iJustine: Digital Influencer, YouTuber, Tech Reviewer, and Gamer

Guy Kawasaki:
I'm Guy Kawasaki, and this is the Remarkable People Podcast.
This episode's guest is Justine Ezarik, or as you might know her, iJustine.
She is a YouTube personality, actress, social media influencer, and all-around nice person.
Have you ever looked at somebody and asked, "Why does she have so many followers? Why does she get all the free equipment? Why does she get all the attention? Why does she get invited to the Apple announcements?" And you get jealous and maybe even hostile, but iJustine should not garner such reactions.
I'm so happy for her success. She's been in four films, seven TV shows, and twenty-one web series.
Her YouTube channel has had over one billion views. Let that number sink in for a minute.
One of the funniest things she ever did was show her iPhone bill right after the iPhone was introduced in June 2007. It was 300 pages long. But within ten days of the release of this video, it had more than three million views and international media attention.
She got more attention from many people when she started one of the internet's first and most popular lifecasts, inviting people around the world to watch her every move, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
These days, iJustine is a one-woman new media phenomenon. She has over 3.5 million subscribers across multiple YouTube channels.
There's a lot to learn from iJustine's story of ascension to the top of social media, how she uses technology and her video editing techniques. Also, her sense of moral obligation.
I'm Guy Kawasaki, and this is the Remarkable People. And now, here is iJustine.
How do you define yourself?
iJustine:
It's crazy because I really don't even know anymore. I'm like a content creating machine, really.
Guy Kawasaki:
Did you ever foresee when you started of as a lifecaster that it would turn into iJustine the industry?
iJustine:
I don't think so.
I just really loved technology, I loved creating content and making people laugh and the whole live stream thing that I did, which was really wild because that was on Justin.tv, that was before Twitch TV, it was before people were really doing live streaming, so at the time it was really difficult to get that setup working because that was in 2007.
So it's amazing just to see how much you can now do just on your phone. And we carried around massive laptops and webcams and wireless cards, and it was such a process.
Guy Kawasaki:
Has the pandemic and all this quarantine stuff... how has it affected your content creation?
iJustine:
I think as far as content creation goes, I have basically been working over the past, however long I've been doing this, to be able to just work from home and work from my office. I basically have my house set up as a studio, so in that regards, it's the same, but I just feel weird making content.
I don't want to be making videos about expensive tech when people can't even get a job to be able to buy it. So it's been this fine line that I've been walking.
And when this all first started, I asked Twitter, I was like, "What should I do? Us as creators and influencers, what should we be doing?" And most of the people said, "Just create content like you normally were because we need the escape. We don't want to be watching content about stuff that we've seen on the news."
So I've just been doing my best to create the same content that I normally would. I got back to doing gaming videos again, so I've tried to enjoy making videos as much as I can because that's when it truly shows for your audience when you actually are enjoying it. So just continuing to create for them is something I've been trying to do.
Guy Kawasaki:
I think it's important that people hear that this is a conscious decision that you've made, to continue in the same vein, because someone who doesn't know this may look at it and say, "Wow, she's so tone-deaf. She's talking about $1,000 light ovens when 10 million people got laid off."
iJustine:
Yeah. And most of the companies that I've been working with as well, I'm like, "Okay, if we're going to do this, how can we also give back and in return, or is there going to be a charitable donation? Is there going to be a discount? What is going to happen? There has to be something else."
But I also, I'm working on trying to figure out a way to find tech that a lot of us haven't ever used and give to elderly communities or kids who are now homeschooled, but they don't have a computer to be able to connect to the internet to even take these classes.
So I think that's my next step; how do I take these connections and relationships that I have made over the course of however many years I've been doing this and try to get all these companies together to try to help a lot of these kids and elderly people connect?
It's so weird, even just talking about this, you go outside, it feels like we're living in a movie, but it's real life.
Guy Kawasaki:
What is your tech setup? Are you using all these Canon 5Ds or Sony a9s or is it just a bunch of iPhones?
iJustine:
No. I mostly am all Sony, so I shoot most of my unboxing stuff and B-roll stuff with the Sony a7 III, which is incredible, because I do still shoot a lot by myself, so I have a setup where they record externally to the Ninja Atomos so I can touch screen.
Everything is basically set up within my reach, so I don't really need anybody else, which is great because, especially at a time like this, where you can't have access to people or anything, and you have to do it yourself.
And I think that's one of the important things, especially for a lot of YouTubers and content creators, is at least know enough that if you do lose all of your people around you, you will have enough knowledge to be able to at least carry on in the meantime.
So I think that's something that is very important to me. I still edit a lot of my videos. And just knowing enough, I think for a lot of people to be able to do this, if you don't have anyone else, is something that's really important.
