John Papola, co-founder, CEO, and creative director of Emergent Order, chatted about “Dad Saves America” and the digital age.
What inspired you to start “Dad Saves America”?
For the past 12 years I’ve taken on a lot of exciting and scary new challenges. In 2011, I quit my job as a creative director at Spike TV in New York City to start a company. I moved from NJ, where I’ve spent much of my life with friends and family close by, to Austin, TX where I knew absolutely no one but my business partners who moved with me (including my wife, Lisa).
I’ve had to manage a payroll with up to 20 employees relying on me through crazy ups and downs in the economy. I’ve taken on big debts to build houses and invest in our businesses.
And I couldn’t have done any of it without being a dad.
When my son was born, it was as if I was granted a kind of psychic “F you” money. He gave me something to care about that made every other challenge or fear in life seem trivial, including my own ego and ambition. If you want to take on hard things, fear is your biggest obstacle.
I’ve never heard anyone quite articulate this kind of impact on becoming a dad. People will say “being a dad gets you motivated to bring home the bacon for your family” and that’s true. But this was different and more liberating. So being a dad has played this really huge role in my life.
It’s also given me a front row seat to some pretty strange and disturbing trends in my son’s generation. They’re more anxious, lonely, depressed and fearful than any prior generation.
When my son’s middle school took a bizarre turn towards identity politics, presenting him as a 6th grader with what I believe to be pretty toxic propositions and values, I became activated that something was wrong in our culture and especially our schools.
Then I read Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff’s book The Coddling of the American Mind, which crystallized some sources of this excessive fragility in social media, misunderstandings about social justice, and overprotective parenting.
This all rang true to me. But what they missed was the collapsing role of Dad. 1 in 4 American kids are being raised with a father figure in the home!
We lead the world in fatherlessness. And it turns out that dads play an essential role in instilling some of the values and growth mindset that are necessary for success and in steep decline: grit, toughness, healthy risk taking, and empathy (among many others). There’s a lot of scholarship that shows how the crisis among men and boys in particular has its roots in the absence of fathers.
This is what Dad Saves America exists to address. Our goal with the channel is to celebrate fatherhood and, frankly, healthy masculinity. We want to arm dads and could-be dads with information and inspiration to see their role as heroic and embrace it.
Troy Kotsur, the 2022 winner of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the movie “CODA,” visited Austin, Texas to collaborate with “Dad Saves America” on an upcoming documentary about his story, with a focus on the impact of dads on the flourishing of their children.
Can you tell us more about your whole nonprofit production studio Emergent Order?
We made a name for ourselves in digital media at first with a series of viral, educational rap videos I co-created and produced with my favorite economist, Russ Roberts. It was the aftermath of the global financial crisis.
I was a new dad with a new mortgage with a long commute into NYC from Jersey, and Russ’s podcast EconTalk helped me to make sense of what was going on in the world at that time. So I reached out to Russ in the hope of combining my filmmaking with this new interest in economics and world affairs. The videos, Fear The Boom and Bust and its sequel, Fight of the Century, ended up getting widely shared and are used in high schools and colleges all around the world to this day.
Seeing the kind of impact that was possible with thoughtfully made videos about important topics, we started Emergent Order as a production company dedicated to doing more of this work. For over a decade we’ve worked with a mix of for-profit and non-profit clients and partners, produced several feature documentaries, and created tons of mission-driven content.
As the media landscape has gotten more polarized, I thought there was an opportunity to create new channels that embody the classical virtues that I believe help unleash people’s potential.
We launched Emergent Order Foundation as a non-profit organization in part because I didn’t want to have our business model dependent exclusively on click-bait and outrage. I’m as huge a defender of capitalism as you will find, and there’s nothing wrong or immoral with profit.
There’s also a long tradition that dates back to the Renaissance and beyond of philanthropically supported art and cultural institutions. I see our work at Emergent Order Foundation as part of that tradition of using art and storytelling to elevate the best of humanity as noble and heroic.
Dad Saves America is our first major initiative because it’s really important and authentic to our team. We’re also developing a slate of film and television projects that touch on the same themes such as overcoming fear, confronting injustice, and celebrating individual dignity and potential.
How does it feel to have guests like Oscar winner Troy Kotsur, Dr. Drew and John Mackey on “Dad Saves America”?
It’s exciting to connect with so many incredible people as part of our show and our work on Dad Saves America. Some, like John Mackey, are longtime friends of mine who’ve accomplished truly extraordinary things.
John, my wife Lisa and I produced a feature film called At The Fork that explored the ethics of raising animals for food in a way that set aside the “it’s all a conspiracy” hyperbole and left the conclusions up to the audience. It was during my work directing At The Fork and then my second feature documentary The Pursuit with Arthur Brooks that I caught the bug of conducting long-form interviews.
In 2020 I produced a film called Beyond Homeless that explored the crisis in San Fransisco and models that have worked to help people experiencing homelessness such as the Haven for Hope in San Antonio.
