 What am I getting myself into you know so it's always can I tell you why I was nervous? Sure because you're because you're incredibly funny Incredibly bright smart. I think bright sounds condescending. So I don't mean it that way. I just mean bright You have really beautiful eyes. I noticed today But yeah, but I was afraid you'd be like I'm gonna take that boomer down Only if you were malicious and powerful then I would really go after you. Yeah, but you seem like you got your head in the right spot So, oh, well, we're on the same page It's all good. I appreciate that. Um, yeah, that's my only goal I don't like to attack little people Unless they like really come after me But like my goal with everything is to just like go after big powerful people that have Ruined our lives to the past like a couple decades here, and I've just made everything go to shit Yeah, are we allowed to swear on this thing? The floor is yours. I Saw your video Maybe you could just talk about making that video and then what you saw in it and how many times have you watched it? many times But I've watched other videos of his also I've now watched many many of his videos and You know, and that's and that's why I'm here because I wouldn't I wouldn't want to like quote waste waste time You know if it didn't seem like it was Something good and positive and interesting all those details are amazing Yeah, you know and also seeing like all the comments from people who live here who's who are Psyched about it. You know like and like it's a it's a parody in a way, but it's also like See, I wasn't really clear when you're like, oh, this is an homage, you know, and I was like, I don't know like in a way It feels like mocking So I would love to hear you talk about The mocking part of it and how that and how that appeals it seems to really appeal to people I don't know for all I know it's people who live in the old north end who like came here from wherever and we give me I'm students. Yeah, they're saying we I live in the old north end, but like I'm talking about, you know If you dive in deep to the YouTube comments and the Instagram comments and even the reddit comments You'll see people from all over Vermont that are just like I grew up with Donnie Like he was my brother or like he was my father a lot of DMs to me as well Where people are just like one like Donnie is one of my family members and like this is the funniest It's the funniest thing because like they have joked for years about these people to their friends and same with me But like no one has brought it to a green screen and produced it into comedy that Makes sense like the trailer park boys or letter Kenny or even like sketch comedy like SNL or in that matter So like seeing it Humanized and brought to that is like it's sort of validating for their experience growing up They're like, yeah, somebody understands what I grew up with and like this is fucking hilarious And so like when I make those Donnie stuff It's like part of it is healing for me But I'm really out there to get people to follow me so they follow the main videos So like the Donnie character is like, yeah, it's a fun distraction for me And it's something different but like what I've been telling people is they come for Donnie They stay for Johnny and they get in like my goal is to get everybody who's affected by these issues to watch my videos and to like Actually know what's going on around them So like yeah, maybe somebody like you know who is in that situation still in the Old North and found me from a Donnie video and then they watch the thing on slumlords and they're like holy crap I never knew that like the cost of living was this messed up here That fucking time again, but ask Donnie anything that you want you got a fucking question I'll fucking answer it. Tell tell you what you asked Donnie. I got you bud So Donnie's always been a side character from my main series, which is the political stuff and it's always been Fun gateway. He's a gateway character And so so a lot of the issues that I talk about affect people that are in you know, poor situations and don't necessarily know how to Change that and don't follow local politics and that's the biggest problem with a lot of Parvish areas or small towns. They don't There's no way to engage them in that stuff and the stuff that's out there right now is boring as fuck and like So Donnie what Donnie does Not only does he give me something else to do creatively, which is fun and totally different But what Donnie does is Donnie speaks to those people like if you grow up in that if you grow up in those situations and you actually listen to the lyrics that I'm making it's stuff that we have all heard and People in those situations will joke about with their friends. It's stuff that I joked about when I was like You know single digits or preteen or a teenager and can you can you tell me what you mean by that? Yeah, like, you know, we make fun of you know And this would all be shit happening to us like child services getting involved in stuff and just like dudes That will like say one thing but do another, you know So like Donnie is a troublemaker