Adam and Christopher interview Author and Social Media Influencer Ben Kirby (Arkansas) about the viral success of his Instagram account PreachersNSneakers. Adam, Christopher, and Ben discuss the current social media landscape, the highs and lows of "going viral," and what happens when it all intersects with the experience of being in a fraternity or sorority.
The Gavel Podcast is the official podcast of Sigma Nu Fraternity, Inc. and is dedicated to keeping you updated on the operations of the Legion of Honor and connecting you to stories from our brotherhood.
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The Gavel Podcast - Ep 12 - Instafamous with Ben Kirby (Arkansas)
[Intro Music]
0:00:42.5 Adam Girtz: Hello and welcome to Episode 12 of The Gavel Podcast. My name is Adam.
0:00:47.6 Christopher Brenton: And I'm Christopher Brenton.
0:00:49.9 Adam Girtz: The Gavel Podcast is the official podcast of Sigma Nu Fraternity and is a show dedicated to keeping you updated on the operations of the Legion of Honor and connecting you to the stories from our brotherhood.
0:01:00.9 Christopher Brenton: To find out more from the Fraternity, you can always check out our website at www.sigmanu.org. You can also find us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at @SigmaNuHQ or by searching for Sigma Nu Fraternity.
0:01:13.5 Adam Girtz: And where might I search for Sigma Nu Fraternity, Christopher?
0:01:16.4 Christopher Brenton: So you can do that on Facebook. That's probably the place that's the easiest to do that. Unfortunately, Facebook doesn't have the convenient handles or @SigmaNuHQ. So you have to be a little bit more creative, but certainly, if you are looking for the Fraternity email, signatures, website, you're going to be able to find us pretty easily.
0:01:39.2 Adam Girtz: Yeah, Google, DuckDuckGo, Ask Jeeves is still a thing, probably?
0:01:43.7 Christopher Brenton: Is it? I'm not sure.
0:01:47.3 Adam Girtz: I don't know. I'm basic. I default to Google. [laughter]
0:01:52.3 Adam Girtz: Christopher, how are you doing today?
0:01:53.5 Christopher Brenton: I'm doing well. How about yourself, Adam?
0:01:55.4 Adam Girtz: I'm great. I've got coffee. My cat is running around being a menace, so hopefully, she doesn't make it on the recording, but that is everything that I need to be right in the zone for a recording of... As I say that, she jumps on my lap. Hello.
0:02:11.5 Christopher Brenton: Yeah. Well, I'm super excited about this episode.
0:02:14.5 Adam Girtz: I am too. I'm really hyped. People at this point have gathered that we do the interviews in advance, we come back, we record intro outro. I'm sorry if that's breaking the fourth wall for anyone, but that's how we're able to know that the interview was awesome. We enjoyed it, it was fun. We get to talk about the interview for a little bit and then go into the interview, but this one was genuinely, really, really cool. I say that about all of them because they are all really cool. We wouldn't have somebody on here if we weren't excited about having them on here.
0:02:47.6 Christopher Brenton: Yeah, so for those of you who maybe have just read the caption for the episode or just jumped right in, today's special guest is Ben Kirby. He's an initiate of our Gamma Upsilon Chapter at the University of Arkansas. And he is a recent author and also the account manager for the social media account @PreachersNSneakers. So essentially, Ben became Instagram famous a couple of years ago after posting to Instagram conversations around faith and fashion and posing some questions that I think certainly were challenging or thought-provoking and overnight just had viral success.
0:03:39.0 Christopher Brenton: And so knowing that this past year in particular, we've seen this weird intersection of fraternity and social media on things like TikTok, “Alabama Rush Tok” became super popular and was in the media as people were really paying attention to that. But you've also seen this wave of young social media influencers, young individuals who have gained a huge following of their own on various platforms, YouTube, Twitch, all of the social media platforms, and are now kind of coming to college and are joining our chapters. And so we thought it would be a really fascinating conversation to bring in Ben to talk about his experience, to get his thoughts on what is this wave of social media influence, wave of social media celebrity. What does that mean for our chapters? And certainly to talk a little bit about his story too. It's a really cool experience that he has had, and we're excited to be able to have that conversation with him.
0:04:49.7 Adam Girtz: Yeah. So I actually, I remember seeing this when it did go viral. A lot of people I spend time online. I love scrolling through and participating in the conversations on Instagram, Reddit, Twitter, stuff like that. And I remember seeing @PreachersNSneakers posts come up. And if people aren't familiar with what the format is and where or what the focus is, it is preachers or faith leaders or, I don't know what the other positions might be, or people that are featured on the account. But prominent figures in the Christian faith, basically on stage or in public or in videos, and then a screenshot of their shoes, the shoes that they're wearing. And then a screenshot of the retail value of those shoes is kind of the whole formula there. And then into other clothing and other things like that. And that's it. I think that was a big piece of the virality of it. It's like he's not necessarily saying anything about what is going on. He's saying, hey, here's a fact. This is what this person's wearing. This is what it's worth. So that you did kind of propel that to the viral nature and going viral is something that we talk about in the interview as well. And just, what does that mean? How does that affect somebody? And it's really cool to see somebody deal with it first hand and the things that he thought about, the things he had to deal with because of that. So yeah, very neat interview. Yeah. Have any other... Oh, go ahead.
0:06:47.3 Christopher Brenton: Oh, I was going to say really quickly too, for our listeners, I actually think it would be really beneficial to maybe go and check out the social media profile. We're also going to talk about, in the interview, Ben's book. And so earlier this year, he released his book, PreachersNSneakers: Authenticity in an Age of For-Profit Faith and Wannabe Celebrities. If you want to dive into that book as well and maybe read that, I know he would be appreciative. You can certainly find that wherever books are sold. But I also think it would just help our listeners to have that context going into the interview to certainly understand where Ben's coming from, to have a little bit of background. I think that's going to make that interview and listening to Ben talk about that experience much richer and much more interesting. Certainly, you can go into it and enjoy it. And I think we touch on a number of different topics that are really interesting regardless of your familiarity with his background, but always want to plug that in. His Instagram handle, and I think you can also find him on various other social media platforms using the same handle, but it's “Preachers, the letter N, Sneakers,” all one word. So PreachersNSneakers. And so you can find him again, on his primary account, which is on Instagram.
