Justin Kramm: How a Parody LinkedIn Post Became Shit Show Creative, a Global Creative Collective & a Movement to Break the System | Be Yourself Podcast

Be Yourself Podcast

JustinKramm

Award-Winning Marketer & Founder of Shit Show Creative — on How a Parody LinkedIn Post Accidentally Launched a Real Company, a Global Creative Collective, and a Movement to Challenge How the Entire System Works

42 minutes

Creative Entrepreneurship · Breaking the System · Chaos & Opportunity · Passion vs. Sustainability

Watch on YouTube Shit Show Creative

About This Episode

What Does It Really Mean to Start a Company as a Joke and Watch It Turn Into a Movement?

Justin Kramm spent twenty years inside advertising — writing campaigns, directing creative work, and freelancing for clients including Red Bull, LinkedIn, PayPal, and Nike. He knew the system from the inside. And then, on Cinco de Mayo 2025, without a strategy or a plan, he posted a parody LinkedIn article called "Embracing the chaos — Shit Show Creative launches." He took a thirty-minute dog walk, came back, and had a hundred reactions and a message from Australia. By the end of that week, he had a URL, a real website, a merch shop, a paying client, and the beginning of a global community he never saw coming.

In this conversation with Sergey on the Be Yourself Podcast, Justin unpacks the full story of how chaos turned into opportunity — and why he believes that is exactly how the best ideas are born. He talks about what twenty years inside the system actually gave him: not just experience, but the knowledge of where the Death Star plans are hidden. He breaks down why you have to master a system before you can break it, drawing on the story of Dietrich Mateschitz, who spent twenty-five years at Procter & Gamble before creating Red Bull and an entirely new category of marketing.

They also go deep on creativity outside offices, why the best ideas never happen in cubicles, what happens when supply chain executives run companies that were built by dreamers, and what Jim Carrey's graduation speech has to do with why passion converts to profession — and why it doesn't.

How a parody LinkedIn post accidentally launched a real company, a merch shop, and a global community in three days

Justin posted a joke article, took his dog for a walk, came back to a hundred reactions and a message from Australia. Three days later: URL registered, website live, merch shop open, first paying client. Within two weeks: 700 people in a WhatsApp group. It was never supposed to be real.

To break the system, you have to be a part of it first — why twenty years inside advertising was the prerequisite

Dietrich Mateschitz spent twenty-five years at Procter & Gamble — the most conservative packaged goods company in the world — before creating Red Bull and an entirely new category. His advice to his own goddaughter: start inside the system, then break free. Justin followed the same path.

The global shitsters collective — how creatives from Nigeria, Ethiopia, Croatia, Wales, Pakistan, and Australia found each other

Justin did not go to Fiverr. He did not post job listings. The global creative collective came to him — an Ethiopian who speaks German with an American sense of humor, a Scottish writer living in Croatia, fans from New Zealand and India. Like-minded people attract each other like magnets. The internet just makes it efficient.

Ideas don't happen in cubicles — the basketball court no one uses, ping pong tables no one plays, and Walt Disney's bench

Justin visited a legendary ad agency in LA that does Apple's work. They had a basketball court in the middle of the office. He picked up a ball and started dribbling. His friend told him to stop — they don't use it. Walt Disney came up with Disneyland on a bench watching his daughter on a carousel. That bench is now in the Disney family museum.

No dreamers left in business — what happens when weathermen run Disney and supply chain experts run Apple

Disney's current CEO is a former weatherman. Apple's CEO is a supply chain expert who knows how to squeeze maximum revenue out of something that already exists. Neither is a dreamer. Walt Disney had to escape from his own board to secretly cook up Disneyland in the parking lot with three employees. Nothing has changed — except now the board always wins.

When passion turns into profession — the "phenoying" theory and Jim Carrey's graduation speech

Justin's test for whether you're meant to do something: when the annoying parts are still pretty entertaining to you. He calls it "phenoying" — fun and annoying at the same time. Jim Carrey said it differently: you can fail at what you don't want to do, so you might as well give all your heart to what you do want to do.

About the Guest

Justin Kramm — Award-Winning Marketer, Creative Director & Founder of Shit Show Creative

Justin Kramm has spent twenty years working in advertising as a creative director and copywriter, almost always paired with a designer partner — at the entry level and at the top. Over those two decades, he worked with brands including Red Bull, LinkedIn, PayPal, and Nike, primarily out of San Francisco and Fort Lauderdale. He is an award-winning marketer who knows, as he puts it, where the Death Star plans are hidden — and exactly how to destroy the empire of mediocrity.