himself and he's in and out of jail But then he like criticizes his girlfriend for doing the same shitty things but like a little differently, you know So like he's making fun of his girlfriend for like moving out of here But moving to Milton and living with a guy that like Steals his kids PlayStation 2 for drug money and stuff like that and that like this is all shit that happened to me and my friends and like Everyone in rural Vermont knows these things, but no one talks about it Even you look at like rusty dweeves Who is like an idol of mine in a sense because I feel like I'm kind of picking up his mantle right now With that Donnie character and really going full force of it But like even he would veer away from certain things and when I very different and when I was a kid I would always criticize them. I'd be like man You're fucking missing like half of the shit like you're not talking about people going in and out of jail and like dealing drugs And shit like that's the real Vermont that I know and that I grew up with so When I make these Donnie videos they hit hard because people understand that and no one has spoken to it Because they haven't had the balls but when they watch it they understand like the amount of detail that I've put into it It can only come from somebody that has been through it so I I didn't know anything about Donnie and I know you're Ryan a little bit and I was just like what the fuck man. Are they making fun of of Remanters like I That's a big squirrel I so I Didn't grow up in Vermont, but I grew up First part of my life first a little bit of my life was not very poor We were kind of regular middle class and then my folks got divorced were very very very poor and And I ended up supporting my family when I was 16 years old and like I was telling Johnny like scraping mold off bread for sandwiches and eating hamburger help without the hamburger, you know and I Can't go on, you know my mom we had a we had a two-bedroom house with four kids My mom slept on the couch. She worked 12 hours a day and But the us kids shared a room Really small rooms and I know a lot of people have it a lot worse. So you know, but I feel protective of What what my family went through and the judgments That people put on us I also feel like really pissed off when you know, like educated people Make fun of people who are and I and I know now that that that's I really totally love what you're doing But my first reaction was Are you making these guys making fun and in fact somebody who I know like is you're right? Are they making fun of? You know Vermonters and somebody said no no, it's an homage and I was like it seems classist to me I didn't know that I didn't know that he came from there But I knew that somebody paid for the video most likely me. Yeah You know and and people you know like my family and myself as a kid, you know, it was just survival mode There was no room for room for that. There was no like room for preaching the choir or even politics It's like I can't even think about that shit. I'm just gonna get food on the table I'm I was feeding like my brothers and sister and my mom who was ill at the time You know, so I didn't have time to like get into politics And so I'm like looking at this stuff and I'm just like what the fuck So great I'm from the old fucking north end body, you know, I fucking grew up here My dad fucking grew up here. My kid's gonna fucking grow up here, too You can't remove me, you know, fuck you all fuck the cords fuck Miro. Fuck you crystal So when you make a character and you do an homage to get people on the side of the character You have to make them root for the character and that's the difference between Punching down and making fun of somebody or really building them up That's like why people like trailer park boys So like they do a bunch of shitty things, but like you're rooting for them in the end and that's and like you love These characters and that's that's how homage works in my sense. So when I when I do this stuff I put it like I made sure he had great production and it was a catchy song and like you wanted to root for him in that song and So that's like I was very conscious of that to really like Make that a focal point, which I think a lot of people understood through that context I think a lot of people don't think about it that like crazy But they get the sub the subtext and they're like, oh, I like this guy I like Donnie on it and I think a lot of people I think some people miss that at first glance Which is totally fine. We're all we're all human and it's fine And you your heart was in the right place and I knew that when you commented. That's why I loved your comment There's a hint of maybe punching down on totally Well, you got away for the second song because the second song is all about crystals come back I commented I commented because you said I saw something in your thing when I was kind of doing my research on who you were, you know Yeah that one moment where She like rolls her eyes, do you know the do you know the scene I'm talking? Oh, I do She's amazing she's such a great actress and she's one of my official contracted