May 2021 Q&A

Transcript

Hey, welcome. This is the May 2021 Q&A. It's the first one that I've done for Patreon.

I've got a couple on YouTube that you can check out. One for when I hit 10,000 subscribers and another for when I hit 25,000. But this is the first one that's exclusively for Patreon.

So thank you for supporting me. Thank you for coming here. I'm going to go through these questions and mention who suggested them.

Please bear with me, forgive me if I mispronounce your name. And if you want to shoot me a message, giving me the correct pronunciation, feel free to do so. I do want to get your names right.

The first one, the first four questions actually are from Hannah. First one is, what are your top three favorite nonfiction books? Well, I am a big fan of historical nonfiction.

Unfortunately, I don't get as much of a chance to read these days as I wish I did. But as far as nonfiction, the book An Army at Dawn by Rick Atkinson. It's the first book of the Liberation Trilogy.

It chronicles the Second World War in North Africa in 1942 and 43. Very good book. He's got others in that series, obviously a trilogy.

But really good look at that part of the part of the war that doesn't get as much attention as the war in Europe did. Second book is His Excellency, George Washington by Joseph J. Ellis.

It's a very good biography of George Washington. And it's not the most accessible book I've ever read in terms of the, it can be a little bit of a heavy read. A lot of very complex writing, that sort of thing.

But definitely worth the effort if you put in the time and energy to get through it. And the third one is a self-help book called The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson. And basically, in a nutshell, the point of the book is choose the things that you're actually going to care about.

Because if you care about things over which you have no power, or that just aren't that meaningful, you're going to end up frustrated and anxious and not living your best life. So choose the things that you're actually going to care about. One of the guiding principles of my life when I'm choosing my battles is something that I've asked myself for many years, is this the hill I want to die on?

Meaning, is this where I want to make a stand? Is this where I want to burn political capital in my workplace? Is this where I want, you know, not burn it, but spend it? You know, I want to call in my favors.

This is where I want to call in favors. And so many things, once I ask that of myself, are like, you know what, I can just let this pass. It doesn't, I don't need to care that much about this.

I'm going to save my attention and my concern for places where it's actually going to make a difference. Second one is, what's your favorite poem and can you recite it for us? My favorite poem, I'm not much of a poetry guy, my favorite poem is Beowulf.

And you didn't see that coming, did you? It's an epic poem in Old English. And no, I cannot recite it.

It's like 3,000 lines long or some such. I have read, or am reading actually, a really, really good translation by Seamus Haney, Haney spelled H-E-A-N-E-Y. I highly recommend it.

It's very accessible, very well done. What's the kindest thing a stranger has done for you? Well, this is something I've talked about previous times and places throughout my audio career.

About a year and a half ago, when I was going through a really tough time, one of my listeners reached out and she made me a relaxation audio that became my favorite audio and the number one audio I've listened to of all. Just a wonderful act of kindness from someone that didn't know me, just knew she liked my audios. And since then, we've become very good friends.

Number four, can you tell us about an amazing experience you've had in another country? Yeah, so I had the opportunity, you know, throughout my life, I've had, you know, at different points in my life, I've had pen pals, I've had friends in different parts of the world, online friends that I, you know, never actually got to know in real life. But a while back, I was able to go meet one of my very best online friends in a foreign country, and we had a marvelous time together.

And just one of the high points of our friendship, I think, and something that I very much look forward to doing again. So that was a pretty incredible experience. Angelica Mosqueda asked if you could do a collab, who would it be with? Well, I've done a couple, actually, I've collabed with Cardlin.

And we have, we did two audios together, the first of which is on my channel, and the second is on his. And then I also previously collabed with Panthera Audio. And that is also on my channel.

I'm friends also with Sweetheart Audio. She's formerly known as Honey Audio. And I would be delighted to do a collab with her.

She's a very, very talented voice actress. And she's actually had a strong influence on the direction of some of my audios. So, yeah, someone I'd definitely like to work with in the future.

Some of my listeners have suggested that I collaborate with NotWhoRoseThinks. That's something I've never actually looked into, maybe in the future. I might reach out to him.

Rodina says, do you know about the 16 personality types? And if you know, what is yours? Yeah, I've heard about them.

