60 How the Man With 1,000 Voices Accidentally Became a Full-Time YouTuber 🎙 Brian Hull

Brian Hull unlocked his super power at a young age. Mimicking the voices of the world's most recognizable cartoon characters earned him lots of social cred on the schoolyard. In 2014, he uploaded a YouTube video of himself singing "Let It Go" from "Frozen" as a variety of Disney characters. It was never meant to be public. He woke up the next morning to millions of new fans and an exciting career as a professional voice actor. Since then, Brian splits is work between online video creation and voice work for films, commercials, and even a new anime series. Brian chats with Matt about his favorite characters to perform, and the ones that challenge him the most. They also cover what it means to be professional voice actor in 2026 as AI-generated voices become mainstream, and why someone with his skills might not go viral on today's Internet. Listen & subscribe wherever you get podcasts: 🍎 https://apple.co/44FeACS 🟢 https://spoti.fi/3UGQjrN ⏯ https://amzn.to/3wCdueF This show is made possible by listener support: https://www.patreon.com/influencepod Join our Discord community! https://discord.gg/influencepod Call the show and leave a message: (347)-871-6548 Email me with guest & trivia suggestions! [email protected] (NOICE) Follow me: 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/mattsilverman.bsky.social 🧵 https://www.threads.net/@matt_silverman 📸 https://www.instagram.com/matt_silverman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Like many of us, the urban planning strategy game "SimCity" was an obsession for Diana Regan growing up. When she published YouTube videos about a modern incarnation -- "Cities: Skylines" and its sequel -- she grew a loyal audience around the games. But she was more interested in using these sims for social commentary about urban design, capitalism, politics, and absurdist online culture. One problem: Her audience HATED it. That is until one of her TikToks about corporate cities went viral and inspired her to return to YouTube to expand the work into robust video essays. These days, Diana works full time as a video creator, covering a wide range of topics and painting with all sorts of surrealist brushes: video games, travel videos, memes, archival footage, and AI-generated voices of historical figures saying the darndest things. Diana sits down with Matt to discuss her singular creative style and how she overcame the limitations of social video platforms that only reward you for doing the same things over and over. Subscribe to Cities By Diana: https://www.youtube.com/@CitiesByDiana https://www.instagram.com/citiesbydiana/ https://www.tiktok.com/@citiesbydiana Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Greetings! I am couch/bed-ridden as my entire family recovers from Covid-19 (the BEST Covid!) While I waste away, I think you'll enjoy this episode from my other podcast. - Original Show Notes | August 15, 2025 - https://haveenteredthechat.com/episodes/215-luke-plunkett-games-journalism-aftermath If you've read a video game article on the Internet in the last two decades, chances are it was written by Luke Plunkett. His tenure at Kotaku spanned 17 years, and all the highs and lows of the digital media rollercoaster. When the bottom eventually fell out, he and other games media refugees co-founded Aftermath, a worker-owned video game news and commentary site, whose business model eschews advertising, SEO, and clickbait in favor of — get this — reader subscriptions! Luke joins us to discuss the evolution of games media, getting paid $10 to post pictures of cake on Kotaku in 2006, living on the opposite side of the world from his co-workers, and why we are entering a new and (hopefully) more sustainable era for online journalism. Connect with Luke: https://www.lukeplunkett.com/ https://aftermath.site/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Depending on what state or country you live in, logging into Instagram, Reddit, or (dare we say) Corn Hub might prompt you to submit a government ID to proceed. This fresh privacy nightmare is thanks to a variety of "online safety" laws going into effect, or being upheld by courts. They are aimed at protecting minors from accessing harmful content online -- a laudable goal. But requiring all users to submit their face and address to tech companies comes with a host of privacy issues and pressures on free speech. To explain what's going on, who might be affected, and what happens next, Matt sits down with Laura Riposo VanDruff, a partner at the law firm Kelley Drye & Warren who has spent much of her career focused on tech, privacy, cybersecurity, and AI litigation, and a decade of work at the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, which is often the de facto government body that regulates these kinds of digital issues. Connect with Laura and her work: https://www.kelleydrye.com/people/laura-riposo-vandruff https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-riposo-vandruff-1598b921/ Shout out to our Producer Tier Patreon supporters! BowieBarks Dominick Kerr Evan Jolene Jula Robert Tortorelli Sam William News items discussed in this episode: https://www.npr.org/2025/08/14/nx-s1-5482925/scotus-netchoice https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/08/no-uks-online-safety-act-doesnt-make-children-safer-online This show is made possible by listener support: https://www.patreon.com/influencepod Listen & subscribe wherever you get podcasts: 🍎 https://apple.co/44FeACS 🟢 https://spoti.fi/3UGQjrN ⏯ https://amzn.to/3wCdueF Join our Discord community! https://discord.gg/influencepod Call the show and leave a message: (347)-871-6548 Email me with guest & trivia suggestions! [email protected] (NOICE) Follow me: 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/mattsilverman.bsky.social 🧵 https://www.threads.net/@matt_silverman 📸 https://www.instagram.com/matt_silverman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Greg Miller fell in love with Ghostbusters, Superman, and video games — as we all did — at a young age. But when he realized you could make money writing about his favorite things, he declared at age 9, in no uncertain terms, he would become a games journalist. That ambition became a reality during his tenure at IGN, which began with written coverage, and ended with a lot of on-camera work as online video matured. As the ground got shakier under corporate media, a chance meeting with employees at Patreon illuminated a new way forward: viewer-funded, independent games coverage. Greg and his colleagues took a chance on Kinda Funny, and the fan response was overwhelming. The KF crew just celebrated their 10 year anniversary, and so much has changed since the early days of streamer-first, podcast-first entertainment coverage. Greg joins Matt to discuss his fascinating career, the evolution of modern games coverage, the big risks of launching an independent media company, how parenthood has changed his perspective on work, and why he's not afraid to fight for justice in the face of fascism. This show is made possible by listener support: https://www.patreon.com/influencepod Listen & subscribe wherever you get podcasts: 🍎 https://apple.co/44FeACS 🟢 https://spoti.fi/3UGQjrN ⏯ https://amzn.to/3wCdueF Join our Discord community! https://discord.gg/influencepod Call the show and leave a message: (347)-871-6548 Email me with guest & trivia suggestions! [email protected] (NOICE) Follow me: 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/mattsilverman.bsky.social 🧵 https://www.threads.net/@matt_silverman 📸 https://www.instagram.com/matt_silverman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey friends! I'm bringing an important conversation over from my other feed, as this story has huge ramifications for protected speech, the LGBTQ+ community, and how powerful companies can change what's allowed on the Internet. While certainly alarming, this conversation (and what has transpired since) has made me hopeful. - Original Show Notes from July 25, 2025 - Hundreds of NSFW games were removed from Steam last week after Valve quietly changed some policies around adult content. But journalists realized it was actually the payment processors — Visa and Mastercard — who refused to complete transactions around certain kinds of porn. Digging deeper, it was revealed that a small Australian conservative activism group was taking a victory lap around Steam's porn purge, all in the name of "protecting children" from "harmful content." And they are targeting Itch.io next, which has already de-indexed many adult games. So how did a tiny group of pearl-clutchers convince two multi-national banking conglomerates to censor the world's largest video game marketplace? Games journalist Ana Valens attempted to answer this with two reported articles on Vice's gaming site Waypoint. But those articles were taken down by Vice's corporate owners, prompting Ana (and many of her colleagues) to immediately quit. This week, Ana joins Matt to discuss this legally and ethically complex issue, why banks can now decide what art we're allowed to see on the Internet, the pressing threat for the LGBTQ+ community, and what we can (actually) do about it. If this conversation inspired you to take action, please discuss it in our Discord, check out the links below, and follow Ana's work: Both archived articles: https://archive.ph/USxe6 + https://archive.ph/x5cGQ https://yellat.money/ Follow Ana on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/acvalens.net Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In August 2005, YouTube was a 6-month-old beta test, the iPhone was still years away, putting music on your iPod required a cable, and MuggleNet was *the* destination for news and conversation about Harry Potter. The books and movies were still coming out, and online fandom was taking shape in novel ways. One of which was a “podcast” — it’s like a radio show, but you download it from the Internet and listen on your computer, burn it to a CD for the car, or dare we say load it onto your portable music player. Very few existed, but the excitement for them among niche communities was palpable. At the suggestion of a MuggleNet staffer/volunteer, MuggleCast was born. The show began as news segments about the books and movies: casting, release dates, trailers, and more. But its extremely likeable and relatable hosts (some of whom were