Guy Kawasaki:
Cool.
So how many Sony A IIIs are you running? Seriously, I'm geeking out here.
What's your setup?
iJustine:
We do have three Sony a7 IIIs but we use a 135 G Master for a bunch of closeup stuff. Usually the twenty-four to seventy is the go-to lens. And then we use the Sennheiser AVX wireless microphones and I edit on the Mac Pro, which is beautiful. It's a pretty nerdy setup.
Guy Kawasaki:
Is it the $50,000 Mac Pro?
iJustine:
It's a few dollars, sure. And it's one of those things where it's like, "Do I buy a new car or do a buy a new computer?"
And obviously, being me, I'm going to buy the computer and walk everywhere.
Guy Kawasaki:
What is your lighting? Are you using ring lights and stuff?
iJustine:
I just actually set up a new gaming station, so I just got the Elgato Key Lights which you can control all directly from an app, but I have one really big light mat that we use that just lights up everything beautifully. And then we have a couple of the Aputure dome lights that we have.
So I have an unboxing setup, I have a gaming setup, and this is my office, which is actually terribly lit right now because we're not recording videos.
We definitely have a couple of different sets where it's just turn-key, press a button, lights go on, cameras are ready.
Guy Kawasaki:
Martha Stewart has twenty people there.
How many people do you have when you do an unboxing?
iJustine:
At the most, one, if I have a second camera that I want to have roaming, but I also have a second camera set up stationary, so I don't need anybody else.
Again, it's just I have these two monitors that sit in front of me, and I can hit record on both of those, and they record to solid-state drives directly, so I don't even have to touch the cameras.
I do nothing. I'll still set a timer for thumbnails, and I'm just holding up the product. The thumbnail photo will take in three seconds, and I really can do everything myself, which is great, but it's also that I have to go edit it all.
Guy Kawasaki:
I've noticed that you immediately get everything Apple. Are you on Tim Cook's BFF list? Do you have to ask them for it or are they begging you, "Please iJustine, please look at our iPad Pro?"
iJustine:
It's so funny because ever since I was little, it was my dream to work for Apple. I was probably ten and I wanted to live in Cupertino. I didn't know anything, we didn't really travel very much, so I'd never really been outside of my little town in Pennsylvania.
And then the first time I went to Cupertino, I was like, "Huh, okay, this is interesting." It's not what I envisioned when I was a ten-year-old. But being able to cover stuff with Apple now, in the sense of getting to go to events and review the products, it really is a dream come true.
Guy Kawasaki:
Does the box with the iPad Pro just arrive the day after they announce it? They hand it to you at the event? Tim Cook is not exactly sending me anything.
iJustine:
I think I'm press and media now, so I think, just however they do those things with press and media. I still buy everything though.
Guy Kawasaki:
You buy everything?
iJustine:
I do. Yes.
Guy Kawasaki:
In order to maintain journalistic purity or because Apple's too cheap to give it to you?
iJustine:
Well, I do buy them.
Guy Kawasaki:
But, the day that iPad Pro is announced you can't go to a store and get it, even if you're iJustine, right? Is it a press pool?
iJustine:
I mean it's all press, yeah.
Guy Kawasaki:
So basically they send one to you and one to Marques Brownlee and that's it. That's all they have to do, end of discussion.
iJustine:
I was actually very surprised, especially with this iPad Pro because I'd used my previous one just to watch content, and then I loved what they did this year, is they showed a bunch of these commercials of showing all the things that you can do, like create a podcast, and I was like, "Can I really do all of that?"
So I really did test it out. I went and edited a fourteen, fifteen-minute vlog that I created, shot everything on the iPhone, edited all on the iPad. I was like, "Okay, so I guess it is possible."
Guy Kawasaki:
Possible or easy?
iJustine:
And then I got inspired to start a podcast, so I was telling my sister, "I've got to start a podcast now because I got a new iPad." She was like, "That's why you want to start it?" I was like, "Yeah, I think so."
Guy Kawasaki:
Do you have to pay for anything anymore?
iJustine:
I do.
Guy Kawasaki:
Really?
iJustine:
See, that's the thing is, I buy all my cameras, all my gear, sometimes Sony will send things for review, but for the most point, I spend a lot of money on gear and gadgets.
And sometimes I just don't like asking for it either, and sometimes when companies or brands do send you stuff, they obviously expect a lot in return, so sometimes I just don't want to have any bias, so I'm just going to pay for it.
But I'm definitely very lucky to get a lot of gear to check out and review, so I'm very thankful and grateful for that, but I do spend a lot of money on gear.
