. See, it took forever for them to translate Mainframe's Beast Wars (and later, Beast Machines), so Japan decided to slap together some cheap anime to hold the fans over for those years they translated it. Stampy is the rabbit and Break is the penguin.
I picked this particular scene because I happened to pause right on the very frame, and I noticed "Stampy, he has tits.... and Break is staring at them!" I made sure that I could get the image as a thumbnail. I forgot who started spamming the edits, but the rest, as they say, is history.
CL: Yeah, I figured that the idea of tits came into motion for that video. Anyways, one thing that I remember in particular about you is the BROS. videos you had. I mean, if "DRAGONFORCE" used to be the king of YouTube Poop views at one point, then "BROS." was the king of video responses before YouTube destroyed that feature! Could you describe what had gotten into your mind when making the first "BROS." video?
RAK: "BROS." was a joke that everyone took seriously. I pushed Future's Passed to use the source before I did mine. His video's title was "SEND THIS VIDEO TO 5 PEOPLE OR YOU ARE NOT A BRO". When I made "BROS.," the description there was "post 5 video responses or you are not a bro".
With that said, so people started posting video responses. After a little while, somehow it was like the 20th most responded to (with videos) video on YouTube. When "DRAGONFORCE" got removed, I offered up "BROS." as the go-to spam response video, reasoning that the copyright on the source "BROS." is not something we'll ever have to worry about being enforced.
As to what i was thinking when I made it, as it is an old bootleg Atari game, not a whole lot is visually happening in the source, so I concentrated on the sound design. After the audio became hilarious to me, I edited the visuals.
CL: Ah. Well did you ever expect it to have the reputation it had during that time?
RAK: I never expect anything I do to go on to earn any kind of reputation. My goal and philosophy has always been to make what I like. As long as I'm making something that I enjoy watching, that's all I really care about. I do like it when things that I like and have shared with everybody catches on a little bit. Kind of like Godfrey Ho. I love watching other people use that source.
Responses may be gone, but BROS. are eternal.
CL: I can understand that sentiment. If you really do enjoy a video you make, you'll have no regrets on it moving forward. However, keeping that in mind, do you have videos that you personally view above any others you made as some of the best material you've ever made? If there are any videos like that, why are they like that in particular?
RAK: "NS2 IS MY NINJA BRO" is the best video I ever have created for several reasons. Firstly, it is the most technically complex video I have ever edited. Secondly, it was a part of a tennis match with NS2. Despite my love of tennis, and how active I've been in it, I've only rarely have had the opportunity to play a match with the people I most want to play personally.
Oh, and that video actually had some effects that MycroProcessor couldn't decipher right off the bat, and confounding Mycro had long been a goal of mine.
Pretty much everything else I made I have a roughly equal level of pride in, but "NS2 IS MY NINJA BRO" stands head and shoulders above the rest. I seriously doubt I'll ever make anything to match it.
CL: That's pretty interesting to know about. Since I asked what looks like a fair amount of questions relating to your YouTube Poops and your styles with them, let's a bit more about you in general. What kinds of things in particular help shape you into being who you are today?
RAK: I am more than the sum of my interests. Unlike many, I do not attempt to define myself from some singular aspect of my life. You could call me a Transfan (Transformers fan), a Homestuck fan, or even a Juggalo, yet I am most likely not much like the majority that apply those labels to themselves.
Who I am today is more a product of my past. From growing up in a military family, to the small but closely knit circle of friends of my adolescence and young adulthood, to my own military service: these are the things that had the biggest impact on my personality.
If you want to get really specific, I'm set for interactions with a now defunct group of friends. A lot of the things that I do that no one gets are very analogous to an amputee attempting to move the fingers of his missing hand.
CL: Cool. I noticed that one of the biggest highlights that came out of your response is the fact that you grew up with a military family. Could you care to describe what your family was like there?
RAK: My mother and father divorced slightly before my ability to remember began. The man I always knew as "dad" was actually my first stepfather. He was known to be an airborne ranger. When I was four, we first moved to Hawaii. I don't really recall having too many friends back then. Afterwards, we moved to North Carolina when I was 8. A couple of years later, I went from the near upper-middle class to abject poverty as my parents divorced.
That's about when I started getting beat up because I was white (even though I technically am not. Remember, appearance is everything). I was an easy target; being one of the few "white kids" in the neighborhood, I was more interested in reading and video games than basketball and "hanging out." I was also more into soft rock than rap in those days.
We ended up moving around a bit more, and then ended up in Tennessee by the age of 11. My mom married another solder. That's when I met the guy who was my best friend for most of my life. By 17, we had a very insular group of 6-7 core people, and another 10 or so associates. We discovered the Insane Clown Posse together, and realized we were all Juggalos.
