Inside Paid Protests: Organization, Authenticity & Public Trust | Adam Swart
Watch the full episode: YouTube
Episode Summary
What do paid protests actually represent in modern society? Adam Swart, founder of Crowds on Demand, discusses the controversial world of paid demonstrations, exploring questions of authenticity, public trust, and how manufactured crowds shape political narratives and media coverage.
Key Topics: paid protests, Adam Swart, Crowds on Demand, authenticity, public trust, demonstrations, political activism, media narratives, grassroots movements, astroturfing
Conversation
Evan Meyer: 00:01.634 Welcome to Meijer Side Chats. Today we have Adam Swart, who's the founder of Crowds On Demand, a paid protesting and advocacy firm known for organizing high profile campaigns across the political spectrum. With over a decade of experience in public mobilization, Adam has become one of the nation's foremost experts on how modern protests are funded, staged, and weaponized for media and political impact.
He's led campaigns tied to multi-billion dollar litigation, activist shareholder disputes, patent infringement battles, energy and environmental conflicts, and major civil rights cases, including racial discrimination and LGBTQ rights. He's been featured on Fox News, Fox Business, News Nation, where his insights have gone viral, drawing millions of views and sparking a national conversation about authenticity and ethics in activism.
Many people encounter his industry or his business through headlines or surface level impressions. So today I am excited and very interested in creating a space for a more thoughtful conversation about how organized public participation fits into modern society. Adam, welcome.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (01:14.516) Evan, thanks so much. I'm really happy to be here with you. I love what you're doing and I love your program. So it's an honor to be with you.
Evan Meyer: 01:23.778 Thank you very much. That means a lot. And I'm really looking forward to diving into a lot of the philosophical conversations around what you do and all things Crowds On Demand. So why don't maybe a great way to start this would be to talk a little bit about the process. Why don't we jump into the process of someone calls you, you get a lead, someone submits a form. How does it work? And then how do you organize it? And what's the end result?
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (01:51.828) Yeah. So people get in touch with us. Sometimes it's through referral. Sometimes it's through word of mouth. More often than not, it's probably people who've heard about us from various places online. Right? So they get in touch with us. Typically people are coming from one of two perspectives. Number one, they already have a plan and they want us to implement it. So, okay, I want to have this rally at this time and this place. I just need you to provide the people.
or...
I am really concerned because they're trying to build a, you know, addiction facility, a rehab for, you know, wacky people next to my house and I want to stop it. And you're the expert helped me put together a campaign, to stop it. Right. And where, or it would be somewhere in between, because we would provide some degree of insight and also respond to some of the client's concerns. typically people will come
us with one or two, one of those types of considerations, we will then formulate a game plan. That game plan will depend on a few things, right? What are they looking to achieve? What is their budget? What are some other considerations, right? Like, we don't want to piss off this person. we want to focus on this person, whatever, right? And to what extent, to some extent, we will try to identify
who the people are who are in a position of influence, right? So if it's a advocacy campaign, we will try to say, okay, well, who should be the focus of this campaign? So if it's the example of building an addiction center in a neighborhood, is there a city council, a planning board, a county commission, right? Is there a state agency that handles those sorts of things, right? Can the provider be persuaded, right? So try to identify who the
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (03:50.073) the people are who might have the input, the ability to get our client what they're looking for, right?
And then from there, we will assess, okay, well, what are the types of that might persuade those people? Right. So we might say, okay, so will it be rallies? Will it be people speaking at the council meeting? Will it be calls? Right. Will, will we have to, will knocking in there on their neighborhood, right? Knocking on doors in their neighborhood. Will social media will getting traditional media involved, right? What are the type will sending a camera crew to their house? Right. Like, I mean, we.
there's a scale rate. It's like in warfare when you're a general, you decide, okay, do we do this or do we do that? Right? Like we can do this is level one, level two, level three, and you can decide how much you want to escalate based on what the situation calls for.
Evan Meyer: 04:51.607 Sure. you and your background, you actually did political campaigning with Governor Jerry Brown at the time, right? Yeah. So what did you learn from that that you use now in in Crowds On Demand?
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (04:57.066) That's true. That's true.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (05:07.56) Well, I should stress because people do bring that up is that I'm not a Democrat nor Republicans. So just because I have a history of working in Democratic party politics does not make me a Democrat. In fact, I think that both parties are a little wacky and I like to work on common sense campaigns. So my goal is to not necessarily like be considered, he's a Democratic or Republican operative. I like to give voice to both parties for common sense.
Evan Meyer: 05:24.896 You
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (05:37.464) But I'm sorry. And your question about that was...
Evan Meyer: 05:38.871 Sure.
Evan Meyer: 05:42.925 Good clarification, good clarification, because yeah, definitely don't want to pin you in one side or the other, but it is a notable person to have worked for, and I'm sure you had some good insights from that.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (05:53.264) Yeah, what are the insights? Yeah, so, so, yeah, so
Evan Meyer: 05:55.593 Insights related to crowds on demand a little bit, some of the things that you're like.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (05:59.146) Basically, the, the insight is that, being able to draw people is really important. and that protest is almost more important than rallies, right? Because you can, if your opponent is hosting a rally with a thousand people, you can have protesters with maybe 10 people, 20 people that's 2%, one to 2%. And if you play your cards, right, get equal media time with that larger rally.
because you can, you can basically play to the issues that matter. Right? So the number, so number one is to get earned media and to try to use publicity events that other people do all the legwork for and get publicity out of it yourself. Number one. So you have to be a number two is that context matters. Right? There can be a great, you can deliver a great speech, but if it's delivered in front of 10 people, five people, doesn't matter. I imagine more.