Guy Kawasaki:
I don't get nearly the amount of stuff you get but at some point it just becomes a burden. I mean, you've got to figure out everything. People think it's just opening a box, but it really isn't.
iJustine:
It's a lot, for sure.
Now, I've been reaching out to people just in my neighborhood or my friends and family, if they know people that need any extra gear.
So I've been going into my gear closet that usually I save stuff to use for comparison reviews, but there's people now that really need this stuff more than ever, so I'm just trying to take inventory, see what I have that I can part with, and make sure it gets to good homes.
I'm very grateful to be able to do that and give them homes like webcams. People aren't able to even get webcams now, so I went and found a bunch of my old Logitech ones and was able to ship them out to some gyms, so they're able to do live classes, and it's really wild.
Guy Kawasaki:
Do you ever wonder what your career path would be if the AT&T bill wasn't 300 pages?
iJustine:
I wonder if I would have been so much cooler if it was longer, if I had more pages. Now, to be cool on YouTube, it would have had to have been like five million pages.
But even then, I was working freelance doing video production, graphic design, doing editing and things like that, so I still was doing all of that stuff at the same time, then it just sort of flipped and I started becoming my own client.
So I really don't know. I would maybe be still editing or doing production work somewhere, but I feel like that video, it was so long ago, but at that time, people weren't doing the things that I was doing, filming and putting videos and content online.
So for me, that was more validation to my friends and family that, "Hey, look, there's something new to the internet, just trust me. I'm going to quit my job and figure this out. I might be homeless moving to California in two weeks, but I'm going to figure it out. See, look, this video did well." So that's really, I think, all that really did at the time.
Guy Kawasaki:
But, it doesn't sound like any of that was planned, right?
iJustine:
No. I don't think anything in my life is ever planned, which is very strange or scary, but I feel like that is what the joy of the internet is, because you really don't know what's going to happen tomorrow.
Guy Kawasaki:
Tell me about your editing process.
iJustine:
I use Final Cut.
Guy Kawasaki:
Final Cut. Okay.
iJustine:
I've been using Final Cut ever since the beginning. I actually took one of my first editing jobs editing Avid, but I didn't know Avid, so I went from college learning Premiere and then this company was like, "We edit Avid, do you know how to use that?" I was like, "Yeah, of course. I can edit Premiere. I'm sure I could handle this." And I get there on the first day, they were desperate for editors. So I get there, I was like, "Oh, this is way more difficult than I thought." And this is back in 2005, 2006, so online resources for these types of things, they were like non-existent.
So while I was teaching myself Avid, I was learning Final Cut, and I got them to switch over to Final Cut. And then ever since then, so probably since 2005, 2006, I've been editing in Final Cut.
And last year, I released a Final Cut tutorial to show people how to edit, start to finish, a YouTube video. So that was really fun. I think getting into the education space has been so great because I've learned so much over the years and made so many mistakes that I'm able to help these newer creators and give them some of the education tools. That's been really cool.
Guy Kawasaki:
Just for people who are listening to this and thinking, "Oh, yeah, I want to be a YouTube star someday like iJustine." If you were to count roughly, how many hours do you spend filming? How many hours do you spend editing and then how minutes does that produce?
So what's the ratio of filming to editing to final product.
iJustine:
I think it really depends. So for the iPad review, that video, I think I did have help shooting that, but for that video particularly, we probably shot for ten, fifteen hours over the course of two days, and then maybe twenty plus hours editing.
So my editor got a rough edit, I went through, cleaned up the first half, and while I was working on the first half, he was working on cleaning up the second part. And then we were just sending these files back and forth, and then at that point, it was probably twenty hours later. And we had a turnaround time of maybe three days, so I didn't really sleep very much.
Guy Kawasaki:
And what was the final length?
iJustine:
Maybe ten to fourteen minutes, and then we have to do it all again, so it varies too.
Guy Kawasaki:
We're talking roughly forty hours equals ten minutes?
iJustine:
Yeah, for a good video that we want to make sure we get good B-roll and lighting and setting up and trying to do different shots. Some videos can definitely take way longer that, but then there's so much that-
Guy Kawasaki:
Wait, longer than that?
iJustine:
Yeah, for sure. It'll go over the course of several days if we're doing like phone reviews. It can get pretty intense.
And then, there's also very simple videos, which I did some Animal Crossing, which is a video game I've been playing, so for that, I'll record maybe thirty, forty minutes, and then I'll edit that video in forty minutes to an hour and a half.
So it does vary. Not every video is forty to fifty hours, but some could definitely be more.
Guy Kawasaki:
What happens when you hike up Mount Zion? That's like a three-hour hike and it comes out to five minutes or something like that?
iJustine:
It all just varies. We do hiking stuff a lot. Anything that we're doing into a moment to be able to film.