However, prior to that bit, I had stopped being an Army brat. My step-dad was also medically discharged because the same car wreck that took my teeth shattered his femur.
I can't compare growing up in the Army to not, as I have never done that. You for sure learn discipline, though. Despite how caustic I can get on the Internet, in real life you'll be hard pressed to find someone more courteous. Unless I'm given a reason to not be, of course.
It's definitely given me a diverse background. After all, how many computer techs do you know of that can survive (and well) in just about any given wilderness with just a utility knife? How many that only know how to kill and maim in hand to hand combat? (That's a reason I don't fight these days, by the way. I am unsure in my ability to not cause permanent damage). How many that are skilled in the maintenance, service, and use of every conventional firearm the Army fields?
CL: You do bring up a good point on that combined with an interesting aspect of how racism could work the other way as well. Not to mention you answered at least one question I probably would have asked later on altogether. Getting back to what I was going to ask now, though, you said that in spite of no longer being a military brat, you ended up going to the military anyways. Was that partially because of the influence of your past? In addition, what was your time in the military like?
RAK: I never wanted to serve, myself. When I was 19 or so, I did some shitty things to my parents, and they gave me an ultimatum. I had 2 weeks to either find a job or join the military... or else I would end up homeless for a second time. After a week, I had no leads on a job, so I said fuck it, take me to the recruiter.
Because of my criminal and education history, I could not join the Air Force. I damn sure was not going to be a sailor, and I am nowhere near crazy enough to be a Marine. So in the end, into the Army it was. Because of the aforementioned criminal and educational past, I didn't get to pick my job, or first duty station, nor did I even get a bonus. In fact, I had to write an essay on why I would never smoke pot again. So unlike most people, I joined the Army for three square meals a day.
Did you know that even if you are aware that you are being "brainwashed," this does not make you any less susceptible to it? I went into basic knowing all about "being broken down and then rebuilt." I was lucky. "My" drill sergeant was not only a cavalryman, but also a ranger. He took the oaths he swore upon very seriously. You wouldn't know from casual observation, but thinking back and thinking of the words of not just the Drill Sergeant's Creed, but also the Ranger's Oath... he was upholding both to the best of his ability.
He made sure we understood what it was we had sworn our own lives to defend, and prepared us as best he could for committing murder on an industrial scale. It kind of makes me sad, thinking back. Especially because statistically, half of everyone that graduated basic training with me is dead.
I got shipped off to Korea, and it was there I managed to permanently injure myself on my first field exercise. They stuffed me into the personnel office. I worked in there for a year, got to where literally everyone on our two bases knew me. Then they put me back into a "line troop." Said troop tried putting me into their HQ office, but I was a fifth wheel there, so they placed me where I should have been at that rank: the gunner on a Bradley fighting vehicle.
I did very well there, and my vehicle commander just so happened to be the drill sergeant of another platoon in my basic training troop. We were a great team, and shot about second best in the entire squadron on our first gunnery together.
Still, things are always changing in the Army. My sergeant came down on orders, so I was paired with a different commander. He was good, but we didn't have the same kind of rapport as before. It was after my first gunnery with him that I broke my kneecap.
That effectively ended my military career. I had vague plans of becoming a drill sergeant. I was raised by three different combat arms soldiers. Yet it is not for me to be in the Army and not be combat arms. Since I was so close to the agreed upon end of my term of service, rather than pushing for a medical discharge (which would have kept me in longer), I just rode out my time and got out "normally."
CL: Well that certainly sounded like quite the ride you had there in the Army. It also sounded like you ended up losing some fingers during that time as well, based off of an earlier response you made. Is my assumption on that true? How did that even come to happen anyways?
RAK: No, I still have all my fingers and toes. I just have a broken kneecap and something wrong in the ankle of the same leg. The ankle is the first and less serious injury. A buddy of mine asked me to turn his Bradley off, so I climbed up on top of the side-skirt and leaned into the driver's hole to shut the thing off. I then tried to push myself back and jump off, as I was only standing 3 feet or so off the ground. However, my boot got caught in the side-skirt, and I went down hard, with a pointy rock impacting my ankle as I fell.
That one was not so bad, as it just destroys my ability to distance run. Only if the ankle is aggravated by heavy impacts will it affect me at all. The knee however...
As I said, we had just come out of gunnery. Basically, the part of coming in from a field exercise as "services." Part of this is pulling the engine from the Bradley, and cleaning out the engine hole. To do this, you must remove the section of armor analogous to a car's hood.