Evan Meyer: 06:45.837 Okay.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (06:59.04) Luther King, I have a dream speech being delivered to five people, right? Would it have the same residents, even though those words were beautiful? Not necessarily, probably not. Right. So part of it is like creating the right context and having a really good, crowd behind you and the right kind of crowd.
is important and one thing you learn from working in politics that's not unique to any particular campaign is you want a particular type of group behind the candidate right and what the group that's behind the candidate you want it maybe you want it to be diverse maybe you don't want it to be diverse right but you're trying to get a sir you're trying to say something by the people who are standing behind your candidate whether it's moms whether it's union members
Whether it's you know law enforcement right you're trying to put people behind the candidate to sit to to Prove a point but that that matter is not just when you're promoting a candidate, but also when you're opposing a candidate What is the context it's interesting? I was on a different podcast with a couple guys who were were kind of challenging me on the business and interestingly enough these guys also promote a line of hard sell
And, I asked them, I was like, would you put a fat guy who lives in his mom's basement on the cover of your seltzer? Right. They said, no, I said, well, why not? Right. Why do you want to have the bikini girls on your seltzer? Well, they say it's good marketing, right? It's, it's the same thing that you want to put your product in the best possible context. So if you're doing a protest, you want the type of people, the right kind of people protesting, right? So you don't necessarily want some dirty barefoot.
hippie, you might want soccer moms, right? You might want law enforcement, right? What is the point you're trying to convey and who do you want to convey that point?
Evan Meyer: 09:05.623 Sure. Sure. OK, so one of the and I guess one of the conversation points that I've heard previously has been around, you know, because they're because they're paid to be there and which which has, you know, I guess sparked some conversation around the authenticity of those people and whether they're there for the money or for the you know, because they really want to be there. And of course, it occurs to me, I'm like, well, I'm sure.
you know, the goal must be to try to get people who are really do care about something so that it's authentic. Right. And I'm sure there's some margin of error there. Right. Some people only do things for money or, you know, wouldn't have done it if it wasn't maybe they need a little bit of push. Right. And it's still authentic. How do you how do you kind of assess that and and try to keep it so that it the authentic activism is there?
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (09:48.309) Yeah.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (09:57.46) Okay well, I'll put it.
Let me give you a little history of the business. So I will admit that our business was not founded on the principles of authenticity, right? But we are, we have made it a priority over the past several years to do authentic, right? So right now, any demonstration, any advocacy campaign, we source authentically interested, engaged people who care about the subject. Now, of course, as you correctly said, does that mean a hundred percent? I can only vouch for what people tell.
us, right? It's the same thing as if you go to Starbucks, right? Like is the coffee always going to be good at Starbucks? No, but that I imagine they try to hire people who know how to make good coffee, right? So it's the same principle. We try our best to have people who are authentically interested and engaged in activism, right? And when we started the company, that wasn't our concern. I was just trying to provide
bodies in seats, bodies in protests as cheaply and as quickly as possible. But in fact, the fact that we actually have a dedicated vetting people who are there who vet to make sure that all of our, people who attend our events care about that subject at hand. And by the way, I've been, should say that costs me money because my clients aren't willing to pay for that more often than not. So that comes out of my profit. So it actually costs me money and it
Evan Meyer: 11:12.498 wow.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (11:23.832) lowers our profit margins to do it, but it's worth it. Why is it worth it? Because it allows me to be on your podcast and tell people that we do this authentically and not be lying because I wouldn't want to be a liar. and,
So, so basically that we try to have people as authentic as possible who are engaged. The other thing is that is important about crowds on demand is that we actually afford people who wouldn't ordinarily be able to protest, be able to protest, right? Because who do you see if you don't compensate demonstrators, who do you see disproportionately as demonstrators? Well, do you retirees and college students? Why? Because they don't have an opportunity.
Evan Meyer: 12:08.417 Time?
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (12:08.728) Well yeah, they have time, right? So there's no opportunity cost, right? If I'm an hourly wage worker with a family, I have two opportunity costs. Number one, unpaid time off. Number two, childcare for my kids, right? So that's why you don't see a lot of janitors, maids, food workers out at protests because they can't afford to, but they do come to our protests because we make it possible to do that.
Evan Meyer: 12:27.021 interesting.
Evan Meyer: 12:36.513 Hmm, very interesting. Yeah, I mean, it's in general, that's why a lot of people don't get involved civically. And just it is expensive. You need the time. You need to care enough about an issue without just complaining about something for, you know, forever and hating things without getting involved.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (12:44.115) It's expensive.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (12:55.722) Yes. That's right.
And the other thing is, as, as you know, you know, worked having worked in state government, a lot of the people, at protests and rallies are people who are actually political, workers or government workers. Right. And I'm not saying this to call out one particular side, Democrats and Republicans do it, but let's just say you see Ted Cruz or Ocasio-Cortez out there with a press conference, the people behind them are often their own staff, right. Or staff for their political party.
Right? Who are like, and it's not necessarily an express requirement of the job, but what you want to, if the Senator, if the Congress person says, go to this rally, even though it's not technically part of your job as a staffer, it is expected. And if you don't go, you're going to be punished. Same thing with labor unions, labor unions, regularly push people to do this. And I know people are just talking to a firefighter who was telling me, I'm like, I'm like a moderate Republican and I
was told I had to go to a democratic rally, right? And if I didn't go, I would be punished, right? There's a of a tacit or else if they don't go, right? So the reality is this is a feature. So what we're doing is actually a whole lot more authentic than a lot of other forms of activism.
