On this episode we have Karan Nangia, best known for being the host of The NiceCast. We take this opportunity to talk to Karan about what happens behind the scenes on a podcast and how he handles heated topics (and audiences!).
Episode: 46
Title: Norman Farrar introduces Karan Nangia, a media influencer and host of the NiceCast.
Subtitle: “The Power is in the music, not the musician”
Final Show Link: https://iknowthisguy.com/episodes/ep-46-karan-nangia-of-the-nicecast/
In this episode of I Know this Guy…Norman Farrar introduces Karan Nangia, a social media influencer and a host of NiceCast.
He talks about what happens behind the scenes on a podcast and how he handles heated topics. In this episode, he tackles the importance of social media in disseminating information.
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Karan 0:00
You had a moment of, I guess, intuition talking to you and you’re like, Okay, this would be cool to pursue, but then you just kind of talk yourself out of it. So that’s been my biggest struggle is talking myself out of things.
Norman 0:20
Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of I Know This Guy, the podcast where we dive deep into the lives of some of the most interesting people I know. Before we get started, please like and subscribe to I Know This Guy, wherever you get your podcasts. By the way, like kids want me to say something about ringing a bell. What the hell’s a bell?
Hayden 0:52
So we’re podcasting a podcaster today?
Norman 0:57
Yeah, I’m a little nervous.
Hayden 0:58
Oh, why?
Norman 1:00
Well, he’s an incredible podcaster, but Jeff Bosley referred us over to not Karen. Not Karen. Okay. Keith, or Karan Nangia and you know what, this guy is awesome. We talked about everything. Everything. This was virtually everything. So if you want a podcast, it’s almost like Jerry Seinfeld. Right? A podcast that was just about anything. Listen to this one. Yeah, what a good guy.
Hayden 1:35
Yeah, you guys really kicked it off.
Norman 1:37
Yeah. From yoga pants to politics, too. You name it.
Hayden 1:41
Yeah, it was really cool to talk with someone who has a bit more experience in the field, too. Like, I know, the Nice Cast is pretty popular and he’s done such a great job with it. So it was really great to hear his thoughts on podcasting in general, too.
Norman 1:55
Yeah, to see how small I am in the world.
Hayden 1:59
After looking at his photos.
Norman 2:01
But you know what, it was a lot of fun and I see why Jeff thought this would be a really great person to talk to. I mean, we really didn’t take the traditional style of our podcast. This was just yeah, we’re gonna have him on again, because it was really just a podcast about current events, everything. I love the way that this flowed and I think it’s one of my favorite podcast interviews.
Hayden 2:28
Awesome. Yeah. No, I thought so too. Well, yeah. Let’s dive into this one.
Norman 2:31
Let’s get to it. All right, Karan. Welcome to the podcast.
Karan 2:35
Thanks, Norm. Thank you guys for having me.
Norman 2:37
It’s great. We had a really great interview with Jeff Bosley. So at the end of it, I said, do you know an interesting guy could talk to, and he said, Yep, I got one guy in mind and that was you.
Karan 2:50
Nice. You call me Karen as well. It’s not that climber for us to just call people Karen. It’s no longer cool to be a Karen..
Norman 3:02
I want to make sure that I’m pronouncing your name right.
Karan 3:07
Yeah, the Indian pronunciation. But I’ve gone by Keith to simplify it. People in school have called me Karan so I mean, whatever, anything but Karen, I would have been okay with Karen in the past, but after last year, I’m not sure if that’s the route to go.
Norman 3:23
So I’ve got a choice of Keith or Karan.
Karan 3:26
Keith or Quran.
Norman 3:27
Yeah. All right. Very good. No Karens. Okay.
Norman 3:33
Oh my gosh. I was on Clubhouse the other day and we were talking about great names. Anyways, we started getting onto subjects and what we can start talking about, and it’s just the best Karens and just kind of finding these interesting people that are just causing havoc, and just talking about what and then we decided not to because of lawsuits.
Karan 4:00
Are you a fan of Clubhouse?
Norman 4:02
I absolutely love Clubhouse and there is a paradigm shift going on right now and nobody is really picking up on it and that is a social media platform is actually changing the dynamic of what used to be the norm, and that is dot coms. Yeah, no pun intended. But that’s the use of domain extensions. So like I’m a geek, so I’ve noticed since like, Clubhouse is picking up steam. Everybody’s going and buying a community based extension and that’s a dot club. I’ve noticed that they’ve gone through the roof and it’s all due. It’s all driven by this social platform. Yeah, and I really loved the ability. I was on the other day and Howie came on. It was just oh, wow and he just popped in that he was introduced to the group, and he started talking and then, Damon was constantly on, and then all these huge I love eCom and these people that you hear about, but never can talk to ever, or they’re just dropping nuggets, and you put up your hand or, like, I love when I get called up as a moderator. But it’s just who you get to talk to.
