Campfire Stories with The Haunting Season's Josh Sterling Bragg: Horror, TikTok, Burnout

We're hey everybody, and welcome to another episode of Scary Stories. We tell I am one of your hosts, Chris Stash, and I am joined by my good friend. You have heard him here many times now, plenty of times, but not plenty enough, your friend and mine. I'm the host of the Haunting season. You can find him on TikTok right now.

It would be weird if all of a sudden, I just start playing one of your TikTok videos having you speak before I let you actually talk. You're not gonna say anything. Thanks for having so whoa. That is not what Josh Bragg sounds like your friend in mine, Joshua Sterling Bragg recently shrunken by a shrink Ray Elvis. That's what I imagine your head.

You start shrinking down because you had the witch doctor put the power. Nice fucking model. How are you doing, Josh, it's been a minute. Last time we saw one another, we were dressed up in costumes. Yeah we were.

I'm surprised you got that thing off. Oh it's just an illusion. It's just a snapchat filter. Yeah, that was a lot of teletubby suit filter. That was a lot of fun.

I could have been mass chaos with that many people and it just like it just flowed. I loved that. That was so much fun and I love I talked about the candy to like all of my friends afterwards, but I couldn't remember the details. So it was like one of those stupid stories, you know, where you're like, oh yeah, on this show, we did like the top ten worst candies. Oh yeah, what are they?

Um? Well, handy corn and packing peanuts. I'm packing. I can't remember the rainuts. What's really funny is I have gone to places that sell candy, which is a weird way of saying five blow in dollar tree stores.

Where do they sell candies? Sir? I have gone to several places now that sell candy, and I have seen those goddamn circus peanuts, and all I think of is I can't wait to send Josh a bag of these for Christmas. No. I, When I see my immediate thought is I can't believe these are banana flavored.

That was the most shocking part of that whole episode. And the best part is they have all kinds of flavors. So now that I know you don't like the banana flavored ones, I'll make sure to get you ones that aren't banana flavor. I don't even know. If I'm not a fan of the banana flavor.

I just don't understand why an orange peanut would taste yellow and banana et. I don't know. I don't know. They're so we already covered this, Chris, that's true. I already talked about this topic.

Don't be boring and dumb the one who brought it up. Double dip the chip. You can't double dip it. It's a very special two part episode of conversation. When I saw them though in in Irl, I grabbed the bag and they were rock hard, like you could have taken them and thrown them and broke it a window.

They were to take a tooth out of those They've been sitting there for a while, you know, like Candy. Nobody actually like yes, if you ever need to remove a filling or a tooth or just chip your fucking tooth, just yeah, right out of your mouth, Like yeah, they're not great statistic bastards. So, Josh, how have you been? What's the haunt? What's going Yeah, let's ask it easier question.

What's been going on over at the Haunting season? Now that spooky season's over, but spooky season never ends for the haunting season. That's right. Well, I'll preface all of this with I'm doing great, but I've gotten pretty burnout, and that when my goal this year was to not get burnt out in holiday season. And I didn't really even realize why I was feeling that way until well, I didn't even realize I was feeling this way until I was sitting in bed Saturday morning and I turned to my wife Courtney, and I said, completely out of the blue for her, but I have been thinking about it for a while.

And I was like, you know, I totally understand why people give up on their dreams. And she was like, whoa, I don't like this, and like turned off the TV, closed her phone and was like, well, let's talk about it. And I was like, well, you know, that's not like a like a cry for help or anything. It was just like I get it. Like I'm I'm turning thirty seven tomorrow.

Actually, as we record this, and I'm at the point where I'm like, okay, so I've done TikTok for two years. I'm getting close to four hundred thousand followers, which is great, but I've posted every single day, and what that means for me is every single night, I'm working on TikTok's for hours after my forty hour plus a week job when we're in production, it's more like eighty. And then I go home and I'm editing and I'm producing, and I'm writing and I'm recording and all this stuff, and I'm sourcing stuff off the internet to cut into my videos and make it more interesting, and I'm exhausted, and I push extra hard during the holiday season, and I didn't realize, like someone put it really well. I don't remember who it was on TikTok, but like posted a video and was like, I don't know why I push myself so hard as a content creator for horror stuff during the holiday season because I'm realizing that everyone's talking about it.

So the whole holiday season is so super saturated that my content actually isn't doing well. And so like a month ago, my views and everything were like doing really well, and there's like lots of traction and lots of conversations happening, and all of October it was like bottom bottom level interaction and like only only a few people were seeing what I was doing, and I was like pouring so much energy into it because I'm like, this is the season when in reality I should be taking a vacation in October because everyone else got it covered. Okay, next year, let's do that series. That's a great idea. I'm going to be coming to La anyways.

Let's just do it. Let's just let's make let's make a pact between the two of us and just not do it. Let's just take a break for a month, because you know what we don't do. We don't take breaks. Man.