On May 5, 2025 — Cinco de Mayo — he posted a parody LinkedIn article with the headline "Embracing the chaos — Shit Show Creative launches," featuring a ChatGPT image of three smug founders arms crossed in front of a modernist office building in Venice, California. He went on a dog walk. When he came back, it had a hundred reactions and a message from Australia. Three days later, Shit Show Creative was a real registered company with a website, a merch shop, and a paying client.

Today Shit Show Creative is both an agency and a global creative collective — a community Justin calls shitsters — spanning Nigeria, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Croatia, Wales, Australia, New Zealand, and India. The mission: spread comedy, kindness, and chaos for a cause. Their Substack newsletter, The Shit List, has grown to over 420 subscribers. Their goal is to end divisiveness by weaponizing weirdness — and to be, as Justin puts it, a United Nations of weirdos, connected online and making stuff together.

What He Does

Award-winning creative director and copywriter with 20 years in advertising. Founder of Shit Show Creative — a global creative agency and collective born from a viral parody LinkedIn post. Creator of The Shit List newsletter on Substack. Self-described global shitster.

The Origin Story

Posted a parody article on May 5, 2025 just to make three people laugh. Took a thirty-minute dog walk. Came back to a hundred reactions and a message from Australia. Within 3 days: website, merch shop, first client. Within 2 weeks: 700 people in a WhatsApp group and a growing global movement.

The Philosophy

To break the system, you must first master it. Dietrich Mateschitz spent 25 years at P&G before creating Red Bull. Justin spent 20 years in advertising before launching Shit Show. There are no rules saying Hollywood has to own filmmaking or New York has to have finance. The board is about to be tossed.

The Mission

Spread comedy, kindness, and chaos for a cause — ending divisiveness by weaponizing weirdness. A United Nations of weirdos connected online. No office, no boardroom, no hierarchy. Just like-minded creatives from every corner of the world making fun stuff together, with no time left for fighting.

Key Quotes

Business is sort of a board game. It's sort of like the game Monopoly. But every once in a while, just like board games, the game's over and somebody tosses up the boards and all the pieces go flying everywhere and you start again. Things are about to start again.

Justin Kramm

I think to change the system you have to be a part of it to break the system.

Justin Kramm

When you're meant to do something it's when the annoying parts of what you're doing are still pretty entertaining to you.

Justin Kramm

Episode Chapters

0:00 Episode Teaser & Intro 1:02 How Shit Show Creative Started 6:55 Global Shitsters Community 9:37 How to Break a System 14:20 Ideas Don't Happen in Cubicles 17:31 No Dreamers Left in Business 21:07 Building Castles in the Sky 24:40 How Justin Finds New Customers 30:05 Hollywood Feedback 32:30 Passion into Profession 35:22 Jim Carrey's Wisdom 41:01 Support Shit Show

Full Transcript

BTW: This episode of the Be Yourself Podcast is produced by Beverly Media. Also on the show:
Anneli Hansson — Brand Strategist on Launching a Six-Figure Course with The Futur, Building Global Authority & What Branding in 2026 Really Means →

0:00 Episode Teaser & Intro

Justin Business is sort of a board game. It's sort of like the game Monopoly. But every once in a while, just like board games, the game's over and somebody tosses up the boards and all the pieces go flying everywhere and you start again. Things are about to start again. There's no rule that Hollywood has to own movie making. There's no rule that Nashville has to own country music or music in general. There's no rule that New York has to have finance.

Justin A real productive conversation is messy. like I interrupt you, you interrupt me, and this is how the best ideas are born. You know, I worked for Red Bull since I was in university, and Red Bull was new to the United States, and I helped introduce it here. And one thing I learned from Dietrich Medic, the founder, is that

Sergey Hello everyone, welcome to the Be Yourself podcast, the podcast on expressing our true selves. Today my guest is Justin Kramm who's an award-winning marketer, founder, and creative director of Shit Show Creative. Justin, welcome to the show.

Justin Thank you so much. I appreciate you inviting me here.

1:02 How Shit Show Creative Started

Sergey Justin, you know, I have special place in my heart for stories where people, you know, said something like, "Screw it. I'm going to do it." And it seems like with your creative agency there was something along these lines. So can you tell us a little bit about your early work experience and how you actually started the Shit Show the creative agency with such an interesting name.