0:08:13.6 Adam Girtz: Yeah, definitely. Just search it and check out the account before you... Or as we're diving into the interview, you don't even have to pause it, you can do it right now. [chuckle] Unless you're one of the people that's listening to this on the... Actually, you can do it then too, 'cause you're listing too on a desktop. If you're listening to this right now, you have Internet, you have the capability, you have the technology. But yeah, give him a follow too. He's just genuinely a really awesome guy and we loved getting to speak with him. So I'd definitely support him. Alright. Any other notes, Christopher? Anything else we want to plug or talk about before we dive into the interview?
0:08:55.9 Christopher Brenton: Yeah, so I've got two things. So one, at this point we have already kind of passed registration. So this isn't a call to action, but I just wanted to make people aware that we've got College of Chapters coming up January 3rd through 6th.
0:09:13.1 Adam Girtz: In person.
0:09:14.7 Christopher Brenton: Right. This is our return to...
0:09:16.3 Adam Girtz: In Roanoke. [laughter]
0:09:17.1 Christopher Brenton: Our return to in-person activity. So funny enough, this is also approaching the first anniversary, the inaugural... No, that's not right. The first anniversary of the Gavel Podcast. I believe in the first couple of episodes we were promoing or talking about the College of Chapters experience and what that experience is going to be like virtual. So if you're interested, go back, listen to Episode 1. You're going to hear a lot of information about that and our takeaways from that experience. But now, we're returning to in-person activity. We're super excited about that. We know that our chapters are as well. And so I'm sure the next episode, which we'll release in January, we'll have the chance to talk more about that and maybe our takeaways from College of Chapters.
0:10:10.8 Christopher Brenton: The other point that I wanted to bring up. So next week, we have our quarterly publication that's going to be hitting mailboxes. Oh sorry, email inboxes. For those of you who are unfamiliar, a couple of months ago, we released a new digital publication called The Quarterly. It comes out once a quarter to align with the start of each season. And so next week is going to be the start of winter, and so we'll release the winter Quarterly. But it is a digest of roughly three months or so, three months content from all of our chapters recapping what they accomplished, stories from the chapters, updates, also including alumni news. And so we're really excited about that. I think the fall Quarterly was really exciting. We got a lot of really positive feedback, so we're excited to be releasing the winter Quarterly as well.
0:11:08.1 Christopher Brenton: So be on the lookout for that. It's going to be coming to your inbox using the primary email address that we have on file. And that should go out to all Sigma Nus with good email addresses. So if you are not getting it, and I think it should come out around December 21st, if you're not getting it, check your spam filter or update or contact the General Fraternity and let us know and we'll make sure that that gets updated so that you are receiving your copy.
0:11:37.1 Adam Girtz: And again, you can reach out to headquarters@sigmanu.org and connect with us that way to get your contact information updated.
0:11:49.3 Christopher Brenton: Yeah.
0:11:49.9 Adam Girtz: Or just yell really loud. If you yell loud enough, we will hear you.
0:11:55.1 Christopher Brenton: Yeah. And Adam, do you want to give the listeners kind of a sneak peek or kind of give some background information about season three of The Gavel Podcast?
0:12:03.0 Adam Girtz: Boy, do I. Yeah, guys, as Christopher said a little bit ago, we are approaching the one year of doing a podcast, which if you're a day one, thank you. If you're a day 364, thank you too. We've just been so happy with what we've been able to do. And for me, the interviews that I've been able to have, Christopher, I'm sure you would feel the same. So first off, thank you guys for all the support that we've gotten for the podcast. I know we've gotten some really nice emails from people and I really do appreciate that. Thank you so much. But yeah, season three. I guess we've done roughly six-month segments in two seasons here, how it's kind of arranged in our minds, but it is just monthly. So we are approaching that third season. We're pretty excited about it. We've got some interesting interviews lined up around topics that we think you guys are really going to enjoy. So if you do have any feedback for us or any ideas or, hey, here's an interesting person, or, hey, I'm an interesting person, that we could potentially use in a future interview, we would love to hear from you. So again, reach out to us on any of the platforms that we have or Christopher, news@sigmanu.org, right?
0:13:37.3 Christopher Brenton: Yeah, news@sigmanu.org, N-E-W-S, not N-U. Just always have to throw out the disclaimer, but N-E-W-S @sigmanu.org, that's going to be probably the best place to send that feedback, just 'cause that goes directly to the podcast team.
0:13:57.7 Adam Girtz: Yes. Cool. I think that's it. Should we dive in?
0:14:00.2 Christopher Brenton: Let's go.
0:14:01.9 Adam Girtz: Alright, see you guys in the back end.
[Transition Music]
0:14:26.3 Christopher Brenton: Hello and welcome back, everyone. So as we mentioned at the beginning, we are here with our guest, Ben Kirby. Ben is an initiate of our Gamma Upsilon Chapter at the University of Arkansas, and we're excited to be able to talk to him today. He is the owner of the Instagram account, @PreachersNSneakers, which kind of took off into its kind of own viral space in the last couple of years, and it started some really interesting online conversations. He recently published a book under the same name, PreachersNSneakers. And so we're excited to bring him in today to talk a little bit about the book but then also to go into a deeper dive into just kind of the state of social media and kind of how that is actually impacting our chapters. So, Ben, I want to give you the opportunity to do a quick introduction, I know I just did one, but if you could go a little bit more in-depth on that, and also people can hear your voice for the first time.
0:15:25.3 Ben Kirby: Sure.
0:15:25.9 Christopher Brenton: If you would, state your name, chapter, I just mentioned it, but repeat it, your occupation, if you kind of want to talk about what you do, especially outside of social media, and then we'll also want to get your Sigma Nu story here in a second, but I'll kind of prompt you on that after the introduction.
