The Rejection Hotline Rabbit Hole | Billiam

[@MrSandMan961]

Can't think of a bigger bag fumble than showing your crush the rejection hotline as a meme.

[@gustavowadaslopes2479]

She probably mean to imply that she wouldn't send him that one. But she uno reversed herself

[@MaddMo0n]

Imagine fumbling Billiam 😩

[@jorg3023]

​@@MaddMo0nhipster trash

[@FENRIRsEGGregor]

Don’t be crass 😉

[@OFS_Razgriz]

@@MaddMo0n Oh I'm imaginin' it alright

[@MarvelousMissC]

Imagine: it’s early 2008. I’m at a pool party for my elementary school graduation. One of my friends runs up to me, excited, and shows me this hilarious phone number they found called the Rejection Hotline. They play it over their flip phone; the audio has never been crunchier. I think it’s the funniest shit ever, and start showing it to other people with great fervor throughout the summer. My cousins love it so much that we try to make our own version that is now lost to time. This ridiculous thing will forever be linked to one of my last true summer vacations (the kind that are 104 days, if you know what I mean.) Thank you SO much for sharing the history of it with the Internet at large!! This was such an amazing throwback to see in my notifications.

[@auraguardianred4771]

Wow, the “last true summer vacation (the kind with 104 days of you know what I mean)” just hit me like a truck. Excellent, evocative writing, really made me sit and be all contemplative over a KZbin comment. I’m going into college and this is the second year I’ve had a summer job, not to mention mowing lawns and extracurricular BS before that. I’m a lot happier than I was in elementary school actually, and I’ll be even happier in college, but this just makes me yearn a bit for those summers of carelessness, playing with my neighbor (who has long since moved away) outside all afternoon and then playing on the Wii.

[@devinsimon7721]

It really does ooze that 12 year old early 2000s humor.

[@Kibato123]

My main takeway from this video is that there is zero differences between Chelsea Peretti and her character in Brooklyn 99

[@MrSandMan961]

It's kinda impressive that they just let her hang out on the set and told her not to worry about the camera.

[@mattwo7]

@@MrSandMan961 Ah yes, the Will Smith method.

[@JeskidoYT]

@@mattwo7 but without the ego

[@mattwo7]

@@JeskidoYT Also almost everything Will Smith has been in has been either mid or shit.

[@CJ_Raider]

@@mattwo7 I won’t accept slander on ID4. That movie is a masterpiece.

[@tylociraptor8131]

Was not expecting Chelsea Peretti of all people to show up in this video. I LOVE her, she's so funny!

[@pudgeCakeDragon]

I remember giving the rejection hotline number to someone and they immediately said NO that is not your number give me YOUR number. How many times he must’ve gotten that number to know it off hand 😂

[@KaleidosXXI]

It's not likely that he recognized the number itself, business numbers use a different numbering plan from normal ones so it's easy to tell if someone gives you one. It's also why fake numbers tend to be easy to identify, since they rarely adhere to said numbering plans.

[@discodog4582]

imagine being given a fake number and still insisting that the other person give you their real number. like dude. they clearly aren’t into you, take a hint and leave them alone

[@iopohable]

you can also say no instead of pretending to be captain jack sparrow.

[@monhi64]

@@KaleidosXXII have no idea what you talking about, there’s area code and even town codes with landlines aka a business but it’s really not that unusual to meet someone with a phone number from a different area code much less town code. You’re not talking about 800 numbers right? The rejection hotline was just formulated like a regular ol’ number it’s intent was to trick people

[@pudgeCakeDragon]

@@iopohable ah yes cause a man who stalked me from college and cornered me in a store asking for my number totally would’ve taken no for answer 🙄😂 girl bye and whatever sheltered life you’ve lived ya lucky

[@eerielakeerie]

i got so thrown off by billiam mentioning TCC right as i was driving past the entrance for it that i almost forgot about the time a kid specifically put the rejection hotline down as the RSVP number in the bday invites that he gave to me and my two friends in 2008

[@life_is_no_fairytale]

The rejection hotline was a bit of a weird concept, but its what finally got a creep to leave me alone so I'll always have fond memories of it. XD

[@Eira_99]

As someone whos around the same age as you I can relate to how we're in this weird middle ground where we don't fully relate or feel like we count for either side of Millennial or Zoomer. First phone was a flip phone too but we obviously also fully understand smart phones. We remember using VHS, I even remember using floppy discs, yet all the newer technology also came around while I was young enough that it also feels natural to me. I fully understand and remember older stuff and new stuff but in such a way and at a specific age that I do consider the older stuff old, and not just something I use to use and consider the newer stuff new and not just natural modern tech. It's kinda hard to describe cause older people understand the old and new too, but they don't think about them in the same way.