Justin Yeah. So, I've been working in advertising for 20 years as a creative director and a writer, usually paired up with a designer partner at as an entry level and also as a creative director. I would always have a teammate almost always. And in 2016, I moved back to Fort Lauderdale from San Francisco where I spent most of my career. And Fort Lauderdale is my hometown in the south south Florida. But I didn't tell anybody. So, LinkedIn still said that I was living in San Francisco and I positioned myself as a San Francisco Bay Area writer, creative director in part because they're known for being very tech-savvy and even more importantly, they're known for getting paid well. So, that was my own little secret. And I would even fly out to San Francisco two or three weeks out of a month and freelance. And I would pay for the hotel or motel myself or stay with family or friends. And so a lot of people didn't even know I lived in South Florida.

Justin And then time passed and around this year 2025 something really big happened. I feel like chat GPT finally started really affecting the job market and a lot of my friends were out of work and in fact I wasn't getting any new work. All of my work was San Francisco clients I'd had long before chat GPT was introduced. So I started writing on LinkedIn very funny comedy stuff and LinkedIn some people say oh that's not professional but I realized I'm a writer a comedy writer so for me that is professional that's my job and I started writing this stuff to make other people laugh and they would write stuff to make me laugh and the funny thing is I never met a lot of these people in real life it was just a small group of us having fun on LinkedIn.

Justin And then Cinco de Mayo May 5th, 2025, not very long ago, I guess eight months. I wasn't really thinking about it. And that's on that morning, I posted an article that was a parody article, kind of like The Onion, the funny newspaper, and it said, "Embracing the chaos Shit Show Creative launches." And that was the headline. And then I spent about 10 seconds making a chat GPT image. And the prompt was three smug founders arms crossed in front of a modernist office building in Venice, California. And it capped out this image that was pretty decent, but I didn't think it was a deep fakery. And I posted it, the article, and it was absurd. I even had #parody right under it. I wasn't trying to fool anybody. I go on a walk with my dog and I come back half an hour later and the thing has a hundred reactions.

Justin And then I checked my messages and some guy from Australia said that he said, "I'm in Venice, California. I want to meet you. I'm right around the corner from you. I want to do business together." And all at once I thought, "What have I done?" Because all of the comments, almost all of them were people who thought we were a real agency and that I worked for him, which is funny because I did, the article didn't mention my name at all. I don't live in Venice. Um, but everybody assumed I worked for this agency and a lot people started saying funny stuff like watch them be agency of the year or love that they're disrupting the disruptors and then one guy said I wouldn't hire you and I said I wouldn't hire us either. And then him and I became so people made fun of us I would just pile it on because it was a joke.

Justin So, I noticed a lot of people started realizing it was a joke and then they told me, "You got to make this real." And somebody sent me this heartfelt message and said, "Look, I know this thing went viral and you could just laugh it off and move on, but this is a unique opportunity. You got you only live once. Do it." And that was the encouragement I needed. And people were saying make a website. And I said, "But it's not a real business." And they're like, "Well, you are now." So, I made a website and they're like, "I would buy merch. You need a merch shop." So, I made a merch shop and I got a client and this was all in three days.

Justin I couldn't believe Shit Show Creative. The URL was available. I mean, maybe I'm the only one, but I think that was a great name that was still available. So, I registered as a company. I had a credit card. This woman messages me. She's like, "Have you ever thought of having a Substack?" I'm like, "What's a Substack?" And she's like, "Don't worry. I'll start I'll take care of it. So, she is my editor. She still works for me and we've got a bunch of paid subscribers to our newsletter Substack called The Shit List. Got 420 subscribers overall. The thing's grown fast. Within two weeks, we had 700 people in a WhatsApp group. And very quickly, it seemed like more than a company. It became a movement. And people started writing me these messages saying, "I don't even know what you're doing, but I want to be a part of it."

6:55 Global Shitsters Community

Justin This guy from Ethiopia who speaks German and has an American sense of humor was the first person I hired as a freelancer as part of the team. And he said, "Your vibe is electric." And I thought that was really funny that this guy knew that kind of slang. So, I brought him on and then he started making AI comedy videos for me and we started teaming up. And then the second person I hired was a Croatian was a um a Scottish writer, this woman living in Croatia. So, we had this global community, Pakistan, Nigeria, London, Wales, and all these people found me. I didn't go on Fiverr and find these people. I didn't know I was going to hire overseas, but it happened to all the most of the early fans were in New Zealand or Australia and places like India. So, I had a I called them shitsters. So, I had this global collective of creatives that I call shitsters.