Karan 5:33
Are they on their sharing gems? Or are they just kind of selling courses and stuff? My cousin’s there. He’s a real estate professional. So he was telling me that it is useful if people are actually going to network and engage and share their experiences. But he was like, the rooms I’ve been in, it’s just everyone selling, selling courses and doing all that which I guess is like, everyone is marketing something nowadays.
Norman 5:56
But you know what, what I found anyways, and I do this all the time I share, I just share information, especially in the eCom area, that’s my expertise and I don’t sell anything, I have a podcast, talking about eCom, I don’t accept affiliate codes, I think that’s going to be the distinction in Clubhouse. I think what’s going to happen is you’re going to have all these guys going out there and selling courses, and that’s fine. Or so you’re gonna have all these guys selling these courses, and you’re gonna have people getting taken advantage of or these people that can’t, it’s the old, shiny object syndrome. But then you’re going to have a completely, it’s almost like public broadcasting compared to cable. You’re going to have people that are going to be talking to people about just niches in general, and how to become better at something not about dropping a course. I think there’s going to be a big difference and I think that’s going to be an opportunity where people can just speak freely. We haven’t got that and with everything that’s going on, we’re not going to get political. With everything that’s going on these last couple of weeks. It’s going to be a platform where people can really speak openly. I don’t know.
Karan 7:16
Yeah and it’s scary. I mean, we can get political if you want. But before we do, I want to just tell you that I also work with another platform, I’m not sure if you gentlemen have heard of a social platform called Vero. I think the closest analogy is Instagram, it kind of functions the same way. But it can basically be a mix of Instagram, YouTube. I mean, depending on the type of content you want to make even Netflix, definitely Twitter as well and their whole thing is they don’t have any ads or algorithms and your fetus chronological and I also think that’s an interesting thing as well given I’m not sure if you gentlemen, watch the social dilemma on Netflix, where they were talking about just how these apps are set up, they’re set up to kind of one create that validation loop, that dopamine hit. So it’s just really fascinating the world we’re currently in and going back to the political thing of the past week or so with the president getting banned and stuff. It’s kind of like, are we just at their mercy? At what point do we say, okay, maybe this isn’t how this should work. It’s kind of like everything starts off as a utility or as a tool, and then it can quickly turn south and I think it’s just a really fascinating time.
Norman 8:29
Yeah, fascinating and scary at the same time, I really don’t know. I started out my, I think it was December 31st. I said, thank God that we’re outside, we’re finished 2020. I can’t finally wait to put it behind us and a few days later, it’s like, Oh, we’re already started.
Karan 8:51
Yeah, it didn’t slow down for a second. There’s 25,000 troops in DC for the inauguration and you can take them at face value and say, okay, it is just for the inauguration. But then you have to ask yourself if it’s a virtual inauguration or the 25,000 troops there. There are more troops right now in DC than Afghanistan supposably. It’s kind of just, I don’t want to get all conspiracy on you, gentlemen. It’s a Saturday, we’ll probably save that for the second time. We get together. But yeah, it makes you wonder what do they know that we don’t what are they telling us and I think that’s the biggest frustration about modern society is if you’re the type of person that wants information, ironically, in the information age, we’re at a place where what information can you actually trust and I like that you guys are having these raw, genuine conversations and you kind of just give people the platform to come on and share their experiences because that is what I think pushes not only podcasting forward but just modern discourse between people is learning from one another and maybe that is what information is now is our experiences. So it’s not necessarily the power news media, or mainstream news once had, maybe that’s not what it is anymore and maybe they’re just trying to manipulate it to hold on to that, who really knows.
Norman 10:17
Yeah, and again, for us at least, it really is coming. It’s circling back to just lifestyle, talking to people just as people, right? We want to know about people and I do think humans in general, want to know about people. They might not have, people might not know Jeff, they might not know Hayden, myself, you. But there’s this interest, just Oh wow, they had struggles. How did they get through it? Oh, well and rather than, and I see this all the time, I deal with influencers with my other business and I’ll get in trouble. But, I see a lot of the times there’s this persona that they’re trying to be, and which rubs off on society, and all of a sudden, they’re trying to be like that person and it’s a horrible change to at least when I was growing up. I don’t know where that’s gonna go. By the way, I really don’t know where it’s gonna go.