0:15:41.9 Ben Kirby: Okay. Thanks guys for having me on the pod. It's fun to do something with Sigma Nu finally, after several years of being graduated. Sigma Nu is a huge part of my life in undergrad, and then when you graduate, oftentimes it's not as much if you move out of state or whatever. So I'm excited to talk Sigma Nu with some fellow brothers again. So I'm Ben Kirby. I'm from Ruston, Louisiana originally, which I don't know, the Louisiana Tech is there, I can't remember what the chapter is, but there's a Sigma Nu in Louisiana Tech. Gamma Upsilon 2591 from Arkansas. And I graduated in 2011 from the University of Arkansas. So the quick, I guess, career rundown is after college, I went to the Marines. I was a logistics officer, I did that for five years. And when I got out, I spent a couple of years running a property management company or part of running a property management company in Austin, Texas. And then went back to get my MBA at SMU in Dallas and that's what brought us here to Dallas. I'm in Dallas, currently with my wife and son, Davis Dean. My wife's name is Stacey, my son's name is Davis Dean. And along the way, when I was getting my MBA at SMU, full-time school, thankfully the military helped pay for it. And so I was able to do the whole full-time MBA thing.
0:17:08.8 Ben Kirby: I happened, I guess, a little more background, while I was at the MBA or getting my MBA to make ends meet, I was kind of buying and re-selling sneakers, there's an arbitrage opportunity that exists where if you can get lucky enough, you can buy sneakers at a certain price and then resell them for a profit on some of the resell market places. And so I kind of started to develop a pretty extensive knowledge about sneakers and could identify them really quickly, and at the same time, heavily involved with our church and have been a Christian basically my entire life 'cause I grew up in the south, and so there's no other choice. Halfway through the MBA program, I was sitting on my couch one day and noticed this pretty high profile worship leader on YouTube wearing a pair of Yeezy 750s that are a specific pair of kind of rare shoes that Kanye West designed from a few years ago. And they were re-selling for, at the time, $800, $850. And for whatever reason that day, it stirred something within me that I'd never been stirred before really, and I had never felt compelled to really comment on a thing like this, but I decided to go to Instagram and for my 300 personal followers, make some videos basically saying, "Hey, did y'all know these shoes are worth $800 and this guy is a worship leader? This is wild. How are these guys making this much money to be able to afford these kind of shoes?"
0:18:38.0 Ben Kirby: That was it. And I didn't have any background in mass media or being a public figure or whatever, but I made a couple of posts like that video format and then eventually it turned into me just screenshotting a pastor's own post and then putting the price tag or the market value of their sneakers right next to that photo. And by just putting those two things next to each other, it caused people to lose their minds. This was in March of 2019. I started this in like, March 15th, March 17th of 2019. And a month later, I had 100,000 followers and was taking offers from The Today Show to come on and do an interview with the New York Times, all because I had basically shown the world how much of these pastors are wearing... How much their shoes were worth, and it created this very out of control... What's the word?
0:19:39.4 Ben Kirby: The publicity was insane for what it was. It wasn't supposed to be a thing, it was literally me sitting on a couch with my phone taking screenshots and splicing things together. All of it being true facts, but those facts cost people to really get heated on both sides. Like, a lot of people were really mad at me because they thought that I was being a troll or being divisive or being a gossip or something. And then on the other side, a lot of people that have strong opinions about faith leaders and money thought that what I was doing was really noble and was very important and all that kind of stuff.
0:20:12.0 Ben Kirby: And so there was a big draw from a lot of different types of people, and so, I'm just this random idiot dude in Dallas making these posts in class on my phone and having to schedule out all these interviews with these media companies that were very interested in it. And at the same time, I was doing it all anonymously, because I just didn't know what was happening. I had no equipping for this type of experience, and so, until we had a grasp of what was happening we just decided, my wife and I, thought it'd be best to do it anonymously and it ended up being a two-year thing.
0:20:50.6 Ben Kirby: And then at the beginning of this year came out publicly, released a book, all that kind of stuff. And so, I guess I'll pause there. But that's kind of what brought me here. Oh, I guess professionally now, I'm a director of business development for a startup here in Dallas that basically puts 5G antennas on rooftops. And our entire business model is based on connecting commercial real estate owners and cellular companies to facilitate those rooftop leases, and then we take a cut. So, I do business development for them and that's going pretty well and... Yeah, that's it. And I'd still run PreachersNSneakers, I have a book, I do a podcast, I do YouTube, all that kind of stuff, and yeah, somehow try to stay married and take care of this kid.
[laughter]
0:21:36.1 Adam Girtz: Yeah.
0:21:38.2 Ben Kirby: Yeah.
0:21:38.7 Adam Girtz: Where...
0:21:39.2 Christopher Brenton: Oh, sorry Adam.
0:21:40.7 Adam Girtz: Alright, so, one thing that I've been dying to ask you about this. Because I remember seeing like... I saw PreachersNSneakers before I knew you were behind it and before I knew that you were Sigma Nu and all of that. And so, it's always been super interesting to me to watch someone kind of "go viral," you know? And you truly experienced that, right?
0:22:03.6 Ben Kirby: Yeah.
0:22:04.4 Adam Girtz: Like, that is by definition exactly what you did. So, like you said like 100,000 followers in a month. What is that like? Is there a day that you wake up and it's like, "Oh, last night I gained 30,000 followers or something because of X, Y, Z thing." What is it like... Like you said, sitting on the couch and just having this happen on your phone in front of you?
0:22:24.6 Ben Kirby: Yeah, it's very exciting and also very scary at the same time. I'm a guy that likes... I like to entertain people, I like to make people laugh. I'm in the Enneagram 3, I enjoy being a high achiever, I enjoy the idea that people think I'm funny, or impressive, or whatever. And so, to have that immediate validation at scale, more so than you could have ever imagined feels pretty good. But at the same time, given the subject matter, people were also very angry and were very mean at the same... Like, a lot of people just out of nowhere were questioning my salvation, accusing me of leading people away from faith, all because I'm just showing people how much these sneakers are worth, like, what they truly are worth. But it's really cool. I mean, there were days where I was getting like 10,000 new followers a day, which is, for people that really want to grow a social media platform, that's the dream. And there were several inflection points, like the New York Times did an article one time, and that... I think I had 25,000 new followers the day that article came out.
0:23:34.0 Adam Girtz: Wow.