Well I am now. I I've been forced to now well because I taught to my wife, and like any good husband, I went and got a second opinion, and woe when I met her. I don't think you need a second opinion. How she always knows best. But I happen to be going over to my friend Nick's house afterwards, and when I hang out with him, it's sort of like when you and I record, we just kind of like follow the flow of whatever is happening.

And so I got over there and I was like, hey, I had this, you know, weird thought this morning that I understand why people give up their dreams because at thirty seven years old, Like, I don't want to be a TikToker. That's not my end that's not my end goal. But that is what's keeping me from accomplishing anything else creative because it takes up so much creative space, right And I don't want to lose that audience because I've built something really special, and because I want to source those people to help me take the next big step in like creating a film or even a short film or even just anything at all. Like I have now all these people that care, and it would be nice for them to be included in what I do next.

And so we talked about it, and he said a lot of the same things as my wife, and they both were like, Hey, why don't just like starting now you kind of start easing back a little bit. And I've done that all this week. And I even have removed myself from screens when I get home from work because most of when I'm in the office, most of what I'm doing is in post production. And so I just I literally have three screens in front of me right now. I've got a laptop, desktop, and a secondary monitor.

Likewise, my friend, my phone of my iPad right here, and so this whole week, I've gone home when my wife is working and just put on a record and made dinner for myself and then like maybe organized my closet or like hung out with my dogs and just completely untapped from the internet, and it just felt so good. It's important to do, man. That's why I have a lot of hobbies that do not require me. I could have a screen on in the background, but having a screen on is just for the noise. Like I love doing hand embroidery, requires no TV.

I love playing board games, which requires I mean, like yourself. I mean, I'm someone who likes a lot of things, but plenty of them are screen based. I love doing this. I love playing video games with my friends. I mean, I can't keep in touch with a lot of people if I'm not in front of a screen, yourself included, or just friends of mine from high school who I still keep in touch with.

Yeah, but at the same time, my wife lives here, my best friend lives here, and then my other best friend who's not my wife, lives here. That's the joke. But but being with them doesn't necessitate being in front of a TV. Either, So I get it. It's it's but it's hard because it's just like you said, one, two, three, four, five six, it's just you can't escape it.

Yeah, it's hard. But so I spent a week in Palm Springs last week with my cousins because they were already going on vacation there and they were like, Hey, if we get a three bedroom, will you come and hang out with us. So it was me, my cousins and their kid who's three, and my wife and we had a pool and we barely turned on the TV. Like if if my cousin and I were talking about like a music video from the nineties would be like, oh, thrown up on YouTube, you know that sort of thing. But for the most part, we like hung out in the pool and then we did some thrifting and my cousin found a Stranger Things puzzle, like a thousand piece puzzle, and we did that for like three nights in a row, and it was it activated my brain in a way that I didn't know I really needed.

And so after they left, my wife and I bought a thousand piece like Beatles album cover puzzle that we're going to do over the holidays. Nice. Yeah, I too fell down the puzzle Hole last year, don't don't puzzle season, don't go to four. You may never turn back in changing my user name the Puzzles Season, the Puzzling Season. I'm with you.

I think that obviously. You know, as as two people who create content and create massive amounts of content, I mean, I don't create content out it's close to every day essentially, it's not there. There is no algorithm on spreaker, but there is an algorithm on TikTok obviously, so it's a different it's a different expectation for what the content creator is being asked to do. But I will sit here and think to myself, I have not gotten an episode posted today, And the only person in the world who is really keeping track of that it is the same person that's keeping track of you posting things on TikTok. You could go dark tomorrow on TikTok and never post another video.

And what is anybody going to do about it? Do about it? Nothing? But I do. I'll tell you where a lot of my guilt comes from.

Oh no, because I started Haunting Season in twenty thirteen on YouTube. I did it for two years. Every Friday, released a like an eighteen to twenty minute video that was way harder than putting out a one minute video every day, you know, because I was telling a full story that I like wrote from scratch, and I ghosted all of YouTube for seven years. And when I came back to kind of see if I could reactivate that audience and capture anybody, there were hundreds of messages from people being like are you alive? Can you just let us know if you're alive?

Like what happened to you? Where did you go? And I felt so guilty. I was like, I will never do that again. So I would never just like leave the internet, never post again, unless I died, in which case I'd come back as a ghost and be like, yes I did die, thanks for asking.

But you know what I mean, like so many comments to respond to as a ghost, But you know what I mean, Like it's I'm more or less the consequent there are no there are no consequences is more kind of what I was driving at. But I think I think for me, I look at that as a massive plus because it's it's kind of freeing in a way. You know, I don't have the kind of job where I'm nailed down to one thing constantly, and I'm going to disappoint somebody. I'm the only person I'm going to disappoint I genuinely believe is myself. You know, if I disappoint my audience, I'm going to disappoint my audience.