Karan 11:18
Would you call it a more sinister version of the old adage, fake it till you make it? Would you call it a more evolved form of that, because fake it till you make it is valuable. Like, for example, I’ve seen real estate professionals who will lease a fancy car because they feel like if I’m out driving a fancy car, the perception of me is that I must be successful. So someone may be more inclined to buy a property from me, or want to sell their property with me. So in those regards, it is we’re all kind of playing and manipulating perception to an extent and I think existence itself is a perception. But with social media and influencers, it’s really interesting how they’ve done it, because it kind of feels like so much of their self worth and self value is tied to their views, their likes, the comments they get what the analytics on Instagram is showing them what the TikTok views look like and I’ve always kind of wondered this, as well as like, if I wanted you to get addicted to my platform, I would just have to manipulate the numbers. So yeah, you can make a post and see that it reached 100,000 people. But how do you actually verify that it really did reach 100,000 people? So if you’re impressionable and you’re 16,17 years old, maybe you’re getting bullied in high school. I was bullied in high school and I knew that if I was growing up in a world with social media, where I’m getting bullied in high school, people hate me, people don’t like me, but I hop on social media, and I am supposedly famous or have some “clout”, then it’s very easy for that to go to your head especially if you are young, you are impressionable and then what I’ve learned constantly throughout my life is this commonality of digging the hole deeper and at some point, I feel like you got to just break that cycle. So I feel like the way these platforms are set up, is to kind of dig the hole deeper for yourself to where you post a picture, or you make a meme, or maybe you make a video, maybe it takes you three, four hours to make an Instagram carousel post, whatever the case may be and you hop on and you see Oh, snap, this only has 100 likes all day, and I work for hours on it. I think it’s very easy to have that manipulate your sense of self and if you’re young, and I think that is probably one of the biggest crimes indirectly on these platforms.
Norman 13:47
Yeah, one thing I’ve noticed too, it’s hilarious, because I’ll see these images on the profile page, and then I might get on zoom, or I’ll get on Skype. This is not the person who’s on that image. They’ve photoshopped themselves so much that damn, and then you look at mine, I got this long big beard. I’m fat and I got the zit in the middle of my head. What’s that?
Karan 14:15
Have you ever dropped your beard care routine on us?
Norman 14:19
My beard care routine? No, I haven’t. No, I gotta hear about yours because you got a thicker younger looking beard than my old fuzzy one.
Karan 14:28
That was also an influencer pun as well, because you know how they always say share your skincare routine. So I was gonna hit you with a beard care routine. I just do a bunch of beard oil after I shower and that’s pretty much it. Yeah, it’s just then at that point, just the Indian genetics to take over.
Norman 14:45
I do have a funny story. So I was talking to this group. I think it was just on Zoom or something. There’s a bunch of people on and then it was an Amazon package that came in. Somebody had sent me some product to try out. So anyways, I knew the package was coming and I grabbed it and I said, Oh guys, this is really cool. Let’s experience this is what we’re calling a customer experience. Will I buy this product ever again? So I opened up the package and I go through this routine. First of all, the burlap bag it came in smelt like crap, literally and then I opened it up and there was this brush. So the brush, and this is just because they never looked at the quality, but it had all the paint drying, like the powder, and it’s settled. So anytime you use it, you could smell this horrible smell. The powder came out. Worst of all, I had this so it was a cedar type of beard balm, said Oh, we’ll try it and I put it on, shape the beard and then my wife came down and she gave me a hug. Right? She goes, What is that smell? I am used to it by now. Yeah, the beard balm was rancid. It smelled like rotten fish. So when I first put it on, it seemed fine. But anyways, yeah, that’s just a beard balm story for fun, fun. But anyway, yeah. It’s interesting that we were down this path because I had no idea we’re gonna go into Clubhouse. You said it was Vemo? Vero?
Karan 16:23
Vero. V e r o.
Norman 16:25
Yeah, I’m gonna have to check that out and we will put a link in the podcast.
Karan 16:31
They’re currently focusing a lot on podcasters and stuff. So there may be some interesting people there. I’m not sure if you’re into superhero films or not. But Zack Snyder, for example. He’s one of the biggest presence on Vero currently, so they’re doing a larger, I want to say a larger focus on podcasting and the art form and stuff behind it. So I think you gentlemen would be perfect there. You guys have such a cool concept I was thinking about I was like, it’s so ingenious to say like, Alright, at the end, I’m gonna be like, Hey, I know someone and you just kind of start building that network out. I think that that’s brilliant. Thank you and let us down to some really wild people from people who work with the Secret Service to some really successful brand entrepreneurs. Get this. We just did an interview with two guys, Leo Rossi, an actor. He’d been in over 100 films, but his partner, Joe Pistone. Do you know who Joe’s piston was? Joe is the real Donnie Brasco.
Karan 17:31
Damn.