[@wombatpandaa9774]

Yeah, I've definitely felt that too. I come from the same in-between couple of years and find that I can't really identify completely with either generation.

[@TinyLordCthulhu]

Zillennial

[@weinerlover6972]

​@@TinyLordCthulhu no. boomer zoomer

[@rosyreverie]

I’m part of that group too. We’re called cuspers because we’re right on the cusp of millennial to gen z.

[@tobykassulke2385]

​@@weinerlover6972 zoober

[@iannorton5514]

These numbers were huge in my elementary school when only a handful of us had phones and they were super novel. These numbers were passed around on sticky notes or by word of mouth and we'd all crowd around and listen during recess. I never thought I'd hear them again. Holy cow.

[@hauntedsunsets]

I always describe myself as having grown up as a millennial then found myself closer to gen Z as an adult. It's left me in that strange space where I had an SNES and a PS1 as a kid but now exist in the same online spaces as gen Z

[@jpool9]

Amazing story! I cant believe you’re the first person to cover this scandal. Do more videos like this!!!

[@liz_loves_cats]

I "broke up" with a guy when I was 11 and like a week later he called and told me he had a new phone number and to call him back to make sure I had it right. Rejection hotline. It's so funny to me and even then I was like ? Uh?

[@imjustdandy9799]

Im realing at how casually you drop the bomb that Buzzfeed is officially not doing news anymore and that Chelsea Perretti is married to jordan fucking peele

[@Ashthegrey]

Oh my God, I remember being shown this back in the early 2000's by my best friend. Thanks for helping me recall a hidden gem of a memory 👍🏼

[@sirhillarybillary]

We all saved it, wildly overestimating the zero men we would use it on lol

[@Ashthegrey]

@@sirhillarybillary so true 🤣

[@mehlover]

Man rejection hotline takes me back. I remember being shown this and it was a Riot amongst my friends and classmates. It's wild to find out Chelsea Peretti is married to Jordan Peel! Amazing! Edit: I meant "hotline" not "holiness" darn you autocorrect

[@boobah5643]

"holiness" I assume some form of autocorrect, but does it not recognize "hotline" or was there another fumble in there that the machine 'fixed' to "holiness?"

[@mehlover]

@@boobah5643 oops. I meant hotline darn you autocorrect!

[@frauleinfunf]

I don't remember these hotlines but God is this humor so in line with that raunchy "not PC" era of comedy. It's like the vocal version of those t shirts you'd see at mall kiosks that'd say things like "I Support Single Moms" and underneath would be a silhouette of a woman pole dancing

[@iopohable]

we call these grandpa jokes. and sure they were fun in the 1600

[@BriGuy-ed5dr]

Me too Billie. 96-2000 babies stuck in the middl3

[@missybarbour6885]

OH MAN I had totally forgotten the time my friend showed me the Harry Potter one! It was a lady with a fake British accent saying something like "We're sorry, Hogwarts is not accepting new enrollments at this time and you're probably a muggle anyway." I thought it was so funny when I was 13, but I always wondered who set it up? So thanks for answering that question I forgot I had!

[@ThumpWump]

Holy shit. This unlocked some deep memories I had forgotten. I was able to quote 80% of that message even though it’s been over a decade since I last heard it. 🤯

[@lotusthemermaid]

Jeff Goldblatt was ahead of his time in the amount of cringe he produced.

[@clausewitzianwar]

"Facsimile" is what "fax" is short for (in terms of a fax machine, it makes a copy)

[@TasteOfVictory]

I love hyper specific niche 30min or more videos like this. Fun watch.

[@ectopuppy]

I remember getting rick rolled by the phone in middle school. A friend told me she got a new phone number and gave me the rick roll line instead. My introduction to the meme lmfao.

[@NiceandAccurateMoose]

As someone who also grew up being a part of Gen Z and Millennials, this hits me right in my soul.

[@astrowolvez]

I don’t even know where I stand (I see so many shifting dates) but regardless! I have never seen this before. 😂

[@chancebrown98]

I was born in 98. I agree

[@NiceandAccurateMoose]

​@johnnyhotcock5431 we have a power many could only dream of, living on the precipice of two fates. We are gen z when we are gen z, and we are millennial when we are millennial.