I've not taken the full test. But just from reading descriptions, I can tell you with almost clear, certain, with almost absolute certainty, I'd be an ESTJ, aka the director. Extraversion, sensing, thinking, and judging.

I'm very much a quantitative kind of guy. If I can measure it, I can do something about it. If I can detect it, I can make a plan, you know, kind of thing.

Very much like I've been told it's infuriating to get an argument with me because I logic the fuck out of people. And people, I've been told before, yes, you're right, but I want to be angry right now. So that's me.

ESTJ, I guarantee. Maybe someday I'll do the test and then I'll have the proof. Tisha says, are you really truly doing okay? You know, 2021 has been a challenging year for me.

There have been ups, there have been downs, there have been things in my personal life that I did not expect that have had a significant impact on me. And so to really truly be doing okay is a little bit of a complex question. I'm doing very well.

I'm very happy. That doesn't mean I'm not still working through some major challenges, but I'm happy. I'm at peace.

Thank you for asking. Haley says, if I wanted to, or asks, if I wanted to write a script, could you help me? Well, due to the growth of my channel, I recently passed 26,000 subscribers and my real life obligations, I'm not able to do a lot of collaborative script writing with other people, do a lot of proofreading, or even do a really thorough read of every script that I'm sent.

But I mean, not for performance, but to proofread and et cetera, and render opinions on. A few pointers I can give though, you want to make your script sound natural and flow naturally. So you want it to basically be like a conversation two people would actually have, the way they would actually talk and then just remove one of them.

And so that means like, well, don't have people, don't try to fill in the listener's lines by having the speaker just repeat them back in the form of a question. Oh, you want to go to the store now? It's much smoother to say, yeah, let's get ready.

We can go to the store. Or yeah, I'm ready to have the door. Let's go.

You know, and that's what you would actually talk in real life. And you're allowing the listener to infer, oh, I was just talking about going somewhere. And therefore that's their response.

See, I told the same story, but I didn't make it hamfisted. I made it smoother. So that's a big thing, a very big thing.

In short, a script should not sound like a script. You know, it should sound like a real life conversation. And then you want to leave room for the voice actor or actress to inject some personality into it.

I like to add laughter, giggles. I sometimes alter things a bit, well, very much alter things a bit. I want to personalize it.

I want to make it moony. And one of the greatest compliments I've received in my audio career is one of my friends made me send her a copy of the script or link to the script on Reddit before she would believe that it was script fill. It sounded that naturally, that natural to her.

And so that was a great compliment to me that I had done that well, that it seems to be not scripted. Giselle asks, what is your favorite childhood memory? So where my grandparents used to live was right in the flight path for final approach for the international airport of the city they lived in.

Not like right, like where the planes are coming in, but, you know, there would be like a steady stream of planes coming down the same pathway. One would land and then taxi off. The other is already getting ready to land and taxi off.

And anyway, it was wonderful. In nighttime, you could see the lights of these airplanes, like just one after the other, all the way back as far as you could see in the sky. And I remember there was a baseball complex with several fields.

And my grandfather and I went out there and sat out there and ate ice cream together and watch the planes go by overhead. And I must've been 12 years old. I think something like that.

My grandpa passed away last year and it was one of my favorite memories with him or anyone. Just a beautiful time I had with my grandfather sitting there talking and listening to his stories and having him ask me about mine as we ate ice cream at the ballpark and watched the planes fly by overhead. So kind of a very idyllic kind of thing as well.

And I'm a romantic. So of course, that kind of thing sticks with me. And I'm a romantic.

So of course, that kind of thing sticks with me. Unrefined Sugar says, she asks, any advice for someone looking to start ASMR? Well, I have heard your voice and it's lovely.

So I'd say that's a good start. Try to stick to things that you like and that express you rather than creating content simply to get views or get subscribers. You want to really, you're going to feel the happiest about your creative work if it's expressing a part of you.

And so people ask me, is Mooney, like how close to Matt is Mooney? Well, Mooney is a part of Matt. Matt is a complex individual with strengths and weaknesses, shortcomings, flaws, and wonderful good things as well.

Mooney is a kind of a simplified version of that. But he's definitely a part of me. He definitely comes from me.