So if my sister and I go on a hike, I can use that footage to shoot a phone review or get some photos. It's like every aspect of my life, I tie into making it a way to make some content out of it, which is fun, but also exhausting.
Guy Kawasaki:
Don't you feel like you're never not on?
iJustine:
Thankfully, over the past couple of years since I've been doing more tech-focused content, I do have more of a break, and since I've started working with an editor.
Because before, it wasn't, I was running four or five different channels. I was probably making fifty to sixty pieces of content a week, by myself and it was miserable.
Guy Kawasaki:
Really?
iJustine:
I had a gaming channel which I would post two videos every day, I would do an iPhone video every day, I would have a vlogging channel where I would film and edit a vlog every day and then my main channel, I would film three or four videos a week for that one which were like more concise edited videos.
So that kind of drove me crazy, so I think at some point I had to just step back and say, "I'm going to have one channel. I need to be more laser focused or I'm not going to be able to enjoy doing this as much anymore."
So I went back and I thought, "Why did I start making YouTube videos? What are the top three things that I love? And let's just focus that."
So I went, I was like, "Okay, I love tech, I love travel, I love food. Okay, I love video games, so maybe that's four. Oh, and now I love my dog." So I just took my channel and focused it back and that was super helpful. I think for a lot of people that feel that burnout, just going back and picking at least three things that you love, for me was super helpful.
Guy Kawasaki:
How do you prioritize your platform because you're on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok? What goes through your mind?
iJustine:
There is a little flow chart that trickles down. The good part about creating the YouTube content first is I can take pieces of that YouTube content and cut it down to an Instagram-type video.
The Instagram shares to Facebook and then we'll create some vertical content for Instagram stories, which then can be taken over to TikTok, and then Twitter, or I'll edit together a one minute highlight of that video.
Guy Kawasaki:
You think you can deploy the same content on TikTok that's derived from YouTube?
iJustine:
Sometimes. But only if it's something that is shot that way, it's not always. Or if I'm in the middle of doing like a review video, we'll stop and specifically shoot a specific piece of content for TikTok.
The interesting thing with TikTok is there are hashtags and trending topics or the way that you work with their algorithm. So every day, I'll go on and I have a bunch of content shot on TikTok already that I just feel like one day a hashtag is going to pop-up and this weird piece of content that I've shot will work out.
So a bunch of things that I've been posting, even over the past couple of weeks, I've shot maybe a month ago, which a big secret, but it's like, one day this piece of content will make sense.
Guy Kawasaki:
What's an example of a hashtag that someday may make sense?
iJustine:
This one video, it was a trending sound or something, I just mimicked the sound, it was so silly.
It was, "Oh, you don't like me? That's fine. Okay, bye." You have to watch the TikTok, I didn't do a very good job of mimicking the voice.
But that specific sound, I had saved and then I used that video in the sense of saying, "Corona, we don't like you, bye," or something like that. So just using something that doesn't make sense at the time, but figuring out later down the line you can make sense of it, if that makes any sense.
There's logic to this madness, I swear. It's just sometimes I can't exactly explain it.
Guy Kawasaki:
Well, how do you come up with content ideas? Is it basically your life and then you were going to go up Mount Zion anyway, so you decided to make it into a video or did you say one day, "Well, we need some hiking, where should we go?"
iJustine:
I think it's just we love to hike, so those types of things is just a natural integration and it's always really great to do camera reviews or things like that. So it's just ancillary content to what I'm already doing.
I used to love to vlog, which would be filming your daily life, but then that got exhausting and it was just invasive, and I was like, "I'm getting too old for this."
So I think be able to vlog and have a purpose around it, say doing like camera review or a phone review.
So that's how I squeeze all of that stuff in. But as far as scheduling, content, and planning most of the tech stuff, it just happens so naturally and rapid. It's like, there's a product that comes out, the embargo is in four or five days, good luck. So that's a lot of time.
Guy Kawasaki:
Do you have an event calendar planned out from months in advance, "Sony's going to be in New York on this day, and WWDC is this day, and Samsung is this day," or?
iJustine:
That used to be what it was like. We would go out in the public and go to events, so I think even though we still know that those timeframes, we know iPhone season is usually toward the end of the year.
I feel like a lot of these companies still follow a same timeline, so it is easy to pick and choose between, "Okay, I need to have some silly content in between the tech slow-downs."
Guy Kawasaki:
I think, my daughter included, they look at someone like you and they say, "What a perfect life. She's at all the great events, she has all this stuff for free, probably she gets all the makeup and clothes and everything and cameras and cars and flame throwers from Elon Musk," so how do you react when you hear young girls or young people aspire to be you or aspire to be an influencer?
iJustine:
Oh my gosh, it's such, I guess, a big responsibility as well.