employees now Oh The thing that you asked me why did I get so involved in local like how did I start getting involved in it? Peg made a great point earlier When you grow up in these situations, you don't have time to focus on anything because you're trying to survive So when I grew up Politics wasn't a thing in my house. It was all about like just what was going on in our little world and So when I when I emancipated myself from that situation and I started exploring the world in my 20s You know, I realized at one point I had a lot of issues so a lot of my 20s was really working on myself and to you know Get myself to a point where I felt like I was a good productive person and I could move past a lot of the darkness That was in my past that was kind of like plaguing me with my own social interactions and relationships. So Once I got to that point in my like later 20s I felt I felt a lot of guilt because there was There's still a lot of people hurting and I felt like I was finally in a position where like I could actually feel that guilt and I just started paying attention more to like what was going on around me and It just fueled this fire within me to just see people struggling and to not have any control And it just like pisses you the fuck off when you're like from it and you're such when you're from such a raw family And like that's what you come from it. Just like it burns something deep within me And it just like I just like want to do something about it. And so um, I I went through this whole thing where I was like I'm gonna like create this character That is gonna have like a cult of personality around him Something clicked while I started doing my first videos, which were just commercials for businesses that never asked for them Catch me boolean zoomers. I'm talking about price-flipped in chopper here found it 1932 Basically, they invented not hunting Hop-fire buffet. They even got organic stuff for us libtards till why do you hate shots? I I want to remember to ask you Yeah, so back in the day and so shaws was the nice place and Price shopper is where all the homies went and like it you know as po-dunk it is 24-7 like You know there's people working there missing teeth and shit And I was like yo price chopper for life And so that's kind of like where that joke came from and it's a big inside joke with a lot of my close friends And I've just like kept it to this day and a lot of people are like Yeah, well price shoppers like market to 32 now and it's all nice and stuff And I'm like I was like, yeah, well, that's kind of similar to my story came up like being po-dunk And now I'm like presentable and people wouldn't even tell that I was from there So I have like I have this like I wanted to create a cult personality And I realized that nobody was trying to go for like the crown of Burlington to be the number one townie and Like all of my humor and all of my jokes were all about being a townie And I was like, you know what I'm just gonna like I'm not gonna put on some facade and like talk about like Metaphors of oceans and shit like that. I'm just gonna like I'm just gonna say what I joke around about and just like see how that translates and Ever since I made that decision and just decided to like just be the number one townie people have just Identified with it and flocked to it and it's great for me because I barely have to do anything except turn my personality up Maybe like a couple pegs here But you watch season one, which is like 17 episodes that starts out with the commercials and then ends up more political You know finding my footing I Made this my fourth video in was about the pit and I thought it would be really funny You know all the arguments around it were like people were for them all or against them all and Everybody was hating on this pit no matter what side you're on I thought it would be really funny if like there was a group of people in town that were just like in love with the Pit and we're like standing up for the pit in general as kind of like a way to kind of make fun of the pit I just ordered two pit mugs by the way. Yeah, get yours at Johnny's My tea spring Call me Pistodontist motherfuckers because I fucking called it. I'm Johnny Wanzer and yep Y'all okay, I think I thought I found a new medium here And so I started exploring stuff that Interested me, but I realized that like when I would talk about Burlington issues I had a lot more fun writing about it and I got a lot more views and so I was like, well, here's my niche here and so I started being really critical of Miro and everything that he was doing because I'm not a fan of him I am a progressive and he is a neoliberal and he is He's just the definition of everything Yeah, he's the definition of everything I hate about stereotypical left leaners, you know, my god, except he's not even pretending Yeah Yeah, and so I pissed him off one too many times and I was taking a break from my videos anyways And I got a nice little letter in the mail That was just like hey, you need to like stop saying these lies about Miro and I'm like not saying lies Let her come from from the city. A lot of my stuff is