It’s not everyday you get a French, Australian and American guy hanging out in Bucharest, Romania.
But for whatever reason this should happen, you might make it on a TV show called “The Science of Stupid”.
This is the story of how I went from chair to floor in 1.2 seconds, gathered about a thousand views on YouTube and had 10 seconds of fame on the National Geographic.
The only thing ‘National Geographic’ about this video was that we are all different nationalities and out of our geographic domain. Other than that, I don’t know why Nat Geo hosts a show called the Science of Stupid.
Anyway, check out the video below, then read the juicy stuff.
So it all started after we sobered up the next day (planking at this level requires 3-5 beers minimum)
The Australian woke up and found the footage on his phone and told me he wanted to post the video on his YouTube channel. “Yo mate, this is the most hilarious shit I’ve ever seen. I’m posting this up on YouTube – you never know, we might make some extra cash mate”.
So the story goes – the Australian posts the video to his YouTube channel and caught the attention of a major media licensing company by the name of Jukin Media.
This company reaches out to the Australian with a few contracts which included the rights to the video promising him 50% of the buyout and some safety waivers. I couldn’t believe a company was interested in this nonsense creation, but by the likes of popular media these days I understood.
The Australian and I struck a 50/50 deal which declared we would split the money that we make. He updated the video description on YouTube with the Jukin Media licensing agreement (For licensing/usage please contact: [email protected]), then we sat back with our fingers crossed.
Eight months later and out of nowhere, the Australian messaged me saying that I was famous!
At this point, I had completely forgotten about ‘our video’ and I asked him what he was talking about.
“Mate, you’re on national fu*&ing television mate with your planking video”, he said.
The first thing that came to my mind was “Show me the money”, but instead, he decided to send me the video clip of him filming a video clip, claiming that he had not received a penny…yet.
“I was assembling Ikea furniture for five hours with the National Geographic playing in the background”, he said. “Then all of a sudden I saw you on national TV”.
I’m not trying to calculate the probability of my clip randomly airing on a British broad cast, viewed in Romania. The circumstances for this to happen were too good to be true. I’m just trying to put some logic to the situation…
He’s telling me he did not receive any cash for the video but yet he knew the exact channel, show and time it would be on? Plus, enough time to open the camera app to shoot a quick video? I jumped to conclusions and accused him that he left me in the dust on our deal. I smelled bullshit and it felt like the right thing to do. We exchanged some hate mail for a day or two then we both received the following email from Jukin Media.
Hey guys,
It looks like we have a potential licensor interested in your video! However, we do not have any payment information on file. Could you please provide me with your info? We typically send out payments via PayPal, so I will need your PayPal email address, but we can also send out a check to your mailing address. Thanks!
Hi XXX and Jordan,
Legally we are only able to send payments to the licensee. The licensing deal is with a company IWC Media Limited for television show “The Science of Stupid Series 2.” I am not aware of the licensing fee at the moment but payments for licensing deals are processed and sent out as soon as we are paid. However, this can take up to 60-90 days after a clip is aired/used by a licensor. Let me know if you have any other questions. Thanks!
