RDCWORLD

RDCWO

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RLD

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Tiffany: Do you look at yourselves as a social media comedians? Does it offend you to hear people categorize your comedy within those parameters?

RDCWORLD: No, we don’t get offended if anyone calls us that. We like to call ourselves entertainers; that’s what we consider ourselves as. Maybe when we get home, we would be like, “We ain’t no social media comedians,” but that something we say in our minds -if someone introduces us like that, we don’t mind it.

Tiffany: When did you fully accept thatyou were going to make comedy acareer?

RDCWORLD: Around seventeen or eighteen years old, that’s when we put out our first YouTube video. We liked watching a short comedy story go through, and we enjoyed playing actors. That’s when we felt like we actually wanted to make this into something.

Tiffany: When you put out your firstYouTube video, was the intent tobecome famous?

RDCWORLD: No, the intent was to makeexcellent content and hopefully make itonto a movie or a television show.

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Tiffany: Do you feel early in your career as a black comedic, you faced certain hurdles that a white comedic may not have faced?

Mark Phillips of RDCWORLD: Definitely, I talk about this that all the time. We’ve had to make videos that have gone viral multiple times. I feel like if I weren’t black, it would be a little easier. More people would see it, and more people would give us a chance. It’s easier to get to Ellen or to someone who has a platform if you’re white.

Tiffany: Do you feel like a black comedic you have to be really funny while white comedic are allowed to be mediocre?

RDCWORLD: I don’t want to take anything from white comics. Those that have reached success deserve to be there. But, I feel like a black comedian, you have to be top of the line to make it as far as you would like to. In our culture, in general, if you’re not top of the line, people might not support you all the way.

Tiffany: What went into building theRDCWORLD brand?

RDCWORLD: Building the RDCWORLD brand came from just trusting in our mindsets and figuring out what we needed to do to grow outside of just making videos. And that includes expanding to other things that We feel an attachment to as well, Such as gaming, Merch, and making sure we always stayed diverse in the content we made.

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Tiffany: When you see people sharing your content and not tagging you or crediting you, especially early on in your career. How did you deal with that?

RDCWORLD: If someone posts our content without crediting us, we just reach out to the person and ask them to mention us. Most of the time, the person is really understandable, but we don’t let it affect us if there are any problems. We try to make our content so original that viewers can tell who it is by looking at it.

Tiffany: What went into figuring outhow to make money from your skits?

RDCWORLD: We didn’t really care about making money at first. It wasn’t until we saw other YouTubers making money from their videos. Once our videos started to get millions of views, we started to try to figure out how to monetize from our content. But, a million in views does not mean a million dollars. You don’t get rich off a million in views. You get money from consistently making content that gets millions in views.

Tiffany: A lot has transpired this year regarding the fight for Black lives, COVID, and so much other black trauma. Do you feel that you have a social responsibility to speak up on things like that?

RDCWORLD: While we don’t have all the answers, we do feel like there’s a responsibility to speak up on matters we feel passionate about with the platform we’re given. As with anyone in our community who has a large influence, we understand many people will look at us when something happens. And there are certainly more topics we feel stronger on than others. Since the most important thing to us is spreading a message of positivity, we feel the best way to portray that message is through the content we make, whether in satire or a simple tweet

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Tiffany: A big part of black comedy is turning our pain into laughter. How do you navigate that without being insensitive or offensive?

Mark Phillips of RDCWORLD: I’m black - I’m dark black. I don’t think people would think that I am racist towards my own people. Everything I do, I try to help black people along the way. That’s why we started a convention in our hometown. I feel like a lot of conventions, especially anime and gaming conventions, are mostly white. There are possibly some black people who don’t feel comfortable being at those conventions because it’s not many people like them there. Our convention is called Dream Con in Waco, Texas. It was to get people from our hometown and surrounding cities to see that many black people love anime, gaming, and film. It doesn’t always have to be sports.

Tiffany: How do you want to beremembered?

RDCWORLD: We want to be remembered as people who were great at their craft, down to earth, and helped many people. When we leave this earth, the most important thing we want to do is inspire all people but especially black people.

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