![]() They were like, "Hey Erik, we saw the Salvia video-are you OK man? Are you going to hurt yourself?" I was like, "No, no, it's funny," and they were like, "Oh, OK." That was the extent of the videos affecting my career. When I filmed the videos, I was working in the art department on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, so I emailed them a link to one of the Salvia videos. Have the Salvia videos negatively affected your career? They're not as worried about what I'm doing to my body as they are about what I'm doing to my career. They're not closed-minded whatsoever-they're just worried that if I go get a job and my name is googled, there's going to be a picture of me smoking a bong. At one point, my mom asked me what the high was like, and I explained it to her. My mom was like, "Listen, thanks for telling us it's fake-we're going to choose to believe that." Over time, though, they've been more inquisitive. My dad saw it and was like, "What is this?" I woke up at noon that day and had a bunch of missed calls from him, so I called him back and was like, "Dad, what happened-is everyone OK?" He was like, "Why the fuck are you smoking a bong in the New York Times, Erik?" I was like, "Oh, listen, that's fake." I got interviewed by the New York Times about Salvia, and there was this picture of me in a fucking sunhat with a bong in my hand smoking Salvia in the article. ![]() They thought it was terrible, and I'm sure that if I have kids one day, they're going to do something stupid on the internet and I'm going to have to feel that burn. They think it's funny now, but they didn't think it was funny at the time. I didn't drive, though-I didn't even have my car keys. Yeah-KTLA and Fox 5 would do investigations about, "Has the Salvia craze gone too far?" and they'd have me smoking out of a bong in my car. I was like, "Jesus Christ, this is awesome."ĭid you receive any negative attention because of the video? It was very strange-I'd log on and all of a sudden it would have 100,000 views. I put the first one up on the Something Awful forums and that gave it a push because a big group of people were sharing it. When did you first notice that the videos were taking off? ![]() A lot of funny Salvia trips are usually when they zone out and say something that makes no sense. "David After Dentist" is a very similar thing-this little kid who's zonked out on pain meds and saying ludicrous stuff. It's endearing-you could be the most racist asshole in the world, but when you smoke Salvia you turn into an adorable child. They'd smoke it and they'd flop over on their side and ramble. I wasn't the first one to put up Salvia videos on YouTube-there were dozens up before I'd even thought of doing a video-but they were all the same thing. The effect it has on you makes you fairly useless. How'd you come up with the conceit behind the Salvia videos? Our the first one was called "Billy's Guitar Lesson," and it did pretty well, so we were like, "Let's keep doing this." The salvia sketches are the channel's heavy hitters. We had just gotten out of film school and saw that we could put our stupid videos up somewhere. YouTube was just beginning at that time, and there were plenty of people who were carving out their niche. Me and my friend Chris Lader have our YouTube channel let'sGOtoCLASS, but before that we'd get together on random weekends and shoot funny sketches. Tell me about the decision to make YouTube videos about smoking Salvia. Every time I smoke it, it knocks me out and turns me into a little baby. Salvia does kind of the same thing every time you smoke it-you don't build a tolerance. My friends brought it over, and when they said they bought it at a gas station, I was like, "OK, this can't be that bad, right?" And they were telling me, "Oh, you've got to try it, it's really crazy." I smoked it, they were looking at me waiting for something to happen, and I was like, "Oh Christ, what did I just do?" That's when the apprehension might have started. I had no level of apprehension whatsoever, though-I had nothing to be apprehensive of, you know? I smoke weed, I drink beer, so I'll take a new thing. If I'd known what it did, I don't think I would've touched it either. Were you apprehensive the first time you smoked it? I've enjoyed using hallucinogens over the years, but Salvia has always scared me-to the point where I've never touched it. The first video I ever made was a recut trailer for The Horse Whisperer where I made it look like a horror movie. Eventually, everybody started downloading editing software to make projects on their own, and a good number of kids who came out of that media program probably still do that to this day. VICE: How did you get into working in the medium of video?Įrik Hoffstad: My high school had a really good media program, and the teacher let us have our way with the equipment.
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