Justin And we just and our mission is to spread comedy, kindness, and chaos for a cause. So, sometimes that cause is making a brand famous or making a person famous. What we're really excited about though is making the we want to popularize ocean cleanliness like sustainability, mental health, veterans health, things like this that we can agree on and we want to end divisiveness. Very early on we all noticed there weren't fights and people attacking each other in the comment threads. It was all good stuff. And then we actually found out that before we started, a year before we started, there was already LinkedIn. So there's a community existing on LinkedIn right now, at least a thousand people that only positive stuff, art, comedy, music, and that's what we're all about. Ending divisiveness, weaponizing weirdness, we call it.

Justin And also, we want to be like a United Nations of weirdos, but we don't we don't all meet in a formal office room in New York. We're just connected online and share passions and and our friends and make stuff together because if we're making stuff, we're making fun stuff together. There's no time to be fighting or arguing. It's not going to happen. So, it's really, you know, we've we've got a lot of clients and we're not making as much money right now as I want, but it's all patience. I just read a book about Walt Disney and they didn't turn a profit for 20 years, so I hope I can do better than that.

9:37 How to Break a System

Sergey So many things to unpack here. But before we go there, you you're still not a rookie in this area. So you worked decades I assume doing the copyrighting or campaigns for big brands I see PayPal, LinkedIn, Nike. So you worked for someone prior to that, right? And you had some big connections already at that point.

Justin Yes. So that was something that I realized I had to make clear to people early on is a lot of people assumed that I was some maybe a comedian or just a random dude who had this crazy idea. And the fact is I'd been working for 20 years. So I think to change the system you have to be a part of it to break the system. It doesn't mean that you do it alone. I think to really break the system I need a bunch of people too that are new to the system. a lot of them and I have I have a lot of them but we're always growing but I think the person the ring leader of this circus I think it's good that I was part of the system so one of our client one I've worked for Red Bull since I was in university and Red Bull was new to the United States and I helped introduce it here.

Justin And one thing I learned from Dietrich Mateschitz is that he worked for Procter and Gamble for maybe 25 years. Procter and Gamble is the most conservative packaged goods company in the world and he created Red Bull. So he broke the system, created a new category, new form of marketing, but first he had to master the old system. So I met his goddaughter through work. She worked for Red Bull too, but he told her she worked for Red Bull in university. He told her she should work for Procter and Gamble or somebody like this because he had the same advice for his goddaughter. You should begin your career working for the system and then you can break free and break change the rules. So that's essentially what's happened.

Justin I think I know enough about how I know where the you know the Star Wars I know where the Death Star plans are. I know how to destroy the empire of mediocrity. These holding companies that are all merging with each other. They're all accountants and the creatives are left out of the decision-making and I feel like business is sort of a board game and it's sort of like the game Monopoly and there's a holding company Omnicom that has boardwalk and park place. They have like the best pieces, but every once in a while, just like board games, somebody the game's over and somebody tosses up the boards and all the pieces go flying everywhere and you start again. Things are about to start again.

Justin There's no rule that Hollywood has to own movie making. There's no rule that Nashville has to own country music or music in general. There's no rule that New York has to have finance. I mean, maybe it will for a long time, but this isn't a law written in stone. And sometimes, you know, Roman Empire, empires get complacent. Companies get complacent. The founders of Warner Brothers, they were probably very passionate about entertainment and creativity and what they're doing in the very beginning. But once the founder dies and it's bought by somebody else and passed around like a basketball, I mean, those days are long over. And this is an exciting time because we're starting fresh again.

Justin And you and me are talking right now, and I think it's absurd that people think you have to be in an office to have spontaneous interactions and creativity because we're having a spontaneous interaction right now. Google and Facebook and Apple, they're all founded in garages where Facebook was a dorm room. And then now that they're trillion dollar companies are like, "Okay, all you workers, go back to the office. That's where the work gets done." It's like, "Oh, really? Cuz I thought you started this whole thing in a dorm room." So, I believe in remote working. I'm a big fan of it. and I issued a mandatory return to home office order early on and I poked fun at this issue. I'm passionate about it.

