Minecraft And Memes

Long before he was running Reel Talk, Kaiser was just a kid in Raleigh trying to be like the YouTubers he admired. He remembers setting up Minecraft worlds with friends and pretending they were streaming to thousands. One day, he decided to stop pretending.

“I was like, I’m just going to go ahead, try and do it,” Kaiser said. “I’m in fifth grade, can barely work a computer without adult supervision, but we’re getting there.”

His first uploads consisted of gaming commentary videos. Kaiser and his friends would record voiceover clips and screen recordings of themselves playing their favorite video games. 

“[I] don’t watch those anymore because I can’t listen to my voice,” Kaiser laughed. 

While his first gaming videos might have been “rough,” they taught him the basics of content creation and production. By eighth grade, Kaiser went viral with his first big hit, a video titled “Cave Spiders – Black Beatles MINECRAFT PARODY.” The song was the Rae Sremmurd hit behind the Mannequin Challenge.

The parody video, which was uploaded eight years ago to Kaiser's “Chamagic” YouTube account, received 224,000 views. 

“That was probably my first successful video, per se,” Kaiser said. “Once I hit that video and I saw that video start to gain some traction, start to gain some views, I was like, ‘Oh, this is amazing, this feels incredible,’ and you have hundreds of thousands of people watching it. It’s like, you get hooked on it.”

He was immediately hooked, not just by the numbers and clicks his video was getting, but by the feeling that came with it. 

“You’re doing something you love, you’re sharing moments of you talking to your friends, you know, every video has a story behind it,” Kaiser said. “It was just a matter of passion, and then success really kept driving, to keep going forward, keep going at it.”

One Of Those Corny Movie Moments

Christian ‘Drip’ Van Vorhees vividly remembers the knock on his door on a random day in February. 

Van Vorhees – Kaiser’s roommate of two years and teammate on the Elon men’s club volleyball team since freshman year – had heard his fair share of creative pitches before. His longtime friend was always scheming up something new. 

“He’s come to me with ideas before for YouTube and social media in general, other stuff that we could do, stuff that was, maybe, a one-off video or something that wasn't as sustainable,” Van Vorhees said.

Most of the time, the ideas never stuck. 

Kaiser had been thinking hard about his next move. With his graduation rapidly approaching, he wanted to try something new—something bigger than his past one-offs. In recent years, he had seen the rise in popularity of short-form podcast clips on Instagram and TikTok. He was entertained by the personalities, especially creators who fired off over-the-top takes like it was a live sports debate show.

At the same time, Kaiser had been a member of a long-running Instagram group chat with Van Vorhees and close friend, Elon University junior Carter Puckett. For years, the trio constantly exchanged the dumbest, weirdest memes they could find for fun.

One day it clicked. Why not combine the two?

“We all love these bad, stupid podcasts, and we’re like, ‘We can make one of those,’” Kaiser said. 

He wasted no time once the idea came to mind. Kaiser briskly walked across his apartment and knocked on Van Vorhees’ door to deliver his latest pitch. 

“I went into my roommate's room, which is right over there, and walked in, and I said, ‘Drip, I have an idea that might just be crazy enough to work,’” Kaiser said. “You know, one of those corny movie moments.” 

Kaiser explained the vision. Take the dumbest videos that him, Van Vorhees and Puckett could find, set up their apartment like a debate show studio, and then over-analyze and react to the clips with the same energy similar to ESPN’s First Take – all packaged into short-form content for Instagram Reels. 

Van Vorhees was immediately sold. 

“He said, ‘That’s hilarious,’” Kaiser recalled of Van Vorhees. 

Van Vorhees echoed Kaiser’s excitement. 

“We all had the same sense of humor,” Van Vorhees said. “We’d already been sending each other memes and laughing about them"

“It really just kind of made sense,” Van Vorhees said. 

Though the idea might have come out of nowhere, Kaiser’s latest pitch quickly became a reality. 

“We’re like, why not take two things we love? Dumb podcasts and memes, put them together, and thus spawned Reel Talk,” Kaiser said. 

ESPN For Memes

Four days after Kaiser pitched the idea and got Van Vorhees and Puckett on board, the trio had rented thousands of dollars worth of professional-level recording equipment from Elon University’s gear room and had transformed their Old Trollinger apartment into a makeshift debate studio. 

They had the equipment – the lights, cameras and microphones – and plenty of material to work with. They had the content, from sending each other countless bizarre memes in their group chat, a full feed of the latest Instagram meme fads, and the kind of chemistry that only comes from years of being friends. 

Reel Talk was officially underway. 

“Reel Talk is essentially an over-analysis of what is called 'brain-rot memes' on Instagram,” Kaiser said. “Brain-rot is basically anything on Instagram or online that just seems so dumb and so meaningless that you just can’t help but watch it.”