0:23:35.2 Ben Kirby: And so, as a kind of a dreamer type, you start cycling through all the possibilities of what could happen for your life. It's like, "Well, I had this idea that I was going to get an MBA and go get into whatever business job, but now this weird social media thing is happening, and I see other people making a ton of money from this, like having whole entertainment careers from this." And so, it opens up... At least opens up the possibility in your mind like, "Woah, maybe I've been missing the whole point. Maybe this is what I'm supposed to do." And so it's very easy to play fantasy games with yourself to say, "Oh, maybe I'm going to move to Hollywood and begin drinking. I'll get my own TV show or something."
0:24:13.7 Ben Kirby: So that part's fun. It's scary in that you think about the damage that people can do to you or to others online as well. So, I was very... For a long time, I was concerned about people... And my wife worked at a church at the time. And so, I was concerned about her. I would feel terrible if what I was doing on social media caused somebody to say something terrible about her or to show up at our house or whatever and that kind of thing. And so, there are some real concerns that there isn't a real great playbook for... Like, you don't... How do you protect yourself?
0:24:55.9 Ben Kirby: You want the benefits of building a big platform, but also you don't want to just open up your life to the world, because it's like the ocean, it is... You are powerless if you are just a public profile, open to the ways that people interpret your account. So, it was fun, it was also concerning just because, one, I know the person I am and know that, "Oh, this can really go to my head. This feels really good and if I'm not careful this could really go in my head." But also like, just the real life concerns as well. Like, I'm self-aware enough to know that not all publicity is good. If I just let it go, willy-nilly, plenty of things... My life could be ruined if the wrong people got... Like, enough people with the wrong intentions wanted to research me or do a smear campaign or whatever, people could ruin my life. And so, there were those concerns as well. So I was committed to trying to do it slower than just taking every opportunity for publicity, that kind of thing.
0:26:03.8 Christopher Brenton: Yeah, well, the content you were posting was, not that it's really intended to be divisive as you kind of shared, but you know, certainly kind of fit into the space of causing people to reflect and to form an opinion about what they thought about the content you were posting. And just from following the account, you weren't necessarily taking a stance on whether something was bad or good. You were just shining a light on it and saying, what do you think about this?
0:26:33.4 Ben Kirby: Yeah.
0:26:33.5 Adam Girtz: You weren't wearing the shoes, you were just showing the shoes and then showing the price tag.
0:26:38.8 Ben Kirby: I mean, it was definitely provocative like the...
0:26:42.6 Adam Girtz: Yeah.
0:26:42.7 Ben Kirby: If you mix religion and money, and inherently come to find out... I did not really put that together at the beginning, but it is like a ticking time bomb, like it is... What's like oil and water? Or oil and whatever. When you mix two things that are combustible, it's that, whatever that is. [laughter] But you're right, I did make a point to be in the middle, because it's one of those kind of gray areas where there's not... If I was to take a hard side on either side, I would basically alienate the other side and basically come off as an A-hole because there is nuance... And we can get into it later. But there is nuance to a lot of these situations that people on the Internet aren't prepared to consider. They just want to... Instagram is very visual, so they want to see the post and spout their opinion about it immediately and not think through like, hey, wait a second. There's a lot of other elements at play, and I get the benefit of being able to experience both sides. I guess, you can call it a benefit, but it frustrates a lot of people that I won't just say, hey, this is wrong, because it's a little more complicated than that.
0:27:46.8 Christopher Brenton: Yeah. I kind of want to expand on something. So, something that I feel I've noticed about social media as of late, is it feels more so now than ever. You are kind of one click away from fame, whether you wanted it or not. And you see plenty of people who are excited about the opportunity to capitalize on their fame. You see others who wish they can pay any amount of money to have it all go away and certainly, you also referenced kind of this phenomenon as well, of like, the second something becomes good or is celebrated in social media, you have this kind of other side where it's like, we want to investigate and figure out what's beneath the surface.
0:28:34.8 Ben Kirby: Right.
0:28:35.8 Christopher Brenton: And then that becomes the narrative, and unfortunately that is, I think, where a lot of people were like, I never asked for this. I never asked to be investigated. I never asked to be put on a pedestal for anyone. So, I'm kind of curious from your experience, as you reflect back on the past two years now, what were the highs? What were the lows? Do you feel like you would go back and kind of do it all again? What's your take on this now having some space between kind of going viral initially and kind of maybe maturing in your opinion of that whole experience?
0:29:17.3 Ben Kirby: Yeah. The... I guess I'll go through the highs and lows first and then maybe go through some regrets or things I'd do differently. The highs... It's really fun to have a big platform. It's fun to have a blue checkmark. People will respond to you like we're celebrities or respond to you if you've got a blue checkmark that's... Which sounds like if you sit on paper, that sounds so pathetic. But there actually is kind of... There's some power in that and having a verified tag really like, if you have a verified tag, a lot more people are apt to respond to you. And so, I've been able to... I mean, one, I talk about this in the book. Like, it's fun to be... To interact with celebrities, and that's kind of an indictment on what has caused some of the cultural things in our Church. Like, it's something that I need to repent of, often, is like, Oh, it feels really good to be around people that seem important. But objectively, that's fun. It's fun to have a well-known celebrity reach out to you and say, I love your account. That's... You're hilarious, like comedians messaging me saying, you're hilarious.
0:30:31.8 Ben Kirby: It's like, okay. That feels objectively awesome. Especially as a guy that's like, wants to entertain people, who wants to make people laugh. So that was really cool. I mean, John Mayor follows the account, Questlove, the drummer for The Roots, wore one of my hoodies at a red carpet premier. Like, all of this stuff that I could have never scripted out was happening, because I was just showing the price tag of people's shoes, like, a whole host of celebrities I now count as friends because of this account. It's really weird. A guy that... The reason I have my job now is because of a friend that I met through Instagram. So all that's really fun. It's fun to be proud of a thing that's unique. It's fun to say that I got an actual book deal and physically wrote an entire book, and... Like, there's a lot of achievements that I'm proud of, but at the same time, it caused a lot of anxiety. When you have thousands of people messaging you that are saying they're Christians, that are saying what you're doing is un-Christian or is of the Devil, or is causing people to lose their faith, all of that does not feel good.