14:20 Ideas Don't Happen in Cubicles

Sergey It's funny how Paul Graham, the Y Combinator founder, he's he keeps saying that you have to preserve the startup atmosphere as you grow. But in reality, it's almost impossible to do when you're in this formal setting, right? How are you going to enjoy yourself, you know, play ping pong or play video games in between of creative process when you're just not in the place that lets you be free and that creates?

Justin It's funny you mentioned that because I went to a legendary ad agency that does the Apple work called Shy in LA and I was visiting my friend and they have a basketball court in the middle of the agency and I pick up a basketball court and start dribbling. He's like, "What are you doing? Stop. What are you doing?" I'm like, "It's a basketball court." He's like, "We don't use it." Why? Why not? And I laughed and he was serious. He's like, "We can't. We don't use that thing." I'm like, "What is it for decoration?" And then the similar thing happened in Silicon Valley at one of these big tech companies. I started playing ping pong and they're like, "You can't play ping pong, man." Like, I thought that's what it's here for. So, it probably was for that when it first started, but after it became a big bloated, boring company like everything else, you can't do that.

Justin But Walt Disney came up with the idea of Disneyland while he was on a bench watching his daughter on a carousel. And that bench is now in the family, the Disney family museum. So some of the best ideas of all time occurred outside of an office. In fact, I've never heard many interesting stories about I was sitting at a cubicle and... Yeah. I was over here like how Stephen King's written like a hundred books, but he's done it alone in his home office. I can't imagine if Stephen King was in a cubicle and there's Steve from accounting's birthday and people are trying to talk to him about Game of Thrones or some TV show. He's not going to write anything.

Justin So ironically I like working spaces sometimes, but I like them for fun and bonding, you know, camaraderie. But to do the real work, I think I got to be at home or at a coffee shop or outside on a patio, something like that. One of my best ideas was at a water park. I wrote about it on LinkedIn and I was with my kids and I was just staring off into space at my kids on the slide and I had this idea like why not you know people it's a cliche that people have ideas in the shower. It can happen anywhere.

Justin So, I think it's absurd that these people and by the way, the CEO of Salesforce lives in Hawaii now and he's on his private plane with the journalist saying why everybody needs to go back to work to the office in San Francisco and that dude does his work in Hawaii. So, the hypocrisy is pretty crazy.

17:31 No Dreamers Left in Business

Sergey I think Simon Sinek once emphasized that conversation the real conversation it should not stick to ethical rules not ethical code you know like a real productive conversation is messy like I interrupt you you interrupt me and this is how the best ideas are born you know so yeah for breaking the rules you mentioned that you're on the mission to break the system. Can you define what the system is right now? And what what do you imply by that?

Justin Oh, sure. Well, I would say at the very top of companies, Apple for example, we don't have dreamers anymore. We don't have I mean, let's look at Disney, it's a former weatherman. He's not a cartoonist. He's not a writer. He's not an artist. He's a weatherman. And he became good at business. The head of Apple, he's not a creative. He's not an engineer. He's a supply chain expert who knows how to squeeze the most revenue out of something that already exists. So, it starts at the top that we don't really we don't generally have dreamers in charge of these companies anymore.

Justin And Apple hasn't had a new product that's been a breakthrough since maybe the watch. And I bet you that was in development when Steve Jobs was still alive. And the car was just a total waste of money, which is crazy because Zuks came out and it looks like what the Apple car could have been like a reinvention of the car, not not an iterative design of it. So I just say it starts at the top and then of course they're corporately owned, so they have to answer to the shareholders every quarter. Walt Disney would not be they would never have been allowed to have Disneyland if Walt Disney had to answer to the board. In fact, the whole Disneyland was created because Walt Disney didn't tell the board and he took three of his best employees to the parking lot and secretly cooked up this idea.

Justin So even back then, I mean it's nothing new, but even back then, Walt Disney had the man had to escape from the board. So I think corporate ownership of course is a big massive obstacle and the independents are the ones who are going to change things and the independent agencies right now like widen continue to do a very good job and haven't changed too much but whenever the founder that's why I don't put I don't call this place Kramm advertising I'm not going to put my name on it because I'm going to die someday but the Shit Show doesn't have to die and it's a It's a point of view that any that other people can share. So this thing could be inherited by a woman in India one day. Why not?

Justin I mean where you can be like-minded with somebody on the other side of the world who speaks a different language, comes from a different economic background, different religion. You can still be aligned with your creative point of view where your own neighbor, trust me, a lot of my neighbors and friends, they have no idea what Shit Show is. But people in Croatia and Nigeria and Ethiopia and Australia, they understand immediately. It's the most amazing thing that like-minded people can attract each other almost like magnets and especially with the internet, it makes it so efficient.