Evan Meyer (14:13.26) Right?
Evan Meyer: 14:23.661 Sure. There's a lot of pressure in state, in government, if you work for politicians to campaign for the party that they are representing, especially during election time. So, yeah, there is severe pressure where people, often makes a lot of people feel very uncomfortable. There is some or else, implicit or explicit, I guess it could be both, but...
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (14:36.989) That's right.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (14:49.781) Yeah.
Evan Meyer: 14:52.831 So there's a lot of different ways this goes down. I've been trying to like and this is a good opportunity, I think, to try to explore all those similarities. It's been it's been an interesting thought process for me to even go through and be like, OK, I see the the paid component to it. Let's really dissect into what the biggest hurdles are, for example, that make it.
that make it difficult because it can be argued, I find, in whether it's okay or not okay. Obviously a lot of people want it. Like that's the crazy thing. Like there's tons of people buying it and you're successful in this venture. to, know, what hurdles, I mean, let's jump into that. What hurdles are you seeing given that there is so much demand?
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (15:46.984) What kind of hurdles in in what sense?
Evan Meyer: 15:50.507 What kind of hurdles are you having to overcome when people are talking about the issues with paid protesting?
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (15:59.908) well, mean, look, I think there's good faith and bad faith arguments to be had here. Right. And I think a lot it's, first of all, it's ironic that a lot of the people who are criticizing my company are like, well, why do you criticize it? Well, because it's not authentic. They're not, they're being, by the fact that they're being paid to express his opinion means it's not authentic. so there, a lot of these talk show hosts saying that are seven, eight figure talk show hosts. Right. And they're saying they're getting paid
seven, eight figures, right? Like Rachel Maddow or, you know, the guys on Fox or whatever, they're getting paid seven, eight figures to, to critique it to, and it's like, they're, they want people to believe that their opinions are authentic. And then you're saying that my people who are getting paid a couple hundred bucks are somehow not authentic. it's, it's kind of a classist argument really, when you think about it. So that I would categorize as like a bad faith argument, right? Of like, well, because you're being paid
Evan Meyer: 16:48.941 Wow.
Evan Meyer: 16:58.101 Interesting.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (16:59.512) pain, it means you don't support a cause that I, it's either a classist bad faith argument or an ill informed argument based on the fact that you've never really thought about it, which I understand. I also understand sort of the naivete argument of, well, protest should be grassroots. Well, they
When that really neglects the idea that basically every movement, gay rights, civil rights, MAGA, Tea Party, everything has been funded by well-heeled donors, you know, and the reality is think about how many great movements have never seen the light of day because they've never been funded. And conversely, think of how many crappy movements have died because
Ultimately, even though they're well funded, they fail to gain steam. mean, look at Michael Bloomberg, Jeb Bush, Kamala Harris, right? These people raised like hundreds of millions, billions of dollars, but they were honestly like pathetic candidates and they failed miserably, right? Their money ultimately failed to give them right. The support. So the reality is that there's this naivete of like, well money buys support. No money buys wreckage.
Ignition, right? So it's like if you could buy a Superbowl ad you can spend what is it? Five to ten million bucks to get a Superbowl ad Ultimately, if your product is crap, your ad will probably be a very bad investment if your product good Maybe it will be a good investment
Evan Meyer: 18:28.854 Right.
Evan Meyer: 18:32.887 Well, let's say I pay someone to do a marketing campaign for a policy I believe in and they have to create the and they create the the social media content that gets put out. Does that mean that?
It's funny because Dave, here's an example where a lot of people, I've even spoke to a lot of people who get paid to do marketing for political campaigning in lots of different ways. Even a previous guest who may not love everything that they're doing or supporting. I mean, just to talk about the other side for a second, there are people outside of your world that are doing plenty of work to support things they don't believe in at all.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (19:07.093) That's true.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (19:14.573) Correct. Correct. That's, that's absolutely true. So the idea, and by the way, if you're a spokesperson for a candidate, you may not agree with them, but you still have to kind of support what they're saying, right? Because ultimately you work for them, right?
Evan Meyer: 19:28.173 You're right. Or if you're on their team, if you're a staffer, you don't even get a choice. You're literally getting paid to support things, whether you not believe things.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (19:36.819) Right, so.
So the point being now, now what the, the followup to that, like, if we really dissect the argument was like, well, okay. But that that's not analogous. Some people would say, because the protest is being marketed as one thing, whereas being a political staffer, you know, they're, they're political staffers. So the, the, the, the criticism would be the lack of disclosure. So here's my response to the lack of disclosure. My responses, I've actually introduced legislation.
that I've pushed, I'm pushing Congress to adopt, which is to adopt a Transparency and Political Protest Act, right? Which is basically to say any protest over 500 people needs to disclose their source of funding and needs to disclose all the vendors and everything like that because I support that but, but I'm only willing to do it if everyone else is willing to do it. So I want the unions, I want the churches, I want the 501c4s, I want everybody else to say it to, to disclose.
all the other funds being used on those protests. So I'm happy to do it. So my response is put up or shut up, right? I've actually introduced that. I've sent a letter to Congress about it, right? So I'm saying like, look, if you guys, if, if we make this into law, then I'm happy to put all of those disclosures out there. So that's my response.
Evan Meyer: 20:47.853 Nice.
Evan Meyer: 21:01.217 That's wild. actually put out. So how are you pursuing this? Are you you're actively trying to get this passed?
