Scott Seiss On Viral “Angry Retail Guy” TikTok Videos

You know my next guest. You might not know his name, some of you I'm sure do. But you know Angry Retail Guy because you've seen him on Twitter or Instagram. In fact, before I even bring Scott in, there he is, there he is. But hold on, Scott, don't say anything. Don't say anything, no. Look, let's go to one of the videos just so people can get a sense of it. When an employee only does what's required, it's called quiet quitting. No, it's called doing your job. If I'm supposed to go above and beyond, then so should my pay. Don't expect something for nothing, right? Or does that only apply to poor people? Yeah, my employees show up every day, but they don't dress up like Santa Claus and bring me toys so they're lazy. You're lucky that an employee does their job. I've done so little at work before that it wasn't even quietly quitting. It was technically robbing. Okay, that's funny. But as an employer, also not perfectly funny. Okay, Scott, how you doing, brother? I'm great, man. Thanks for having me on, big fan. Thank you, me too, of me. No, I'm kidding, of you. That's my own work. Okay, so Scott, let's start from the beginning. How did Angry Retail Guy get started? Yeah, so I worked at the Ikea call center for about three years right after college. I was mainly talking to customers through Twitter and Facebook and then sometimes over the phone. And at the same time, my wife was working actually in a store at the Disney Store, which is its own level of hell, basically. And we were both just very angry. I was doing comedy. I used to do stand-up. I did stand-up for about nine years before the videos. And then once COVID hit, stand-up was illegal. Had all these customer service jokes that I couldn't do on stage. And I found that sound that was trending on TikTok and thought, wouldn't that be great for a customer service joke? And then it kind of just took off on TikTok overnight, the first video. Never had something that had gotten that much attention before. And then so I just decided to like 45 more of those. I thought, okay, well, let me just keep doing this and hopefully more opportunities will come. And I'm still making them. I'm still having fun with it. Yeah, so why do you think it resonated so much? Yeah, I mean, I think it's just that people are sick and tired of work. And they're sick and tired of work asking too much from them. And I think especially during COVID when people were still being forced to go into work. And maybe the working conditions weren't as safe or maybe their jobs were just not cutting them any slack during this huge crisis. The videos are for this kind of catharsis where it's a retail employee that is at that breaking point that so many people are at. Where it's just that one more straw on the camel's back is gonna cause them to turn on the company, on the customer. And so I think that that's why it resonated so much. And then I also like to think that they're funny too. I could put my little jokes in there. I think the funny has something to do with it, yes. But I do think that it resonated more than just because it was hilarious, because it really struck a chord. And my sense of it, I'm a progressive. So I think that we live under corporate rule and that those corporations are squeezing the life out of us. And they're doing it in every imaginable way. The airlines literally have a misery index. They create misery for their customers, let alone their employees. And then ask them to pay extra money to relieve that misery. I mean, that right there is late stage capitalism, right? And certainly, of all the people that are squeezing, they're squeezing their employees the most, right? So that's my sense of it. But I bet you tons of right wingers love it too, because they also get squeezed, right? They also have that same feeling that they can't quite identify. They might not know its root causes, but they feel it. Yes, and I've certainly seen that, especially going out and doing stand up after the videos became so popular, I've been able to headline. And when I can sense when I go into more political stuff or when I kind of reveal my own progressive leanings, I could sense some people in the audience going, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I thought we just hated our jobs. But I'm like, yeah, but don't you get, that's all part of it. People should get paid more, work less. And executives are lucky that everyone's not standing up and throwing a trash can through their window and storming out of work. It's all tied into that. So yeah, and I think some of the videos I have done kind of reveal how I feel on other issues too, that people either like the videos more or they'll back away from them. Yeah, so I love the reaction of, whoa, whoa, whoa. I didn't know you were going to be smart about this. I'm kidding. What are we talking about root causes here? I don't want to talk about root causes. I just want to bitch about my boss. Which by the way, in some ways it's fair, right? We all have those issues and we all connect with it. And in fact, when you kind of joke about the real causes, it feels to them like you're breaking a bond that you had. Because they would prefer not to know for some of them, right? Because it's kind of inconvenient if it turns out you're supporting the bad guys and you didn't know it. That doesn't feel comfortable. Am I onto