21:07 Building Castles in the Sky

Sergey I have a personal epiphany here like my co-founder and my investors they asked me to leave from the company that I created. So I was always someone who generated ideas and I founded my first business from Ukraine like an international business and I offered like my colleague to to to go with me. So we joined forces and we became co-founders and later on we we attracted investment group and he and my investors at the time they kind of fired me from my own company which is funny because that what happened to Steve Jobs as well. He was fired from his own company.

Justin Wow. You see, and I when you're saying all this is that, you know, there's there's a lack of imagination of free will at the top of the companies. It just my example is is just another evidence that people who are not dreamers, people who are more grounded and in control of things, they have an edge, you know, over people like me. Like I think the lesson here is that we have to still, you know, learn what the term shit is, what the how to protect ourselves because, you know, a lot of times creative people, they're naive and other people can take advantage of them. That was what precisely what happened to me, Justin, you know.

Justin Well, let I can totally unfortunately see that happening. Have you heard of Billy Joel the artist the musician? So there's a new documentary pretty new about him on you should find it but he talked about he was ripped off two times and went broke and bankrupt by managers. And he didn't he was like me. He didn't like spreadsheets. He didn't like accounting. He didn't like to make decisions about where he was going to play or what singles are going to come out or what. He didn't care about that. And then it was actually the second time he went broke. He's like, "Wait a second. I have to get in charge of my money because if I'm an artist, I need it. It's ironic, but as an artist, if you want to do your art, you have to you have to manage your money, too."

Justin So it reminds me of that expression, build your You ever heard that that expression, build your castles in the sky, but take care to build a foundation underneath them. So I think you need both. You need the left brain and the right brain. You got to have the art and the money. By the way, Walt Disney, who I talk a lot about, he had an older brother, eight years older, and all he cared about was money and business. And in the end, Walt Disney was the boss. But if he didn't have his brother, he would have gone broke long before. And he didn't always listen to his brother's money advice. But his brother was very influential to enough to that they survived and eventually thrived.

24:40 How Justin Finds New Customers

Sergey Justin, but can you can you reveal a few secrets on how and this is business talk right now because I also own an agency with we do video production and YouTube management for podcasters because podcasting is becoming a video game nowadays you know and a lot of audio podcast will either transition to video or they will die and we help to do that. And I want to obviously you're well connected. You you had your network, but how do you how do you find new customers to work with?

Justin Well, the fancy word is inbound marketing. But me, the things I say on LinkedIn are very provocative and that's why I call myself a global shitster. That's the title I gave myself early on. I stir shit. In other words, I stir a good kind of trouble. I take on the system and I don't take on people who work for the system. I take on the people who lead the system. And in comedy, they call it punching up. So, not, you know, some people punch down. And I don't I'm not a fan of that. I'm not a fan. That's like bullying. To me, what's fun and what's funny and what's right is to attack the leaders of the system and roast them. I'm not talking about just like be angry. I'm talking about jokingly in a comical way, call out the hypocrisy. I mean, this is as old as the joke as like the king would have his jester, right?

Justin So, needless to say, I have some pretty provocative things and I've gone from 2,000 connections to more than 15,000 in six months. And so, I have no problem finding clients. I mean, we have a lot of them. That's the good news. The bad news is that some of them are nonprofits and I'm doing it purely out of love for the mental health, for example, and some of our most lucrative clients like potentially are the ones that drag their feet of course because there's more bureaucracy and the ones who are quick and nimble are the founders of these new companies like one of ours, one of our clients is called the Hermit and they're a calamari jerky company. So dried squid is hugely popular in Asia. It's like potato chips. It's very popular in Sicily. It's a cheap good source of protein and it's healthy.

Justin And this guy, the founder of the Hermit, it's caught right off of California by American fishermen. So, it's helping support this important industry. It's healthy. It's something new. So, the Hermit is our kind of client. And I don't call them clients. I call them creative soulmates because we're totally likeminded. And this guy wrote me an email. He said, 'I love what you're doing. I'm driving around California right now in a Toyota and I have a 7 foot tall squid costume in the back and I wear it everywhere I go. So I immediately knew he was the right person for us. In fact, if his budget was big enough, I was going to fly out and meet him and wear the suit myself because I call it Gonzo advertising, but it comes from Hunter S. Thompson the journalist he created Gonzo journalism so he didn't want to be a fly on the wall he didn't he thought by observing it it's already artificial you're already affecting what you're seeing so he wanted to be in it.