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (21:05.621) Well, I've released a public letter to Congress asking them to pass it. mean, of course, it's Congress. So whether or not they do it or not, it'll be hard to say. But if they're man enough, I'm happy to go to testify and answer questions before the committees on Capitol Hill and to talk about why this is necessary and why I know for a fact that it's necessary.
Evan Meyer: 21:34.079 It's funny that you're the one who'd be putting that out and not someone else, right?
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (21:37.097) Well, I want to lead on this because frankly, Evan, I am tired of people making unfounded accusations. So now if we have this act, I will gladly disclose everything we're involved with that we're required to, but I want everybody else to be required to disclose it too. to the point of disclosure, like,
I, my, my, my advice to Democrat, Republican groups, all these people who criticize what we were doing, put up or shut up. Tell me that you're on board with the, transparency and political protests act and, help me pass this thing.
Evan Meyer: 22:16.385 Yeah, I'm interested to see you even if you get onto that floor to be able to have that opportunity, what the conversations start, like what starts happening and gets disclosed in the room. It's right, like what arguments are they gonna have against it and for it and why and how does that corroborate with what we're talking about right now?
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (22:37.989) I think that they don't want to, I think the reality is, is a lot of them are benefiting from the opaque, opaqueness. Opacity is probably the better word, opacity of the system, right? Opacity is the opposite of transparency, right? So they're benefiting from the opacity of the system. And I seek to remedy that through this act, right? So if they don't tell, so I guess my, my response to anybody calling for
disclosing paid protest is I'm willing to do it if we pass this act. So, so my only response if anyone wants me to disclose who's paid and who's not is sign on to the act and then you'll see.
Evan Meyer: 23:12.439 Sure.
Evan Meyer: 23:20.727 Sure. Yeah, I mean, it's in it's in the same domain as trying to pass some sort of tax evasion act that everyone benefits from for them, right? We should. Everyone's fine. You know, whatever they're doing to make money or find loopholes. Every time you try to close a loophole, gets it gets harder for the people who are benefiting.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (23:29.895) Yeah, that's right. That's right. And we should pass that.
Evan Meyer: 23:44.045 I wish you luck, especially in just getting on the floor to have that opening up that conversation. I think that'd be awesome.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (23:51.061) It's an important conversation.
Evan Meyer: 23:53.357 Yeah. So let's define some things here. Like if something is engineered for viral impact, right, which it seems like these days everything is just about creating some extreme version of something to get clicks, engagement, sell ads on whatever it is, right? And that's how extremism
goes viral. How do you differentiate from the extremism sort of conversation? But also, how do you define something that is manufactured? Not necessarily saying anything about the protest, but what does it mean to be manufactured support?
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (24:39.775) Well, I think that there are gradations and it is a spectrum, right? I think that it's a misnomer a little bit when people say people use manufactured support that term to critique things that they disagree with because they don't want to engage with the substance. Right? So I think that my problem when people say, well, this is manufactured or that is manufactured is the implication that.
My side is pure. My side has no money behind it. Right. And the other side is, is, is this evil cabal of satanic interests, right. That are perverting the system. So it's this false piety and you know what the Bible says about false piety, right? So we don't like false piety, right? So I think that
that that the my problem with it is the false piety inherent in it is is there is no such thing as manufactured support. Now there are movements that have more funding and there are movements that have less funding but ultimately it is better to engage with the substance of the point rather than the
motivations, right? So I was just talking to somebody about the Venezuela protests. So I guess, so there are protests around the action, recently in Venezuela, right? And people are like, well, these are all manufactured, right? They use this term manufactured. said, well, first of all, it's hard to say, but can you not engage with the substance? Right? So if you support what happened against Maduro,
Say why you support it. If you oppose what happened against Maduro, say why you oppose it. Right? The purpose of a protest, I think, is...
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (26:40.021) a vehicle of raising public awareness. It is not a plebiscite. So one of the major misnomers about a protest is a protest is some sort of plebiscite, meaning it is a poll of how people feel on an issue. if you let me give you a local government example. So let's just say there's some housing development proposed and there's a big raucous city council meeting and 300 people are opposed
and 50 people are four. Does that mean that the community is by and large six to one against it? No, it means that there are 300 people in that auditorium opposed to it and 50 people.
supporting it right so I think part of the challenge with trying to diagnose protests is why people get try to say manufactured support or whatever is because there's this misnomer that a protest is supposed to be evocative of how the public feels when all protest is it's like social media social media does not represent the public protest does not represent the public protest represents those who showed up and the interests that may be funding it right so just like when I go
Evan Meyer: 27:43.991 Sure.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (27:57.303) on and to see an ad on TV I don't think that just because I see an ad for Doritos that everybody loves Doritos it's Doritos is promoting their product.
Evan Meyer: 28:08.073 It's a great it's actually a great example. It's it's statistically unfounded to to make that assumption. What you have is a small sample and then you're then you're making that you're taking that and extrapolating it to an entire population, which would be which is which is just incorrect logic. You can't do that. Now, it doesn't mean that if you did that, what it gives you is a confidence.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (28:22.633) That's right.
Evan Meyer: 28:31.061 Right. So I don't know if there's a million people in the city and somehow you sent an email to the only 300 people who care enough and they got it and they show up. Right. Now it's hard. It's hard. What does that mean. Yeah. Exactly. You don't know.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (28:40.915) Yeah, what does that mean? What does that symbolize? Well, let me give you a great political example of why social media and also protest does it. And I'm essentially knocking my own.
industry, right? Because I'm saying that like there's a limit to the effectiveness of protest. But, so, so there were a couple people in Congress, members of the so-called squad, Jamal Bowman and Cory Bush, right? So these were Cory Bush represented St. Louis, and I think Bowman represented New York, right? And these were far, far left members of Congress, right? With huge numbers of followers on all these social media platforms.
