It’s 8:00 a.m. in Los Angeles and Mark Laita’s already been up for five hours.
If you’re one of the over 6.6 million who subscribe to his YouTube channel, Soft White Underbelly, you’ve witnessed the heart-wrenching, disconcerting stories he’s captured in nearly 3,000 videos; up-close tales told by real people, many suffering from addiction and homelessness, making ends meet via any and every means, including sex work. Some even return to Soft White Underbelly, allowing viewers to follow their progress, or lack thereof.
By the end of these videos, we feel as though we’ve been taken into their personal darkest corners, a stark contrast to Mark’s brightly perfected studio where these stories are filmed.
And you know Mark. Sort of. Though rarely seen, it’s his low-key, authoritative voice we hear prompting, always starting from early beginnings: “Where are you from? Where did you grow up?”; “Tell me about your family?”; “Are drugs a part of your life?” Some of Mark’s subjects are high profile, including Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk, relaying stranger-than-fiction tales about his family, and groupie Alycen Rowse, spilling the dirt on her exploits with famous musicians, including Who bassist John Entwistle, who she was spending time with when he died.
Early on, I offer my condolences. A month and a half before our July interview, Mark made a rare video of himself, where he told us about the tragic death of his girlfriend of more than two years, Kyara, describing pulling her body out of a bathtub after a presumed drug overdose. (At the time of our interview, an exact cause of death was not known.)
On the rare occasion we see Mark, he looks too squeaky clean for the company Soft White Underbelly keeps, and in many ways he is. “Almost every day, every week, I’m doing interviews, and people will leave a bag of fentanyl or cocaine or crystal meth or some pills or whatever, behind in the studio,” he tells me. “The idea of trying that never ever enters my brain. I pick it up with a paper towel, and I’ll throw it in the garbage or in the street, just get it out of my studio, basically. That’s just the way I am. First off, I’m super disciplined, but I’m also not interested in those forms of escape.”
Mark spent his early childhood in Detroit; his family moved to Chicago, where he lived until he was 26. From there, he moved to Los Angeles where he lives now, his blonde hair and tanned skin make him look like a born-and-bred local. His mother, a housewife, was married to his father until her death. He credits “the stability and the consistency of having two parents” as building his solid, grounded foundation. Though Mark is divorced, he says he and his ex-wife and their two adult daughters are all very close. There was no addiction in his family.
Mark says he doesn’t know what makes Soft White Underbelly so well known amongst the literal billions of videos on YouTube, but the fact that it’s crawled into the cultural consciousness seems to speak for itself. In that rote “welcome back to my channel” world of true crime and closet-cleanout creators, Soft White Underbelly offers a connection to a population many of us may never meet in person. That’s the whole point. Their titles include: “Teenage Male Prostitute Interview-Mario”; “Stripper Interview-Tracy”; “Three Sisters on Heroin-Valeen, Amanda and Tiffany.” While these stories reflect an undeniable dissonance, Mark presents them so vividly, allowing their unique humanness to shine through. Always. And though we may not ever “know” them, Mark makes us feel as though we’re in the room.
With all of the connectedness technology allows, there’s a definite lack of intimacy in our world. Soft White Underbelly offers something that’s incredibly intimate.
What’s more, Mark has a definite P.O.V. and a goal for his channel. He’s called it a “crash course in empathy” and believes that early trauma, if somehow avoided, could potentially prevent broken paths in adulthood. He wants to do something that “[matters] more in the world.” He believes that “listening, understanding, accepting, and maybe deciding to do something differently might make a difference eventually.”
The money that he’s personally spent on the people he’s met—clothing, shoes, cell phones—is in the six figures. He’s hoping that by showcasing these stories, we can figure out how to make our country better by starting with its people.
On this day, despite his grief over his recent loss and his unwavering commitment to his channel, he makes time to speak with me.
“I have somebody that wants to do an interview right now, but I can’t do it because I’m talking to you.
“Let’s just do this.”
Why do you think your channel is so popular?
I don’t even know. I try to do things that I find interesting, and I think that’s the best way to go about doing any artistic project. You don’t do it to please your audience, and hopefully, others will find it interesting as well. That’s really all I’m doing. I don’t really think too much about what people want to see. The tendency for human beings to self-destruct is so fascinating to me. I don’t think I’ll ever tire of getting to the bottom of why this happens.
You have a definite goal with this channel.
Yes. I’ve seen people close to me and people that I’ve known that have just destroyed a perfectly good future. It’s never-ending. What makes that happen?
Let’s take a gambler, for example, a compulsive gambler. Why would you do something that’s going to just take away your income, destroy your family? You lose your house, your car, your entire life, and you’re going to keep on doing it? It’s just insane. A lot of us do these things in different ways. Not necessarily gambling, could be many other things, but it’s just fascinating to me that we’ll become our own worst enemy.
Yes.
My girlfriend, Kyara, just passed away and…she had the brightest future. She had everything going for her, and I made sure of that. I couldn’t love her any more than I did. Somehow…cocaine got a hold of her and took over. It just destroyed her life in a matter of months. We’re still waiting for the autopsy results, but it is probably fentanyl that may have killed her. Certainly, she knew. She had a 3-year-old child. Certainly, you knew there was a risk in doing this drug, that there could be fentanyl mixed in somehow. That’s no surprise to anybody, so what would make somebody do that?