[@Jetfox967]

I was born in 96, so I agree.

[@GlitchedVision]

I fondly remember both versions of the rejection hotline but I hate to admit this, the thought of playing leapfrog with a unicorn always made me laugh.

[@problematicmonika3723]

In middle school, there was this girl who was a one upper, and her dad was dating my mom, which met I was forced to be around her despite her being a huge ass to me. Well, we were invited to a sleepover at a mutual friend's house, and my friend's older brother was flirting with me, and because the girl was a one upper, she just HAD to get his number and rub it in my face. So the next night, she kept making fun of me about it and decided to call the boy in front of me and put it on speaker. It was the rejection hotline, and I LOST IT. It was the best karma and the look on her face was priceless.

[@bekaz13]

This unlocked a core memory. Turns out I still have the hotline saved in my phone, thankfully I've never had to use it.

[@thumbsarehandy.]

Holy shit, I remember the rejection hotline! I wasn't even dating at the time but I had the number saved (in my Motorola RAZR) because I thought for SURE I would need it. I never did. I also had something they provided where you could have your own number where the caller could leave a message so you could decide if you want to call them back or not. I don't know if this was before Google Voice, or if I just didn't know Google Voice existed.

[@redpup112]

It was probably before, Google Voice started in 2009.

[@lulucool45]

I'm gonna have to watch this one a couple times before I get my Jeffs, Jonahs and Johns straight

[@JamesLawner]

This was a fascinating deep dive, and I did not expect Chelsea Peretti’s brother to have invented reblogging!

[@fugyfruit]

The tragedy of being born in 99 right on the cusp of both Millenial and Gen Z

[@alchemistofsteel8099]

8:12 But what about people with autism who can't read body language?

[@BriGuy-ed5dr]

New Billiam video, One Piece Chapter, & Not My Party episode in one morning. Its like someone is coordinating the internet around my specific tastes.

[@versebuchanan512]

Talking about the Donald piss tapes like they're an ancient mystery is wild. The last like, eight years are all blurring together for me.

[@mrthebunnyhuntr]

love the niche story and hope we get more, but I need an even longer Lost video

[@Jackvfoster]

The way Billiam said "accusations of plagiarism and theft" and immediately cut to the Connor and Chris Wacky Weekend Theme was crazy to me

[@abadira]

I never at any point could anticipate where this story was gonna go good LORD

[@noahcredibleftw1024]

Your videos are the only thing getting me through college man 😂

[@CartoonHero1986]

Personal favorite incarnation of this was the Mental Health Hotline and the prompter "If you're codependent have someone push 1 for you" "If you suffer from compulsion press 2 repeatedly" "If you suffer from paranoia, please hang up; no one wants to talk to you!"

[@maverickREAL]

Didn't Death Grips sample that? "Press 9 and your call will be directed to the mothership?"

[@CartoonHero1986]

@@maverickREAL I don't know about the sample. But yes that is it "If you're delusional press 7 to be connected to the mothership"

[@John-Doe-Yo]

How odd

[@TheKayasto]

I was blessed(?) to grow up in the time that these lines were popular. My favorite joke line is the one you can call and Kratos will demean you or someth. it was funy. i think it was still up in 2019. even tho it was for gow2 iirc. I was 14 in 08, so me and my circle of friends had a ton of these numbers saved on our phones lmao

[@ericbazinga]

Petition for Billiam to make the Piss Hotline his voicemail

[@ArtomicBass]

Billiam you should check out Rokenbok, it’s a sick toy my parents couldn’t afford. Im gonna comment this on every video you put out till you do it starting now. Please let this be short lived

[@almightytallestred]

This was very interesting. I'm from Germany and I had no idea about any of this. I only knew who Chelsea Peretti is.

[@mattercakes]

"How did you get to be so cool?" "By stealing, mostly" I died

[@Hexx_plays03]

When LOST pt 3? Holding off on chronologically LOST until you do.

[@Turtl3Ramen]

Idk if you take suggestions but a video on season 1 and 2 of The Colony from discovery would be a cool thing to see from you.

[@jmv333]

Fun fact, facsimile is also where the name 'fax machine' comes from, they produce 'facsimiles' of the input message, shortened to 'fax'

[@MWTravesty]

Has anyone ever done a deep dive into the Jerky Boys? That's a weird intersection of this topic and your other videos. I had a Jerky Boys tape growing up and I never understood who they were or where they came from, only that they did elaborate phone pranks involving hidden cameras.