And that's why I get a lot of satisfaction out of my audios because I'm expressing me. That's why I personalize scripts, because I'm expressing me. So do things that express you.

Don't just go for what's going to get you views or subscribers. I mean, if they're the same thing, by all means, knock yourself out. Get good equipment.

Try to get yourself into a decent recording space. Take the time to edit your vocal tracks. And I mean, you don't have to go like the full immersive audio thing that I do, but take the time to create a quality product.

You know, take out white noise, big blips in the data, or I'm sorry, in the vocal track, that sort of thing. Think really, really hard before you decide to go over to the NSFW side of the house. Now, I'm not over in that space, but I can tell you there are folks I know who have had real life repercussions from being over there.

And it's just somewhere that you need to, if you're going to go there, that's something you should just do very thoughtfully and deliberately. Keep yourself open to criticism. And even mean spirited criticism can still have points where you can say, okay, here's something I could do better.

And no, screw you and go away, you know. Be inclusive. You may notice in my audios, I never say, oh, I love your beautiful brown eyes or your long hair or anything like that, because it's going to exclude any of my listeners that hear that and say, well, that's not me.

That's a big part of why I don't mention specific physical characteristics, because I want to be as inclusive as I can. That's why as much as I can, I try to make my audios M for A. I want as many people as possible to be able to put themselves into that audio as the other half of the conversation and enjoy it.

What is my favorite underrated snack, dried seaweed, that you get from Costco? What is something you can confidently do today that you wouldn't have been able to do five years ago? A lot of the audios I post are rather personal.

Some of them might surprise you, which ones are very personal to me. Others, not so much. And several years ago, I could not have recorded and posted those on the internet for the world to see.

That's something where I have really come a long way. Have you done anything recently that you think will be a core memory in your life? Well, you know, as many of you know from following me on YouTube, and as I mentioned earlier, 2021 has been a very challenging time in my life.

There have been some things I dealt with that I did not think I would have to and that I have overcome. And it continues to be a challenging time for me, but it's caused a lot of personal growth, a lot of personal improvement, opened my mind to a lot of different perspectives. And it's really marked a beginning and an ending in my life, a transition point, an inflection point where I can definitely say my life pre-2021 is going to be markedly different from my life post-2021.

For the better, but even better can be quite challenging. What is the worst joke you can think of on the spot? Pretty much any dad joke, like for real.

I was at work today and I heard one said by one guy in the hallway, passing one of our female colleagues. He's like, oh, I got a terrible joke. Why can your nose not be 12 inches long? And she goes, why not? And he goes, because then it would be a foot.

Like, bruh, seriously. At least he acknowledged it was a bad joke before he said it. But yeah, any number of dad jokes.

What's the thing you love most about yourself? I am a very compassionate person. I'm empathetic and I'm generous, sometimes to a fault.

And I like that about me, that I care deeply about people and that as far as I'm able to, I'm willing to give of myself and of my means and my skills and time to alleviate suffering of those around me. Ana asks, how closely do you stick to the script? I don't.

Most of my audios are done as an outline that I then riff off of. There are a few that are 100% true improvs. Even the scripts that I've done, though, I've done considerable personalization.

And yeah, I don't really stick that close to script. Do you improvise? Yeah, most of the time.

Lizzie asks, which is your least scripted video thus far? Well, there are several that were completely unscripted. A few examples that come to mind right off the bat, Good Morning Sunshine, Sleepy Bedtime Snuggles, and then the recent voicemail one, We Can Make New Plans.

Those were all completely unscripted, and I'm sure there are others, but yeah. Actually, What I Love About You started out, I was going to make a movie audio, and I got veered off into completely unscripted positive affirmations. So there was a plan, I guess, for the initial part of the audio and where I thought it was going to go, and it went somewhere else, and I just followed it there.

She also asked, do you see a long-term future as Mooney? As long as y'all want me around, I plan to stick around. Don't want to overstay my welcome, though.

What time of the day is your wind-down time? Yeah, you're kind of exposing my poor sleep hygiene. I kind of don't have a wind-down time.

I typically am go, go, go until I'm not, and then I fall asleep. And I know, I know I need to do better. Maybe when I'm sleeping is a wind-down time.

City life or white people.