0:31:55.4 Ben Kirby: Like, as a guy... Like, I'm not a sociopath. It feels... It does not feel good for people who apparently believe the same thing as you say, what you're doing is wrong and you need to change. And so, that caused a lot of reflection and I had to get a lot of therapy just because what was happening felt important. It felt important, like, people were talking about a thing that was pretty hard to talk about. About the appropriateness of this kind of Christian industrial complex where we can basically productize Christianity and whether or not any of it is not okay. Like, is it always okay to just make a profit off of preaching and teaching the Bible? Is it always okay to just be independently wealthy from conferences and albums and all that kind of stuff? Stuff that people just kind of wanted to bury their head in the sand about, when... Which I felt after the fact, or after the thing initially went viral, is like, "Oh, this is a lot more important than just preachers literally wearing sneakers."
0:32:55.9 Ben Kirby: And so that felt important, but there's a real tension and there's still kind of attention where there's still enough people out there that are incredibly angry at me for what I do, that does not feel good. Like, I would have much preferred to come up with a dope song or a funny video to go viral instead of a pretty heavy, like, money and religion topic. This is not how I would have scripted it myself. So the lows are that like, there's a constant battle between... Like, I've sold hoodies in the past and my book sells for money and so, there's this constant conversation I have with myself about like, "Am I being a hypocrite?" People are going to call me a hypocrite or a coward because I was anonymous, that kind of stuff, none of that feels good. And all of it was kind of me making decisions with the information I had in front of me. Like, there's not a... Like I said, there's not really a great playbook for going viral, especially in the faith space.
0:33:56.5 Ben Kirby: And we can maybe talk about overall, like social media, not many of us are equipped at all to handle the scale of it anyways, like, even just for our private accounts. So there was highs in that, really fun to grow a platform, it's fun to have influence, it's fun to interact with celebrities. Low is like it's difficult to have people genuinely hate what you do or accuse you of doing something you never... You know you're not doing, like, you know you're not trying. Or I know I'm not trying to be divisive or erode the fabric of Christianity. It's just like, I also am not scared to ask questions, bro. A lot of people take my asking semi-difficult questions as an attack, where it's like, dude, if your faith feels attacked by people asking questions, that's a pretty weak faith to me. And so, if I could do it again, I think I would do it again, because I've had enough people say that it has led to really meaningful, potentially eternal type conversations about faith and hard questions, and accountability for themselves and for their faith leaders.
0:35:13.8 Ben Kirby: Accountability for where they spend their money or give their money, all that kind of stuff, all of that feels like it was worth the effort. I think I would have come out in public a lot quicker than the time it took for me to do, just because I... Wanting to be above reproach, like, I didn't... I would have preferred to just be out in public and take all of the criticism on the chin instead of people be able to point and say, "Oh, look at you hiding behind an account," or whatever, when I knew I wasn't hiding, it was like, more strategic than that, but I would have probably come out in public a lot quicker. And then... I don't know. I might have done... I mean, when you do a thing like this, you don't expect it to go viral, like, millions of people every day just post random videos about a hot take that they have, and it's never going to go viral. That was the equivalent of what I did.
0:36:09.0 Ben Kirby: Like, I had nothing special, I had no algorithm in my favor, so it's hard for me to go back and say like, "Well, I wish I would have done more research into these guys or message them directly," when the fact is like, dude, I'm just this idiot guy sitting here, giving a hot sports opinion about their sneakers, and it's not going to go viral or anything, but it actually did. So, there's maybe some small things that I would do if I could do it over again, but overall, I think it's been a net positive for whatever conversation has been caused from it. And I don't think that comes from some crazy inspiration that I have. I think there's a luck factor. Also, if you believe in God, I believe that he had a hand in it, at least allowing it to happen or making it happen. So, just trying to like... This is Christianese, but steward the opportunity as best I can.
0:37:07.0 Adam Girtz: So it's interesting to hear you talk about being anonymous at first and having that... Having the post itself go viral, it's not you, it's not anything that you're bringing into it from your... From your real life, it is, "Hey, here's my observation." And that in and of itself sparks a conversation good and bad, 'cause I feel like, to go viral, you need to spark something in someone that you're going to get positive and negative, right? That's what creates the energy to get a post or a movement like that, and I would call it a movement, I think you are... PreachersNSneakers is part of a larger examination of elites and people that we see and are put in front of us as role models and getting to see what are they truly doing, where are their motivations. One interesting part of it, now that we wanted to talk to you about is you going viral has evolved and shifted over the years, and increasingly now, especially with TikTok, somebody will go viral publicly, this is their face, and they're doing a dance or they're something and that they are in the video, and they go viral as a teenager.
0:38:33.8 Adam Girtz: You could do the same thing overnight, wake up and have a million views on a video that you put up just through the algorithm, and then those teenagers are now joining our chapters or are like going into college, and you've got this massive, massive, massive social capital that... Like you said, as human beings, we are not programmed to deal with this level of interconnectivity and communication with each other, especially as a developing person. Given your experience, what might that be like for someone joining a chapter, or how does the chapter deal with somebody coming in with 500,000 followers on TikTok? [chuckle]
0:39:17.5 Ben Kirby: Well, I am so grateful that social media was on its early onset going into... In 2007 was when I joined the Fraternity. I'm very, very grateful that it wasn't what it is today. I think even the nationals are probably happy about that too because there's... People are getting canceled for stuff that they did 10 years ago or whatever. I'm just very happy that social media was what it was in 2007 compared to what it is now.
0:39:52.3 Adam Girtz: Yes. It's not the fact that people are doing dumb stuff, it's the fact that people are recording themselves doing dumb stuff.
0:39:58.9 Ben Kirby: Yeah, in 4K.
0:40:00.0 Adam Girtz: Or vice versa. It's not the fact that you're recording it, it's the fact that you're doing it in the first place.
0:40:04.2 Ben Kirby: Right, exactly. Right.
0:40:05.1 Adam Girtz: At least, yeah, now it... Now, your dumb mistake goes viral and everyone gets to see it.
