Chapter 1: Who is Trevor Rainbolt and why is he an internet legend?
Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is. This is Thailand. Nice. This is Israel. Nice. Right after this ad. Where are you right now? Can you say, can you disclose your own geographic location? Can you guess? No, the classic. That's my go-to.
You have a sofa behind you, and it is sparsely decorated, and there's an air conditioner above.
There you go.
It's straight from... The AC is a good call. That's a good... No, that's straight from my kid. I'm in Bangkok, Thailand. I've been here for three years now, so... This is long, long awaited, you being on the show. I'm a huge fan, so thanks for... I've watched probably every episode, so this is kind of like... This is surreal, I would say.
This is also, I've only ever been on like two podcasts before. This is like my second or third podcast ever. So I hope it goes well. It's an honor. It is an honor. And I want to explain to people how we met each other on the internet before we explain why you're in Bangkok, Thailand. Because for people who don't know, it's funny for me to introduce you to anybody, but you're an internet legend.
Finally tonight, a popular online geography game that takes players around the globe one Google Street View image at a time.
We all know Rainbolt by now, the geoguessor savant who will more or less find anything and everything on Earth simply because he can.
Social media videos of Rainbolt playing the game at his desk have millions of views and legions of fans. Whether it's simply looking at the soil... This looks Nigerian.
Okay, it's Benin. You get that red soil over near Benin and Nugu.
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Chapter 2: How did Trevor Rainbolt become a master geoguesser?
Nice. I want to say this with all sincerity. Like, an Avengers-level international army of fellow geoguessers, because you were climbing in Nepal, who helped find the Airbnb that still gets brought up to me all of the time as this thing that I should be ashamed of finding and renting, as well as a thing that's maybe the most impressive thing I found out. And I have to just say, it's because...
of your band of people that came to my rescue. Yeah, I just connected the dots there. I had no idea you were going to go to that extent. So when I watched that for the first time when you posted, I was like, oh my God, this is like the best case scenario of like me connecting you with my friends to help you get this done.
Because I was like, this is better than anything I could have ever expected. Because at this point, I decided to take a trip. You went to the town. Shut up, Pablo. You've been to this house. Shut up, Pablo. If you show me a ring cam video with you. Oh, Pablo, what the fuck? Pablo, what the fuck? This is crazy. Pablo, what the fuck?
This is crazy. This is crazy. I don't understand what, I don't understand what's, I don't understand what podcast this is. Is this Truman Show? What is this? Is this World Truman Show? Where are we? What's going on? Oh my God, what's going on? Okay, I need a lot of answers now. You went to the house, and you have access to the footage from the ring camera.
Right, so the ring camera, the footage must go to... So, I'm more than happy to be a part of that. But it's the spirit of, like, what your life's arc has been as I continue to find out stuff about you, which is that it starts on the internet, it starts diving into rabbit holes, and it is currently taking place online. in real life at the places you once only saw through your screen.
And that part of your story is just, it's mind blowing, man. The way that your life has shaped up. It feels like I've lived many lives in a very short amount of time, very quickly, so. We also have just another mission for you today, by the way, if you're willing to take that on. Always.
I thought when I first encountered you that you may have grown up like internationally, like you're like a European kid or something. I thought that your name, Rainbolt, was a pseudonym. And none of that turns out to be true. Yeah, I grew up in flipping Arkansas, population 1,357. There's like 18 people in my graduating class, same 18 people that were there. You know, K through 12.
I ended up switching schools my senior year, but Rainbolt's my actual last name. I had never left the U.S. before I started playing GeoGuessr. I had only ever traveled virtually through Street View. So, yeah, all those things kind of, like, came together, and I kind of always wanted to see the world. Do you remember being radicalized into Arkansas football? It was the Bobby Petrino era.
That was it.
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Chapter 3: What unique challenges does Trevor face in geoguessing?
Wasn't the, we had, you know, we had Darren McFadden there at the time, but Felix Jones, but for the most part, it was, it was fun. Good memories. I'm still realizing that the name of your town is literally Flippin. F-L-I-P-P-I-N. Yep. Flippin High School. There's a real untapped merch potential for your hometown, I feel like.
I feel like once when I was in middle school, I remember flipping Church of God and made it on LNG Generous. And I was like, this is the coolest thing that will ever happen. We've officially made it. Well, you know, so you mentioned Bobby Petrino.
You realize that like the universe is also bringing us full circle because Bill Belichick has now hired as his offensive coordinator at the University of North Carolina, Bobby Petrino. That is quite the universe. That's amazing. You mean they're not talking about that in Thailand right now? They're not talking about how Bobby Petrino just got hired?
You know, the foreign boards here aren't cut up yet. No, sorry. I was looking through your online footprint and the thing I found on, I mean, this is something that I still don't understand, but on an LSU message board, this is tiger droppings. You're familiar with this forum? I'm not at all. Okay. So you've done some digging that I'm unaware of.
So this is, you're reverse unicarving me right now. So this is going to be interesting. So on this Tiger Droppings message board, on November 22nd, 2022, a user has an icon of the Razorback next to his username. Are you familiar with that? Oh my God. I'm not. I think you're finding out that your dad posted about you on this message board. And he says a couple of things, by the way.