Dr. Drew was a powerful interview in the film and that opened the door to him coming on Dad Saves America to talk about our mental health crisis. Again, our kids generation is suffering from a startling rise in anxiety, depression, and suicide. Dr Drew’s clinical experience as well as his understanding of the media and some of the pathologies that come along with it have never been more relevant!
I love getting to know someone new who’s had radically different experiences than me yet is engaging in a good-faith conversation. Having Troy Kotsur on the show was a real honor in particular. I loved CODA. For most people, myself included, this movie is the first real exposure to life in a deaf family.
I cried like a baby at multiple points in the film. And when Troy thanked his dad as his hero during his acceptance speech at the Oscars last year, I immediately thought he’d be a terrific guest. We not only hosted Troy on the show, but also teamed up with the Texas School for the Deaf for a live event where Troy coached a group of young deaf theater students and then presented to the community here in Austin.
We’re in post-production on a short documentary film that explores Troy’s relationship with his dad that we’ll be releasing later this year.
How does it feel to be a filmmaker, entrepreneur, and content creator in the digital age? (now with streaming and technology being so prevalent)
Well, for starters, I’m a tech super-early-adopter. I’m pretty sure I have a compulsion to own the absolute latest technology from Apple the minute it can be purchased (I’ve owned every iPhone on day 1 since the original).
Quick story: I’ll never forget my one almost-encounter with Steve Jobs while visiting the Apple campus in the early 2000’s on an “executive tour” with several other producers from Nickelodeon.
We’re in the lobby at One Infinite Loop, chatting with some engineers who developed QuickTime and Final Cut Pro, when Steve Jobs and Jony Ive emerge from the elevator. I’m not one to get star struck, but I couldn’t help myself from staring. Jobs made brief eye contact with me, squinting in a “who the hell is that guy?” kinda way, to which I waved like a kid catching Santa’s gaze while in line at Macy’s. That prompted him to look away in a “oh, it’s nobody” kinda way while the engineers all looked at me like I was a lunatic.
The media industry has obviously changed dramatically since I graduated film school and got my first job at MTV in 1999. Distribution in 4K is now free. Everything in on-demand. Anyone can potential reach an audience that dwarfs major studios if they have a story that resonates. It’s cluttered and crazy and exhilarating and terrifying all at the same time.
I remember that it was the peak of the dot-com boom and very beginning of digital media with sites like Atom films and iFilm using now-defunct tech like shockwave. While I was at Spike TV, the network acquired iFilm in the hope of building a bigger internet presence at a time when Viacom was also actively suing YouTube because clips from the Daily Show with John Stewart were getting “pirated” on the site and going viral.
It took the old network guard longer than it should have to recognize that massive free advertising and audience expansion on sites like YouTube was good for their brands. Everything has changed now.
But we’ve also lost the water-cooler. Everything burns out fast and our media landscape is radically splintered and balkanized. We live in a world of a billion niches, where any interest can be explored forever.
If you’re entrepreneurial, you can now build a business and a financially viable life as a creator that was inconceivable twenty years ago, which is amazing. I’ve built a second career on the success of economics-focused rap videos and documentaries! But we also live in a world where we can tunnel into our echo-chambers and isolate ourselves from people whose views differ from our own. So it’s a mixed bag. I believe that humanity has not yet found a healthy new equilibrium in this age of the digital media tsunami.
How do you use technology in your daily routine?
How don’t I use technology is the harder question. As I said, I’m 100% in the Apple ecosystem, with the zealotry of a young convert after spending my teenage and college years building a new gaming PC every year.
I love my M1 Max MacBook Pro, which is the first laptop that’s been powerful enough to be my primary computer for all use cases. At the office, I plug it into a 5K2K LG monitor and 4K LG OLED monitor along with a nest of thunderbolt docks so that I can access our shared media storage at 10Gb. I happen to love color correction, so from time to time I’ll take videos across the finish line in DaVinci Resolve. The fact that you can color grade 4K video with loads of effects on a laptop in real time without ever hearing the fans whirl is downright magical.
On the software front, we use Final Cut Pro for all our editing, including our longer pieces. We cut The Pursuit, which premiered on Netflix, in Final Cut Pro. In high-end circles, Final Cut has lost ground to Adobe Premiere, but I will stand by FCP as the superior product for creative storytelling by a mile.
I came up in the business through post production and motion graphics at MTV and Nickelodeon before moving into producing and directing, and I consider post to be where the storytelling actually happens. Everything leading up to the edit is acquisition of raw material.
I couldn’t manage the sheer amount of projects and work we do without relying on a mix of cloud tools and databases. This is where the left brain for me kicks in. I’ve built project management systems for our organization in Notion and Airtable, both of which I simply love as tools.
On the weirder side, which is where my right brain dominates, I also LOVE Apple’s productivity tools: Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. Pages and Numbers in particular are unsung heroes as tools and I find using Word and Excel to be downright painful to use, on top of being ugly as sin.