Now she…now she’s gone.
My sincerest condolences.
It’s a real drag and it’s been really difficult for me.
Her son…his life is totally derailed, his future. My life is totally upside down, but I’ll recover because I’m tough, and her life is gone. I don’t think she had any intention on ending her life, but maybe these addicts don’t think about it. I’ve interviewed so many fentanyl addicts who, man, there’s enough information out there now to know that what you’re doing is super risky and very, very self-destructive, but they choose to do it anyway. They’ll OD multiple times, and what do they do? They go back to do it again.
Do you have any thoughts on the root cause of addiction?
I’ve got lots of thoughts on why. Like, in Kyara’s case, her biological parents were not in her life, really. Her mom was a homeless drug addict and had her for two years, but then, eventually, the foster family took her. Her godparents took her in, and that saved her life. Then there was sexual trauma, sexual abuse from age 6 until 12, I think, in her life. It sounds like it was pretty bad. Those two alone will mess up a person’s self-worth, and what they believe they deserve, and their behavior. It did with her.
Prevention is really the answer. That’s what I say with my videos all the time is that trying to fix all these broken people, I don’t know what’s possible there. Maybe there’s a few here and there that might be possible to help, but for the most part, I focus on prevention because prevention is going to do more good than any other solution.
You’ve said that you have a definite goal to showcase what’s wrong with our country. Do you think there is any way that we can solve these problems?
It seems everyone is scrambling to make ends meet and trying to survive financially, and that takes a toll on a family. They’ll end up doing things, especially in the inner-city…The poorer communities, you’ll see people scrambling to make money. Very often, those things are illegal that they’re doing. That takes you down a certain road, and sometimes you end up in prison. Sometimes you end up selling yourself on the streets or whatever it is. That affects your life in a really significant way and your children’s lives.
Making it easier for a person to survive, a family to survive, and stay together, be there, be present for the kids, would be great, but that’s a super simplistic solution for a very complicated problem.
You’ve talked about your channel being a crash course in empathy. Do you feel like if people were more empathetic, that could help?
I think that would help. I could sit there and tell you exactly what the problem is and how to solve it, but I don’t think anyone is going to watch that, and I don’t think it’s going to really do much. I try to just share these stories without being too heavy-handed. I’m just letting the person tell their story. You can gather what information there is to be gathered from watching it. That’s what I’m hoping to do by doing this, by learning how these things came about. I’m interviewing a homeless drug addict, and she’s selling her ass on the street. How the hell did this happen? You watch these interviews, and you’ll find out, well, her childhood trauma was in place, and there were other problems, probably some sexual abuse.
Lo and behold, she ends up dropping out of high school and ends up doing things that most people would never hope to do. That helps you see how it happens, and we can figure out ways to prevent that from happening, hopefully. That’s what I’m hoping to do. By just posting these videos and just showing people how these stories come about, we might be able to gain some information to prevent it, in our own families and our own lives, or just as a society as a whole.
I think the stability and the consistency of having two parents that are there every day of a child’s life creates a stability in that person’s life as they grow into an adult. You’ll end up being a more stable person mentally, and just how you go through your life. You’ll have role models, you’ll have the support you need. You’ll have the consistency that shows you that life isn’t chaotic and dangerous. It can be safe and organized, basically.
In the six years you’ve had your channel, do you feel like it has changed you?
[chuckles] I’m sure I’m changed. I’ve seen how dishonest people can be. You have to understand, I’m interviewing people from the streets, and they do certain things, certain behaviors. I am a very trusting person. If I’m with a partner, I’m just assuming she’s as honest as I am. I’m not doing things that I’m trying to hide, and I assume you’re not either. I’ve learned now that they’re doing things to hide certain behaviors, or people are just dishonest. They’re just on the take.
It’s changed my view on trust. I’m still very trusting, but I’m aware now that my trust would benefit from having a little due diligence and a little deeper [chuckles] research into who I’m dealing with.
With my channel, so if somebody’s a con artist, it’s pretty easy for me to sidestep that, but if I’m in an intimate relationship with somebody, you have to just be careful who you get involved with.
You talked about how you have to film many, many interviews to get one that you can use.
I don’t have an exact count right now, but it’s roughly around 10,000 interviews I’ve done.
Did you say 10,000?
Yes, in the last six years.
That’s a lot of work.
That’s a lot of work.
What is a great interview? How do you choose out of all those?
Just something that’s interesting, compelling, insightful. It could be for many different reasons. It doesn’t have to be like everyone has to be poignant and deep. Sometimes they’re just silly and ridiculous, and I’m fine with all of it. What I really like in art, if I watch a movie, whatever I’m listening to, or whatever I’m watching or looking at, [is] when it can incorporate all the different emotions. Not just something that’s touching and sad, but something that’s actually funny, or can be interesting, and poignant or whatever.
A mix of all the human emotions into one project is what I look for. That’s why some of my videos are just ridiculous and stupid, and some of them are poignant and beautiful. Others are deeply depressing and sad. I enjoy it all.