I feel like, I don't know. Growing up, I didn't have anyone to look up to that liked the things that I liked. There were no girls that were into video games, there were no girls coding, I was only girl in my coding classes. I didn't know that it was, I guess weird at the time that I liked these things until everyone was like, "Why are you playing video games? That's for guys." I was like, "Wait a minute. No, it absolutely isn't."
But, just growing up not have anyone else to look up to, I guess was weird.
So I'm very excited whenever little girls come up to me and they tell me how they're taking coding classes or they're really into tech or their new phone or they love video games. And I think that's just amazing because to go from not having anybody to look up to, to me thinking that I was weird and something was wrong and now it's accepted and it's cool.
I'm definitely very honored and excited about that. And to be able to teach kids to edit as well. We did an event this past year, actually it was in January right before all of this happened, called Vlog University.
So we had a bunch of classes, and it was a two-day event here in LA where people basically came, it was a crash course on how to create content, from editing, shooting, marketing, lawyers. We had my whole team there just giving all the advice we had learned over the course of thirteen years. I was like, "This is what it's all about. This is just making sure that these people have the tools that they need to go out and create, and create kind content."
I think making sure that we're creating content that's kind is very important because there's so much out there that people are creating that's just not something that if I had kids, I wouldn't want them watching it.
Guy Kawasaki:
Do you ever say to people or tell them, "Just so you understand, a ten-minute funny, interesting, cool video took forty hours to make"?
iJustine:
Yeah. I let them know, and then they shortly soon figure it out.
Because it does seem like it's so easy and it does seem like it's so glamorous, but I spend a lot of time sitting at this desk editing and I think people are very surprised to hear that I still edit any of my videos, at all.
I don't think anyone's ever made a thumbnail for me. I make every single thumbnail, I upload the video, title it, make it live. I don't know, I guess that's just how I've always done it, and I think having that channel be actually me, is something that I've always been very careful about.
And the guy that I do work with, Tyler, he's amazing, gets my views and perspective, and adds his own flavor to it, so I'm very grateful that he gets it.
Guy Kawasaki:
So what would you tell this young girl or teenage girl, what's the first step if you want to be like me?
iJustine:
I think just figuring out what is it that you're passionate about and if there's something that you could see yourself making videos for longer than a year, what would that be? Because I think it takes at least a year to find your groove, get comfortable in front of the camera, and just starting with your phone.
You can shoot and edit everything on your phone, no matter what phone you have, it would be good enough to figure out lighting, figuring out your tone and just going from there. And it's okay to be nervous in front of the camera because I think that's the first thing everyone's like, "But I can't talk to a camera." You're not talking to a camera, imagine talking to somebody else, because at some point, that is what you're doing.
Guy Kawasaki:
And what if this person says, "But you have millions and millions of followers, how do I even begin to get a follower?"
iJustine:
You just start. I think you look for communities of people doing the same thing as you and just start interacting and just really reaching out to people.
And one of the things I've talked about before is, collabs is such a weird thing because you want to collab with these bigger creators, but you have to be careful because a lot of times these creators aren't just going to collab with everyone because you don't have an arsenal of videos for them to judge on what type of content you create. They don't know what type of videos you are going to make.
Is there going to be a scandal or something in your near future and then that reflects on you.
So I think that's really hard for a lot of bigger creators to just start doing collabs with everybody, but I think reaching out and getting into those communities is important.
Guy Kawasaki:
So for the people who, including me, don't exactly know what the word collab means, what exactly are you saying?
iJustine:
We call them collabs, so it's just a collaboration. We're doing a collab right now. So it's just reaching out to YouTubers or other people that you want to make videos with.
And a lot of times, it's scary because you don't know if they're going to say yes or they're going to say no, and then everybody's busy, so it's definitely crazy, but I don't think it is something that is necessary.
I think just building your brand, figuring out your voice and what you want to make videos about. Get comfortable and just be consistent I think is the biggest piece of advice.
It all sounds so simple in the long run.
Guy Kawasaki:
It sounds simple, but I will also say, it doesn't sound like there are any particular short cuts.
iJustine:
There's not. At all.
I mean I started my YouTube channel in 2006, that's a long time. There's been a lot of YouTubers that have started their channels maybe a year ago and they already have more subscribers than me, so that's like, "Man, I've been doing this for so long, why can't I do that?"
But the fact that I've been able to do this this long and stay consistent, and keep creating content and still enjoy it, I'm like, "Okay, I've at least done that."