Is parody and a lot of my stuff is I put the sources literally in the law So like I Ended up I had some lawyers recommended to me and I asked them about it and they watched all my stuff and they're like No, you're fine. He's a public figure. You can talk like literally if you watch late-night shows It's all they do is they talk shit about political figures, you know at that point I was planning on like really upping the ante. So I was like out of nowhere. I was like it's season two So and people were like we were in season one. I'm like, yeah, so season one's over now It's season two and you're gonna see my videos just like transcend here. So now like Now the cost of living in the 17 outdoor gear store Wonderland is about 21% higher than the US average Specifically 47% higher with housing because of that putt considers you lower class if you make under 50k a year Now most of y'all living in the college ghetto I didn't name it ain't gotta worry since retail worker harassing daddy six figures cover This as you get your eco science major, but the 60% of us workers. He harasses make under 50k averaging around 25 Yeah, I'm saying numbers and shit learned a lot from your videos. Yeah, so site. That's the goal. Yeah I'm interested in more of the personal stuff. Sure. Let's get into it then. So how did you When you were growing up, I saw that you said that Donnie and Crystal kind of represent your parents. Yeah Yeah, not literally probably right, but I'm curious about how your politics or What were your family politics were and how you came to your politics because you're like super You know aware, etc. And so what was there? You know, how was it when you're growing up? What was that like non-existent? Yeah, right, right? Actually, I guess we did say that earlier. Yeah, I exist. And so they weren't right wing If you were to ask me what my mom's political stance is I could not tell you I just know that she believes in God I want to know where his where he where he discovered his politics. Oh, okay Well, that's my parents like my I have pictures of me in a parade in Rutherford, New Jersey Holding flags with the young Republicans that my parents were a part of you know, yeah First of all, I want to say first of all, my mother was like the most beautiful kind and loving person Anybody could ever meet and everybody who ever met her Wanted her to be their mother but During this one parade, I remember seeing my parents spit on protesters of the Vietnam War and I was like blown away like I Don't know. Maybe it was just my dad But maybe my mom I can't even imagine my mother doing something like that But maybe that's the moment that I started questioning what the fuck Like I was probably 10 I was just like You know so going moving away from your Families politics or whatever. I'm just curious how that happened for you. Yeah, I mean they were kind of non-existent Yeah, so they didn't really have politics But the way that I got into it was you know every day before school I'd watch the news, right? and then As I started getting older I found that I liked watching comedy on TV And so we had cable television and like I always found myself either watching like comedy central or something like that And you know, I got into shows like the daily show back in the day Yeah, I started getting into that stuff and it like You know and then the friends that I started making it all kind of just like friends Yeah, and then friends I watched a lot of friends and then uh It just all started making sense to me at a certain point. I was like, oh, I agree with a lot of this and then um Yeah, by the time I was A teenager and playing hardcore shows at 242 like My political views were very much set into a left-leaning sort of way. I just want to yeah, I'm just gonna say I'm an anarchist I'm sorry. I just have to just like just put it out there Yeah, I mean I'm just Yeah, and I but I'm really happy to To support progressives because they're speaking they're able to speak to people Yeah, that's how I felt for years the same. I was like no one is left leaning enough except burning That's it So this is another thing when I'm hearing everybody talking about left leaning and right leaning It's like that's another like thing that kind of bothers me in a lot of ways. Yeah, you know or me going like I'm an anarchist, you know, it's like What does all that really mean all the kind of you know stereotypes again, you know I mean I ended up working with a bunch of filmmakers 20 filmmakers that made this thing called the vermont movie And I learned a really lot about vermont's history and when i-89 came in Things really changed here And you know, there was a whole like influx of You know back to the land or et cetera et cetera And it started really changing the landscape for You know the vermont's that were here before Some some positive and some negative I have a ton of fans that don't live here or who have never even lived here, but just like following me whether it's For the crazy visuals and all the jokes Or it's like I won them over starting with that But then they were like oh, this is an interesting story about this dude Or they