After the trio finds the latest content that is trending on the Instagram brain-rot community, the three sit behind their desk, and let their charisma take over. The group then fires off dry and sarcastic, yet witty and entertaining takes.

“We get in here, we watch a video, we react to it, and we’ll give probably five minutes, we’ll talk for five minutes, we’ll riff off of each other,” Kaiser said. “And come up with just stupid points, see where we can take it.”

While he admits that the concept is silly on paper, Kaiser’s idea was authentic. The chemistry between the three friends is evident. Whether it’s landing a perfectly timed punch line or refusing to crack a smile after a cohost fires off a hilarious take, Reel Talk’s group dynamic is very natural. 

With Kaiser playing moderator, him and his co-hosts take the throwaway brain-rot content people mindlessly scroll through and treat it with the same over-the-top energy you would expect from a national sports debate show. 

“We took the already successful podcast packaging that people are using online and we turned it into a short-form video content series,” Kaiser said. “Basically ESPN for memes is what we call it.”

After the group recorded several segments, Kaiser’s behind-the-scenes content creation skills went to work. 

Van Vorhees explained that part of the allure of joining his roommate on this endeavor was rooted in his immense faith in Kaiser’s content creation skills, which span close to 10 years. 

“That’s why me and Carter really trusted him with this idea, and it’s been really cool to see him being able to put all that stuff he’s been working on that last decade, really, into something that really has blossomed and grown,” Van Vorhees said of Kaiser.

After countless hours of editing the first few videos, Kaiser uploaded Reel Talk’s first Reel on March 12, 2025, just about a month after he pitched the original idea.

Kaiser set a personal goal to post daily, explaining that consistency was key to finding even a small audience. Having been in content production for the entirety of his teen and young adult life, he knew what to do for the algorithm to be in his favor. So the trio continued recording, with Kaiser at the helm of the editing responsibilities, and Reel Talk kept posting. 

“Seeing how he’s figured out the algorithm, how to push content, how to make, adjusting some of our commentary, redoing clips or figuring out how to hook in viewers and how he’s really studied the algorithm, and how everything works on Instagram and obviously TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube,” Van Vorhees said of Kaiser. 

Reel Talk earned notoriety around Elon’s campus instantly—with classmates, colleagues, and friends regularly approaching the trio to give them praise for their new Instagram page. 

While one could say that their channel spread quickly due to the tiny nature of Elon’s campus, it did not take long before Reel Talk started to earn fame outside of their small school in rural North Carolina. 

Following the upload of the group's third Reel in the first week, Kaiser said that by the second day of the video being up, it had already earned 100,000 views. The video now has 588,000 views as of May 18.

“It was definitely not something we expected to go up right away,” Kaiser said. “I mean, I had faith in the idea.” 

“One [blew] up again, it was just from then on, it was just thousands or hundreds [of followers] a day, and it was kind of a crazy moment,” Kaiser added. 

Kaiser said it is still a surreal moment to think about now, even three months removed from when Reel Talk officially started.

“I was definitely geeking out, you know, my ego went up a little bit for a week or two,” Kaiser laughed.

And just like that, what started as a random idea in their apartment has quickly become far more than Kaiser could have ever imagined. 

Pay It Forward 

In just over three months, Reel Talk has grown its Instagram following to more than 21,000. Its most-viewed Reel, posted on April 10, has since surpassed 3 million views, according to a May 11 Instagram Metadata report provided by Kaiser.

Kaiser said watching the view counts climb has been exciting. According to Instagram Metadata Reel Insights from May 11, seven posts have topped 400,000 plays. The lowest-performing Reel has drawn more than 11,000 plays.

Reel Talk has even started to make its way into notable public figures’ algorithms. It wasn’t until a current Orlando Magic guard and former University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill men’s basketball player liked one of their videos that it sank in for Kaiser just how far their reach had spread.

“That was nuts,” Kaiser said. “I saw that notification this morning when I woke up, and I walked out here, and my buddy’s making breakfast, and I’m like, ‘Hey, Cole Anthony just liked our post.’” 

While racking up millions of views and catching the attention of pro athletes has been exciting for Kaiser and his co-hosts, he said the most rewarding part has been seeing exactly who their content is reaching.

According to Reel Talk’s Instagram Metadata report’s audience insights, nearly 65% of Reel Talk’s audience is between the ages of 13 and 24 years old, with 94% of men consisting of their follower demographics. It’s the same age Kaiser was when he first fell in love with YouTube creators, which subsequently led him to create his Reel Talk endeavor in his early 20s. 