Guy Kawasaki:
Some point someone like Katie Couric said, "Who is this iJustine, I mean she's just like been doing this for two years and she's got 10 million followers and I've been at NBC for twenty years."
iJustine:
If you think about a band that comes out with a popular song and you're like, "I can't believe that they're just overnight wonder, this one-hit wonder. They have this song." They've been touring, they probably have fifteen albums, they've been sleeping on couches all around the U.S. touring, it's never that easy.
And I think I always try to think about that too when I see a lot of smaller YouTube channels end up blowing up overnight. I'm like, "How did they do that?"
You don't know somebody's journey, but you could always assume that it probably was a struggle because honestly, I don't think anything is easy and if it is, then everybody would be doing it.
Guy Kawasaki:
Just to date myself, when Twitter started, I joined about six months into it, and I immediately went to about one and a half million followers and so people were just going crazy like, "Guy, you've only been here three, four months and you have one and a half million followers, how'd you do that?"
Well, they don't understand, it took me twenty-five years to get to the point where I could have the awareness to get 1.5 million followers.
People listening to this are going to look up to you, they're going to check you out, but who does iJustine get inspired by as a content creator?
iJustine:
I was watching too many YouTube videos for a while and then I started getting too inspired. And then, when you watch too much, you start picking up mannerisms of other people and things that people are saying.
So if there's a product I'm going to review, I try not to watch anybody's content until after mine is already done because I don't want to have something that someone said be in the back of my mind then, "Oh my gosh, so and so said this about this camera, now I'm going to be obsessively looking for it.”
So I try to be objective when it comes to things like that.
But there's so many incredible tech YouTubers that I watch now, but this is the weirdest thing probably that really got me into wanting to do video in, I guess this would've been high school, the band, Tool.
Guy Kawasaki:
Who?
iJustine:
The band, Tool.
Guy Kawasaki:
I'm too old, I don't know who Tool is.
iJustine:
You probably would. They've been around since the nineties.
They're like the experimental heavy metal-ish. Well, anyway, my favorite band, Tool, and they did a lot of really weird experimental music videos and stuff like that. They were all stop-motion so when I was in high school, very early, I was taking a bunch of art classes and I was like, "Man, I really want to get into stop-motion and videography."
So the band, Tool was one of my first original inspirations of just being different and not worrying about what people think because that's something that they never were worried about.
And obviously, Steve Jobs was a really big inspiration when I was younger growing up, probably in sixth grade I would say. I did my first book report on Steve Jobs.
Guy Kawasaki:
You did your first book report on Steve Jobs?
iJustine:
Oh my gosh, yes.
Guy Kawasaki:
How cute.
iJustine:
We didn't really have computers as much, back then, so my mom was a teacher so we had an Apple computer in the house from a very young age so, I was always a Mac person. And then going into school, there were these PCs here and there were a few rooms that had Macs.
But yeah, sixth grade, I did a book report and I was like, "This is incredible. He said it's okay to think different. That's me. I'm always thinking different."
So ever since then, it was just like this small child, Justine, just always really loved the way that he thought outside the box and things like that. But he really did have a huge impact on me growing up and I'm definitely always appreciative for that.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay, but, today, Sony comes out with the a-ten or Apple comes out with the iPhone twelve and you haven't seen anybody else's unboxing and review, so you do yours and then, whose do you watch?
iJustine:
Then I go to Marques' and then I go to Jonathan TLG Today and then I go and check out Sara Dietschy, she's another female YouTuber as well.
And a lot of times my sister and I will both be shooting a video at the same time about something, and so I'll know what she's shooting and then I usually go and watch hers and then she'll watch mine.
So it's always fun just to go back and I just see the takes that people have on different things. And like, "Yes, okay, we agree on this. Oh, we don't agree on that."
Guy Kawasaki:
I love Marques.
iJustine:
He's great. He's so calm when he reviews things.
Our personalities next to each other, I have to bring myself down so I don't seem too enthused when around him.
Guy Kawasaki:
I first interacted with him when he was junior in college and he was shooting his videos in his dorm.
I tell people back when I was in the software business in the nineties, your dream was to get into the Thursday edition of the Wall Street Journal. And today, I would say, if you had a choice of being mentioned in the Wall Street Journal or Marques Brownlee, you would pick Marques all day long, it's not even close.
iJustine:
As long as he's talking good about your product.
Guy Kawasaki:
That helps too, yeah.
iJustine:
For sure. It's so interesting because we have the ten year difference on our age difference so I'll be talking about something and I'm like, "Wait, no you were still in middle school." So it's like talking tech... It's not much of a time difference but it really is in the long run.
The things that you've experienced and grew up in. It's really wild to see what children have available to them now.