I might disappoint them by not releasing the episode on a Tuesday as opposed to a Wednesday. Yeah, Or you might disappoint them by not asking a question they thought of in their head. Right. So you know, I'm not that I'm saying I don't listen to the audience or care about the audience or any of that. It's more just reassessing and re aligning of my own mental expectations and then conversely the expectations and my interpretation of the expectations of my audience.

Because, like you said, if I U saw all those messages, I would feel the same way. I would feel terrible. I would feel terrible. But at the same time, there are other content creators. You are allowed to live your life however you see fit.

That's the part I have a hard time with. And I'm not even joking all that much. I give you permission to live your life how you want. Dude, you need to see that's the thing, and that's the thing. I don't need to give you permission, You need to give yourself that That's exactly what it is.

And that's what I go with because I came up as a freelancer in New York and I was scrambling for every dollar I could find and just saying yes to everything. And I allowed that to creep into my full time not just creep into to cascade into my full time job because I continued doing the same thing. It just was with a company and like a startup, you know, and the startup mentality is go, go, go, say yes to everything. And now are the companies at a point where I'm able to scale back and just do one job instead of fifty, which feels really good. But that mentality that I've been driving at for fifteen plus years now feeds into my hobby, which is TikTok, you know.

And then I'm like, well, if I'm not building something, what am I doing? And if you're building something, you're in sprint mode, and that's not always true. I feel like I need to get into maintenance mode and be comfortable in maintenance mode where I'm like, I'll put out a video when it feel it is good to put out a video. There are people with like millions of followers on TikTok that put out a video once a month, and I follow them and I see every video they put out, and I get excited about it. But I'm like, well, if I don't post every day, what am I doing with my life?

You know? Yeah, it's it's that sick mental place. Well, no, I mean again to your point, I mean that is it's it's part of this profession that we have that. It's again, like you've we've kind of already talked about, it's really hard to kind of balance the two because you are your own boss. I am my own boss.

Yeah, for the content creation. I mean, you have a job, you have a day job. This is my full time gig. So I really only report to me and then the people that I collaborate with or the audience. I guess I report to the audience, but I don't.

I don't view it that way. But giving one self permission to be okay with scaling back, I think is I get it. It's hard because I'm the same way. I mean, dude, you know how many podcasts I do. This is one of a lot, one of two week one or one of two weekly and countless monthly podcasts, and soon to be after the first of the year a bi weekly podcast.

So two weekly and a bi weekly podcast every day or every week, fifty two times a year. It doesn't even sound like much, but it is so much. It's a lot. It's a lot. Not even as much as you do content that you have to you have to curate, and you have to record, and you have to you know, do post production on and and distribution on and research and everything else.

But but then you're making daily content. And I can't even fucking fathom that, dude, I can't. There are people that I work with that can't fathom doing a weekly show. Yeah, I can't, And I understand where they're coming from that they can't fathom that. I cannot fathom doing anything daily like what you do because it's asinine, because it's it's it's realistic expectations to a degree that I cannot be okay with.

Well, it was in it was during the pandemic in which I started, which is one thing that builds in extra time because I'm not commuting because I don't know what else to do with myself, you know, because you can't go to restaurants. You can't, you know, blah blah blah. So it spawned from that which allowed me extra time. And I also had extra resources at at different points in this where I like maybe had someone editing for me for a little while, or I for a little while. I tried out someone like writing like spec scripts for me to do back when I was trying to do like folklore stuff, and then I would punch him up before recording.

None of that was like long term, but that helped me kind of like bridge the gaps when things got hard. And I'm also a content like creator for work, so I know how to batch things and I know how to get ahead and get things in the can so that I can there are moments of sprinting and moments of like sitting back, but even that, because of the daily posting, has gotten to be too much. Yeah, And I think I'm just getting into a more mature phase. And it was cool to be in like a building period where like I got the four hundred thousand in under two years. That's an insane amount of people I never thought i'd ever reach, and I have to keep that in mind.

Because it's like I don't need there's no need to get any further than I already did, right, you know? Well, and I guess for me, the reason I've never done video content like TikTok is because the kind of personality that I have, it would be damn near impossible to drag me away from him if I was at the level that you're at now knocking on the door of four hundred thousand, which is just you know, there are people that have millions on TikTok, but four, like fucking four hundred thousand, I can't even fathom that My goal. When I started, I was like, I hope someday I can get to ten thousand, because I had heard that there were people who had relatively quick r is this to ten thousand, and then things sort of slowed down for them, and I was like, if only someday, if only someday, I could get there.

And I'm a four hundred thousand now and still in this mode mentally that I'm like actively working out of and doing a good job of where I'm just like more and more goal go, you know, and it's like I need I don't need a million, Like what would i'd even do. With a million people following me, you would have more opportunities, I guess, but like wouldn't have a job. You wouldn't have a job anymore, dude, that's no I would. I'm not leaving. This is my career, like I know, I never I know, but that's but here's the thing.