In general, I probably have a somewhat unhealthy obsession with exploring new tools and tech that stretches beyond being productive and into being a personal hobby and playground.
My son recently told me “pop, you’re probably going to be a grumpy old man, but you’re definitely not going to need my tech support, so that’s good.” I fear he’s right on the former. I hope he’s right on the latter.
What is your advice for young and aspiring filmmakers and content creators?
Good question! These days, I think young aspiring filmmakers have a lot they can teach ME with how fast everything is moving. In many ways, I’m really old school. A literal gray beard, if you will, at 45.
All that said, I think now more than ever it’s important to be entrepreneurial and to have experience with and exposure to all of the parts of the creative, production, and distribution process. Obviously tools like Instagram and TikTok collapse all of it into one app experience, with the constraints of their formats and platforms. And those constraints have given rise to some really clever and amazingly successful creators.
It seems like anything you could want to learn is available for free on YouTube, from writing techniques and critiques to camera technology to editing and marketing strategies. But what you won’t find is the intrinsic motivation or perseverance or humility it takes to make something truly amazing and beautiful and impactful.
I had the benefit of spending the first decade of my career inside of TV networks that had clear paths to learn from people more experienced than me. I had mentors. I had the benefit of paying my dues, as we used to say.
And that’s probably my best piece of advice. If you think you know what you want to do in film or content creation (or frankly any field!), seek out the best people in the business and do whatever you can to work for them. Be humble and work hard if this is your passion.
You have the time and energy in your twenties to put in serious hours in the name of honing your skills. Have a beginners mind and stay with things long enough to understand what it takes to truly master a craft. I was making only $500/week in NYC with no overtime when I started at MTV. I could barely pay my rent, but I didn’t for a second feel “exploited”. It was an incredible opportunity! What I was learning was worth more then the pay, and way more than I learned in “school” which sent me a bill!!
I’m not pitching some hustle schtick here. This isn’t about some path to having a sports car and a mansion if you just grind 24/7 or whatever line the latest YouTube guru is selling so that you subscribe to their Amazon affiliate marketing course.
All I’m saying is invest in yourself by proving you can create value for other people. That’s what capitalism is all about, and the media business today is about as free-market as it gets. To paraphrase a line from one of our rap videos, give yourself a chance to discover the most valuable way you can serve others with your passion and creativity. This isn’t clock-punching work. When you’re really passionate about it, it doesn’t feel like “work” at all.
What does the word success mean to you?
I’m not sure if there’s any usefully universal definition of success. In one sense it’s entirely subjective, right? Each of us defines success for ourselves and it might look nothing like the definition other people arrive at. One thing I came to understand more deeply while working with Arthur Brooks on our film The Pursuit is that the most fulfilling and durable form of success is EARNED success. For example, lottery winners famously tend to end up miserable and broke. There’s a kind of reversion to the mean that happens when your gains are granted rather than earned.
But even when you do earn it by reaching a goal you’ve set out for yourself, I’ve found that this kind of success is also fleeting. Most creative people will tell you that we experience emotional booms and busts constantly and there’s an inescapable dance with imposter syndrome that’s part of the deal. The goal posts are always moving. Status, fame and fortune are foundations made of sand for building a happy life. Durable success is something more than that.
For me personally, success is most deeply felt in the relationships in my life. Having a healthy, open, fun and loving relationship with my wife is success. Maintaining a strong bond with my son and seeing him discover his own path to flourishing is success. As an entrepreneur and manager, I find a great deal of fulfillment in helping my team grow and thrive. Success and servant leadership are very closely connected. Adam Smith wrote in the Theory of Moral Sentiments that people not only wish to be loved but to be lovely, which is to say, to be worthy of love. I think that’s the ultimate form of earned success: being worthy of love… and finding it.
What would you like to tell our readers about “Dad Saves America”? (What’s the one thing you want them to get out of it)
Our fundamental message with Dad Saves America, while it’s aimed at dads, is really universal. Every single person has dignity and incredible potential that ultimately only they can discover for themselves and put to use. The path to success and happiness is built on recognizing, as psychologists say, that each of us has an “internal locus of control”. Or, in the words of John Connor from the Terminator: there’s no fate but what we make for ourselves.
Our culture has in too many cases taken compassion for those at the margin to an extreme and turned it into an embrace of victimhood. This is a path to failure because it’s fundamentally disempowering. I’ve met a lot of people in my travels who overcame unbelievable hardship, and not one of them would say they did so by embracing their victimhood. Not one.
I believe it’s an essential element of the best of America that we have been a nation of optimists and doers. We’re largely a nation of immigrants, like my great grandparents who came here from Sicily and built a life from nothing. And for those whose family history is full of injury, strife, slavery and oppression, the message is the same: you have dignity. You have value. You are not a victim, but a potential hero on a challenging journey.
This is a message that I believe dads play an essential role in delivering to our families, our communities, and our country. This is the message of “Dad Saves America.”
To learn more about “Dad Saves America,” visit its official website.