I, my understanding is they both lost their primaries this last year and
They both lost them to people with like two, three, 4,000 followers on social media. Right? Why? Because social media follows does not equal actual public support. They were vastly out of touch with the people of their district. What their people of their district wanted was a representative to look out for their concerns, not somebody who's going on MSNBC talking about far left talking points. Right?
was indicated at the polls, not on social media.
Evan Meyer: 30:05.475 Interesting. Yeah, there's a lot. There is a lot to say about how people interpret data and statistics and information. And Neil deGrasse Tyson wrote a book on this, actually, one of his recent books. I've read some of it, not all of it, and I actually even forget what it's called. But he does a whole thing on this, which I find to be...
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (30:16.563) Yes.
Evan Meyer: 30:33.441 one of my favorite talking points from him, at least, is how people interpret statistics, whether or not you agree with all is political. know, I know he's gotten a little bit political, but I just I've seen him enough on different things to I align to this this way of thinking that you have to be really careful before you make an assumption on on some data set. Right. If you were to if you were to use that 300 person example, for example, to try to deliver a vaccine to the whole population,
you'd be right and you'd say like well it worked on these people you know does that mean that you've
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (31:09.087) They could be a right? There's the right. There's a lot of challenges with data. One of the best courses I ever took in college was data analysis. I took it freshman year of college and it really helped me understand here all the ways that data can be perverted. Right? So when someone comes up with this, some sort of statistic,
try to analyze well what does that really mean and if it doesn't sound right let's try to really unpack it right and so
Why, like, is it a biased sample? Are there confounding variables? Right? So I have a good one. Mustached dictators are more likely to be overthrown than non-mustached dictators. Right? So dictators without facial hair are more likely to remain in power than those with facial hair. I mean, so OK, so just think about it. Maduro.
Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, Those are Assad, right? Right, Sol and Hiller. Okay. Meanwhile, Putin, Xi, Kim Jong-un, no mustache, no facial. Right. is that a, but, so does that mean?
Evan Meyer: 32:11.631 Stalin Hitler.
I'm
Evan Meyer: 32:19.191 Yeah, no. Pull pot, pull pot, no mustache.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (32:29.263) that I'm right and that there's any connection between facial hair and and and being able to serve a longer time as a dictator
Probably not. There's probably a few other confounding variables there, right? So that's just a great statistic where I could say, well, you're three times more likely to survive as a, if you don't have a facial hair than if you do. Well, that doesn't, probably not true. You know what I mean? Probably not true. was just, that's just an example I concocted today of like why statistics don't, you got to be careful with statistics.
Evan Meyer: 33:07.663 Sure, very careful. My favorite one is like this supplement keeps you 10 times more hydrated.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (33:16.687) right. Right. What does that mean? What is hydrated? What is hydrated mean? Yeah, that's a very good point.
Evan Meyer: 33:17.877 What does that even mean? Well, how did you measure my level of hydration in the first place?
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (33:24.841) That's very true. That's very true. Yeah. 10 times more than what someone then a, then a dried raisin in the desert. yeah.
Evan Meyer: 33:33.837 How do you even measure hydration? Like what is it? I've never heard anyone even determine what my hydration is.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (33:37.181) No, it's very true. It's very true. Yeah, it's very true. So, so I mean, that's a little bit of a tangent, but all of which to say that that protesters, the, people who show up to protest are not, should not be interpreted as indicative of broader public sentiment. And therefore a protest should not be indicated as
this is how the public thinks a protest should be interpreted as a method to demand awareness of a particular subject of concern.
Evan Meyer: 34:12.557 Right. Yeah, I immediately like and liken it to, guess, and this is one modality that people need will will show up for and will make a point the same way that you would spend money on marketing that point anywhere. This is another modality and the same way some number of likes on a post or doesn't necessarily mean that that people like it.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (34:41.331) I just took a sip of water. I'm now 20 times more hydrated than I was 10 seconds ago. Yes.
Evan Meyer: 34:44.591 Yes, based on our control group and baseline of hydration that we took before you started. It's an interesting thing. I just see these numbers all the time. And that's why I think this conversation is important because you have to dive deeper. This is one of those issues where I think that you have to look deeper than what the headlines say, than what some statistic.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (35:07.924) Yes.
Evan Meyer: 35:10.863 says and every time you hear something and it doesn't mean that you have to like your business or you have to like anyone's policy or you have to like anything. But you do have to look deeper to understand the nuances and what how it works at a fundamental level, how it works in when you're operating in it. And I hope I hope this can give a little bit of people a little more of that understanding. How do people know that
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (35:32.255) Yes.
Evan Meyer: 35:40.035 when they invest money into this marketing avenue, right, with you, this form of marketing, how do they know that they're getting some form of an ROI?
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (35:57.489) Well, ROI is in the eyes of the beholder, right? So there are some campaigns where it's easy to determine an ROI. So for example, a lot of companies will pay us to do marketing stunts for them at outside conventions, right? So you're out at a big convention and you're a new company or a company that isn't broadly known and you want people to make sure that people are aware of you. Maybe we'll do a PR stunt, like something satirical, funny with costume.
right? So they can say, we spent this amount of money on the PR stunt and we got this many sales.
you know, and this many people or potential clients brought it up to us and this is therefore how many sales we believe that it brought. that's kind of a fairly clear cut case where you can determine, okay, well, here's what I spent and here's what I got. Now in other cases, ROI is a little bit more subjective. Okay. Well,
You invested money in a campaign to block a power plant, right? And the power plant was blocked. I, how much was that worth to you? That that's in the eyes of the beholder, right? You invested in a campaign, to raise awareness about something, right? Well, then maybe the ROI is how many views did it get on? How many views did the protests get all in the media? Right? Well, okay. That that's a little bit harder to define. Maybe it's
Evan Meyer: 37:06.775 Right. Yeah.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (37:27.863) So it depends on what the client is looking to do and how tangible those rewards are.