“I remember being that kid,” Kaiser said. “Watching dumb stuff like this, and to be honest, it’s shaped me into who I am today. I like to keep stuff light-hearted, I like to make people laugh. That’s who I am as a person.” 

For Kaiser, Reel Talk has not just been about going viral. He wants to pay it forward to the generation below him, just like his favorite creators did for him years ago, even if they did it unknowingly. 

He explained that he hopes the content does more than just entertain. He hopes it can bring people together, the same way those early YouTube videos brought him closer to his own friends.

“It shows that we’ve made an impact in someone’s life, the same way I would talk about these content creators or these memes as a kid with my buddies at a lunch table is like the same way that these kids might be talking about us,” Kaiser said. “It’s something that I’m glad that we can be part of someone’s bonding experience with their friends and maybe be the guys that bring two friends together, and maybe they develop a friendship like the one I got with my co-hosts.”

Staying Reel

While the group has certainly found success so far, Reel Talk isn’t just about the on-camera energy. Whether it’s editing content, managing equipment, or navigating logistical hurdles, building a brand from scratch is no easy process. 

While Van Vorhees and Puckett help out where they can, Kaiser shoulders the bulk of the work as the creative engine. 

“Mason’s the main guy putting the work into crafting these videos,” Van Vorhees said. “He knows how to caption videos, how to put out the polls, hashtags, that kind of stuff, to push it out to viewers.”

Van Vorhees explained that his trust in Kaiser’s creative vision is exactly why he and Puckett agreed to sign on from the beginning. 

“He always had an eye for that kind of content and the skills he’d been building up since he was in middle school, or elementary school really,” Van Vorhees said of Kaiser. “So it’s like his skill set and what he brought to the table.” 

While renting from the Elon gear room made the early stages of production possible, Kaiser and Van Vorhees know that using free equipment from their soon-to-be alma mater will not last much longer. 

With Puckett headed home to New Jersey for the summer, and with Kaiser and Van Vorhees moving down the road to Raleigh after graduation, the group is already brainstorming how they will keep Reel Talk going.

For now, Kaiser said they will work with any makeshift setup that they can manage. However, his ideal scenario involves having the group maintain a uniform look that aligns with their original wave of content that put them on the map. 

“How can we keep this aesthetic of sports show?” Kaiser said. “We’re going to make up with production. Like, how can we make this guy’s remote studio look like a remote analyst on an ESPN broadcast?

“If one guy’s going to be remote, we’ve got to make sure his setup is kind of similar to ours so that he matches,” Kaiser added.

While location might be a problem, the other biggest issue Kaiser is fearful about is financing the equipment, which has not yet been a concern with the ability to freely rent gear from Elon. 

And with three hosts, that means tripling the cost of equipment. 

Kaiser estimates it could cost upwards of $5,000 to fully outfit their setup if they decide to buy everything new. Cameras could run $1,000 to $2,000 apiece. Three microphones could cost another $1,000. Additional equipment could add up quickly.

After the summer, Kaiser and Van Vorhees plan to commute from Raleigh and meet up to record with Puckett at Elon during the 2025-26 academic year. 

“At the end of the day, I want it to be the best it can be,” Kaiser said. “But in the meantime, I’m going to scrape around with what I can.”

Reel Talk recently inked a deal with its first official sponsorship, earning $500 for a single Instagram post. 

“That was our first source of revenue,” Kaiser said. “It came at a big time, not the worst deal in the world.”

While a few other companies have offered the group to promote affiliate links and discount codes, Kaiser and his co-hosts decided to hold off, opting to wait for deals that make sense for the brand.

“We’re going to be pretty strategic with how we’re taking these deals,” Van Vorhees said. “Especially with this first one that’ll be coming out, it will be pretty true to the style of videos that we make, and my hope is that we can continue doing stuff that is similar to that. We’re still maybe using these brands to maybe react to them or talk about them, in the same way that we riff off of each other in our normal videos.

“The whole idea is really to try and keep that stuff consistent in the way we’re putting out our content like you said, and making deals that kind of align with what we already do,” Van Vorhees added.

The group is not just chasing a quick cash grab with one-off sponsors, though. They’re aiming to establish and cement Reel Talk’s name, image and likeness through various other avenues. 

Van Vorhees said that the group has started exploring ideas for branded merchandise, sub-accounts and designing a website—made possible by Puckett, who is a computer science major.

“Right now, we’re just kind of putting all our eggs in the basket,” Kaiser said. “See how much we can grow this.”

Looking back on the past few months, Kaiser said he is proud of what he and his co-hosts have created.

“I want to make the most of every moment I have,” Kaiser said. 

Kaiser looked into the camera to give one last pitch to his viewing audience. 

“Follow Reel Talk, Reel underscore Talk period underscore, on Instagram,” Kaiser said. “Stay Reel.”