Norman 17:32
I’m sitting here just going, I’m listening to this guy talk and I’m just my mouth is dropping and the guy who introduced us was Anthony Melchiorri, who was the guy from Hotels Impossible, and I’m sitting here just going I can’t believe the different areas of politicians. We just talked to an urban planner, who spent 25 years building Penn Station in New York and just anyway, we love that concept and we love the people that are coming on. Because you have to accept it too, right? So you have no idea you’re coming on, we’ll reach out or somebody will reach out and see if you’ll come on. But it goes two ways on this podcast and again, we appreciate you coming on and now I’m going to circle back here and figure out your backstory. So what makes Keith Keith?
Karan 18:31
I’m just a product of a lot of cultural pressure and painful realizations and reflections from it. So being Indian, my entire life, I was sort of conditioned and raised to just focus on education, focus on education, focus on education. So that led to, for example, YouTube blowing up and me having certain ideas for things and I felt the need to run it by my parents first and be like, Hey, I’m thinking about this only for them and I don’t blame them because I understand why education is so important to them, because they never fully got an education. So I guess a lot of that just got projected onto me. So it just was a cycle over. I’m an undergrad, YouTube is blowing up. I have ideas, but I’m being told that I should just study chemistry, and I should just study organic chemistry and biology and then go to med school, which I did for two semesters and then after med school, I went to a business school and after that law school and it was just one thing after another and I look back at it and I’m like man, all those years all the time, all of the money I wasted. Had I just taken a stand behind what I actually wanted to do for myself, I feel like my life would have been drastically different. But at the same time, you have to be grateful and thankful for when things happen and why they happen. So that’s kind of been the common theme throughout my entire life is just reflecting on a lot of painful memories and missed opportunities. Like my dad, for example, like we had this gas station, and he’s very by the books, he’s a very kinda want to call them paranoid but he’s like, he’s always constantly in fear that he’s going to have the FBI knock our door down or something and I’m like Dad, we’re not even doing anything for that to happen. So I actually one day back in undergrad had an idea of what if there was same day shipping? What if, for example, somebody bought a TV on Best Buy, and they wanted it by the time they got home and I was like, okay, so the closest way I could think of making that happen was to just say, all right, we get the order and then we can go pick it up for them, and then we can just deliver it. So I went to our gas station. I was trying to have that conversation with my dad and stuff and he basically had a breakdown. He’s like, No, you can’t do this. You’re going to get into some illegal stuff. Like How could you do this? How would you think of this? Just know you need to be studying and studying and now I look back, I’m like, Damn, same day shipping is blowing up like that could have been the earliest form of people ordering groceries and they promise that you’ll get it within the hour. There’s a company called Shipped and Stuff and there was also another idea I had back in the day called You judge, which was kind of like Reddit, before Reddit, and it was basically, you could start a forum about virtually anything you could, you could just start talking about it and post about it and I once again, had tried to have that conversation as well. Because naturally, it was like, I’m going to talk to my parents about ideas I have and my parents will be encouraging and that would get me to get on that path. But in their case, it was just like education, education, education.
Norman 21:45
Sorry, where did you grow up?
Karan 21:46
I was born in India, but we moved here when I was about two years old. So we initially moved to Jersey City, then our kind of permanent home base was sort of in Florida between Orlando and Tampa.
Norman 22:00
Well, I had an office in Tampa. I’m just kind of curious.
Karan 22:03
Oh nice. I’m right by USF. It was like those moments, where like I said, you think back and you just say okay, life would have been drastically different if I had the confidence or even the courage at the time to say, Alright, I’m going all in on my ideas, because this is what I want my life to be and this is what I want my career to be, my profession to be, my passion to be and I hear it all so much like so many people all across the world. South Asians, for example, reach out to me and say, Man, I have an artistic drive. I love to do Photoshop, I love to podcast, I love YouTube videos, I want to do that and they try to have that conversation the same way I did with my parents, and they just get shut down and it’s really frustrating because we, ironically, historically, Indians have been some of the greatest storytellers, ever and storytelling is such a intricate art form on its own. So it does have that creativity suppressed within our community is painful and then it goes back to the colonization of India by the British and how that changed certain things and how that made Indian people more conscious of what they were and what they were doing, and all those things that got rejected. So yeah, and when you like I said, when you think about it, and you’re reflecting on it, that’s where you start to develop somewhat of a framework for life, at least that’s how I work. So I think, if I was to really define myself, it would really just be painful reflections and another thing I realized is like, for example Norm, I wish this for you guys, if you become a greater podcaster, than Joe Rogan over the next couple of years, right? Knock on wood.
Norman 23:49
Oh, that would be nice.