Evan Meyer: 37:36.963 Got it. Are there a few notable clients that you can mention or give me some of the most successful, yeah, exciting ones to talk about.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (37:43.605) Sure. Yeah, well one of my favorite...
Well, one of my favorite ones is a movement called the Delete Facebook movement. You may have heard of it. It was kind of launched after the 2016 election when people on the left and on the right were just sick of how Facebook pitted us against each other, right? Like how many people do you know that, I mean, do you know that went down a rabbit hole left wing, right wing, you know, with all this news ecosystem and Facebook, their algorithm would basically
Put you on that rabbit hole and then keep you on there and sell ads to you including political ads at the time Right to drive you even more crazy, right? So it's it's
We were hired and my understanding is the clients in this case were people who actually made a ton of money on Facebook, like as investors, but they realized that they had built like Frankenstein. You know what I mean? It's like the inventor of dynamite realizing that, that he had built, built this like destructive invention. Right. And they basically wanted to do a campaign to say, like, to raise awareness of about all of Facebook's data misuse and sort of the evil with which their platform was managed.
And, it was actually so successful, Evan, that they changed their name, to Metta that the Facebook name is so tarnished, right? the Facebook name is so gross, so icky, so disgusting, so associated with political polarization that they don't even use the name. barely use the name. mean, they're, they're Metta and there's Instagram, right? Facebook is sort of like, this tertiary entity within that company. Right? So number one, they changed their name.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (39:31.061) to meta, right? So getting a trillion dollar company to change its name, that's pretty big. Number two, they made it harder to do political ads. Now I still think the platform does so many bad things. mean, teen suicide from their platform, cyber bullying, all this stuff is just so nasty. But we did make
some form of victory there. So that's like just one example. We've done it, we did a campaign. Yeah, so
Evan Meyer: 39:57.721 Yeah.
Evan Meyer: 40:01.719 I can use another example. Keep going. That was pretty awesome.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (40:05.469) We've done campaigns to lower the price of prescription drugs. There was a particular drug that was where there was a company that was trying to make it impossible to use your insurance to get it. And this was a drug that was HIV preventing drug. And we effectively did a campaign to lobby.
certain governments in the states, right, to say this is unacceptable and demand action by insurance commissions across various states and they did and that was undone. So that policy was undone. So there are a number of impactful things. like to say I'm really on the side of common sense. And one other misnomer about us is people think of us as like a tool of the big interest where we're actually more of a David than a Goliath. Why? Because
Big tech, big pharma, big fast food, they own the government, right? As you know, they buy off Congress, they buy off state legislatures, whatever, right? But for the interests that don't have the funds to essentially create this revolving, corrupt ecosystem where they write the laws, they employ the Congress people and the former elected officials to do all that, right?
Public protest is one of the beautiful rights that are available to us as American citizens, right? And it's one that we use on actually behalf of a lot of smaller interests against bigger interests.
Evan Meyer: 41:38.829 Yeah. Wow. That was very interesting. Do you ever get to choose? I mean, do you choose which folks that you actually work with or are there some folks that you work with and you're like, you know what, this is fine. How do you kind of measure when someone comes in, whether you think it's a good cause? Have you turned down some of these causes?
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (41:57.119) Yeah. Sure. Well, that's a really good question. the answer is that I don't have to 100 % agree with you to take on your cause, right? Because I'm a First Amendment advocate. But I do have to believe there's merit in your cause. So I'll give you a great example. We also were one of the firms that really pushed
liberalization of cryptocurrency regulation to allow cryptocurrency to thrive in this country. And I will admit when I started getting inquiries from the industry in about 2017 or 18, one of those years, I was skeptical because I didn't really understand cryptocurrency at all. But I saw that the big financial institutions were not treating them fairly. And I said, well, look,
The financial institutions are not treating them fairly. And so therefore they need a voice and I'm happy to be that voice and to use public protest and advocacy campaigns to give them that voice because the deck is stacked against them or it was at the time. It's not now, but it certainly was at the time by the big financial institutions that were anti-crypto. So it's a good example of like, I don't have to support you a hundred percent, but I have to believe there's merit. Like I'm not going to work with a hate group, right? Like we're not.
And by the way, understand that hate is subjective, but I'm the one who gets to define in my book what a hate group is and therefore not work with it. Correct.
Evan Meyer: 43:24.109 Right. That's your right. As a business.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (43:28.839) Well, by the way, I support the right of businesses to determine who they want to work with or not work with, provided it's not a monopolistic environment. So, so yeah.
Evan Meyer: 43:39.353 Sure. Yeah. Well, have you ever gotten to come up with your own causes and use your own platform to...