like see the concept of what i'm doing and they've never seen it before and it interests them and I also post my stuff on reddit and a lot of people who want to move to burlington Go to burlington reddit to see what's going on. Oh, and so I've actually made a lot of friends and fans From people who did exactly that before they moved here And I've even showed a couple people around who have reached out to me who found my videos on reddit So The appeal is there Which is cool because like a lot of the stuff I make is tailored for people here But then like these people are like what is this world over here? And then they go back and watch everything and they start learning about our city, which is cool So I have plans with each season So season two is burlington centric And my plan is to get people so riled up that people outside of burlington are demanding videos from me And which is already happening. And so my goal by man, let me take you to maple corner So my goal by the end of season two is to basically be the king here But basically have burlington all the things that I've ever wanted to say about burlington like out there And then um, I want to for season three. I want to go vermont and I want to focus on other things St. Albans, uh, a lot of things that happen in are in montpellier, uh, at the at the Government there. Oh, I think you're gonna talk about charliots because oh, yeah I've heard so many stories of people getting kicked out of charliots. No, no, no Yeah Watching your videos besides besides just like Yeah, I will say that I got a lot of people to vote because I told them to So there's there's a start which is fantastic and a lot of people reached out to me and told me that they voted because I educated them and then like like that's the start, right? That's a great start. So but you know, that's a really great question. Why do we like We watch john oliver, right and like You know, is it on him to get us to in to uh get into these not necessarily No, but what he does is he educates us on what's going on and gives us a unique perspective and a comedic perspective With a great accent and he's he's just a good dude. You research the guy and you're like, yo john oliver is the shit So uh For me my main goal is to just educate people to get them like Involved in it And so then when I see an opportunity to plug something that I really believe in My followers will go and do it like When I when I made light and I wasn't the one to break this but I made I focused on um The ex police chief being on the board of the howard center As soon as I did that a week later somebody made a petition to get him out of there And I told my followers to sign up and I got them a thousand fault a thousand signatures in a day And two months later, guess what? He's off the board and he moved out of vermont. So Did I do it? I don't know but I like to just say maybe it helped Well, you definitely instigated something. I mean, yeah, how does that feel feels great because I don't want like In peg I don't know how you're gonna react to this because this is where angry johnny comes out But uh, I don't want that fucking trash in my town. I feel like I feel like this is my town. How do I react? I totally agree. Perfect. Um, I I've been seeing this town change I see corrupt people come in and take advantage of it and I'm fucking sick of it And I don't want that shit in my town anymore. And if I have to use my internet trolling powers to To flip this shit upside down to get these people to in the spotlight to make the cockroaches fly out I'm gonna fucking do it and I'll put my name on the line and I'll put my safety on the line I have a question for you as far as the The police guy goes There's a part in your video where you're like says so I'm gonna fuck your daughter So I want to talk to you. Yes In the video in the music video Oh, the spalines. Okay. Yeah. Oh, it's spalines. Oh, I thought it was police. No, it's don't I missed one beat probably No, it was donny basically like saying yo, you're gonna talk you're gonna tow my car Well, fuck you. I'll break in steal my car back and have sex with your daughters I said you fucker his daughters, but like I really want to talk to you about that as well because You know, there's a really long history of people raping people's daughters and women and that was not what I was implying Okay, okay What were you I want to hear what you're implying Um, if you pay back, okay, you're gonna do this. I'm gonna fuck your daughter sure if you know If you know the people that work at spalines, you'll know that they're working class and they're Very similar to who donny is so donny's circles overlap with the spaline workers circles and so They he probably like knows why don't you just go break their windows? I mean why fuck their daughters? So it's implied that like donny is like a ladies man to like these working class circles And so like he doesn't like go rape them. He's just like he knows Yeah, he knows their circles and like payback, dude It's like you're you're implying in the video that like you're gonna do this. I'm gonna fuck your daughter So there like if there's anything