I was always either tasked out, or assigned a different duty in previous gunneries. So it came to pass that as I was sitting on the "hood," happily turning bolts, the whole thing fell down. I was never told you have to have a crane hooked up to the "hood" to prevent what ended up happening to me.
As the "hood" was in two pieces, a very short piece past the hinge and the longer "hood" proper, it looks kind of like an L when open and viewed from the side. I was sitting on the shorter piece, so when it fell, it acted like a catapult. It launched me a few feet into the air (peaked at a total height ~13 feet) where I did a kind of backflip. I distinctly remember looking up at the ground rushing to me and realizing, "this is going to fucking suck."
My right knee was the first thing to impact the super-dense concrete of the repair bay. It broke into two pieces. The pieces fused together at an offset of 0.25mm. Please note, you need an offset of 0.5mm to get surgery from the military for this kind of thing.
Thus began the pain that never leaves me. After it healed as well as it was going to, it only gets worse. During the winter, especially, it gets so bad that I sometimes must use a cane.
CL: Damn, that really does sound terrible! Glad to hear you still got all of your fingers intact and all, but still! I hope this doesn't come off as hurtful or anything like that for continuing the subject for just one last question, but you did mention that you ended up losing some teeth to a car accident. Could you care to tell us what happened there?
RAK: Now that is a simple story. I was 13 or so, and had actually just grown the last of my adult teeth. My parents took me to a lake one summer day. I fell asleep on the way back, and woke up on the side of the road less some teeth.
I learned soon thereafter that we were making a left hand turn into a store to get some matches or something like that, and some asshole came flying down the highway at roughly 90 mph, and hit the side of our car. The passenger door ended up around the area of the exact middle of the car. As a result, my step-dad's femur was shattered, and I lost some teeth.
I was not wearing a seat belt, and in a way, it was a good thing i wasn't. If I had been, I would be less some feet, not just teeth.
CL: Wow, that does sound scary! Even though I haven't been victim to one (yet), I can understand the problem there just fine. Now to not make this sound like a completely depressing second-half of questions, many members noticed that when you came back this year, you had Homestuck characters as your avatar and signatures. Care to tell me when you got into that fandom?
RAK: Hrm... it was about two or three years ago. I blame Crash2991 for this one. I'm actually going one step beyond, and am currently making a Homestuck fangame. I don't know if it still holds true, but I have made more progress than any other fangame of its type so far.
Homestuck was what made me realize that I was a "natural troll". If you didn't know, a bunch of characters in Homestuck are literal trolls, based on Internet troll archetypes. This is why I often say I am the best troll. It's because I manage to provoke such an extreme reaction by just sharing my honest thoughts and opinions.
Also of note: I fit in there as well as I fit in with any fandom, Which is to say not at all.
Oh yeah, I also discovered one of my favorite pieces of fiction ever: a "fanventure" called Deep Rise. I made a thread about that here, I think on the Internet board with a link somewhere. Everyone should read that thread.
CL: Guess that fangame stuff could come into account with your experience with computer programming, huh? By the way, what kind of computer experience did you have over the years?
RAK: I got my first computer at 3 or 4. It was some sort of Tandy computer. All I remember about it was playing some kind of 1st person wireframe RPG. I think it was called the "Eye of the Beholder."
Then at 5-6, I got a Commodore 64. It had a lot of great games like Airborne Ranger, Ultimate Wizard, Wizball, Phantasy, and an RPG maker type thing that included the first Wolfenstien game. I learned some BASIC back then, with my crowning achievements being making a sprite bounce abound the screen and a "snare drum" sound.
I've always been a "power user" in Windows. After I got out of the Army, I went to school for computer operations technology... being a hardware and software repair tech, as well as going the extra mile and leaning how to set up and admin networks.
I only have a basic education in web development stuff. I decided to learn Python, as I wanted to write "Lucha Manager," a text based manager simulator. Python is really similar to scripting for Elder Scrolls, and I had already learned that in order to mod Morrowind.
I am by no means a master. IQ is only my second program, and the first to use a GUI. The GUI toolkit is very hard for me to use. Oh how I wish I could find a dedicated GUI guy so I can focus on the programming tasks I enjoy!
CL: I could understand that. Well anyways, I think I might have asked a good assortment of questions for everyone to look at here. Care to give any newcomers some advice on YouTube Poops or life in general before signing out?
RAK: On the matter of YouTube Poop: always make what you like. Don't make something just to be popular or to fit in. Just make whatever it is that you want to see. Also, never forget that no one wins at tennis. Ever...
On the subject of life: always be yourself, and never let something external define yourself. Your self is the one thing that can never be truly taken from you, unless you allow it to.
You didn't think we'd end it without this, would you?