Like my sister, back in Pennsylvania, she recently had a baby, which I'm so sad I can't travel to visit but, it's been really cool to witness her interacting with tech and phones. I'm like, "Man, I can't wait to see the things that you're going to see in your lifetime."
Guy Kawasaki:
How many unboxings do you think you've done?
iJustine:
Oh, I don't even know. I have thousands of YouTube videos.
Guy Kawasaki:
Really? Do you have a favorite handful or your most favorite unboxing?
iJustine:
One of my favorite videos was a holiday video that I did with Google and YouTube and they were like, "What do you want to do? We'll do anything." I said, "Anything?" And I chose to do a stop motion, Lego video. And it was for the holidays, it was like a Stormtrooper-Lego collaboration.
That was probably one of my favorites actually that I've ever done. But as far as unboxings go, and I think the Mac Pro unboxing was probably my favorite. And then some of my iPhone review videos I spend so much time on those ones. I feel like those I'm most proud of.
Guy Kawasaki:
Which Mac Pro unboxing?
iJustine:
The new Mac Pro, the latest one.
Guy Kawasaki:
Oh, this latest one?
iJustine:
This latest one. And I rented three eight-K REDs.
Guy Kawasaki:
Why do you need a RED, much less three to unbox a Mac Pro?
iJustine:
I wanted to push this thing to the limits, and I definitely did. Because we were shooting in such a high compression rate that when I was like, "Man, I'm actually able to lag this computer, what happened?" They're like, "Well, what compression are you shooting?" They're like, "Nobody shoots the crazy compression that you were shooting." I was like, "Well, I told my friend”, he works on Avatar, "I want it to look amazing." He's like, "Okay, cool. We're going to completely destroy all of your hard drive space."
Guy Kawasaki:
But you used three REDs and then people are watching him on their iPhone sixes.
iJustine:
Yep. It's the principle of the matter. The fact that I shot it all and it was really crazy because the budget for that, thankfully we did get a discount, it would have been upwards of-
Guy Kawasaki:
Oh you bought three REDs?
iJustine:
No, no. We didn't buy them, but even to rent them, the insurance that you have to get, the entire RED packages, it would have been like hundreds of thousands of dollars just to rent for like three or four days.
Guy Kawasaki:
Seriously?
iJustine:
Yeah. Even the budget that I had for that, I don't even know if I made the money back, making all the videos, but it was worth it. And man, having three, eight-K reds in my living room was incredible.
Guy Kawasaki:
And this was in the house?
iJustine:
Yeah. Just in my living room, we just had to rearrange everything and then we had to get lighting. And usually, I never have to light anything because I have all of the gear, but it was like, "We need to make this look cool."
Guy Kawasaki:
Oh, okay. Do you have your iPhone handy?
iJustine:
Yes.
Guy Kawasaki:
Can you hold it up, can we see, I just need home screen.
iJustine:
Oh gosh. What's on my home screen? Do you want me to send you a screenshot?
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah, that's easier. That would be better. Duh.
Now, to wrap up, a little speed round. So you just pick one or the other.
iJustine:
All right.
Guy Kawasaki:
Netflix or Hulu?
iJustine:
Netflix.
Guy Kawasaki:
Wireless or wired charging?
iJustine:
Wireless.
Guy Kawasaki:
LA or New York?
iJustine:
LA.
Guy Kawasaki:
Mac or Windows?
iJustine:
Mac.
Guy Kawasaki:
Forty or forty-four millimeter watch?
iJustine:
Forty. I had to think about that one.
Guy Kawasaki:
Forty?
iJustine:
Yes.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay. I don't even need to ask, iOS or Android. We know iOS, right?
iJustine:
iOS.
Guy Kawasaki:
How many watches do you have? How many Apple Watches do you have?
iJustine:
I think every one of them that's ever come out. It's around seven.
Guy Kawasaki:
How many iPhones do you have?
iJustine:
Every one that's ever come out.
Guy Kawasaki:
Do you have any android phones?
iJustine:
I do. I always have a secondary Android device. So right now I'm using one that will be out in a month or so.
Guy Kawasaki:
Does it fold?
iJustine:
Oh no, but that one's right here actually.
Guy Kawasaki:
What do you think of a folding screen?
iJustine:
It's cool. I was actually very surprised the Z Flip, I really, really like it. This was the one that I was using for a while, but I always have an iPhone and then an Android, just to make sure I'm not completely bias.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay.
Sushi or barbecue?
iJustine:
Barbecue.
Guy Kawasaki:
Animal Crossing or Mario Kart?
iJustine:
Oh no, you can't do that to me. Oh gosh.
Right now Animal Crossing, for sure.