[@ErikNilsen1337]

I met a girl during my first week of college, and we became fast friends. One day, while eating lunch at the cafeteria with our friend group, she asked all of a sudden if I would like her phone number. I said, "Sure." She had me call the number in front of her so see could watch my face as I called the rejection hotline. We're still friends to this day.

[@Velvet.Unicorn]

I Want To Meet The Person That Purchased Rejection HotLine Merch.

[@TeamAPS]

I remember jokes like this when I was in junior high!

[@Hopeful_dreamer]

That laugh at the end of the phone messages reminds me of Papi from The Proud Family

[@13silentpoets]

Hey Billiam, I just wanted to let you know I named an NPC in my DND campaign after you. He's a famous enchated item merchant and smith, who opened up an enchanted homewares store in a capital city. His best seller is a magic trash can that teleports any trash thrown in it to the nearest non magical trash can.

[@thenosh9860]

Maybe you can make a video about the history behind websites like “the useless web”, as always love these videos 👍

[@scarletcrusader5431]

Being born in 2000 I can relate

[@bigburgerboi2005]

The recently brought it back under a new number

[@mostlyreliable]

I'll be waiting for that wii remote speaker podcast

[@philtkaswahl2124]

That rejection hotline misunderstanding is perfect romcom material.

[@eincryptid]

"Jerma-phobe" 😍 Long live Jerma985

[@steevenhyde3505]

I mean, if a guy as handsome as you gets rejected like that, there's no hope for the rest of us. 😂 Ps, I know he said she did like him...

[@shutterzero]

i’ve been watching all your vids for the last week and can safely say you’re my new fav channel and was so excited when this vid appeared in my subscription feed. i made my mum sit through both of your LOST videos and she was exhausted by the end of it :)

[@RobertLockhartMakesGames]

I would love to know the story behind the "I am rich" app on the original iPhone

[@mattwo7]

Sounds like a proto-rickroll.

[@felipevega830]

17:34 they have basically the entire song which is not what I was expecting, thought they'd only have like a couple seconds or so

[@Sidewinder1996]

My grandmother memorized the morgue's phone number to give to guys when she was younger. Oooof

[@billiam]

Now THATS epic

[@CorBoppin]

Hey Billiam! Any updates on the next Lost video? I love your videos and can't wait to see what you have to say next! 😄

[@hauntedsunsets]

that jermaphobe joke got me good

[@zanafirth4135]

I haven’t seen you around on my dashboard/home screen in a few months & I’m a pretty regular viewer of your content. Looks like KZbin is hiding your stuff in its greedy little pockets :( Very glad to have caught this one! Time to binge :)

[@sageisnotaplant99]

The rejection hotline was a memory deep in my brain that you just brought to the surface

[@SalusFuturistics]

Gina was such a bad and toxic Brooklyn 99 Character

[@mattwo7]

18:24 I wouldn't trust myself to run mine either because I'm too emotional to hold a position of power and would likely abuse it. I'd still be a better choice than most CEOs or politicians though...

[@nuclearseahorse]

I remember my friend trying to prank me with the rejection hotline, but I used my house phone so it didn't work also it flopped

[@elen5871]

facsimile is where we got the word fax, if you went back in time to the 30s you'd hear some news man with a whacky voice soundin like he's got no nose say something like "say kid, run this here photograph down to the facsimile department and have them send it to salt lake city, will ya? and 23 skidoo, eh?"

[@billiam]

THIS IS BLOWING MY MIND!!

[@elen5871]

@@billiam I learned it from a big Dick Tracy comic strip collection my aunt gave me when i was a kid lmao, one of those dumb facts that just sticks in your craw, along with the utterly horrifying faces of his weirdo enemies

[@mattwo7]

5:43 This coming from the guy who shook tons of hands during a pandemic when he self-allegedly doesn't like shaking hands either. He might have OCD but he is not mysophobic. Those of us with OCD can push past our hesitations of getting dirty when push comes to shove.

[@TheCrow8198]

Great digging. The hotline was still better. I heard the STD line back in the day, but had the humorish laugh to let you know it was a gag line at the end. I feel gag lines shouldn't be monopolies. Image how many sex hotlines we see in magazines would be if they fought who was the only one allowed to post those spamming posts in adult magazines. Most outside the rejection hotlines were for the gags of the fact. Only people who believed the calls didn't finish the recording that said it's obviously a joke.