Karan 23:50
When you reflect on that, that’s a different reflection, because things are going well, you’ve reached sort of the mountaintop, you’ve kind of see the fruits of the labor start to come in, right? But when you are miserable, and in a really dark place emotionally and things aren’t working out, I feel like those are the times that we should reflect more on because it kind of reveals some of your own toxicity and people think that they just need to detox, but they don’t realize that if you really want to detox that also includes detoxing stuff with you. So yeah, like I said, it just all comes back to that, for me like not to sound pretentious, or anything but everything happening in my life now, I’m able to tie it back to a previous experience I had and of course, it’s all interpretation. It’s all perception and at a certain point, maybe that it’s just a matter of how you think about things and how you see things. So I can now look at certain really traumatic experiences and appreciate them, because I can now kind of say, all right, that is what the universe was trying to teach me at that point. But I was too ignorant to read the signs. So now when things happen, no matter what it is, if it’s positive or negative, I will go into this reflection mode where I’m like, Okay, this experience is happening to me. What is it ultimately trying to tell me? Or is even thinking years down from now? What is something that I’ll be thankful for for this experience? Positive, negative doesn’t matter.
Norman 25:19
Yeah, I was lucky enough to grow up in Canada and we had a university. Back in the 70s, there were a bunch of universities being built. So multiculturalism came into where I lived in Kitchener way back, but I remember the days when it was an all white city, all white and all of a sudden, we started to get different people coming in and the first person of color to come into my school was a guy by the name of agis, sugar, McGavin and we actually became very good friends. But it was the first few weeks of him coming into that school. Hell, it was horrible. Until people got to and this is the nice thing that I noticed about where I was living, is that people started to accept different people from different cultures and all of a sudden the modalities moved i, and these cultures all kind of meshed and it was really interesting and I don’t know if it was just because it was the university. Now you’ve got people from Africa, you got people from Europe, you’ve got people all kind of outside of my little white bubble. I’m coming to the university, bringing their kids and their family and it was just great. Oh, Agis’ father was my soccer coach, at the end of the day. It was kind of cool getting to know the family and seeing just the different people kind of coming together. However, I’ve also seen the opposite and I don’t know why this is and for me, the experience, and this might be, may be completely different in different neighborhoods in Toronto, but I have seen that whole multicultural melting pot happen with keeping your culture, we’re not talking about Okay, you have to come in, and you have to be a Canadian. What’s a Canadian, but you keep your culture and there are pockets all over, which is really cool. You can go to Greek town, you can go here, you can go there. But I find that different in the States. I find that a lot of places where I go to even now, it’s not as accepting as what we have in Canada and I can’t figure out why and that’s a very broad statement, by the way.
Karan 27:41
Yeah. I mean, that’s also a very important conversation too, in terms of assimilation versus integration within the Indian community, that is a huge issue that I don’t think many people talk about or have even considered where we obviously come over here in pursuit of the American dream and instead of integrating our culture here, we assimilate. So I think it was early last year, where I was started thinking that I don’t feel like Indians in America have a unique identity, we don’t necessarily have that unique cultural presence and I became kind of problematic for me, because I’m like, we come from this rich culture, it’s one of the most ancient cultures on the planet, we have all these things that we’ve contributed to the world in some form or fashion, like you see, just yoga pants become like a staple of culture. You see turmeric now, like, I saw a turmeric latte the other day, and I was just absolutely astounded by it and yoga pants obviously look really nice on women. So it’s like we have all these things that are just kind of permeated culture and yet we have no unique cultural identity of our own. So yeah, I think what you’re talking about multiculturalism is important, because you want to maintain that and for us, it comes to the cultural identity crisis, where my upbringing, my family is Indian, but all my experiences are American. So I’m constantly trying to balance that duality of like, Alright, this is a situation I’ve been presented with, or this is an experience, and I’m not exactly sure how to handle it. Those are really, really frustrating moments, deeply kind of conflicting.
Norman 29:25
Yeah, it’s interesting that you’re talking about your struggle going back to your dad and talking to him about what you wanted to do. So in my other job, I help people with build their online businesses and I have, I remember two specific cases, completely different don’t know each other, both Asian descent, both absolutely breaking down crying, like a complete meltdown, because they didn’t want to tell their parents and the one was a medical doctor, and the other one was again successful on what they did, but they’re selling on Amazon, they thought that would be beneath them. Can you imagine that? Like, I mean, for me, I know that this is what I’m doing, Oh, good luck. But it was gut wrenching and I don’t even know if they ever did and both of these ladies ended up being fairly successful selling what they were doing and they never let their family know.