I think your audience enjoys it all, too. I don’t think that there’s a lot of interesting stories out there.
What I see is a lot of people just posting whatever they shoot. What I do by doing 10,000 interviews and only posting 2,000 of them—2,500 roughly—it shows you only a quarter, basically, of what I shoot is what you’ll see. When you watch my channel, when you watch my videos, “Oh, my God, these are great,” and I make it look so easy. It appears very easy, but the actual truth of it is, it’s a lot of work. A lot of work behind the scenes, on the front end, on the back end especially. There’s a lot of headaches and bullshit that I have to deal with in order to get this nice little interview that you saw, that looks really simple and just easy.
It’s not really easy at all.
Your audience shouldn’t know what goes into it, really. That’s what I always say with editing.
I’m basically just a curator. If I do 10,000 interviews, I will choose the one out of four, roughly, that I think are worth watching. I’m just curating that stuff.
I’m doing this project for myself. I’m not doing it for anybody else. I know what I would like to post and what I wouldn’t. A certain interview you feel, “Oh, it would have been great,” or somebody will come to me. I get these tough guys tell me the most awesome story and they’re the baddest motherfucker that ever walked the earth. I can tell you right now that’s not what I’m looking for.
Those people, I won’t even interview. I’ve learned to not interview these people that tell you they’re going to go viral and all this kind of shit. It’s like, fuck that.
In a world where everybody is so celebrity-driven, too, you are just not interested in that.
No. I’m interested in the opposite of that.
Would you care to comment on the state of America at this time?
Wow. That’s a big question.
It seems like we have our priorities out of whack. Family does not seem to be a big concern for a lot of people. I see that. I do see that it’s difficult for people to make a living and survive. Everyone seems to be scrambling and just very stressed, and that’s not good. It seems like the world is changing.
Education doesn’t seem to be a big priority for a lot of young people anymore. It probably never was really their first priority, but now it seems to be further down the list.
Just the fact that drugs are such a big part of so many people’s lives. I’ve done 10,000 interviews. Probably two-thirds of those are involving drugs of some sort. I’ve yet to see a single story where drugs made the person’s life better.
It usually does the exact opposite and does it in a robust way. It just seems like everyone is playing around with these drugs and I just don’t know exactly why everyone is so drawn to that.
You mean recreational drugs.
Yes. I’m talking crystal meth, fentanyl, cocaine, things like that. I don’t see how it benefits. I’ve lost so many people that were close to me because of these drugs. Nobody sees it. It’s almost like we’re blind to it.
A lot of this crazy behavior that we talked about earlier, like I use the gambling analogy, is just an inability to believe that you deserve a better life. That comes from child abuse or just having a rough childhood. That imprints this belief in a person’s brain that they don’t deserve to succeed or to do great things in life.
I haven’t met a whole lot of people who are hustlers that really made it, and are doing great. I’m sure there’s the one or three of them out there, but for everyone that exists, there seems to be millions that don’t.
What is your average day like? Do you shoot every single day?
I shoot seven days a week. Sometimes, I’ll do six, seven, eight, nine interviews a day. Some days, I’ll do a lot less. Then I’ll typically edit when I have downtime or in the evening or early morning.
How do you find all of your subjects?
It started out I would just go to Skid Row and just see interesting people and ask them if they would be interested in doing an interview [for] $100 and that was it. That’s turned into where I have people that are living in those communities. Whether it’s South Central or Skid Row or Appalachia or whatever, that know people and they have a feel for what I’m looking for. They’ll contact me and we’ll make the connection and take it from there, so I don’t have to do so much legwork.
Do you do a pre-interview?
I’ll just talk to them for a minute or two on the phone. I’ll get a good feel for how they speak, what their story is in a nutshell.
What’s the craziest thing that’s ever happened to you during one of these interviews?
Oh, man. I tend to not look back, so I have forgotten a lot. If I was documenting everything I did throughout the last six years, it would be a fascinating documentary. I had a guy named Victor pull a gun on me in the middle of an interview. I don’t think his intention was to shoot me, but that was freaky, for one.
Were you scared?
In the moment, I wasn’t and I was as cool as a cucumber. What happened is…three days later — I always wake up in a good mood — I woke up and I was in just the nastiest mood ever.
I’m like, “Why am I waking up so irritable?” I couldn’t figure it out, and I realized it must have been the delayed effect of the PTSD from that.
Having this guy point a gun at me. It seems he was pretty intense about doing something. Three days later, it hit me. It was really strange.
I have this endless reservoir of hope. I really do. Probably to a fault, but I am the most optimistic, hopeful person I’ve ever met.
Without being a Pollyanna, without being delusional, but I believe hard work and perseverance, and determination can get us out of whatever.
All these terribly sad stories that I have put out, I see how they’re just a product of some terrible parenting or some terrible circumstances. It’s handed down generation after generation, but I do see how that chain of dysfunction can get broken. I’ve seen people do it. I’ve seen people that come from shitty, shitty childhoods, and they are choosing to do things differently. They’re changing their lives and their kids’ lives, and it’s a beautiful thing to see.
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