[@penhuinz0]

At 17:36 Billiam said "Are you angry about the taste of preteen girls in 2008?" 😂😂😂 Billiam is the Tallahassee Cannibal🎉🎉

[@billiam]

oh no - i hate my wording here

[@penhuinz0]

@@billiam I'll delete all incriminating evidence if you just finish your Lost series. I didn't watch you live in a box in the jungle for nothing!

[@botluckproductions]

Oddball stuff....hmm. May I recommend looking at early machinenama. As is the videos, not the mmn.

[@AronBezzina]

Isn’t facsimile the og name for FAX ? Like isn’t that what fax stands for? Fax-simile ?

[@nerdygmr5]

looked up the piss hotline and found a number for the PISS ARMY n they only want professional voicemails

[@weregretohio7728]

Ah yes, ghosting before ghosting was a thing, and being mean-spirited anonymously is funny. Truly the predecessor of the modern Internet age.

[@TheRealNova99]

Just....imagine me standing up, solemnly nodding my head and applauding. Because there are no words.

[@syntheticat-3]

The first and only time I ever tried giving someone the rejection hotline, this guy (who did give me the heebie jeebies) texted the number _immediately_ to check that it was me, making the situation even worse (: Thinking on the spot, I reassured him that I had just changed phone numbers (I had not) and perhaps it would just take some time for the text to make it through...thankfully I was able to walk away after that, sparing us any further embarrassment

[@lack_of_reality]

This is such an odd Billiam video, but it was very entertaining, informative, and enjoyable!

[@gregsmith1746]

When the part 3 of lost coming bill

[@billiam]

I’m werkinnn on it

[@iamdangerous5189]

Wow this really took me back 🤣 🤣 🤣 I used to a use tf out of the rejection lines. Both sites. I grew up in NYC and let me tell you, back in the early 00s, I was in JHS and we used to gather around at lunch and swap stories about creepos we had to use it on. Whew. The good old days. The big difference was Jeff's site had multiple numbers by state that you could alternate with. One day I'd use a 718 and by the next week, I'm giving out 631 or 212 🤣 🤣 the city was wild af during those days.

[@wrmsnicket]

“These existed in the time of the pre-Internet before everything was recorded.” I don’t think Billiam knows what phone RECORDINGS are.

[@user-qb7yb7vp8q]

Hello, Maybe next you could do Unnatural history from 2010 from Cartoon Network and it's only one season and Maybe you could also do Aaron Stone from Jetix from 2009 too, thank you.

[@JaymzMartinez-d9l]

UPDATE: Billiam's account has been hacked by Jeff Golblatt

[@jb0258]

This unlocked memories of watching Family Guy back around 2007, and not understanding John Lott jokes, since I never knew who he was 😅

[@tulethos]

There used to be a website that would sing a break up song. “Your/Name. Your/Name. You about to be broke up. Mhm. Dis the break up song, dis the break up song.” Or at least I think it existed, I’m pretty sure I didn’t make that up.

[@toxicbambi6208]

You should do a video on the kids reality show "Ghost Trackers" it was a competition show on discovery kids about ghosts hunting. Very cheesy. Apparently it was aired in Canada but I definitely watched it in the US

[@IkeSan]

Dude I want to tell you that I got unsubscribed from you without knowing.

[@PhoeniksStorm]

I was born 1995, Very early 1995, and honestly i don't know if I'm millennial or gen z. Every list i find where they draw the line of generations. They can never seem to determine if the final Millennial year is 1994, 1995 or 1996

[@pinkdarkman]

21:50 Why did I think Jordan Peele was Adam Sandler until Billiam said he was Jordan Peele????? It feels like such an insult to mistake the director of Get Out and Candyman to Adam Sandler.

[@lemon7806]

DID YOU KNOW that "fax" is short for "facsimile"? How redundant! :D

[@Xanomenon]

Just because it made me cringe slightly. Facsimile is pronounced with a hard C. Fax-Simile. It's where the term Fax comes from.

[@TheCrow8198]

Btw wouldnt the fcc rule make 1800(free)411 be a breach? I love them. I use them still when i test a device being actived. Lol.

[@dantidote]

Have I watched your Lost videos too much and heard John Locke?

[@ShwintyKat]

Why dont you look into the Geocities Haunting? I just learned about it today and its FASCINATING

[@erinbrown3744]

I heard about this number back in middle school from a friend at church. It was a bunch of us girls hanging out after youth group and one girl started talking about it and we actually called the number. Unfortunately, we weren’t prepared for the advent of texting to spoil our use of the number when we started needing it.