Karan 30:28
Yeah, it’s kind of weird. We have to sort of be apprehensive about our own desires, and even our own successes, like there are certain things that knock on what I’ve accomplished over the past few years and I’m not exactly sure how to communicate that to my parents, whenever we talk about it. It’s like, do you understand why this is such a big moment for me? Would you get it? Would you not get it? Like, I’m trying to teach myself filmmaking now because that’s, I think, for me creatively, that’s like the next adventure I want to get into. So if I tell them that, Hey, I’m trying to become a storyteller and learn how to make movies and stuff, I just kind of get a blank stare and it’s like, you kind of realize that that’s first of all very ambitious goal to teach yourself that also, you can’t just say good luck, or like, offer some positive feedback, like, Oh damn, I didn’t know my son would want to be a filmmaker, I could take pride in that. But if I go and tell my dad tonight, that Yeah, I want to go back to working at a law firm, which I was doing for some time, it would be like, his world would be just all daisies and rainbows and everything. He would be the happiest person in the world and yeah, I think it’s really complicated. The worst fight, one of the worst fights I ever got in with him was when we used to go to Sam’s Club and Costco to shop for our gas station. So we had a bunch of cell phone chargers there that no one was buying, but there was a good margin to make from it. So I was like, Hey, can we just put these on eBay? Do you mind if I just take these and put these on eBay and I’ll do it all and he basically, like I said, he had a breakdown, he thought, like, the FBI was gonna come attack him for some charges on eBay and he was like, What are you going to be and he literally said, they say, What are you going to be? An eBay seller? Is that what your good life has come down to? And when you think about it, it’s like, Yeah, but it’s money that could be made. Why are you shutting down money, it’s survival? That, in itself is a conflict. For example, the South Asian community where like, if you’re a janitor making six figures, that’s going to be frowned upon. But if you are incurring lots of student loan debt, pursuing education for something that you don’t even want to do, that’s going to be empowered and that’s just a wild concept to me. I think about contextually because I want to try to empathize with why they feel that way and obviously, they want the best for their children and stuff. But it kind of comes down to this stigma of the Indian community, like they don’t want to be looked at as having the inferior son or daughter by others and that’s where it is right now with me in marriage because I’m still single. So my cousin, for example, recently got married, had a cute ass baby and now on the Whatsapp group, our family group is nothing but pictures of the baby. So my mom is seeing that on a daily basis, and basically looking at me, like, really? Like, you’re not gonna give me a great shot? You won’t even get married. You got girls in India dying to talk to you. You just name one girl and we’ll pull her up. We’ll have her delivered like Amazon Prime, you just say it.
Norman 33:28
One day. One day delivery.
Karan 33:30
Yeah, same day shipping. Yeah and I’m just like, no, like, I have no intention of getting married and they don’t understand how that is a possibility. Like, it’s okay. You don’t have to live that traditional lifestyle and yeah, these are a lot of the cultural struggles that we have to navigate and I feel like within our culture, we don’t really talk about it. That’s part of the going back to the unique Indian American identities, so to speak, is like these aren’t conversations being had, if you, for example, some of the most influential Indian people aren’t having these conversations. I’m still relatively growing in my audience and stuff in my presence. So it’s like, Okay, once the goodwill on the platform is larger, I’d love to be able to have these conversations on a larger platform. But for right now, we need leaders and stuff in the “Indian community” willing to go talk to parents and say, Well, if your son or daughter is naturally inclined, artistically, why are you taking that away from them? Do you know how hard it is to draw or learn Photoshop? Or maybe they have an eye for photography, or they have a media personality? Do you know how much of a gift those things are and we just never really get that positive feedback, not to say that it doesn’t happen for other people like not to generalize in the sense that every single experience within the communities like that, but for the large part, like even you were saying, Asian descent, that’s a common trope through all of them.
Norman 34:56
Yeah, the other thing is that heavy pressure. I know so many friends of mine, that when they were going through school, the pressure they had on them for homework and what was expected and like, Hey, if I got to see I was okay. Yeah, here you go Mom. If they got less than an A, Oh my gosh, something like and I remember the one time and this is a Montreal and this person got an incredible report card. I didn’t and really, I brought it home and my parents were okay with it. Because that’s pretty good for you. But this guy was totally distraught and I believe it was this fellow where his parents actually ripped it up and it was just no good for them. Yeah and by the way, this guy after that was not allowed to come outside and play. It was horrible. It was absolutely the precedent that sets for that individual when they have a family. Yeah, like it’s kind of like hurt people hurt people type thing, where if you got that from your parents, then unless you have the clarity and self awareness to say, Okay, I’m going to be the one who breaks that cycle. You’re going to just do the same thing to your children and then the cycle is just going to continue, like Indian mythology, for example, is very cyclical in nature. So there is an emphasis there of breaking that cycle of kind of building that self awareness to say, to spot the cycle and to break out of it and and I haven’t had much success in terms of the lofty goals that I’ve set for myself, but within my family, I’m definitely the one who broke that cycle in terms of what’s capable professionally, and that is, I guess, a win on its own. But yeah, it’s really disheartening. Because even you start then as you get older, you start thinking about your parents, and you can say, well, damn, my best enough wasn’t good enough for you and that’s a horrible way to have that disconnect from them. It kind of is like this, the seed that’s once that’s planted, it’s like, then you can start picking away at everything, then you start breaking down. Like I said, it all ties into reflecting, it ties into some of the toxicity that they may have and now you say, Okay, I’m getting this from them and they’re my parents, and I love them. But now shit, I gotta detox this. I have to pave my own way and yeah, it’s a fascinating thing.
