Why Luke Bryan, Parker McCollum + More Love are a joke on TV

The first person to sing a song to Parker McCollum received $500. The first person to wrap Maddie and Tae in wrapping paper got the same thing.

Ernest and Dierks Bentley were also in the public eye along with Joey and Steven from Are You Kidding TV. They’re the “first to bring us…” guys on TikTok and YouTube, and they symbolize a shift in the way artists market music.

• Joey Gizzi and Steven Lannun met at Elon University in North Carolina and started their YouTube channel in 2016.
• They stopped producing videos after graduating in 2018, but the COVID-19 pandemic and the emergence of TikTok as a dominant platform brought them back together.
• They currently have 2.6 million subscribers on YouTube and eight million followers on TikTok.

They’ve given away up to $5,000 of their own money in a single video, plus prizes like computers and gaming consoles.

At the beginning the prices were a little more modest.

“It was all about taking the dollar,” Lannun tells Taste of Country. “This was our first sign video ever. I don’t know how we came up with that. We were standing outside on Elon’s campus and the sign said, ‘Take the dollar,’ and we wanted to see who would take it.”

Even Peyton Manning has worked with them. Last month, the duo introduced a new concept called “Silent Interviews,” which the station’s fans have come to know about taking advantage of the radio silence. Loud Luxury and actor Khleo Thomas were her first guests, but other brands and influencers who have reached out to her include Mr. Beast, Mario Lopez and the Pittsburgh Pirates.

“We try not to make the challenges with these celebrities too long,” says Lannun. “It’s very easy for people to walk by, grab something and bring it back. But they’re usually in and out within 20 minutes.”

“And it’s always a problem for (a celebrity’s) team,” Gazzi – who is sort of Lannun’s Penn’s plate – adds. “When we meet, they ask themselves, ‘How much longer do they have to stand there?’”

More country collaborations are coming very soon (you’ll find a major collaboration on Friday September 27th), and there’s a reason for that.

Here is a condensed version of it Taste of country nights Interview with Are You Kidding TV followed by six burning questions. The full, unedited interview will be published shortly on the Taste of Country Nights: On request Podcast.

Who are the Are You Kidding TV Guys?

Joey Gizzi (beard) and Steven Lannun (none) make social media comedy videos “in which we propose a challenge to the public by sticking a sign to (Gizzi’s) chest. And we don’t talk, we don’t answer questions. And we just stand there with sunglasses on until someone completes the challenge and then gets money.”

Sometimes the challenge is simply identifying five or so things that are wrong with the couple’s presentation. Others require more work. In order to earn the rent for a free semester and get to know Manning, someone had to drag a mattress to where they were standing and do a jump hook on that mattress.

Do you want to entice pay TV people to cooperate?

They get that a lot, and the answer speaks deeply to why country stars love working with them.

First of all, the two men live in Nashville. The videos also offer promotional value for a record release or something similar. “So for us we have the advantage of having someone who is big in video and then he gets a few promotions. “It’s a win-win situation,” explains Gizzi.

The reactions from everyone who plays along are equally organic. No one gets paid unless they complete the task at hand. They are sometimes accused of staging a video because Lannun’s microphone can pick up surrounding conversations, but that is just the result of the heavy amplification.

How much money did they give away?

At one point, Gizzi and Lannun kept a spreadsheet to count how much they spent, but that has long been forgotten. So the couple estimates they gave away $50,000.

“Don’t quote us on that,” they joke.

About That Are You Kidding TV + Mr. Beast Collaboration…

Are You Kidding TV’s collaboration with Mr. Beast is an example of a video that didn’t go as planned. It started with him following them on TikTok and then reaching out for a collaboration two hours later.

Plans were made, and Mr. Beast’s team even paid for and helped build a large swimming pool near Duke University in North Carolina. However, the popular YouTuber has an extremely tight schedule and while Joey and Steven were biding their time, his team told them it wasn’t going to work out.

Don’t worry, it ends well: not only did they have a chance to talk business with him that evening, but they also had time for a simpler concept the next day.

“So he stops, gets out, drives off, gets back in the car and waits for the next one,” says Gizzi. “He would get picked on if he just waited out there on a college campus.”

Have they ever gotten into trouble?

Yes. Are You Kidding TV is often filmed on a college campus, and they once set up shop at Vanderbilt without seeking permission. If you follow the local news in Nashville, you’ve heard other stories about Vanderbilt University arming protesters, members of the media, or other performers off campus.

“I think the video was a Sprite shotgun video, you get $10,” Gizzi says. “And then campus security just wasn’t cool with it. She said, ‘Don’t ever come back. Never come back. You will be arrested.’ So we didn’t come back.

An “Are You Kidding” TV tour?

The two men always dream of new challenges that don’t embarrass anyone too much and don’t put anyone in danger. Gizzi and Lannun say they understand the responsibility that comes with a camera and a pile of money and that they don’t want to do any injustice to their fans, many of whom are children.

“I think people want to be on TikTok now,” says Lannun. “Even if the price was smaller, I think they would still do a lot just to be in front of the camera.”

In addition to new challenges and concepts, Gizzi and Lannun dream of taking their show on tour. A return to Elon University sparked the idea for a tour that is still far away but more tangible today than it was when they begged people to take $1.