There are people in your position where if they got I mean, like like with my kit charm City Paranormal, if you get to a certain point, you have to make that decision. And I let me level with you, bro, I just you know, be real talk with you here and I can edit this part out if you want me to. You're gonna have to make a decision, it sounds like at some point, and I think you know that. And I don't think it's going to be easy decision for you to make. It's either scale back or stop or turn over to somebody else.

Because if you don't want to continue the train building because it is a career, the Haunting season would be a career for somebody else, you know what I mean. Well, I think what it boils down to for me is Haunting Season to me, isn't the TikTok the TikTok is a small part of what Haunting Season is in my heart and soul, right so yeah, so like if that's the form facing part of it is the problem right now. And what I want to do is shift that to larger scale media, right like films. But I don't think TikTok could ever disappear, is my point, right right? That would have to keep going.

But at that point, and I think the next move, like what Mike is talking about now, I just had them on my show, so there, um all right, actually like two days ago, and you're talking about like the idea of like bringing on extra people, you know, and bring on people to edit and or not not edit edit, but to do rushes for him and to do like assistant editing work so that when he's getting to his computer, there's work already done and he can do the good part, the part that needs him, as opposed to all of it which does not need him. I don't need to be hitting post and writing out hashtags. No, you know what I mean. No, we we had this conversation before we started recording. Yeah, we did.

We we as content creators. If you are I'm not even gonna say lucky enough, because there's not There is luck here. The luck is created by working fucking hard every fucking like That's That's the thing I would tell anybody who wants to make content for a living and you want to actually do this and you want to be you want to put your best foot forward to be successful. You might not be successful. You may never reach the level of success that you want because it's not about what someone else's level is.

It's about what you want. You may never be able to reach that. And that's okay. But but every single wake up and do it. And if you can hack it for a year, you can hack it for two, you can hack it for three, you can hack it for four.

You can hack it as a job if you manage to have that success. But that success is not really luck based. The luck exists because you've worked hard and those opportunities can present themselves. But once you put that out into the world, I'm telling I'm not telling you anything you know, I know, but more to the audience, once you put it out into the world, you no longer control it, you no longer have All you have claim over is the fact that you're part of it. But you can't control how it's received, where it goes, who sees it.

But that is the thing about this that is so rewarding. I don't have. I don't have the community that you have, and it's never been it's never been something that I have cared about. But but yet I'm pissed at myself because I should have. But that opportunity isn't gone.

It's not I know. But I've been doing this for eight years and I have about one percent of my effort into building a community, in ninety nine percent of my effort into creating the content for people to listen to. Because you can't do both. And that's where my crossroads is at the moment, is I am I am in need of writing a film, but I can't do both, and so I have to scale back from that drive that you know, I'm never going to stop being the type of person who wakes up every day at five thirty in the morning and gets to work and is excited to get to work immediately, and even on days off, I'll be like, yeah, but I could squeeze in some hours before Courtney wakes up and then we go do our fun things and I have the day off.

Yep. There's always stuff to squeeze in. I'm never going to stop being that person, but I need to stop being that person on solely TikTok alone as the only thing that I'm pouring that energy into. Yeah, yeah, I mean, look, the expectations for you as a TikTok creator are parlance that we can all agree with, absolute utter fucking bullshit for a number of reasons. Lack of transparency on the platform.

The expectations of content creators to quote be successful is not healthy for anyone. I don't care who you are, doing that every day at the level that you're doing is not a healthy expectation, especially when you don't know how they're making any of the decisions, how the information is being pushed to people. You're just fumbling in the dark. You're hitting baseballs out into the outfield and hoping somebody catches um or doesn't catch them, however you want to interpret it, but it is. It is toxic.

TikTok is toxic for the users if you're into toxic content on TikTok. But I would contend TikTok is toxic for the creators because the expectation for the creators is detrimental to your lifestyle unless you have a team of people supporting you who can help you at every turn, and all you have to do is turn the camera on, turn the camera off, and everything else is done for you. Then you can go do whatever the hell you want. And like you said, I don't need to be there for that, I don't need to do any of that. But yet, if you don't have that, like you have been, like I have been, I have had to do everything for the last almost decade.

Like you know, it's it's hard to you. If you work a job where you have people that you work with or work for you, that's easy for you. It's it's easier for you to take solace in that unknowingly because it's subconsciously you have people like you can rely on. But when you do something like this and you're the only one involved or one of the few people involved, that in and of itself is stress and strain because I never feel like I'm doing enough, even though I know I am trying to figure out ways to actively find time during the day like you do. And this isn't just unique to constant creation, to podcasts.

The creation. I mean, look that Kevin Hart documentary that he put out about himself, UM a little while ago. I forget when it was. I would think it was pre pandemic. But he Kevin Hart is a stand up comedian.