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (43:47.925) Sometimes I'll pitch different things to existing customers that I know and that works sometimes and doesn't work sometimes. Um, where I'll come up with an idea and I'll know someone who's generally on board with things like that and I'll pitch it to them. And, sometimes that works and sometimes that doesn't. I like doing that. I want to do that more actually. That's my goal this year is to do it more. I mean, I've been doing this 13 years, Evan. So it's time for me to, uh, to, uh, so it's first of all, it's time for me to outline my
priorities, which I'll do right now, this second. I'll tell you the causes I'm most interested in taking on, if you're interested. So social media, I'm a very big social media skeptic for the reasons I've outlined earlier on. It's addictive. It's very addictive. It's caused suicide. It's caused wars. It's caused people to disconnect from their family. It's caused a
Evan Meyer: 44:24.665 Sure, please.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (44:43.441) Physical problems such as neck problems just from tilting over it on your phone, right? It's caused so many different problems It's it's truly addictive and it needs to be reformed that I really want to be a part of reforming social media and demanding that reform by the way demanding that reform and Number two fast food also common thread also addictive the their chemicals in it
I think RFK has been such a paper tiger. He hasn't done anything right. He's made a lot of grandiose statements, but ultimately our food is still heavily processed. We're still eating and ingesting poison, right? The chronic disease is still a major epidemic. McDonald's, Coca-Cola, all these companies are, you know, continue to kill people with, you know, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, premature death. And those people tend to be
disproportionately poor, disproportionately black or people of color, right? So the, that, that's, it's such a big issue that needs to be taken on. And we need to build a public pressure campaign to say, need, we are done with this. We are done with this and we need to demand RFK does what he promised and we need to demand these companies do the right thing. third, I want our cities to be great. our cities, I mean, the defund, the police has been just horrible for American
cities, as well as the, in my opinion, as well as some of the cashless bail thing. And I agree that there's that some of the bail system has been predatory and used as leverage for prosecutors to demand somebody plead guilty to something they're not guilty of just so that they can get out. I don't endorse that, but there's.
That's one side of the coin, but the other side is there are all these crimes that are committed by people who are on out on bail.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (46:44.455) And when they're accused of very, serious crimes and had been convicted of 20 other crimes in the past where it's like on, in what world do you think that they're not going to commit a crime while they're out on bail? And my understanding is the gentleman, gentlemen, the despicable guy who killed that woman in Charlotte on the light rail train, was out on bail on something, or at least he had been convicted of a ton of things before. Like why the hell was he out on the streets? Right. And there's a lot of people like.
Evan Meyer: 47:13.241 Bye.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (47:14.359) that and we need to make our cities beautiful. want our cities to look like Japan, you know what I mean? Go to Japan, see what their cities are like. They're beautiful and by the way that is a democracy so there's no litter, they have beautiful parks, they have beautiful public transit but we have to build those cities and we have to create, to end the defund the police nonsense, build parks, build public transportation. I'm a major urbanist and I would love to be a part of
building the pressure around that. So those are my three priorities this year. Obviously that doesn't mean that I won't work on other campaigns, but if you're asking what do I want to work on, that's what I want.
Evan Meyer: 47:53.871 Those would be your three favorite things to work on.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (47:57.406) That's right, Evan.
And actually one person who I love, who, who seems to embody what my values on cities is the gentleman, the mayor of San Jose, who I don't know. He doesn't know me, but I know him and, and he seems to be doing a great job. And everything that a city leader needs to be doing is focusing on the city. Not this, not focusing on national TV, but focusing on making his city a great place to live.
Evan Meyer: 48:10.104 Matt Mann.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (48:29.271) or new business.
Evan Meyer: 48:29.443 He's great. He's great. Mayor Matt Mahan, who's on who has been on the show before, actually. he's been on the show. And one of the things you guys have in common is you're both entrepreneurs. And he you know, I was inspired that he leads with an entrepreneurial way of thinking. It was a lot. That was a lot of our conversation. And a lot of times it's it's the thinking.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (48:35.697) Yeah, that's why I mentioned it because he's been on your show.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (48:44.212) Yes.
Evan Meyer: 48:57.389 The way that you think about solving these problems and how you treat people comes from the environment that you were kind of needed to get to where you are in the first place, right? So, you know, it's tricky. I know I just had a couple thoughts on that. You know, the thing with Japan, and I've been in Japan, it's amazing. And we helped them get to that place after World War II. So we should know how to do this.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (49:05.183) That's That's right. That's absolutely right.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (49:17.065) We did, we really did.
We should, we should. Now, obviously our culture is very different. And I, and I, and I love the Japanese culture, but I don't want to become them because they're, you mentioned entrepreneurialism. They're not an entrepreneurial country.
Evan Meyer: 49:23.907 Culture is
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (49:33.845) Right. They are a rule following country, right? Like if, even if the rule is stupid, um, I stayed at a hotel in Japan where they were selling a bottle of Dom Perignon for $60 where it's like, I don't know why they were so, I think that was what a glass was. It was supposed to be like a glass was $60, but no, none of the employees questioned it. They were like, Oh, okay. Well, the bottle is $60. So sometimes that can work for your, your, in your favor. Right. I just for your audience who don't.
Evan Meyer: 49:54.051 selling a bottle.
Evan Meyer: 49:59.971 Hahaha!