0:40:08.1 Ben Kirby: Right, exactly. But it is... TikTok is one... I watch a lot of TikTok. I don't really produce much on TikTok just because it might have passed me by already, but it is very addicting. The way that algorithm picks stuff for you and the way that it's just unlimited content, that's very powerful. And it's good for the creator and that you can actually make money. With Instagram, if you have a million followers, you can make $0. Instagram doesn't pay you anything for the amount of attention you get. But for TikTok and YouTube, you can make some real money there. And for the guys and girls joining Greek chapters, it's interesting, having been the Commander at Gamma Upsilon, when I saw that question, immediately, I kind of get the CYA flag going because it seems like if you have somebody coming to your chapter with half a million followers or something, I at least want to talk to an attorney that represents a fraternity and say like, "Look, how do we at least protect ourselves from... " Somebody with 500,000 followers can cause a major stir.
0:41:24.2 Ben Kirby: I've got a quarter million followers and can cause a pretty big stir and as a Commander or as an exec of the fraternity with a little bit of legal liability, I would really want to make sure we've got protections and maybe policies in place, which sounds so boomer, capitalist of me, but a policy in place about social media would be pretty, at least, something to cover the chapter a bit. Because it's kind of uncharted waters but also if they post the wrong video with Sigma Nu letters in the background, clearly at University of Arkansas, there could be some negative... You all have seen it at Nationals, people can get the entire chapter in trouble. And so I would... One of my biggest regrets about being the Commander at Gamma Upsilon was that a lot of it, I just winged. I didn't reach out to actual adults early enough to try to figure out what I was doing. 'Cause as guys leading a fraternity chapter, a lot of us... I was 20 years old, leading 150 dudes and several hundred thousand dollar budget without any clue what I was doing. And so I guess I would want to have protections in place on the front-end, knowing like it...
0:42:45.8 Ben Kirby: Okay, I'm rambling a bit but from the leadership's perspective, I don't want to be protected. I at least want to understand what the ramifications would be for one of our members doing something online that can negatively affect our chapter. For a member or somebody that's rushing, like during rush at Arkansas, we would flex it out all of our important alumni like Harrison Ford and Eli Manning, Archie Manning. If you've got a TikTok star in your chapter, it feels like a pretty slam dunk rush opportunity to say, "Hey, we've got freaking Johnny knucklehead TikTok star come join our fraternity." Or it feels like there's... The sororities do a really good job of making the hype videos and stuff. Or at least at SMU, all those sororities make these pretty well-curated hype videos. It seems like there's probably an opportunity for going into it, if you already have existing influencers within your chapter to leverage that for rush opportunities. Even if it's, I don't know, if you can pay one of your... See there again, I would want to know from an attorney like, "Hey, can we pay one of our members to his, whatever regular rate to make a post about rush or whatever?"
0:44:03.9 Ben Kirby: That would be something I would want to know. How can we leverage our membership to make our chapter look better? But yeah, it's one of those things that still feels a little uncharted. It feels like an... It feels like an opportunity, but also for the guys that are leading the chapter, I would over-index on trying to protect a fraternity from any of these kind of unknown variables that are... If we're talking TikTok specifically like TikTok influencers.
0:44:34.3 Christopher Brenton: Yeah. It's funny that your mind went to, "How can we leverage [chuckle] this TikTok star for recruitment?" My mind went to, "Oh man. [chuckle] This is not a magnifying glass or a camera that we want pointed in the direction of our chapter." I think back to my undergraduate experience, and I don't know if either of the two of you are familiar with Scotty McCreery? He's a country singer on American Idol. He went to...
0:45:07.1 Adam Girtz: I saw him in concert.
0:45:07.6 Christopher Brenton: Oh nice.
0:45:07.7 Ben Kirby: He's got the voice.
0:45:10.3 Adam Girtz: Brad Paisley. I remember they made fun of him 'cause they said, "Oh yeah, he... " 'Cause he opened and then they were like, "Oh yeah. He had to go to bed he's got school tomorrow."
[laughter]
0:45:16.7 Ben Kirby: That's hilarious.
0:45:18.8 Christopher Brenton: So, him and I are roughly the same age. He's maybe a few years... Well, actually the same age, roughly as all of us. And so he was at NC State the same time that I was there, and I was maybe one or two years ahead of him when he had enrolled at the University. And he was very close friends with a guy who was in the chapter. And so there was all this kind of internal conversation of like, "Are we going to get Scotty McCreery to join Sigma Nu?" [chuckle] And a lot of the guys were all about it, and then there was a small cluster which I was a part of that was like, "I don't know if we want that attention." And this was before social media is at the... Where it's at right now, which is, all of a sudden you're going to have reporters who are wanting to know what Scotty McCreery's life is like in a fraternity. And not to say that anything in our chapter was bad or was inappropriate, but it's just... You have to live in that tension of having your actions reviewed and examined every single day and you never know, is something that you did going to be viewed as inappropriate or is something that you did going to be viewed as a mistake? Especially when you're still trying to figure out how to be an adult.
0:46:40.2 Christopher Brenton: You're a young adult living on your own for the first time in your life in college, and you're prone to make stupid mistakes, and we as the national organization are constantly working with young men who in any context are... Their one mistake may actually be completely detrimental to their entire college experience because they're not really given the grace of redemption and the opportunity to make amends for the mistakes they made sometimes. And that's always a constant struggle with our risk reduction team, and how do you navigate that process and how do you continue to be good stewards of the values of our organization and ensure their chapters are doing the right thing, but then also giving space to men to grow and change and be better.
0:47:34.0 Christopher: I think about, I think on YouTube, there were two women who joined Chi Omega at Baylor. I think their names are Brooklyn and Bailey. They were, kind of, early YouTube influencers then joining a sorority. And I remember looking at it being like, "Gosh, I can't imagine how Chi Omega staff is thinking about that." And I [chuckle]..
0:47:56.0 Adam Girtz: Two of your members have more followers than the entire national organization [chuckle] has members.
0:48:03.3 Ben Kirby: Oh, yeah. It's real power. Yeah, it's a real power.
0:48:07.4 Christopher Brenton: And Chi Omega is one of the largest and most followed socially, national organizations out there. And those women probably eclipsed them by magnitudes that are just incomprehensible. Talking about millions versus thousands of followers. And so everything you do or say is going to be scrutinized, and often times the things that they are going to pick up on, are not essentially, the talking points that you want repeated or that you want promoted on behalf of your organization.