Norman 37:39
It throws limitations. So I’m gonna give you a really weird story about limitations.
Karan 37:43
But also, before you get too that, you also want to say that the problem also is that like, if creativity and creative endeavors aren’t empowered within the South Asian community, or the Asian community at large, and we don’t have enough creatives make it, then they won’t ever be able to look at up and coming generations and say, Well, look, this is a viable career path. When I was an undergrad, I literally didn’t even know that I could be a communications major. Because my whole worldview was I can only be majoring in chemistry, biology, psychology, something like that, anything artistic, I didn’t even think about it. So I focused a lot on pop culture content at one point. So when I reflect back, I’m like, Damn, I could have been a communications major. I could have had maybe an internship at a major Hollywood studio, I could have used that to network and maybe get into a greater opportunity. But because we don’t have enough people in those sectors, a large part of Indian families don’t even realize that as a viable option. So a huge part of it is just the knowledge and I think, successful Indian people today, paving the way for future generations.
Norman 39:01
I’m going to talk a bit about limitations and it’s gonna be a weird approach. But I went in, you’re gonna laugh, I went to a tattoo shop. Okay. So I decided I’m going to get my first tattoo and so, my other buddy. I was still deciding he gets this incredible looking tattoo. I’m thinking, Okay, what should I get? I decided to get this very small tattoo on my chest and the reason I got it was I was worried about what my parents were gonna think I was gonna have a tattoo anyway, so I didn’t go with the one I wanted. I went with the one that was the smallest and the dumbest looking compared to what I really wanted and the reason I’m saying that is your parents, my parents, even though they were pretty liberal, would allow me to do, they set limitations, and having that tattoo was an actual every time I see it every day, it’s a limitation and I have plenty tattoos on me now. Back then it was my first one and I don’t like it to this day, because I’m always thinking I could have had that other one. That was really cool. Now I’ve just got this weird looking eagle on my, it doesn’t even look like an eagle. But anyways, you know what I’m talking about right? But just limitations, you can be so much more if it would be accepted.
Karan 40:24
It’s the norm. Only fans coming soon, both which will have you showing off that tattoo and oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I’ll sign up. I’ll subscribe to you only fans for sure. No limitations.
Norman 40:36
All right, there we go. You talked about something earlier, too and it was about having people on and listening and getting big. You know what the scariest thing about doing a podcast, especially a live podcast. So the Lunch with Norm podcast is all live. Not knowing if you’re going to have one person ever see your podcast and when we started out? Now this goes back, probably it’s not that long ago, seven months, maybe and it was, do we have one person out there listening and you’re trying to keep it up and then, maybe the next time and then then you starting to see Oh, well, we got two people and then three people and even when we did it, when we do I Know This Guy. We got great content, getting it out there marketing it, but you don’t know if anybody is gonna pay attention to what you’re doing and it is like you were talking about. It’s a kick between the legs. Because it hits your self confidence. You’re thinking, Oh, nobody’s listening to me. So anyway, I wanted to comment on that.
Karan 41:44
They use those metrics and I don’t want to say they in the sense that I mean, maybe it is deliberate, maybe it is part of the larger picture. But it kind of traps you into quantifying or even perceiving what you’re doing just by the numeric value that’s attached next to it. Whether that’s likes, views, subscribers, whatever and it’s like, some of the I feel like most profound Hollywood films didn’t gross a billion dollars. So I always kind of use that as an example. Right? So there is something and something that I’ve had to kind of fight for as well, where there’s something called impact, right? So if a conversation you have on this podcast or on the live one impacts in a positive way, can you really put a number of subscribers to that? Right? If someone really comes away talking to you inspired and then 10 years, 15 years down the line, they look back and they reflect them now they’re saying, damn that conversation with Norm was the one that really was a changing moment. That was a tipping point for me. You can’t quantify that. You can’t quantify any genuine friendships that may form or genuine fans that you may make whether it’s 150, 1000, 100,000, million. In art, for example, I don’t feel like you can contain art in terms of value in that amount, in my opinion.
Norman 43:08
Right. Yeah, going back to the podcast. So the podcast went out and I saw a like, and I went, oh, wow, I think it was Hayden. I said, we got a like. Then my other son was in the room. He goes, Yeah, that’s me. I went, Oh. So anyways, it’s a lot of fun now, and we enjoy it. But let’s talk about your podcast for a bit, the Nice Cast. So what’s it all about?