He is an actor. He is in movies and the only reason he has the popularity that he has is because he put in the hard work and worked every single day and got to the point where he now has an entourage and he literally has a company of people working for him so that he can continue to be a successful actor and comedian. It's not so that they can build out some kind of like crazy merchandizing, like you know, like Stevo's selling sunglasses and water bottles with his name on it and probably his ass on it as well. Come out, I love I adapted a dog in Peru. I have a huge jackasshole shape in my heart or however that phrase goes.

So are you saying you are aren't a fan of Jackass? I love Jackass me too. It is it has a just a sour pit in my stomach. Oh, I have no shame. I have no shame in my appreciation of Jackass.

I'm not ashamed of it. I'm ashamed of how it makes me feel why that's fair, because I feel sick, I feel excited, I feel guilty, I feel anyway. And the point I'm trying to make is that even people on Kevin Hart's level, who are wildly successful, have figured out a way to have a team around them so that they can continue what they do. And that's like the next step in the evolution. So get you some interns.

Everybody, get you some interns, pal, That's what I mean. And everybody should get some interns. Well, I am right, well that I mean Jesus Christ well, And and that for me is also the other The other thing here that I do think about frequently is like yourself, I feel like I am on the cuspier of I don't know. I don't know. I have no idea any more than you do.

Like I pretend like I know what I want to be the next step. I think you like to believe you know, But neither one of us can know a year from now whether or not those things come to fruition, whether or not they go the way we plan, whether those things. And I mean again, when you get emails out of the blue front people, or when opportunities just land in your lap, you could not have foreseen that if you tried. But that is what this job field allows. Is if I'm working a job down at I don't know your local whatever business, park, business, where you're in a cubicle, opportunities aren't coming your way because your opportunities are contained within your job unless you go and look for another job.

But we don't know what opportunities we're going to get doing what we do, But we also may not get anything. That's the problem. Or if you say no, are you ever going to get that opportunity again? Right? That's the scary thing.

Where like Josh Brolin in episode one of Open Range or Outer Range, Yeah, I just started watching it last night. It is the slower, slightly more sci fi version of Yellowstone and less dramatic and less Kevin Costner, which is all I really care about. You don't like Kevin Costner? No? Oh?

Is that weird? Yeah? What not? A fan of his acting? Everything I've seen him in has been in.

You ever seen The Postman? You ever seen I've never seen Field of Dreams. See that's why you know? But I know the ki Oh yeah, you know what? Dances with Wolves beat my favorite movie for an Oscar and that's the only time I'm actually angry about the Oscars.

Good Fellas is still the better movie. I don't care what anybody says, and I think time I think time has willed that out. I don't think anybody cares about Dances with Wolves anymore. No. I actually just watched it for the first time last year, and I was like, oh, you know, I really I have a heart for like really long movies because I hate when you're talking about Dances with Wolves are Good Fellows because they're both really long movies.

Yeah, both, um No, but Dancing Wolves I saw for the first time last year. Um. And my favorite part is there's the moment where he gets married and they're like, I now pronounce your husband and wife and he just turns to everyone and goes by, and like that's like it. I don't remember it at all. I saw it in high school.

They showed it to us in Texas history. Yikes. Yeah. Yeah, I think they got some things wrong in that movie. Yea, it is pretty well done.

I like that. I think they got some things wrong. I think they might have maybe gotten some things wrong, but I'm not an authority on it, so ostener cast. But yeah, I'm a big fan of Yellowstone because it fits in that like that that part of my of my viewing experience balance beam. Um, that's soap opera, you know, Like I feel like you got to have like a soap opera is show?

So like, um, Sons of Anarchy for me felt like a soap opera. Um, I've heard Yellowstone compared to the Sopranos. It is, it is, but it is like on the Range Sopranos, on the Range Sopranos, but also like on the range Gray's Anatomy in some ways it like it has no but in like a because I've seen every episode of Gray's Anatomy except for this most recent season. Now yeah yeah, and I think it's Ohio's last season and it's a really big deal. Um yeah, talk about Hey, she made a decision.

She's like, you just keep making the show, like I don't know. She did a whole season where they used a mannequin for her instead of her. Yeah, they built they put her in a coma for an entire season, and they shot like obviously one day on a beach that was like her coma dream. And then she took the season off and they built a like a They built her and put her in a bed, and they had like a mechanical breathing mechanism, so it looked like she was still alive. Oh yeah, and the moment you notice you can't see it.

It's amazing. It's like that mechanical Hagrid head and Harry Potter. You ever seen that? No, Oh no, I don't want to ruin Harry Potter more than JK already has so in in Harry Potter in I believe at least the earlier films before CGI got better, but I believe they probably still used it later because again for some like close up shots. Um the one of the one of the more obvious shots in the first movie when Hagrid comes through the door in the lighthouse where the Dursleys and Harry are staying on his birthday, and you see him, you know, he kind of ducks down through the doorway.