This is, in fact, your dad. Wait, wait, wait. Why is my dad on the LSU forum? Well, I'm like, why is he posting on this forum? I don't know. I think he's also been radicalized in ways that you and I are both learning to understand. But the title is, brag colon, my 24-year-old son just started the adventure of a lifetime. Hashtag Google Maps. Hashtag GeoGuessr.
And he goes on to talk about how you had a normal job, which we'll talk about in sports media, which also was jarring for me to learn. And he says this, quote, We played GeoGuessr, a game where you're dropped somewhere in the world on Google Street Maps and you guess where you are, when he was in high school, and we picked it up again as a way to stay in touch every day.
He got good, really good, really, really good. In his spare time, he started a TikTok account where he would post his better games and tips for new players. It took off. Long story short, he passed 1 million followers earlier this year. Then he started a YouTube channel, Snap, Twitter, Instagram accounts. He quit his job last month, signed with an agency, is now making disgusting money.
And then he goes on to say this. He describes himself as, quote, a proud, thrilled, and a little terrified dad because you quit your job last month. This was as of November 2022. I... I have never... You know, that definitely sounds like my dad. No, I'm not sure how you found that, but that's an amazing post. And...
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Chapter 4: How did Trevor's background influence his journey in content creation?
Yeah, and you can see the code. Yeah, it's its own thing. So when I used to host tournaments, we always had like screen sharing. So we would always prevent people from, you know, we would be able to see their screen. So when they are recording their, like in a tournament, we can see if they're opening up the coordinates or not.
The video that convinced me, because I wasn't sure when I first stumbled upon you, but then there's a video you posted that kind of like changed my entire thinking about this. And for the audio audience, it'll be very helpful for them to hear and see on our YouTube channel. But it's a video you posted where you're blindfolded.
And a guy, one of your friends in this community, apparently is just like reading descriptions of what the grass looks like. This one, very, very sandy, very white sand. And we got some dead like shrubs on both sides of the road. Let's go outside Mound in Botswana. Nice. So this one, looking cold, but also very desolate in terms of the landscape.
You can actually get a lot of context on what the location looks like visually through another player's comms on what an image is. And I mentioned it very carefully too, another player, because when another player is describing, they know what's meaningful in a description. Like if I was asked Pablo, like, hey, describe this for me.
He's like, okay, there's a blue sky and a round dirt, like, you know. So the first thing that you look for is in any location is the road. Thailand has concrete roads, but like not every country has concrete roads, and it has very distinct pavement that's similar to the Philippines pavement, I would say. But they also drive left, so that distinguishes the difference.
You have the road lines, double yellow road lines. You look towards the Tophong Poles, so they have similar poles to Sri Lanka. I mean, I could talk about poles and vegetation, and then you have the rubber trees, and if you want to guess more eastern Thailand, you want more red soil. But also, you're just looking at the location. This is like a thing that people, it's hard to comprehend.
If you've looked at a location or a country 10,000 times, your brain knows what that country looks like. That's why when people watch my 0.1 second videos, they don't really understand it. But that's because your brain and its pattern recognition can pick up so quickly because it's seen something so close to that before.
You just referenced these videos, which were the thing that made me think at first, like, this guy is with us. Because it's fractional. It's decibel points of a second. Probably like something over here. Um... Yeah. It's just clicking in the card catalog of your brain. What I imagine people don't see is you just like walking through Google Maps.
When I started traveling after I started posting videos, I've said this to people who have laughed at me before, but it's genuinely how I feel. It feels like you're playing the game in person because you're so familiar with everything and everywhere you go that the world becomes smaller in a way. Then everything becomes...
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Chapter 5: What role did social media play in Trevor's rise to fame?
The New Albany Classic was held this weekend with the main attraction being the horse jumping competition. With more than 20,000 people expected, the Center for Family Safety and Healing is glad to be a part of the event. Mrs. Wexner decided to marry the love of horses with, you know, her horrible, you know, dislike of this issue of family violence.
And she brought the two together and it's been magical.
All of which raises follow-up questions for us, by the way, because one of the things we're trying to do here is further explore Leslie Wexner, the billionaire in the photograph, because he says that he severed ties with Jeffrey Epstein on September 4th, 2007. And so we're always trying to triangulate to what extent is the Jeffrey Epstein story a sports story and who are the characters in it?
And you helped us establish that one of the photos in the files was at what can only be safely described as a sports-related event. Horses. horses, man. I've been tagged and people have told me to, you know, take a look at Epstein files and try and geolocate. And I didn't know where to start. Some people were like, why don't you use your powers for good? So I'm at least happy I'm able to
give my thoughts on this location at the New Albany Classic to help your piece. I think you've just officially just solidified your position as the Pablo Torre finds out geoguessing correspondent. I'm going to change my LinkedIn to that. Anything that you have is, I always love getting new challenges. That's what I wake up for every day is, what's the challenge of the day?
So whatever you got, send it to me. Yeah, the five-year business plan is going to be updated for your dad as we maybe figure out a way to take this all back towards Bobby Petrino. You know, maybe not. I'm okay with not taking it back to Bobby Petrino. A guy with a very colorful and personal experience with a road. That is true. I'm proud to report, though, that your dad has not stopped posting.
You posted literally at 12.34 a.m. Eastern today on a different thread. You know, I wish I didn't know that. This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Meadowlark Media production. and I'll talk to you next time.
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