Justin I don't want to be a fly on the wall I want to be a fly swimming around in the rum on somebody's table so that's what I do with advertising. He sent me the squid we I ate it my team ate it we're not going to write about calamari jerky if we're not if we haven't tried it. We're going to have opinions about what we like and what we don't like about it and which flavor we like. And that sounds like a no-brainer, but most agencies I've worked at, you'll do a TV ad or a multi-million dollar ad and you didn't even use the product and you might not have personally talked to anybody who did.

Justin Emotions drive decisions, not stats or data. Well, maybe to some extent they drive all decisions including not to not to I won't divert it, but they drive all decisions including who you vote for or where you spend your money. Or who you marry. All of these things we like to think we're rational people, but the most important things in life are emotion driven. And then we postrationalize where we come up some rationale for why we did what we did. There was no rationale for posting that Shit Show article. It was to make three people laugh. It wasn't a big grand scheme a strategy I had planned it just happened that what is it like luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity something like that. I mean I had this rare opportunity to start an agency but I had 20 years of experience to actually know what I'm doing.

30:05 Hollywood Feedback

Justin I didn't even mention this, but when I posted that article, most of the interest was from Hollywood. And I could tell by the engagement on LinkedIn that 40% of it was from LA and the biggest viewers were HBO, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Walt Disney Studios. And a lot of people thought it was a teaser. They a lot of people thought it was a teaser for a TV show or a movie, but of course it wasn't. But I connected with all kinds of people from Hollywood. And to be honest with you, the entertainment world and the streamers and artists and musicians, they understand what I'm doing 100% more than other people in advertising because the people in advertising have become a part of this system so long sometimes they can't step out of it.

Justin But the people in Hollywood any kind of artist is constantly reinventing themselves. And the thing about advertising is we're at least half business, maybe more. Some of us have the art squeezed out of us 100%. And we lose all we stop reinventing ourselves, and then we start clinging to our I know people who are highly paid freelance creative directors who haven't worked in a year and they're not learning AI. And one of them told me, he's like, "Justin, I want to go to LA and and stay at the nice hotels and have the craft food and hang out with actresses and directors." I'm like, "I don't think that's going to happen anymore."

Justin And the people who are in this business just for the money or just for glamour or just for anything, those people are going to be exposed. And a lot of people say, "I like making stuff. I like it's like a cliche. I like making stuff." It's like do you because you haven't worked in 10 months and I don't see you making anything. Well, so this is really an interesting time for the profession. It's really like we're filtering out the people who talk about stuff and the people who do it.

32:30 Passion into Profession

Sergey I've had people from Hollywood and DJs on my show and when I asked them this question about turning converting passion into profession. I mean that's obvious for them. That's like what they what they've done in their life. And while I'll talk to more like white collar people, they start countering my belief that passion should bring you money because they are not doing this right. and their automatic response is to start defending themselves that actually passion can't bring you money. What do you think about that?

Justin I think if you center your life around like I love podcasting, right? I started a podcast and I realized that why don't I start a business that will also work with podcasters. I like it. And why don't I help other podcasters grow their shows on YouTube, you know? So it was just an extension of my passion. And you know we're not super successful yet but at least I love what I'm doing on a daily basis right now you know so what what your overarching you know thoughts on this matter.

Justin My theory about when you're meant to do something it's when the annoying parts of what you're doing are still pretty entertaining to you. So, I don't go I'll use this example. I don't golf, but all the golfers I know constantly complain about how frustrating and annoying and it is, right? But they do it and they enjoy it. So, I call it phenoying. It's fun and annoying at the same time.

Justin I'm sure with podcasting maybe there's certain technical hiccups or there's some things is not fun, right? But but overall you enjoy it so much that even the annoying parts are kind of fun little challenges for you that you will happily take on and you won't give up. And then so there's nothing that's easy. I mean if you were going to do anything seriously it's going to get more and more frustrating but you it's not going to stop you from doing what what you're doing you know.

Justin And then if you're not passionate about it, you're going to hit a wall. You're going to burn out or you're going to even more likely become complacent where you better get a job that's never going to fire you because if you lose your job, you'll be starting at zero.