The actor Robbie Coltrane, who just recently passed away, bigger guy, but not fucking seven feet tall or whatever Hagrid was, so he was on he's in lyft shoes, right. But for a lot of the shots where it's far away shots, they needed an actual large actor so that they can show the height disparity between the act the children actors and Hagrid to make them look bigger. So they had a tall actor in a mechanical Hagrid head. Cool. No, no, Now, Harry Potter will be ruined for you because anytime you watch the early movies, all you'll be able to see is when they're using mechanical Haggard head and when they're using just Robbie Coult and the actor, and it's awful because the mechanical Haggard head it's not good.

Well, I mean a lot of technology has advanced past the early Harry Potter films. Yeah, you know, and the Haggard head is actually on display at some Warner Brothers archive. It's just like on a stick. Oh that's cool. Haggard's head on a stick.

Oh man, that's cool. I love it. I love stuff like that, like old school. Like um, I did a tour of well, I've done a tour of like a couple of the Hollywood studios around here. I don't remember which one is responsible for Lord of the Rings.

Warner Brothers. Yeah, so on the Warner Brothers lot, there's like a you know, an area where they show you the camera trick that they used to make Gandolf larger by having him in the background but then having the table built in like a weird way and having the mugs a certain way, and so they see you in front of the camera on a green screen and so like I have a video of me and my mom like sharing a beer, but I'm twice as tall as amazing. Yeah, it's so cool. It's that same thing like, yeah that I was actually ruin it for me. It just makes it feel more like Hollywood magic.

I was good. I actually was going to say, we're talking about Harry when I mentioned Harry Potter, Like it's just like in Lord of the Rings, Like I can't help but notice every time it's not Elijah Wood. It's one of the small actors who's is playing a hob. But it's like that is just and you know what it is, right, it's one of those smaller actors with an Elijah Wood mask on. But as a horror fan who like loves seeing the blurred edges between shitty practical effects and magical moments in movies, like, for example, having a child dressed as Chucky with a rubber head on, like running around is very different from and you get to the close up and you see you know, the mechanical Chucky.

All that stuff just makes me giggle and just the best way. It's part of the reason why I love movies is because you can be like, oh, it's obviously fake, but I'm still engaged in the story. Wait, movies aren't real. No, has nobody told he has somebody told you, Chris? Has nobody told you?

No? But things are like getting to the point where I don't know. I feel like District nine was the first time I really saw it where I saw a cgi character that I had an emotional connection too. And then I was like, whoa, we were getting somewhere and that was years ago, Like where we are with Stranger Things now. I mean, I guess Vecna, you can still kind of see, like the rubber suit and everything I say.

I thought a lot of that was done in camera. Yeah, yeah, I'm more of a fan of Stranger Things. Was that? No, Man, I thought you were gonna be like, well, it's that drag show that you know. I don't know.

I've always every time I come up, every time someone says stranger Things, and I say stranger Things I never have a follow up to what that is, so I should probably figure out what it is so that next time someone says, it'd be like stranger Thing, Stranger Things, that's everybody's a drag show, where I thought it's just everybody's real sassy. Yeah, all gender swapped stranger Things. Yeah, they'd be like, oh no, Vecna is coming, and then they whip pan over to eleven and elevens like stranger than stranger, Thanks God. That should be your TikTok Stranger Things, stranger tis. It's like when people ask you want to go to Buffalo Wild Wings, I'm more of a fan of Buffalo.

Wow. That's completely different, boy, isn't it? Buffalo Wild Wangs, not somewhere We're going tonight for dinner at our film. We can go, but we're not going to eat. And if we do eat, because they were not gonna be swallowing.

But I don't know what other people are up. I don't want to make any thing. I just meant for like sanitary reasons, like you probably don't want to eat where you wing, you know, eat where you Wang eat and Whang or you went Whang and where you eat? Yeah, I see, I will tell you though you know, for he's like me pivot backs and serious stuff for using I go for it. I want laugh you.

Um, I will say, though you know, getting to talk to you because I think we have talked once in the past previously about being burned out. I don't remember when it was, but one of the times we've done one of these, you and I were both like having a similar conversation. But it was within the last year and a half, so I think I want to say it was at the beginning of this year. Does that sound right? Where you burned out at the beginning of this year?

Can anybody? I mean, I get seasonal depressions so um so typically when the time changes, I don't realize it, but I start to get kind of bummed out. And then by the time I hit February or March, which is usually when I start feeling the effects of seasonal depression and I feel like I can't get off the couch or like I don't want to do anything productive. And that kind of has been moving up because of the pandemic because there's been less things to do. But I've been combating it by going to therapy and by doing things for myself, Like we bought all these little candles, like battery powered candles, and they turn on automatically at a certain point at night, and everything becomes a little bit magical and a little bit warmer.

And I built out are. It's way too hot in California, even in the wintertime to have a fire, So we have this fireplace, this gas powered fireplace that we never turn on. So I put like sparkly lights in there on like you can turn it on with your phone. So like first thing in the morning, when I wake up and it's still dark outside, I turn on the fireplace and it looks like there's a fire, and it's like, oh yeah, wow, cabin, yeahs, come visit. It's twenty two degrees outside.