Guy Kawasaki:
And finally, Snapchat, TikTok or Instagram?
iJustine:
If I choose one, do the rest go away, is the problem.
Guy Kawasaki:
Not die, no.
Your first preference.
iJustine:
I would probably go Instagram.
Guy Kawasaki:
Now, this is really my last question. First of all, how do you pronounce your last name correctly?
iJustine:
Ezarik.
Guy Kawasaki:
Ezarik.
When Justine Ezarik wakes up in the morning, what's the first thing you check on your phone?
iJustine:
I will check my email and then I ignore it all, and then I forget about whatever I read. And then I go to Twitter, I go to Instagram, and then I'll probably open up Animal Crossing currently.
And then I'll realize all of the email that I forgot to write back to in the morning, and then at some point I'll get back to it.
Guy Kawasaki:
And is your main productivity a phone or Macintosh? Like Gary Vee does not use a desktop. He does not use a computer.
iJustine:
Well, he probably doesn't edit all of his videos still, I have to edit a lot.
If I did not have to use a computer, I would probably do everything on my phone, but even doing photo editing and stuff, I need an actual full-fledged Photoshop or Lightroom.
Guy Kawasaki:
Do you use Canva? Do you use Canva?
iJustine:
I don't know.
Guy Kawasaki:
You don't use Canva?
Do you know what it is?
iJustine:
No, I don't think so.
Guy Kawasaki:
Justine, it cannot be true.
Canva, C-A-N-V-A, the online graphics design editor from Australia that I'm the chief evangelist of?
iJustine:
No.
Guy Kawasaki:
Go to canva.com. It's not possible that you or Jenna... No.
iJustine:
I'm sorry. I'm downloading it after this.
Guy Kawasaki:
It is the world's best way to create graphics.
iJustine:
Oh man, I should check it out.
The unfortunate reality is I'm like, "I'm going to open up Photoshop, an Illustrator. I'm going to just trace all this out and design it and lay it out for look."
Guy Kawasaki:
Oh, you're killing me. You're killing me
iJustine:
I'm sorry.
Guy Kawasaki:
Just look at Canva. Just look at Canva.
iJustine:
I've already googled it. It's opened.
Guy Kawasaki:
It's Photoshop for the rest of us.
Seriously, on any given day, we make roughly four million graphics, every day. So people use it to make four million pictures a day or graphics per day.
So we have all the templates for all the standard uses, Instagram, the album photos, the avatars, the presentations, everything. Everything is done for you, all optimized to the size, the dimensions.
Oh my God, my life flashed before my eyes.
iJustine:
I'm so sorry. So did mine because I've been wasting a lot of time then.
Guy Kawasaki:
You have been. It's Photoshop for the rest of us. And the time it takes you to boot Photoshop, even on your Mac Pro, you could finish a graphic in Canva, I promise you.
iJustine:
Probably.
Oh my God, I'm going to check it out and I'll report back.
Guy Kawasaki:
I hope that I and Justine brought humor, inspiration, and information into your life. If nothing else, you learn how hard it is to make something like social media look easy.
She's a remarkable person and a nice person to boot.
It's comments time. Joel Jessel, "Guy went big on this one, kicked off with a true legend and great show. Can't wait to see what's to come on Remarkable People. After listening to the first ten shows, I have not come across an interview I did not like, but I found a few that I love. Guy, thank you for creating such a great podcast with such memorable guests. Tip; Shaun Tomson may convince you to pick up a surfboard and forever change the trajectory of your life."
Another one, A-Eighteen-Casey, "I have never written a review before. I'm not sure what it is about this podcast that has me so captivated. Guy is an amazing interviewer. The production is great, the guests do not disappoint."
One more from Mr. Andy-Sixty-Four, "The Woz's podcast was not what I expected, but absolutely amazing if you're an Apple fan boy or girl. I have been an Apple fan since the day I started using Apple II computers in high school. I've always been fascinated in how things come to be. And the early Apple was always something fascinating to a nerd like me. Never had the pleasure to meet Woz, but did have lunch with Jobs once back in his next days. This podcast gives a great insight into the creative mind of Woz, and such straight some of the myths of Jobs too. I can't wait to subscribe to the other podcasts after listening to this one."
Hallelujah. Add your comments on your iPhone. Just get the Apple Podcast app. On your computer just go to the Apple Podcasts app again. So basically, on your computer or on your phone, use your Apple Podcasts app to send comments and rate. Thank you.
I'm Guy Kawasaki, and this is Remarkable People.
Thanks to the remarkable people who make this podcast what it is, Jeff Sieh and Peg Fitzpatrick.
Until the next episode of Remarkable People, be healthy, be safe. Mahalo and aloha.
This is Remarkable People.