35:22 Jim Carrey's Wisdom

Justin So one of my favorite actors and is Jim Carrey, comedian is Jim Carrey. And he gave a graduation speech to like a new age kind of spiritual college, not not like a typical one. And I remember him saying, "You can fail at what you don't want to do, so you might as well give all your heart to what you do want to do." Yeah, like there's a lot of people that studied coding because the government or big business or their parents said you got to be a coder, you got to be a developer. That's where it all is. And then a lot of them can't find jobs now because of AI. Now, if they were studying it because they were passionate about it, I don't think they should have any regrets. And I think they're going to be fine. They're going to figure it out because their passion for engineering will probably translate somewhere else.

Justin But the people that didn't believe in it and that wasted all that time and money for something they didn't believe in and now they're they should have studied English. I mean people are making fun of English degrees but now that you're vibe coding you're speaking English to GPT having an English degree can be a useful thing. So people are like what should my kids study and this and that and I for me it comes back to fundamentals. I mean, study the same thing the Greeks were studying 2,000 years ago. You know, the fundamentals of being a human because when AI comes out, double down, triple down on being a human being and wrestle with all the questions humans have always dealt with for thousands of years.

Sergey I remember a quote also by Jim Carrey. He said you can tell how pathetic the people life is by how deep they should dig for the moment of glory. You know like those people who are always living in the past and I think this signifies his desire to always reinvent himself. And I think it's it's a cool word conjunction, you know, reinventing ourselves because in our day and age, it's impossible just to stay still.

Justin So with AI, I think it's you either adapt or you just gonna stay off board probably. I don't think anybody's boring. I just think people are guarded and wearing masks. And if people could be themselves, we would find everybody being fascinating. In fact, if somebody is kind of reserved and safe and doesn't stir shit the reason that they're like that is probably an interesting story in itself, right? It may not be a happy one or or anything, but it would be an enlightening to know why they're so guarded and safe.

Justin And I mean, I can afford to be a shitster in part because, by the way, I worked 20 years. I have a lot of experience, but I also have savings. If you don't have savings, maybe you probably shouldn't be stirring too much shit you know? I mean, I'm using my savings to fund this right now, which gives me freedom. The second I have an investor, I lose a little bit. And if I have if I give up 50% 51, I lose every I mean, you give up 51, you might as well give up 100% is what most people say, right?

Justin Though I mean from a professional point of view there I have certain things that allow me or give me the opportunity to be who I am but there's I think in a personal way people can be their true selves without you know you don't need savings to just open yourself up to a friend or even better yet a stranger. Our friends try to keep us who we are we're like a cuddly blanket security blanket. So if we change too much, we make them uncomfortable. A good way to reveal yourself to people as your true self is to new friends, new business people, new strangers. That's why when people go to a new school or a new city, it gives you a chance to be yourself again. But if you don't have to change cities or schools to do that, you could just say, "Today, I'm going to talk to five strangers and I'm going to tell them that joke that I wouldn't tell anybody else."

Justin I did that yesterday with a nurse. There was this joke that my kids wouldn't laugh at my wife either. So, I had a nurse and I told her the same joke and she started cracking up. But, you know, I had to throw myself out there because she might not laugh. You know, there's a reason Jerry Seinfeld is a billionaire and he keeps traveling the world because his wife and his kids are tired of his jokes. So, he needs to go to Australia and go to stage with strangers to tell his jokes and then they'll pay him so much money to hear these jokes that his own kids roll their eyes at. It's pretty funny.

41:01 Support Shit Show

Sergey Justin, let's finish this strong by letting our audience know how they become a part of your Shit Show Creative movement and how can people support it.

Justin The best way to support the Shit Show is to go to Substack and look for the Shit List or Justin Kramm K R A 2 M's like Mickey Mouse. So becoming a subscriber of the Shit List is a great way and you can also subscribe by the way from shitshowcreative.com where you can read about who we are, who's part of the team and you can become a shitster. So the people who work with us are shitstirs and when we have clients you're welcome to apply to be a shitstir but maybe you don't work in the creative field and you just want to become a part of the movement and support nonprofits then you're a shitster.

Justin And we even have an anthem that we wrote a musical anthem because we are kind of like a country so we have our own national anthem and if you become a shitster and you send in your video, you'll become part of this global music video we're working on. Kind of like We Are the World but a funny version. Yeah, we are the shers.

Sergey This was super fun and insightful. Thank you, Justin. I hope we'll do this again one time.