We'll have a fire for warmth. I think it's like I think it's getting down into the forties now, which the only way that really matters is when I ride my bike to work first thing in the morning and it's like forty degrees and then you get that like sweaty cold, you know. I like that though, yeah, yeah, no, I like it. The only thing is my lungs. I feel like I have a little bit of like cold air asthma.

You know, I only feel it when it's cold and I'm trying to work out. I hear you. I mean, hey, dude, I've been that might just be being human, but you're right. I you know, I spent this year I feel like taking better care of myself. That's great.

I think so I did the opposite. Oh you haven't. Oh yeah, the year before I was really taking care of myself. I was doing yoga every day. I was like when exercise bike.

Now all I do is binge, eat and like I've occasionally ride my bike to work and I've been trying to be better about it. You shocked by this? All I do is make TikTok's When do I have time to take care of myself? You need to find time, buddy, because I know that's what I'm working on. That's what this episode is about.

Josh is working on it. No I am. I'm riding my bike more, I'm eating more healthy, I'm making better decisions, and I'm scaling back on the Uh. You know, fill every waking moment of life with creating content. You're making better decisions is in like not buying cryptocurrencies.

How yeah, eating your Twitter account You're just responding to the time killing stray dogs, you know, you know, the whole SPCA. They need help, but not the way you think. No, No, making better decisions like like uh, you know, in the past couple of weeks of scaling back and taking time to listen to a record and not have to have that be part of a five part evening where I'm like trying to create content, listen to a record, watch a TV show, find new clothes. You know, I'm just literally just sitting and eating my dinner and listening to a record and being like, it's okay, it's okay to be for that Internet? Man, what did they do for like fun interacts each of the radio come on down?

But our shows on Life of Riley, Yeah, listen to uh what was it a Prairie Home Companion? Yeah, with Garrison Keeler Lake Whoebegone. I'm like, whoagain, That's what we should do. That's their show. We should bring that kind of ship back.

But for millennials, like, there's nothing like that, is there? I guess is that is that? Mister? Is that what mister beast is? I just kid mister mister flapped him?

Is the new mister Beast is the new Prairie Home companion boy. That would probably make him in his army of children fans very angry. Yeah, how do you have that many fans and they're not all kids? That's my question? Like, how how are there that many people that are a fan of someone and I know nobody who is?

How is that possible? I don't know. I'm asking a genuine question here. How are that many? How?

Okay? He has a hundred one hundred million subs on YouTube? Yeah? How do I not know a single person who actively talks about his videos or says anything like? Is did he pay?

Is this like his big gag? He paid one hundred million people to subdist channel. Maybe that's the Vinyl con gag? Do one better? How many people do you know who go to a movie just because Jared Letto is in it?

No one, no one, And yet he keeps getting cast in these movies and people are blowing up the box office. Who are those people? I dude, I don't know a serious is getting a second movie? No it's not, Yes it is, it's no urban time. No, okay, you're lying or you're fucking with me?

If this is real, I am If this is real, I'm gonna lose my actual mind. If it's not real, it's not going to affect me at all. Yeah, if it's not real, we're both better off for it. Morbius, Oh yeah, because of all those people renting it after the fact. Okay, this is unrelated, but there's something called morbius, remorbed morbid time.

It's morbid time. Okay, let's look up Jared. I can't believe I'm Jared. I can't believe I'm googling him. Letto, don't be introduced now.

It's like I can't believe it's not Butter. I can't even spell his name right. There is fucker in that bow tie? Oh yeah, oh always. Let's see all firmography, and then it's say upcoming projects seven?

He has seven upcoming projects, Tron three, Haunted Mansion. Oh yeah, he's gonna be in the Haunted Mansion movie. Dude Warhol. Yeah, he's playing Andy Warhol. It's gonna be really weird when he sends all his co stars condoms full of come as Andy Warhole.

You know what sucks to say you have cottom's full of gum? Yeah? You know what sucks to is when he when I watched that, Um, I watched that, uh we work show we crashed sure because I had seen the documentary and I was like, oh, I really you know, I really want to see this. Um. He was phenomenal in that he was the probably the perfect casting for that.

UM, but he's not why I watched that and who I guess that's the problem, right, is that he can pull it off? Well, that's what I'm that's my question. Man. It's like, who's watching Jared Letto movies? Who's watching Mister Beast content?

Like, really, I've never seen a single Mister Beast video ever, but yet one hundred million people watches stuff to the point where he beat Pautie Pie. And I knew people that watch Pautie Pie. That was not a question. I knew people that watch Pautie Pie. But I don't know a single person that watches Mister Beast content.

I think it's all like ten year old. So you're gonna have, you're gonna have, You're gonna have a people knocking at your door, Chris, and then I'll be like glad to meet you. What do you like about this content? Just tell me I'm not dragging his content I just who is it for? Is my question?