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (50:03.839) drink champagne. A bottle of Dom is normally like 250, $300 if you buy it at like the like a liquor store. So I guess my point being that
Evan Meyer: 50:10.265 Sure. Sure.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (50:15.901) Japan is, is, doesn't necessarily have a entrepreneurial spirit, which we have in this country. But I think that we can still have great cities with an entrepreneurial spirit because nobody wants what you've seen on the streets of Santa Monica, what you stream on the streets of San Francisco. That's not good for anybody. And I've long joked with my friends that I want to run for sheriff of San Francisco, because I think what
at San Francisco and so many of these cities need is just someone who's just no nonsense and says, we're going to get all the drug addicts out and we're going to do it tomorrow. They could do it tomorrow if they wanted, right? Like this, doesn't have to be a long-term plan. If they just said, we're just going to get them out. We're going to, we're going to transport them, you know, Sue us later, you know, take us to court later. But for now, we're going to take all of those people who are drug addicts on our street and give them a choice today. Rehab.
or leave our city and never come back. You know what I mean? And it just, it's common sense. the governor, unfortunately does a lot of Gish gallop. A Gish gallop is a form of argument where, which is intended to distract, but not
Evan Meyer: 51:19.351 Right. California, yeah, sorry.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (51:34.141) actually substantively answer. Like he's very good at that when he's, when he's confronted on, well, why is the homelessness crisis, not getting much better in California? He'll be like, well, we're doing X, Y, Z. Well, it's like, well, if it's not working, I don't really care if you're doing X, Y, Z. You mentioned ROI, right? At the end of the day, ROI means results, not actions. No one cares what you've done. People care what the result is.
Evan Meyer: 52:01.497 Right. Well, when politicians are experts at equivocating, I think it comes as often being lawyers. Right.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (52:11.605) That's true. He's not even a lawyer. He doesn't even have that excuse.
Evan Meyer: 52:15.403 No, that's true. I guess it's a correlation, not a causality. the you know, it's interesting. And it doesn't really matter because they could just go raise another 10 billion dollars from Bank of America, call it a bond. And then you got your and then 10 years from now, no one will know what you did with the last 10 million, 10 billion. Right. And whether or not you actually so you know, that game is
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (52:35.879) A million, a billion, it's all the same.
Evan Meyer: 52:38.947 Those numbers just don't mean anything in this context. So but it is taxpayers that sort of have to bear the brunt of it. it's so last. Let get the last question on this and how we can take this on because I have a particular beef with some of what I've seen on social media, which is the there is clear crime that is.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (52:40.489) Doesn't mean anything, Yeah.
Evan Meyer: 53:07.095 that is that goes viral or that people engage with. And the some of that, for example, like fights, school fights, I'm guessing there's some oversight on that now, but that's like a thing. Right. You've seen it and it's like to have that those accounts even be active for more than a minute or that those people are not then.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (53:09.812) Yes.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (53:16.169) Yes. Yes.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (53:21.109) Yeah, I've seen it.
Evan Meyer: 53:31.841 I don't know, like somehow the people putting those on are not interrogated or questioned or prosecuted if they're committing real crimes. You know, like it seems like there's an opportunity to do that in a lot of cases, not just school fights for kids, but like in a lot of different things, vandalism, right? Like I've seen so much vandalism and it's like, how is that account? Would you not tell them like, hey, we need, we're now going to investigate you. And the last one is like, so there's a lot of that. And then the last one is like,
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (53:43.722) Yes.
Evan Meyer: 54:01.837 the people trying to buy by spam you and by by followers seems like that's a very that's just easy to filter but it goes right to your messages and it's like how do you so what's going on there?
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (54:13.065) right. Let's do it right for a
Right. Well, so all of those are legitimate issues. And what's interesting is I believe they have the technology to address all of them. So I do think there is some decision on their, the social part of the social media companies to actually not address that, which I think is more concerning. number one, when it comes to these accounts that are Cree are actually promoting illegal content. And you mentioned some examples, but there are other examples, right? There's technology to identify those.
things right, or at least to flag those. But the reality is that in order to do that, they have to. So, so there's two problems, right? So one issue is the.
The double-edged sword that you have on one hand, if you use technology, you're going to end up probably deactivating some accounts that, that weren't posting that illegal stuff, but for some reason got flagged with it. Right. So, you'd have to deal with that. So either way, whether you err on the side of more deactivation or less, you're going to, it's going to cost them actual dollars and cents. Why? Because you're going to have to have a moderation team review. You're going either have moderate.
team review the requests of the accounts that were flagged and that should be deactivated or you're gonna have a moderation team that has to review the ones that were unfairly shut down and then need to be reactivated. You see what I'm saying? So none of these social media companies want to do that so as a result they pretend that it doesn't exist. Right?
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (55:54.449) as far as spam goes, well, that's another issue, right? That's another issue that, you know, if the phone companies have done some work on the spam, but they could do so much more and just shutting down how that is viewed. But, and I don't think it's an issue of free speech either. So I agree. mean, again, you don't have to sell me or on social media companies really doing the worst possible thing each and every time.
Evan Meyer: 56:23.387 Yeah, no, I think a lot of it's, you know, some of these some of this is about exploring outside of your particular world that you work in some of the.
you know, understanding a little bit about how you think about a couple different things that are slightly either tangential or, you know, related. But I want to get, I get excited to get people, you know, the heart of where people feel and think about some of these really serious issues. And so I appreciate you sharing that around the social media stuff and kind of having an evolving conversation here.
But I want to thank you for your time. think it is our time. Sadly, I could have kept this conversation going for a long time, and I would love to continue to pick your drain.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (57:09.693) Yeah, that's great.
Yeah, this has been fun, Evan. I really appreciate the opportunity to be on your, your program and, and to share my, unfiltered thoughts. That's all you get with me. It's very unfiltered.
Evan Meyer: 57:26.981 I love that. love that. It does feel like you get what you see here or you see what you get or whatever that line is. I think I switched them. Have a great afternoon. Thanks again and all the best of luck to you in navigating and making positive change. Appreciate you. All right.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (57:35.487) I think that's true.
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (57:43.465) See you
Adam Swart-Crowds On Demand (57:48.883) You got it, eight-seven.
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity while preserving the authentic flow of conversation.
Written by
Evan Meyer
January 12, 2026