teenagers at the time) quickly built a thriving fan community unto themselves. The show became a forum for granular, chapter-by-chapter literary criticism of the books, and lively discussion of their wider cultural impact. MuggleCast is about to celebrate its 20th anniversary, making it one of the longest-running podcasts ever (mere months behind the medium’s earliest adopters like Leo Laporte and “This Week In Tech). Eric and Micah, two of MuggleCast’s four current hosts, join Matt to discuss their entry into the HP fandom, podcast production in the days of dial-up, that time Steve Jobs mentioned the show on stage, their commitment to inclusivity, reckoning with JK Rowling’s transphobic views, and why we need the anti-fascist themes of Harry Potter (and other fantasy fiction) more than ever. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm taking the week off, but hope you'll check out my new improv comedy podcast for kids and families! Listen to the first episode here, share it with the kids in your life, and subscribe wherever you get your favorite podcasts: https://www.talesfromthecloudsea.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Laina Morris was 20 years old when she entered a Justin Bieber fan contest in 2012. She uploaded a video of herself to YouTube singing a creepy parody song. She didn't win the concert tickets, but when she woke up the next morning, she had won a very different prize. Reddit, a website she had never heard of, got a hold of the video and turned her into the poster child for obsessive, co-dependent relationships. "Overly Attached Girlfriend" was born, and Laina became one of the most recognizable memes on the Internet. Rather than fight her unexpected memehood, Laina leaned ALL the way in, and rode the wave into an online comedy career. Her hilarious vlogs and sketches often featured OAG, while others branched into broader concepts with her signature awkwardness. At just 21 years old, she was making a living as a full-time YouTuber. But in 2019, at the height of her fame, she broke up with YouTube forever... Or did she? This week, Laina joins Matt to discuss how "being in on the joke" created a positive relationship with memehood, her favorite comedy collaborations, getting recognized in public by people who aren't quite sure how they know you, and the mental health challenges that prompted her to leave a massive audience behind. Follow Laina for shorter videos these days: https://www.instagram.com/laina/ https://www.tiktok.com/@laina622 This show is made possible by listener support: https://www.patreon.com/influencepod Listen & subscribe wherever you get podcasts: 🍎 https://apple.co/44FeACS 🟢 https://spoti.fi/3UGQjrN ⏯ https://amzn.to/3wCdueF Join our Discord community! https://discord.gg/influencepod Call the show and leave a message: (347)-871-6548 Email me with guest & trivia suggestions! [email protected] (NOICE) Follow me: 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/mattsilverman.bsky.social 🧵 https://www.threads.net/@matt_silverman 📸 https://www.instagram.com/matt_silverman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When people post online, they usually declare their opinions. And in social media echo chambers, those opinions tend to be validated. But the subreddit r/ChangeMyView *might* be the only place on the Internet where people come in good faith to have their opinions challenged — and perhaps even changed. Topics range from movie fandom to food preferences to history to some of the most challenging ethical and political discussions of our time: abortion, global conflict, mental health, and of course our current U.S. leadership. Someone posts their view, and commenters present their challenge. If the original poster is swayed — even slightly — they award a "!Delta" for the change. The result is a bastion of civil discussion about emotional and challenging topics, and the community of 4 million subscribers is held together by precise rules and moderation. But in April, the University of Zurich conducted a social experiment on the subreddit shook the community to its core, and begs the question: Can AI be weaponized to change the views of millions on the Internet? And if so, how can we study that problem ethically? This week, Logan MacGregor, a moderator of r/ChangeMyView, joins Matt to discuss what makes this community so special, and how it responded to this shocking experiment that violated its core tenets. Read more about the response to the AI experiments here: https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1k8b2hj/meta_unauthorized_experiment_on_cmv_involving/ This show is made possible by listener support: https://www.patreon.com/influencepod Listen & subscribe wherever you get podcasts: 🍎 https://apple.co/44FeACS 🟢 https://spoti.fi/3UGQjrN ⏯ https://amzn.to/3wCdueF Join our Discord community! https://discord.gg/influencepod Call the show and leave a message: (347)-871-6548 Email me with guest & trivia suggestions! [email protected] (NOICE) Follow me: 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/mattsilverman.bsky.social 🧵 https://www.threads.net/@matt_silverman 📸 https://www.instagram.com/matt_silverman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices