 Fake streams fake streams. We know we know that it's a thing and it's been a thing for a long time and recently Some artists were exposed from having straight fake streams. All right So let's bring it up We'll just bring up the academics post Many of y'all have probably seen videos about this, but I promise you we're gonna add some additional insight Obviously from what we do Because we're in this for real So Atlantic records is under fire after fans discover blatant view-biting and bot comments on their artist recent music videos Don Toliver, Lucy Burt, Roddy Rich and a buggy. Let me be clear Atlantic records is never going to be under fire From fans. I don't care what you say fans can talk that talk like it's there's there's no real heat coming from fans for an Atlantic records Not at all This is it's nothing. It's too distant. Some of these indie labels. Let's just say Even something was going on with the migos little baby and like qc. Mm-hmm. They could feel the heat Yeah, all right Atlantic records ain't feeling a heat. Yeah, right. It's just not right like matter of fact, they have some of these indie Labels in place. So they don't have to feel the heat. They don't deal with that that stuff on that level And fans don't understand. There's no identification of it enough. So anybody going break down care about it. Yeah, anybody For real it's like getting in trouble today with what chris is like, you don't care Oh, man, so you got Don, right? Yeah, he had view bots One of some comments and it's pretty obvious when you look at it You can see all these comments that are all these emojis. We we know what it looks like a lot of emojis and fake stuff you also got Like the the foreign comments that becomes a thing for people and the foreign comments could be real foreign comments Or they could be fake right one way or another But I don't understand them enough to know all right the very least you know that this ain't popping in America so it's either fake or it's Uh, uh, yeah, it's hitting somewhere and they're running ads to foreign space to run run up some numbers We know that's a thing now and when also you have to look for the overly optimistic comments Those also a song Like overly positive. Like this is great, bro. Oh, yeah Yo, this is amazing. Keep it up. It's like, yeah, it's it's optimistic But it's so basic and no substance is general as hell. Amazing. Good stuff. Hey, this is fire, man Hey, they don't know about those yet. They don't know about those right so There's a couple things that come from this a lot of people Are surprised I don't know why that was just about to say wow at this point, bro All right, and by the way, you know don don tolliver cat. Jack There's some people in that travis scott video We got talking about his box blowing up acting like travis would never do box. Why would he ever have to do bites? So, yeah, who is this guy? I don't trust this guy and this guy is nobody It's like, oh, that's his x manager. Well, he's x manager for a reason. Well, actually his x manager got rid of travis Well, still you know like look Let's keep it clear because people don't get that context with us, but we always talk about it But let's actually at least say it on one episode We view bots different than y'all. Yeah much different like when we talk about somebody having bot We're not talking about it from a positive or a negative jacquory in that episode literally said like Hey, man, look y'all might want to find somebody y'all team is gonna flip something like this, right? So It's not like we highly encourage bots for every artist and every And every moment in time and we need to have real but There is a legitimate part of the game that bots Have a function. They help they they have a small piece in the right in the phone in the overall picture Yes, they have a piece. So Let's let's talk more about that because if you're a brand new artist You're working from ground zero Many of y'all Have tried to work with us and I had bots And we'll be like now All right, why because it makes it hard to see what the marketing is actually doing what's in effect You might see your streams going down No, your followers going down even though the campaign is gaining you Legit followers, but you're still losing all these followers from your old shit right from this fake stuff That was never real in the first place. So it makes it hard to see That's why we don't like working with those people if you can have the manage expectation We actually will take you and say all right You understand because you got this fake shit is not going to just pop. It's not gonna start moving Some things we can't tell you because we can't see it Exactly some things that we can't tell you because the data's muddy like all that cool. That's a huge reason Why does it not make sense for artists ground up because it's fake and now you literally do that Create an environment where we can't trust what's going on. You don't know what's real You don't know how many people are going to show up to your show You don't know how many people would sign up for an email or stream your song because all this is fake That's why bots don't make sense for Most of these artists and that's why we we talk about it from that side of it But the other side of the game look man A lot of times To keep doing business You got to get creative You know what I mean like that's that's all that's going on and getting creative because there's multiple things that they're trying to Accomplish and I can't say for these artists specific situations why they're doing bots on their specific situations But let's just go through some reasons people do do bots and they actually can make sense Some of them are still like It's a tough situation to be in let's talk about one of the toughest to me maintaining an image that's outscaled The actual fan base of performers of the music right? Yeah So earlier you talked about Sweetie you just said sweetie still doing the music to kind of like keep that thing moving And then flip it into everything else and that'd be the sole reason she might do it going forward well That goes to the LeBron analogy I use right I know I need a win in this category I need I keep playing because basketball is my main thing keep the main thing the main thing But while I'm in this main thing a part of my brand is being That nigga. Yeah, so I got to stay that nigga or close to that nigga. I got at least be one of the niggas like If I want to keep leveraging You know my brand the same outside of space and if it gets too too rough I need to just like flip fully and move on right That analogy plays on a lot of these artists if I'm on this level part of my level is being A level seven artist instead of a level two. I'm popped. I'm official, you know, I have buzz I need to maintain as much of an image On this level as possible while the music catches up I know this is a problem these teams that have that issue They know it's an issue Right and I need to figure out how to maintain as much of this image as possible until the music catches up In reality, right? It's like that gateway drug type shit man. It's like I look or it's like the this the stripper I'm only doing it to get through college, you know, I mean like hey I'm only doing this shit till I get a real fan base. Like I'm just trying to do it Like, you know this year. I'm doing 70 by next year. I'm doing 50 by next year. I'll do it 20 by oh shit. I got a real fan base, you know That's a legit thing Right, some people are in a set scenario where they're trying to figure it out that way Yeah, right because the brand hit of barely having any streams is too just detrimental You know, right? That's one scenario Yeah, yeah That's a tough position to be in. That's the hardest one being for sure That's legitimately that's the hardest one to be in This is a lose. It's usually a lose lose. You get found out you lose if you don't do it and shit don't go the same you lose Yep, yeah, yep, and My problem my biggest problem in that scenario is you're still In a spot where you don't have The fan base that you require for where you are and The energy spent on bots Takes away from the energy that could be spent on finding out the right solution And I know we don't think that right? I feel means we feel like we could do all these different things But there's that switching cost and that lack of creativity that gets taken away because you know, you have your out All right, we're gonna have these bots versus forcing ourselves to maybe figure out how we can flip the narrative And maybe just come out with the fact that it's not Like where we want it to be I'm not saying to do that. Like that's not a straight advice. I'm just saying a different angle, right? Or we need to run 10 more shows Then we usually would and really tour the hell out of the The country or we need to figure out how to get our artists in these different positions in collapse or get them in These youtuber videos or whatever, right? It keeps you from being creative Or limit some of your creativity when you have bots a part of it. Again, this still me not saying don't do them at all But that's why sometimes I even like especially when it comes to creative stuff I like to have someone's fully focused on that. It's like, all right Maybe I got to work on these two things or you got to work on these two things But then we have one person who's like, bro, all you need to do is be focused on how can we creatively Solve this problem, right and and you you run the risk of getting lost in your lost in the sauce Lost in your that's what I'm saying You have to have somebody who's dedicated to working on the real thing only and that's their only focus Because if you have that and you got to hold them to that standard. It's like, yeah, I know I'm doing what I'm doing, bro But I'm not supposed to be still doing this You got to find a way up out of this thing to get us out of this game. You know, I'm just fighting off You know some of these these villains But bro, we got we got to open the fucking the door to get out of this out this building. So there's that The another scenario which is why this bad thing isn't going to go away And it's not about y'all fans always Fans are so they're so self-centered, bro. It's not even always about y'all. They're not trying to fool you at all times Sometimes they're trying to fool other industry people That's the biggest one I need my label to see these numbers So if you a real fan you would actually support me getting these bots because if I get this amount of streams My label is going to give me the rest of this budget and now I can do some more marketing Like sometimes it's about shit like that. I got to hit my auspons I got to unlock the rest of my budget and I can't unless I hit this number in a specific period of time or I'm trying to get on a Like a grammy or like, you know improve my case for something or corporate appeal Like so it's not even industry But I'm just trying to make sure that I have this amount of streams So then when I talk to this guy who doesn't know shit about the industry and music and doesn't understand my fan base If I can at least compare my streams and explain myself using some artists that he knows All right, I can say oh, yeah. Well, here's an idea like I remember talking to a guy about black Right Matter of fact, we had a client That was biggest fuck themselves or whatever that he knew Because he was older He knew macy Okay, he knows so Macy gray and he knew her because he was he was in his 40s But he wasn't a super music head like not at all Not even close And but he knew macy because macy was macy back in that day and he was younger than two And then I was taught telling him about black. It was just a conversation or whatever. I was like, oh, I saw black Say that he was interested in crypto or something like that Or figuring out the nft or meta verse space and his own way and he was like, who's that? Well, I was like Black streaming wise is bigger. I had to use that type of a comparison so he could understand how Like significant he was now granted Macy streaming numbers Again are her real numbers are pre streaming ever existed. But still him not knowing much I knew that that would do the job, right? So sometimes it's shit like that that these conversations are happening for and I gotta tweak my streaming for that type of stuff It's so many scenarios And fans always think it's them over trying to fool them or increase her It's not about y'all all the time like just to keep it real So maybe you should find out why Hey maybe maybe Some of the artists we put on y'all like hey educate y'all fans like hey, bro We about to do these streaming things now. If you don't want me to have to do these streaming bots You need to stream my shit three more times or matter of fact, we're gonna do it both because this is our goal I need y'all to Help me get there. We're gonna buy it. We're gonna we're gonna triple play it and y'all only play 30 seconds of it But you're gonna do that shit like maybe it's something like that, right? It'll be funny if our artists did something like that But that the bot situation is far more complex than people actually give it credit for Um, which is why we ain't out here like oh, so I got bots Like we exposing uh, we about to do that in the title because y'all motherfuckers only click on shit like that, but That just is what it is Yeah, bruh, I think you said something important earlier too about like wearing the artist's journey to do it, right? And so I think what artists have to understand is that the bigger You start to become it becomes more of a ball of perception and then real fan base building, right? So like someone like uzi Who's isn't trying to make new fans? You know what I'm saying? Like probably 80 to 90 percent of rap fans knows who he is I know who he is now. He's playing a game of perception. You know, I exist Let me while you with these numbers So if you didn't go check me out because whatever reason now you now you want to kind of follow line, right? Yep Building a sheet mentality like that's the that's about the bandwagon effect Right like like music snowballs or more you can make people feel like they're missing out because it looks like other People are enjoying this the more people want to join in on it So there's that aspect of it And you know going back to the beginner artists like the boss don't don't make sense to you because nobody cares about your perception Like, you know, and so it's like who are you bragging to there's no real people that you're bragging to these things about But the other thing I was going to say too is that but at this point Numbers and even the bot conversation to a degree are all a part of the market Roll out, you know what I'm saying? So like I said those milestones. Hey, we need to hit 10 million views by this date because The day after that we want to put a marketing budget or pr Some pr around the narrative that x rs hit 10 million views and in um in two weeks. That was like I think it was like One of those videos you seen the blackie speaks of the bobble in video He talked about six nine was doing it right like six nine Well, it wasn't with boss. He's talking about youtube ads, but still it falls in the same conversation He needed to run these numbers up within a certain time frame So the narrative could be hey, I ran these numbers up in this time frame, right? Oh, I got 10 million views in 24 hours. Yeah, I had 100 million streams in a week Right like that becomes a part of the marketing Yep And I sometimes I think now even the bot conversation is a part of the marketing because the only genre that really The only genre of fans that really seem to care about botting is rap fans If you pay attention to that when the conversation about bots Justin Bieber for example the conversation about bots around maybe not the last time but one of it But those his fans are not give a fuck bro They do not care when the conversation about bots comes up around rap artists, bro The whole community loses this shit bro hip-hop fans are the most critical most fickle most fickle The financial potential is more limited in a lot of ways a hip-hop is a It's a tougher genre 100 it's it's tougher genres not just because all the The business of it, but literally the fans themselves. I'm glad you brought that up Yeah, it's like I can't even cheat like the other artists because y'all won't let me get away with it Like their fans will let them get away with it. You know what I'm saying like Justin Bieber out here There was one point where I remember uh Me and my my homie Sam we were looking at because he had brought it to me He's our bro look at Justin Bieber's top streaming cities and there was one country I came in what country it was. I remember it was like Jakarta or some some like Like small country and it was like Justin Bieber streams from that country with equivalents Like if every person in that country streams like a hundred times a thousand times something like every person in the country is like Nobody's batting the odd, bro. You know, I know I bet I don't tolerate get six molly faces in a row That's it. That's your news by the end of the day Yo, bro, it's crazy man because hip-hop has There's no other genre. I think that has the level of demand for brand music to life congruency Authenticity that type of authenticity it has to be you have to represent what you actually talk about in that way Everybody else gets to be an artist and that's kind of part of the difficulty of this whole Uh situation where they're like, yo, let our protect hip-hop And and black music when they're saying, you know, you don't use our this shit in our court case I think that's a a tougher conversation and meaning want to actually acknowledge but like That wouldn't be so if we didn't demand so much authenticity or people to speak in certain ways So yeah, like hip-hop definitely has it tough and kind of like how you mentioned um sort of the bobble lamb video He talked about what was the thing he said He said artists knew they would stop. That was one thing. He was like, I wonder if Don Tyler knows and I I fucked with uh First of all, I only discovered them recently, you know, like maybe like the last week or whatever Yeah, I felt with your videos, but I'm bobbling up for real, but if you want artists to win I mean if artists knew all right, they would Do you agree with that? Let me just let me see that It depends on the caliber of artists like there's a certain subsection of artists. I think would care Um, we work with artists that care, you know what I'm saying? They they they're super anal about yo, it's the box You know what I'm saying? It's just what's going on. No, it's not look at the look at the numbers, right? What level do those artists tend to be at if we're considered 10 to be Let's say top of the mainstream Drake. Let's say 8b bottom of mainstream. I don't give you under something I think ours between a 1 and 5 really care about it Exactly And that's when you should care about it. Anyway, because you're trying to build something real Yeah, exactly like earlier It's like the focus of that stage should be about real fan engagement and making sure that there are people That when if you do decide to stack fake engagement on top of it, there are real people vouching for you Exactly that that's that's what it is becomes your defense mechanism. It's that insurance People gonna show up to shows you actually can't make your money that uh, that's that's cool real people make the fakes of look believable You know what I'm saying? It's like when there's a fan to come in saying no, he didn't buy streams I listen to this shit a hundred times a day that makes someone that doesn't really understand the situation go like Maybe this isn't bullshit, right? Or like you said if the conversational line is Yo done tolliver bought it all his views on this video And then the next day done toliver posted a video of a sold out show and you can see real people in the crowd It completely changed the narrative It was like it makes it either less believable to people who aren't really paying attention to it at the anyway Or people go like the Travis Scott video, right? Like we look you can go to that video and look at the comments What are people saying? Hey, it doesn't matter because he's selling out shows. He's selling merch He makes great music those are the things that arts have to always remember fans care When that shit is trash or it doesn't look like it's providing any real world Benefits because at that point it's like why are you doing this? This shit clearly isn't working for you when all of the other dots connect Nobody cares. That's why nobody complains about Justin Bieber doing it. He was a great artist. You know what I'm saying? It's like, I don't care. You bought it up, bro. Just keep putting out good music Exactly same with Uzi people saying oh like the I want to rock song. That's just a hit Nobody cares because everybody likes the song. You know what I'm saying people only care When the other elements of the artistry are subpar to trash If everything you're like you're you're trying to trick them Into locking it. Yeah, exactly. If you want me you're always trying to trick him That's just this entertainment business entertainment the show business that showed not the in front of the curtain is all tricks right lights of camera action effect, but People don't want to feel it. Yeah. Yeah, bro. It's like we we for whatever reason we we just We just want to see it We don't want to feel like we're a part of whatever you're doing the kind of job Obviously, we just want to see the end results of it right meet you at the finish line type of thing Lie to me, but don't let me know. Yeah, bro. Keep it secret Put your phone on D&D But so so that just becomes like the the weird conversation around the whole bot thing At least to me is it's more of a conversation of who is allowed to get away with it Yeah We're and like I said, you're between a one and a five You are not allowed to get away with it. Don't even attempt to get away with it because People like us are gonna find out I can I can at this point, bro It's not hard to spot boss, you know what I'm saying Especially the smaller you are the easier to tell if you're using boss or some type of artificial inflation tool software thing, right? Um, and then like you said shows are the great evil out there if I pull up I was it I remember going to this one event This is this I'd be pre-pandemic. It was for artists that just got signed to a label And they were like a new signing. You know how like labels that have the whole like Yo, come like watch my artist perform and all the industry people come out But it was supposed to be like a mixed bag one So it's gonna be industry thing and then like fan fans supposed to be allowed I remember the artist at the time like two three million streams. I mean monthly listeners a couple million streams Pull up to the show Nothing but industry people no real fans. First, I thought it was an industry thing I'm like somebody was like, no, there's like a couple fans here Like you started seeing people a couple maybe like four or five people, you know at the stage fucking with them and sit but Nothing real came from it, but it's like, yo that artist is at a stage where because now now I'm in the venue Going back and looking at the numbers. I mean, is this right? Look at her Spotify again. Nope. They're right at 2.3 million monthly listeners. They go to instagram 400k, whatever it was. I'm like, now Now marketing brand kicks in and I'm like, no, I need to do some deep dive for this shit Gotta be fake start going through my resources and tool bags to figure that out Start seeing fake followers start seeing you know certain playlists On it and I remember walking into my friend there and invited me to it And I was like bro, like they're already fucking up like like this arse ain't even in the game Lung they're already fucking up. She's like, what you mean like fake fake fake 30 people here in 28 of them are industry people Oh Those other two are probably plus ones. Yeah. Yeah, and even to Atlantic records defense I I don't I wonder if that bottom the smaller artists the same way their bottom Because I mean the headlines are the come up or Uzi Don't all of it, right? Right? Artists where it will be believable. Yeah, so people that don't care that much Are they are they botting up the artists that they just signed last week? Hopefully not. They smart, right? Yeah Yeah, but probably Hey, well, there was another um Take that I wanted to just throw bob a limit talked about the Uh youtube ads right and how it's more believable to do that on youtube It is easier to do that on youtube because like he mentioned, all right We've seen people do You can get those streams pretty easily by throwing some money behind it And then you get the comments you're actually making those streams more believable. That's the funny thing about it All right, if you just run ads People don't believe it because it looks fake to people Which artists can complain about all the time like early on especially when we first start running youtube ads Oh, man, they're proportions. They don't they look off out of whack So then you get some fake comments. It actually looks morbidly. Well funny enough It's just that these fake comments are just so violating the bag. That's the issue And y'all didn't do anything to labels but make them say a bro. We got to get better tech Like to do it better. It's not going to stop the training. I'll start going to fiber for our bots Hey, exactly fine. That's a a sweat shop Somewhere and people to just comment for real which there is a site. I remember I was trying to remember it before the pod So but no that there is a site out there that you can actually get real people to make comments Yeah, you can pay them like a couple cents. Yeah, I can't think of that. It's something I know somewhere I'll figure it out and you'll bring it up on another episode or something but because we we've been able to at least defend ourselves against the youtube thing by breaking down the numbers of what it looks like for youtube engagement for ads Right normal engagement viral engagement and I know like with us Typically we we use like the view ratio to tell right? So is this mad the formula divide the likes by the amount of views you got Whatever their percentage is that show like the view engagement So what we would always see is like if it's between one and three percent They're probably running ads on it. Yep between like let's say they're four to like seven percent That's about typical engagement for someone that's not marketing their music whatsoever Like 10 percent of higher is like that's just going like viral or I was having some type of a moment Whether because of the marketing or something else is kind of happening outside of it, right? So Looking at don't always be if you go do the math on he is he's like 1.3 percent. So Probably running youtube ads They're just by coming they're just coming to buying the comments pretty much right like you said to Keep up with the perception that it's coming from this this ad Yeah, it's gonna look crazy that you got 10 million views in four thousand comments We know it's real Yeah You know it's real right because don't talk about this level probably understands that type of stuff to some degree I would I would think you know, so, you know, it's real I know it's real everybody that works in the industry probably has an idea of where it's coming from It knows it's real, but you know who doesn't know shit about that shit. The fucking fans, bro They don't know just don't know shit, bro And they gonna look at you and go like damn don't talk about 10 million views and four thousand comments This motherfucker falling off. Yeah Fuck him now. I'm going to listen to yeet. You know what I'm saying like because yeet shit. It's real and it's whatever, bro And it's like like we said at that level Perception and narratives are more dangerous than almost anything, bro Like like once that snowball gets going for us a hard thing to stop You know what I'm saying try to get behind and stop So I was like labels looking like hey before we even give fans the chance She's gonna buy this shit up. You know what I'm saying Um, and I think don't talk was probably in rollout mode, bro. So they definitely don't want that narrative Right now Uzi's in you know what I'm saying? I got a hit movie mode, right? Makes sense, right rich. Just drop the album I mean the album release mode, right? Post release mode, right? So they're doing it in situations where I could understand why they're doing it. You know what I'm saying? Like If it was just like some random one-off release from any of them and you know what I'm saying It's like wow, like why not just see where the marketplace is there for them right now but like they're all in In position to push things that could lead to other bigger things or or is big for them I get it. You know what I'm saying? Like we have to protect the narrative around the artist We have to protect their reputation to their fan base who are like you said already fickle as fuck and Fickle don't understand shit and love to push a negative narrative That's the sad thing about the rap the rap fan base. You know what I'm saying? That's that's their bread and butter That's why would I Put my investment through that You wouldn't because you got to protect the investment, man No way in hell man. So that's That actually makes me think about one thing blackie speaks at shout out to blackie. You know, you my guy He said if you want your artist to win You wouldn't engage in those fraudulent tactics or any fraudulent tactics and To that I have to say It depends on what you mean by fraudulent. You know what I mean? Because there's a perception Difference between somebody who's Like a fan and somebody who's actually in the industry moving and they understand all the pieces I don't know. Do you remember? It wasn't deflate gate. What was the spy gate? You remember spy gate the so that's The new england patriots. There was this big thing that Yeah, they were recording people's signals and and figuring out what the play was about to be called, right? So people came down on them real hard really ruined the reputation of them and people always whenever they win Like to point to some potential cheating because of it, right? but Tony Dungey Known around the nfl. That's like the sweetest guy A coach but never like grace his voice, you know, like in football like that's one of them sports will be cursing and Da-da-da Super christian never raising his voice got a championship pay to pay manning He even came out and said look man everybody doing something They just got caught. Yeah, all right everybody doing something. They just got caught And some people will say like if you don't bend the rules, you don't want to win, right now and That's just the reality of The game and music now again What do you mean by bending the rules? Who is going too far? Are we bending? Are we breaking? All right. Yeah, we grew up hearing no break the rules but if you bend in them You probably win it, you know, I mean like because that's when you look back at All the merchant fans everybody's very aware of the merch game and how people have created bundles and use Look That actually is a rule and I'm actually using the rules I'm bending the perception of it because it was meant to state one thing But hey part of the interpretation says I could do that Why not do that if it's going to put me in a better position? So, you know, I think it's a lot grarer than people give credit for And when it comes to the reality of how artists have to to move to win But but yeah, you know, look quote-unquote fraudulent tactics or tricky clever tactics is just a part of what it takes Especially at that at that level in particular. Yeah, what is a circle used to call it black hat marketing? Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Like how marketing? Yeah Like to go back to it's like we're not for again. So we don't do stuff like that. You know what I'm saying? All about we don't use box. By the way, why does why does the bad shit always have to be black, you know I feel it. I feel it bro. Why have your black hat black hat hacker and definitely he got it from hacking, right? Black hat and white hat and the white hat are the good hackers So another But it's like, you know We don't do it. Yeah, I know marketers that do Markers that's a part of that thing. You know what I'm saying? Um We don't do it because it it goes against our philosophy It's not a part of where we want to fit into the artist building infrastructure, right? Because we're we're usually more focused on zero to seven You know what I'm saying? So zero to seven is like, no, we're not we're not doing that shit You're gonna fuck you don't fuck me up. You know what I'm saying doing that shit But I do understand I do get it like I just that is what always gets me about this conversation Is like you got to understand the context of when it's being done if it makes sense if it didn't make sense Yeah, you're right. Like I said, if anybody from a zero to like a six Maybe seven really zero to five or maybe six or seven did it? Like what the fuck are you doing? You know, it's like stop you you're hurting yourself for longevity But if you already had a ten or nine and you know, you've been building your fan base for years And you already you already know you have a fan base might not be as massive as people think it is But you know, it's 20 30 50 hundred thousand people out there that fuck with you Like I said, now it becomes a battle of perception that you are more likely not playing the game of new fans You're playing the game of perception. Yeah. Yeah, yeah That brings me to bob a lamb also said is it profitable? to use bots All right, you're doing all of these fake streams Are you actually going to get the return of your money because I paid $2,000 for bots to get 200,000 streams at 200,000 streams. They're gonna give me $2,000 All right, is it profitable To do use bots as a music artist maybe If you ask in that question, you should not be using bots That's what I say to that All right, because it's not about that direct ROI at all You're not looking to get your money back from streams. Yeah, and you're looking we talk about The brand perception. All right, and that flip Oh, it might get me this 50k commercial. It might give me this 100k commercial. All right There's all these other things That bots are using for are used for and the people who are using bots at the level that are supposed to be using bots They're not trying to make stream return from their bots. It just doesn't that's not the game Now are there windows of opportunity where you can profitably Use bots at the beginning or at least use bots in a way that makes sense at the beginning of your career There's there's space in places, but those are rare. It's not a general Advice that we would give to anybody. Yeah, nobody. Yeah. Yeah, right If I see it if I log in your Arts for Spotify not happen. No, it's not turning blind off As long as you ain't tripping on me about because I do think about that one artist we had Like a long time ago the one of we's about to fire that that be this to it But like for those of y'all listening we have this Arts we were working with And they were faking the hell out his streams, but it was crazy. Like there was one day I remember they forgot that I guess they forgot to read up on whatever they read up on that She just tank and then just shot back up like two days later, right? And I was remembering the conversation. I'm like, yeah, like Why isn't this moving like this? We're an artist that's doing 20,000 streams a day And it's like did you forget who you were talking to? No, you're not we see the numbers, brother And that goes back to something about not getting lost in the sauce of the bot traffic Which is why I also think smart shouldn't do it not even because They're not playing the game. Well, I think if you're probably like a Three to five you're starting to get into playing the game of perception, right? Like you're zero to two. You're not nobody cares three to five people starting to care It's not even about that part. It's more about you start to believe the bot traffic too much But you start psychologically talking to me crazy because you getting 50 000 streams a day forgetting that you just paid them up Like for 40 000 of them. You know what I'm saying like a couple days ago It's like hey, man, so that campaign taught me a lot when he said that shit Well, whoever said that said that bro. I was like, no, they fuck with me right now. This ain't real. This ain't a real conversation They don't believe this yeah, and it's something because I like this PR lady issues so And she was well connected. Um actually managed a Our legit artist on one end. Um who's like a legend in his niche, but at the same time When people get in the box, man, they they they get lost in the sauce so much they Like you said they they forget the position that they're talking from It's like I told you that we are going to have to build some real stuff. We only do the real stuff We don't do the bots. All right And if we did bots We would let you know. This is what we're doing. There's a real business in that like it's not like a look At some point. I'm not even saying i'ma never create a bot for myself You know what I mean? Like we might do that, but then the clients would just know that Yeah I know you do because you'd be like you'd be bringing it up So It's just about manage expectations. Hey, we're working on the real stuff right now That's this is what it looks like and this is the expectations that should come with it If we're doing the bot things we will be doing bots with the clients Who understand that game and that I wouldn't be doing bots with Artists who's working ground up and now they're gonna be like mad. Oh, what happened? No We're very clear expectations. You know what this bot thing does and we got you so you can hit your numbers bet We don't do bots. So don't expect that shit to pop cool bet, right? There's two separate conversations. So People get lost in where they are in that in that equation at the time and Then the part that I hate is when they look at the people who are giving them bots as people who are doing a better job That's what it will get me is oh, I'm gonna go back to them because when I went I was with him my my numbers were popping 50,000 streams before yeah, but don't bring them expectations right like over here. You know that we're doing something different. So You know that the adult That that is what it is. That was definitely our Our greatest situation. Yeah, like that like that. Uh, that should talk me a lot, you know There was some other full pause that happened in that window. So, you know, it you know, it broke even I think like something we never talked about in the podcast, but I think everyone should look into I don't remember the guy's name But there was a guy I think it was during the pandemic that got caught up for having the streaming form And my deal board made a whole deal about it. Uh-huh His business started booming like fuck after that, bro Yeah Also was a learning moment for me because that was back when I was on it. Oh, that's a bad You know what I'm saying? I know you're right, but that taught me so much. I was like, oh, he probably lost Let's say 60 70 of maybe his small artists people that were thinking about how he probably wasn't going for anywhere, right? every Industry artist that was looking for that Oh for real. He has an infrastructure to do this. He's he's doing it for this artist and this. Oh, yeah Let me get in on that That makes me think bro Like if you got bots and you're doing bots and you're wasting your time just scamming like young uh like upcoming artists You think you're scamming these upcoming artists. You are scamming yourself. Yeah, because there is real money But people would do bots it's one thing So this is how the person who is like, hey, I'm in scamming mentality. I'm just gonna have bots This is how your life should be set up if you are just trying to maximize all sides of it I go out for the industry. I have this front in presence though So I might get some inbound business In requests from artists who are wanting to come up who really probably shouldn't be doing bots And I take that business because it comes to me But I'm not out here heavily trying to go at that audience. I don't even care about that audience Really, I'm trying to go to the industry Because that's where the real money is and I can build the relationships and I can deliver every single time You know my whole thing and struggle that comes from like certain types of marketing. It's just like You can't guarantee it. All right any Real marketing, you know, you cannot guarantee in music But bots I can guarantee you these strings and that's my favorite type of product Oh, I just gotta push the button 100% customer cat satisfaction every time. Yeah So if you got a bi-farm man, you are wasting if you are just hitting up these These young kids who don't know any better go get the real money And then let some of those other, you know, people want to come up come in as they may Yeah, I bet y'all didn't wake up today expecting to get Consultative business advice for bi-farm They're saying that ain't on the internet, right? No, I don't think anyone's ever talked about it from that perspective How to do it bi-farm? Yeah, bro. Well, not how to do it How to do it smart off. Oh, how to do a how to do it smart Pick your target audience for your product. Yeah, because yeah, man That that just be the biggest thing I think people can take with me But like once you hit a certain level everybody doing it So it only becomes shocking until you hit that point I've had conversations with people before with like like I said back 2020 2019 early marker, kory I was very against bots, you know, because I didn't understand what they fit in the funnel And I always remember this conversation I had with this Pretty successful label owner. I don't want to say his name, but it's pretty successful label on it here And he's asking me about doing like play listing for one of ours. I'm talking about like how like Yeah, we don't believe in it because it's it's boxing there and blah blah blah Right and I could hear in his voice that he did not give a fuck like, you know, all this, you know Holier than thou You know I'm saying I'm for the people and for the real bullshit. We're not looking for that, bro We're looking we're looking for this other shit. Do you have this other shit or not? No, we don't all right. Well, we're not working with y'all You know what I'm saying what you're telling me is you can't give me the guarantee that I need exactly exactly So you say if I give you this you don't know what's gonna happen. No, no, I don't fuck it up But I already got a real fans. I don't need real fans. I need bots, bro I need numbers not people. I need numbers nigga. Like that's that's what it is That's exactly what it is man. So look Yeah, we're gonna we're probably gonna have to do a bot farm one day man. Didn't just tell y'all about it I've been wanting to do that. I want to do a youtube video where we started about a bot farming document the whole process Yep, that should probably go Won't look I know I'm talking about like do it do it. Oh, yeah. No Hey, we got a bot farm. This is what we do We ain't gonna tell you about any of our clients this shit that part is ironclad y'all wouldn't know None about none of the the clients, but oh, yeah, we got them All those clients are super confident. We'll even brag about them on the case Don't even brag about them. You only see case studies. You only see any remote connection to it But because again, this is the reality And it's the funniest thing about It says just how people think Um from their own perspective It's like, oh man exposing this spot farm, right? And it's like no, that's marketing for the people who actually won You know what I mean? Like that's marketing. You think oh man good for them. They got taken downs. Like now I'm glad they're being exposed. No, not being exposed. They're being exposed to the people who Are right for them. That's what was happening. It's not an expose. They like you think and Honestly, this always I say this again and again artists a lot of times We're not talking about the scamming people that are like that. That's that's one thing, right? And who don't have their business set up in the right way um A lot of times y'all will make comments about people's business and it'll only I The only thing it does is and identify you as somebody who's not qualified for that business It's like when I've seen comments for People will be like, oh man, you know, these people were too expensive You know We've had that comment about our stuff before like, oh, that shit costs 3k or whatever or 1500 or whatever Like they'll just thought whatever number we were at the time And then they'll think they'll be warning other people It's like where you've never done business with us and based on your comment You don't have the money which means you are not a customer. So I'm glad that our funnel did exactly what it's supposed to do Like we built the funnel to Repel people like you and you know prices one thing just but there's so many parts of the funnel and so many aspects That you build out to repel the people. So a lot of times Look, I'm on the internet and something don't hit. I'm like, hey, it must not be for me I'm not like judging and saying, you know, it's one thing for between a clear scam and uh, you know, I'm not the customer Yeah, I'm like, oh shit That car costs that much money or that like these people are paying $20 for a bottle of water is like, hey, maybe it's not for me. You know, I mean because people are buying and they success Is somebody keeping this air running Somebody keeping this somebody keeping this air running and it keeps running. It keeps running. So that money must be coming in So, you know, and I think that from a market standpoint, especially you kind of have to think like that. Yeah, yeah Like just see beyond yourself. That's why I love about it actually And if you're bad at marketing, you probably can't see beyond yourself The best you can do in a marketing aspect If you are like completely self-centered and can't be aware these smaller elements is self-promotion Like if you're someone who can like talking like just like that that self-promotion You can't be really good at that without understanding marketing for real for real. Yeah, all right But That's about it. You can't especially if you have to do it for somebody else, right? You're not going to be able to connect those dots the same Everybody doesn't have your own talent in that way of doing things. But um Yeah, man, I think you're right. I don't think I'm No one expected to buy I definitely expect to go that direction. But hey There it was and here we are What's up? What's up? If you enjoyed this clip make sure you watch the full episode right here