0:48:41.4 Ben Kirby: That's a really good point about... You put, at least in Arkansas, you put 100 dudes, or maybe it was more like 70 dudes in a house ages 18-21, and then you're going to put a guy that has a million followers in the same house with a camera? As Sigma Nus, we take pride in the organization. We want everybody to operate with LHT but by nature of having a bunch of random 18-year-olds in a fraternity house, there are some things that probably don't need to be blasted out to the viral sphere in HD. Just by nature of guys, like you said, making mistakes. Again, I would expect everybody to act like adults, but you're right, having... It might be at least... It's at least an additional risk to have somebody with that kind of influence in a house when guys are living their lives and living their lives imperfectly. In the wrong context, it could really, I don't know, bring some detriment to the chapter, or at least Sigma Nu as a whole.
0:49:57.5 Adam Girtz: The 15-second mistake that you made while on video goes viral and gets millions of views. The apology video that you post afterwards is not going to go viral.
0:50:09.4 Ben Kirby: Right. I'm team, hold people accountable for their actions, 100%.
0:50:11.9 Adam Girtz: Of course, yeah, absolutely.
0:50:15.1 Ben Kirby: But also context does matter, or at least let's hold them accountable within their community, not with the, I think the public, court of public opinion.
0:50:28.7 Adam Girtz: The villain of the day or whatever is Twitter's person of the day, you're the person of the day to the very good or very bad.
0:50:36.5 Ben Kirby: Right, but also the good thing is that people's attention spans are super short. And so if you just put your head down and muscle through, you're probably going to make it okay, unless you're like egregious.
0:50:50.6 Christopher Brenton: Yeah. Well, I guess it's kind of a final question to wrap us up here. So we've talked about just the chaos of social media and certainly some of the highs and lows of it. But you, and you've referenced this, it is a lucrative career opportunity for some. And so kind of recognizing the serious economics of it and having someone, again, who has been in this space, I thought it would be valuable for our listeners to talk about that a little bit. So thinking about your professional experience through your Instagram following, YouTube, the book, are there best practices that you would, or advice that you would give to especially younger members who maybe are listening to this podcast or thinking about, "I'm a small business owner." Or, "I am a person who's trying to become an influencer." How do you leverage social media? What advice would you have for somebody who's trying to leverage social media in a way that enhances their entrepreneurial opportunities or their small businesses?
0:51:58.7 Ben Kirby: Yeah, it's a good question. The thing about social media is that it never stops and you can never do enough. That's the double-edged sword. And the thing that I'm experiencing now in the back-end of a lot of the hype around my account is like, "How much am I willing to invest to stay relevant or at least to stay in good favor of the algorithm?" The algorithms control everything. 'Cause I have 270,000 followers and 500 people see my stuff sometimes. It's weird, the algorithm has power. But not talking about the bigger concerns about social media and its effects on our anxiety, depression, outlook on life, all that kind of stuff, which is probably a whole another podcast. If you are trying to pursue being an influencer, growing your business online, having talked to people with much bigger accounts than mine, consistency is the thing that always comes up in that always... To really grow your accounts, you have to post multiple times a day in multiple formats, across platforms, with stuff that's current, with hashtags that are discoverable, all that kind of stuff. But consistency, if you are consistent with what you're putting out, you have to do that unless you get lucky with going viral, like I did. If you want to truly grow your account, you gotta be consistent.
0:53:33.8 Ben Kirby: And then I think another thing that plenty of people talk about, this is not some revelation that I've come up with, but not being scared of what people... And this is like the pot calling the kettle black, because I'm always concerned about what people think about what I post. But truly, you have to put content out there that you believe in, and not because somebody is encouraging you to do, or post, telling you what to post or encouraging you to do something. You gotta put what you want to put out there when you want to put it out there and feel good about it regardless of the engagement it gets. You can alter your content based off of analytics to try to get things to perform better, but don't... I'm freaking, I've only had four cups of coffee today. Don't betray your creativity by posting something that you just think is a fad right now. If you want to post about Texas-themed coffee cups, but you see that people are posting about blue jeans, don't post about freaking blue jeans, keep posting about your thing that you're interested in, that you feel inspired to post about consistently.
0:54:48.8 Ben Kirby: There's enough data out there that you can see that, "Oh, my stuff performs better at 8:30 at night, generally. I'll post 8:30 at night only because that's when most people are engaging with my stuff." So, consistency, an inability to be swayed by the opinions of others, and then as a grown person with a baby and a wife now, I would say hedge. If going all in on being an influencer is... Maybe this is a screaming hot take, but it takes some form of delusion, I think, to say, "You know what, people are going to care about my life so much that I'm going to be able to do this for a living for the rest of my life." It takes you physically, every time you're doing anything, pulling out your camera and filming yourself doing that. If we're talking about true... People have been asking about my skincare routine influencers. It takes, I think, some level of delusion to be like, "People are going to care about this, I'm going to film it."
0:55:55.7 Ben Kirby: And so, I would just say maybe, unless you have a really good niche going, as a guy that's maybe gone through it a bit, I would say hedge a bit. It would be great to have a job as well to make sure that... 'Cause really, you're basing your entire business or your livelihood off of a thing that is controlled by some company out there that could overnight change their strategy, and you're in... Like a few months ago Instagram was down, Instagram and Facebook were down for 10 hours, and people were genuinely scared for their livelihood. I would just say as a dude that's gotten a little older and has responsibilities, I would say hedge a bit. It's great to want to build a platform, there are awesome benefits to being paid to promote a product, or paid to come on a podcast, or promote a thing, or speak at a thing, all that's great. And if you can get that train generating for you, then definitely invest in it but also if you're starting from scratch, I would say at least start doing it in your off-time and not just saying, "You know what, Dad? I'm going to be an influencer. You can't stop me." It's like, "Well, maybe hedge a bit because a lot of things could change in your life."
0:57:07.9 Adam Girtz: Yeah, the algorithm giveth, and the algorithm taketh away.
0:57:10.5 Ben Kirby: That's right, that's right.