something there? Do you get that sense or no? No, no, no, I definitely get that sense. I think that, yeah, it's that weird thing where people want to go like, well, please don't put politics into comedy. Just have comedy be comedy. And it's like, yeah, but it's like everything is politics. Me saying employees are lucky that employees actually show up to work and do their job instead of striking or walking out or whatever, or organizing. I am tying it into these real world things that I think some people would rather not think about. But it's impossible because we're talking about work and how things should be improved. Yeah, no, it's absurd. Everything's political. It's just an excuse not to talk about the root causes. Because, okay, I want higher wages. Well, that's political. That's literally a law. That is a bill that is proposed, or sometimes a ballot initiative in states. And you have to vote yes or no, and then there's a lot of politics around it. You want higher wages, it's political. Right, and that's what's weird. It's like if I say, well, we're all underpaid, in a video, and people go, yeah, we're all underpaid. But it's the second I say, minimum wage should be increased. Then that's the word that's used on all of these news programs. That they go, wait, wait, we're told that we should not be liking anything about minimum wage being increased. But we do believe we're underpaid. But when a certain buzzword kicks in, it's right back into the narrative that's been just pushed and told over and over again. You know, Scott, as you say that, it triggered for me a thought that it's almost like hypnosis. You say the buzzwords. Now, when I say minimum wage, remember, your reaction will be to oppose it. Like, okay, no, wait, I want higher wages, but I am against increasing the minimum wage. Dude, that is higher wages. Especially at the retail level. Okay, so before we go any further, I want to know what's next for you. But let me show one more video, just so- Go ahead. Can you just check in the back? Can you just accept we don't have it? The back ain't some magical place. What do you think is back there, Santa's workshop? The only thing there is a clipboard with our schedules and some brownies Darcy brought in. Yeah, that might have been the first one I saw, and I loved it so much. Oh, thanks. And by the way, don't get me wrong, Scott. I asked if you got it in the back, but I still love it. That's what I do now. Now I'm worried to ask any questions when I go into a store. I'm like, no, I'm nice. I understand this, I'm nice. Yeah, if you get caught asking the wrong questions that you may have, you'll be in a lot of trouble, brother. So you got a movie coming out called Cocaine Bear, is that right? That's right. February 24th, 2023. It's directed by Elizabeth Banks, Keri Russell, late great Ray Liotta's in it, Margot Martindale, and me somehow. So the videos put me in this movie, and it's gonna be wacky, man. It's gonna be wacky, for sure. No, really, I couldn't tell from the title, Cocaine Bear. Okay. It's a very heady, thinky kind of movie with that. Oh, yeah. You know what I thought? It sounds a little too wonky for me. Okay, anyways, but tell me about behind the scenes. Did more people start recognizing you in the streets? Did you get an agent immediately? Or did your agent, whoa, whoa, whoa. Tell me what happened behind the scenes. It was crazy. It was going so viral. And obviously, nothing is physically happening to me, but my phone's blowing up, my email's going crazy, and I'm just vibrating with energy. So I had a bunch of agents and managers call me, kind of pick the people that I wanted to go with. The Cocaine Bear audition was a Facebook message that I got from the casting director before I even had an agent, just crazy stuff. But I do get recognized. My wife and I, we went to a store the other day in the mall, and the person behind the register immediately pointed and goes, we hate our customers too. And everybody in the store just starts looking around like, wait, what? Wait, what? Well, that's such a great anecdote, because that person is telling you that they hate you in that role, right? Cuz you're a customer at that point, right, in that interaction. Right, I was like, I'll see myself out then, I'm sorry. But you gave them permission to, right? And it says through your videos. And you're just, like we talked about before, you're revealing something that a lot of people thought and hadn't vocalized before in the way that you did. But these days, it's not quite like the old days. In the old days, if you got famous, it was over. You were so rich, you didn't know what to do with the money. The roles came right after you got famous. These days, it ain't like that, right, Scott? No, no, that'd be great if it was. But luckily, I have been, through the videos, been able to make comedy my full-time job, finally, which has always been the dream of mine. So I have been able to do that. But I still got plenty to complain about and make videos about when it comes to money, for sure. Good, good. I mean, I wouldn't want you to get comfortable. It's America, after all. All right, look, everybody check out Scott Cease. We'll have links below to his stuff on YouTube and Facebook in the description box. Anyway, just type in angry retail guy, you'll get it. Scott, you're awesome. Thanks for joining us. We appreciate it. Thanks so much again.