Karan 43:37
So I don’t actually podcast any more per se. It started off me just renting out library study rooms, because they were soundproof and then hooking up a USB mic, and then just talking about certain things I was struggling with at the time, whether it was a relationship or, just internal demons, I was just kind of letting out on the microphone and then after that, I shifted into a lot of pop culture content and we just talked about movies and stuff like that and then yeah, that was, I mean, that’s pretty much it. But now for me, I’m kind of taking on more of a producer role when it comes to podcasts and stuff. Like I like the idea of kind of being behind the scenes and producing them and helping others get their voice out and stuff. But yeah, that’s what it is for me and I kind of feel like, if your heart’s not in it, and you genuinely don’t love it, because we look at it from the podcaster’s eyes because we do it right for someone else. They may not get the nuance of a conversation on a podcast to them. It’s just like, Alright, I’m listening to people talk and I have to remind people that No, just because it’s two people talking, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t creativity going into it and that’s been a fight because people see that as like, Oh, are you being arrogant by saying that and it’s like, No, I’m not being arrogant. I just need you to know that this is an art form and it’s not something that you can just do because everyone else is doing it. I mean, I kind of feel like what celebrities getting into the podcast game that’s been kind of a frustration I’ve had where, like you said, You work really hard towards it, you get one like, two likes, it can kind of dampen your excitement for future creations that you may want to make in this space. A celebrity was just like, Oh, I heard about podcasting. Let me just do podcasting and they don’t even probably put in 10, they may put in 10% of the effort that you have, and they post it on Instagram, and everyone is just treating it like it’s gospel, and that’s where the feticidezation of celebrities in our culture comes into play and that can also be off putting for you and it can also kind of like I said, dampen that hype and that anticipation like why am I gonna make a podcast when I have to now compete with with a celebrity with a vast network? Why would anyone want to hear me talk when a celebrity can start a podcast, call up their other celebrity friend, and now they have this bubble that they’ve created and now they’re tapping into their vast network and audience across social media and wow, that podcast got a million views and stuff, so yeah, I mean, I just really love the idea of just engaging in discourse with with people, I think that strongest value podcast, and then you see other people doing it in other ways they have, for example, I saw this definitely around the election time where people were doing like one minute breakdowns of political events. I think the New York Times has audio content in that fashion, which is technically a podcast, too and yeah, it’s I think, well, I guess, I’d want to ask you, where do you see the future of podcasting kind of going?
Norman 46:33
I’m gonna break it down, like I see the way Amazon has gone and as I call it, The Rise of The Micro Brands, and I think that’s going to be the same with podcasting. I think people are going to look for gentlemen, podcasters, you’re going to have the celebrity status. So, just like influencers, there’s a breakdown of five different types of influencers, like running from nano micro going right up to celebrity, I think that’s going to be the same range with podcasters and as in the micro brands, with the nano influencers, or the micro influencers, you’re gonna see that there’s going to be these ones that rise to the top and as long as they’re giving out quality content, content for people to listen to, it’s going to be engaging, but it’s just gotta have some interest, and it’s got to have some, you got to be genuine. Well, you know what, I’m going to take that back, because there’s a lot of podcasters that I’ve heard, watched listen to, that are as phony as, and maybe that’s their spiel, not for me, but I’d rather have go along this way trying to introduce real people. But I do think you’re gonna see these smaller podcast influencers, whatever you want to call them start to rise, and there’ll be different categories and you could be a nano, let’s say, a micro brand on Amazon, and still be an eight figure seller and that’s the same thing here, you can still have a huge fan base, it might not be the Kim Kardashian fan base, but it’s a fan base, a niche market with people that will truly engage with you and that’s what we’re looking for. We’re not looking for people that just hit the Follow button, because we’ve asked to buy 100,000 likes or whatever it is. We want that true, organic rise and right now we’re micro or we’re nano. If we can do a great job in the nano market, awesome. If all of a sudden we catch on somehow and we go to the next one.
Karan 48:45
That’s also why I was really excited about Clubhouse too because I kind of look at Clubhouse as somewhat of an evolution of podcasting in the sense that I love the idea that you’re either part of that group, and then if you’re there, you’re there. If not, you miss it, then you have to check out the next one. I think there is something to that. I mean, also just taking away the editing aspect of it and taking away a lot of those tedious tasks. Because if the appeal of podcasting is discourse, and you can have that discourse in Clubhouse, I was like, I’m excited to see what you guys would be able to do on Clubhouse because I think some of these conversations and then you sharing your experiences building the business that you have outside of this, I think that could be fascinating for you guys there.
Hayden 49:28
That’s it for the first half of the interview. Make sure to tune in later this week for the rest of the interview. As always, make sure to like and subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcasts. That’s enough for me and I’ll see you next time.