Yeah? And where are they? They're all They're all held at a camp somewhere and all they do is watch Mister Beast movies all. Are they all wearing white robes? Are they that?

That sounded something? Not because I just meant like a cult, not like the Confederacy. Where are they? Uh? Not there?

I hope? Yeah? God? So, so as we bring this, as we bring this episode to a close, Josh, I have a question for you. What are you gonna do?

What are you gonna do until the next time I talk to you to be better to yourself? Well, let me tell you, I'm going to be doing a puzzle. Um. I would like to. I would like to seriously.

Um. I feel like in three acts because I did go to theater school. Act one is literally just the act of scaling and taking time to be with myself and to befriend myself again, I think, and not treat myself as an employee of myself, Like I want to be friends with myself, not an employee of myself. And then Act two is to apply that to the TikTok concept and be like, well, what's the healthiest version for me? On TikTok because I don't want to not be on TikTok.

I have so many friends that have made because of TikTok. You're one of them, and that is so valuable to me. And there are friends people I consider friends on TikTok that I haven't even had the joy of seeing their face or knowing what they look like. They're just regular, you know, communicators on there. So you know, Act two is what's the healthy version of TikTok for me?

And Act three is to get back to being creative in driving myself towards whatever that next form of haunting season is that will bring more joy to more people on a larger scale and also give me a new exciting frontier to venture into. Dang, that sounded good. Yeah, I ask me questions more often. You know, a shitty ham sandwich with a miracle whip. Thanks for asking.

Oh, I'm a miracle whip person. I don't know why I was just I was just ham like why. I think it was turkey, But I do prefer him. I've always been a ham sandwich kind of guy. Actually that's not true.

I became a ham sandwich kind of guy at my grandfather's funeral because I had never had mustard before, and I was like, today, I'm trying mustard. And I put mustard on a ham and cheddar cheese sandwich and was like, this is it. I've found. I've found bliss. Heaven on earth is ham mustard?

Um? In my twenties, what twenty six? Did you not eat a hot dog until then? No? I mustard?

Oh no, oh no, no your hot dogs? Yeah, I'll catch up. No bun maybe No, that's that's sick. That's disgusting. You're sick, Josh breg somehow Oh okay, otherwise, how do they go down?

Hole? But disgusting? Yeah, it's throat shaped already. Yeah. Yeah, he's perfectly designed to go through your intestines without digesting.

This has been a strange episode, Chris. But you know what, but you know what, media we talked about swallowing hot dogs hole. Yeah. The true horrors, the true scary stories we tell are about our digestive trap. We'll call well, we'll call this show like the art of racing in the rain, the art of swallowing hot dogs hole.

Unbearable weight of bunless hot dogs. Can you imagine going to Costco and being like I want to get one of those hot dog combos, and then when they hand it to you, just go and then when they hand you the hot dog, taking the hot dog out, just walking off with the hot dog in your hand and the soda and just leaving the foil with the bun on the counter. Would you can when you're not on the show where at Costco eating hot dogs without bun? It's keto baby all the time. God, just wiggling back and forth, and then just but here's here would be even better.

How strange of looks would you get if you were walking around Costco with the hot dog in your hand? Because those are big hot dogs. Those are quarter pound dinner franks as they call them. They're pretty average. Oh man, Oh well, Josh Bragg bringing the fucking heat tonight.

Those vacation mode I guess I don't know where can people find you? Josh Haunting season? Go find it mostly on TikTok. There's a podcast there's you know, I'm around. Yeah, that's it.

I think it's the TikTok, right, it's more or less? Yeah, yeah, more or less the TikTok. You want to do it again? You want to get back? Yeah?

So Josh, where can people find you when you're not here? No haunting season on TikTok and I'm taking a little bit, a little bit of a backseat on it, but I'm still putting out content regularly and I love talking to people. So come on over and comment away, even I comment from time to time. You do, and I see it and I'm like, hey, Chris, and then I go in and do it on here, and then I go and check it, like three weeks later, it's like Josh responded, and now I'm the one not responding. I'm sorry, Chris.

Where can people find your work? Weirdingwaymedia dot com. That's the podcast network that friend of mine and I created, and that's where you can find this show. And I would say nineteen plus shows, but it's twenty plus shows and even more at this point, probably by the time this episode airs. So true crime, movies, TV, everything in between.

If you can't find it on Weirdingway Media ROAB, I shouldn't be listening to it. As for this show, Scary Stories, we tell Scary Stories WT on on social media. And yeah, big thanks always to Get the Odd and Dustin Rutledge for the album artwork. For the show, and to our good friend Alex Melanack of Blondo for the music. You can find him on Spotify just search Blondo Josh.

Thank you for joining me as always. Yeah, and we'll catch you. I was gonna say we'll catch on the next episode, but that's not how I end this show. And we'll let our good friend, the former host of Sidings, mister Tim White, will lead us out. No mystery is closed to an open mind.