0:57:11.3 Christopher Brenton: Well, Ben, well, we really just want to say thank you for having your... For you agreeing to come on to the podcast as for us being able to have this conversation. I continue to find this topic infinitely fascinating, maybe we'll have the opportunity to bring you back on to talk about it again, or at least some other elements of it but I do you want to give you, in just keeping with the theme, the opportunity to plug yourself a little bit. If you want to talk about your social media platforms and where people can follow you if they're interested in learning more about you or about the stuff that you post about, where would they find you?
0:57:46.8 Ben Kirby: Okay, yeah. Thanks for having me guys, and I appreciate the questions. And again, I'm honored to able to... If any of the Sigma Nus are out there listening, I'm honored to be a part of an organization like this. Sigma Nu's given me a ton, and anyway that I can give back, I'm very open to, and feel very honored to be able to contribute if this helps anybody. And I know some of it was kind of rambly, and if people have more questions they can email me all the time info@preachersnsneakers.com. Preachers, letter N, and then the word sneakers.com if you want to talk more in-depth. If you say you're Sigma Nu, I'll respond to you every single time. I get messages and emails from thousands of people all the time, which isn't a flex, it's just like an objective thing, but if you say that you're Sigma Nu I will respond to you. I'll talk to you however you need to be talked to, whether on the phone or whatever. But my accounts, Instagram is @PreachersNSneakers, so like PreachersNSneakers. Twitter @prchrsnsnkrs without any vowels, so like P-R-C-H-R-N-S-K-R-S, or whatever that is.
0:58:55.9 Ben Kirby: YouTube, I'm growing my YouTube channel, it's more of like short-ish form, talking head podcast stuff. My YouTube channel is PreachersNSneakers. The thing I'm most proud of is the book, I spent a long time researching and writing the book, and it's called PreachersNSneakers: Authenticity in an Age of For-profit Faith and Wannabe Celebrities. And you can buy that anywhere, you buy books. And if you're a Sigma Nu and then money's a thing, email me and I'll send you one. I don't care, dude, I've got tons of them here, and there's also an audio version that's a lot cheaper too. But yeah, I've also got a... In the name of deluded self-promotion, I have a podcast as well, called The PreachersNSneakers Podcast, cleverly named. And that's a longer forum talking about some of these issues about like capitalism and celebrity culture within the Christian church, but yeah, I mean, get the book, follow me on Instagram, send me an email, if you got more questions. And yeah, just honored to be here, and proud to be a Sigma Nu.
1:00:01.4 Adam Girtz: We're proud to have you man, genuinely, I've been very excited for this. I've followed the account actually for a while, and kind of stumbled upon it during, I guess, your meteoric rise, and struck a chord in me, like it did obviously a lot of people, so it was very, very cool to be able to sit down and talk to you about this whole thing.
1:00:23.7 Ben Kirby: Absolutely. Well, it's great to meet you finally, Adam.
1:00:25.6 Adam Girtz: Yeah, you too.
1:00:26.7 Christopher Brenton: Absolutely. Well, thanks Ben. And again, we'll have to have you on soon, hopefully, maybe.
1:00:31.8 Ben Kirby: Awesome, thanks, Chris. Good to see you guys.
1:00:33.4 Christopher Brenton: Alright, take care.
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1:01:02.6 Adam Girtz: Welcome back, everyone. Christopher, what do you think?
1:01:09.2 Christopher Brenton: Gosh, I love this interview. I've been super excited that we were able to get Ben signed up and able to participate, and I really enjoyed that conversation, so super excited to share this with our listeners.
1:01:25.3 Adam Girtz: Yeah. And I know it comes across in the... We're on the Teams Call, or the Video Call, Zoom, whatever you will, Skype for all the old heads out there, but Ben's just such a great guy. Just such like, a warm conversationalist, and it was really great to be able to speak to him, and especially, to speak to somebody who has so many interesting things to say about what he's passionate about. And if I could say, that's one of the best things about doing this podcast, has been just being able to speak to people that are passionate about the things they're passionate about, and speak to them about what they're passionate about, and to have that come through. So hopefully, as our listeners are listening to that, that's what they're getting from it too. So be on the lookout, we do have your article in the works for the Gavel, correct or just on the website?
1:02:19.8 Christopher Brenton: So it'll be mostly for the website, but then it'll most likely be included in the Gavel as well, that typically is how things go, but yes, we are really interested in keeping the conversation going with Ben, and so we're hoping to have an article up on his writing experience. We didn't go into as much depth on that, we wanted to spend a little bit more time just talking about social media in general. So if you're interested in his book writing process, the experience he had in putting that together, or just his journey from getting from his Instagram account to publishing the book, we're hoping to give a little bit more information in that article. I think the game plan right now is for that to come out soon, and so be on the look out for that. But also too, just again, plug him one more time, I know he was able to do so in the interview, but if you're interested in his book, the title of it is PreachersNSneakers: Authenticity in an Age of For-Profit Faith and Wannabe Celebrities. You can find that on Amazon, or wherever books are sold. Would strongly encourage you to check that out.
1:03:33.0 Adam Girtz: Yes, go to your local bookstore.
1:03:35.5 Christopher Brenton: Yeah, absolutely.
1:03:36.5 Adam Girtz: And if they don't have it, order it from Amazon. [chuckle] Cool.
1:03:41.9 Christopher Brenton: And make sure, if you do order from Amazon, we do have the AmazonSmile promotion.
1:03:46.5 Adam Girtz: Oh yeah, we do.
1:03:47.3 Christopher Brenton: Make sure you identify Sigma Nu Educational Foundation as your charity of choice for AmazonSmile, and everything you purchase on Amazon, a small percentage of the proceeds will go to benefit the Educational Foundation.
1:04:02.7 Adam Girtz: Yes. Excellent, please do that. Okay, everyone, thank you so much for listening to another episode of the Gavel Podcast, we appreciate you and, Christopher, if people want to get in touch with us, where can they do that?
1:04:18.0 Christopher Brenton: Yeah, as always, if you're looking for more information about the fraternity or from the fraternity, you can always check out our website, sigmanu.org, you can also find us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at @SigmaNuHQ, or by searching for Sigma Nu Fraternity.
1:04:33.7 Adam Girtz: Thanks everyone, talk to you soon.
1:04:35.2 Christopher Brenton: Take care. Bye.
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