that really got to me in that video that was it because I'm a daughter. My daughter's a daughter Sure And it's like if somebody's pissed off at me They're gonna hurt my daughter like what the fuck is that about and I understand that you're Making a parody and you're making fun of those people. But like yeah, why not just go Break spaline's window. It's more of the uh, so there's more nuance to it And I totally get what you're saying and I totally agree with it The way that I meant to come off with it is uh, when you live in a small town everybody knows everybody, right? And so like Chances are you know the family of the person like who like owns the towing car Like company, right? And you know their kids and you like grew up with them and you know, uh, he's just He's just implying that like he has his way within the community where he can like You know mac on mac mac and like it get his way with just like do what uh, yeah, I don't know Not mac. I'm not finding the right words here. I actually don't know what mac means. Yeah, I'm not finding the right words here I think you're gonna have to back out back down on this one. Yeah, I think I might have to I think you're gonna have to back down um it's interesting um to hear that feedback on it and you're totally valid with it and I think I could have done a better job at conveying the That and uh, I feel bad if people Uh, take it in that way. Yeah, I think what megan said Yeah helps it make more sense to me honestly because you are Being that character who would think like that. Yeah, but again, you know My take even on like, you know, whatever like making music is like what you put out there Sometimes just adds to the thing. Yeah, you know, I feel weird like defending Like donnie kind of being massaging Because like I am not I'm like I'm like I'm like a fucking loner and like to just leave people alone Like to leave service people alone and just let them do their thing and just like yeah Yeah, it's it it becomes weird when it becomes like a character an artistic expression and like how authentic you want to make it like Obviously If I really wanted to make him authentic Like I would put in racism Because there's a lot of that and I would put in some words that I don't like using at all And I consciously decided to leave that stuff out And if people don't like that and they go fuck themselves, but you know, because it's my art, but uh I do have one more thing. Yeah, sure Which is and maybe you don't want to talk about it. Okay. There was oh my god I went down that rabbit hole looking at Not, you know Bunch of youtube videos, but there was one particular instagram post Where you're sitting looking at a phone And you're talking about mental health And I was like, is this staged? No, I mean, yeah The picture was but the what I'm talking about wasn't yeah Um, no, I'm a big mental health advocate. I have panic disorder and um I'm really sensitive to that kind of stuff like I'm not like you can never talk about it, but uh I think mental health is overlooked in this country, especially in workplaces and supporting people with it And just like being able to prescribe stuff with people and a lot of a lot of this stuff You have to pay out of pocket for um, and I think it's not taken as serious as possible Um, yeah, I'm a big advocate for it. And so that post was very genuine Yeah, I didn't see that one Is a picture of me in a flannel and I'm like looking out my phone Yeah, I know I have I have panic disorder also. Yeah, it's so funny when they write that down and that's what it is That's what you have Yeah, it uh, it can be debilitating some days. Um, yeah But you find ways as as you get older you find ways to uh To live with it and to deal with it and so it becomes easier to go through the motions Because you're so used to it, but it still doesn't make it It still is hard to deal with so when people Like talk about these these things like I really feel for them Johnny, have you gotten to see any of Peg's music yet? I listened to her whole album the other day and then I went and watched some videos The latest one you released Which is an old or you just yeah, it sounded like it was older, but it sounded like you just like released it maybe Well, Jair just Jair just remastered it. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Yeah, I listened to it. It's cool. It's like Yeah, it sounds like uh late 80s early 90s kind of like, um That whole uh, like fem movement that was happening that was like really awesome and empowering of just like female artists that were like Really just fucking owning the space in the early 90s. It like gave me like a lot of vibes Like you know the whole like, uh, yeah the whole like Tori Amos, I'm not saying that you're this but like But I'm saying like There was this whole explosion of just uh, female artists with an acoustic guitar that were just like killing it Yeah Yeah, nothing nothing really I mean, I guess I would say I'm glad I got to meet you and yeah And I still feel like it'd be nice to have a conversation not in front of the camera. We will Thank you for being here anyone. Yeah, that was fun having us. Yeah