Becoming Unraveled (w/ Brian David Gilbert) | Sad Boyz 

I get unreasonably happy whenever I see BDG nowadays

Hi! Red Ranger here. Honestly, after 5 years of waiting and thinking I’d never get the suit, I’m just happy that it fits haha. But thanks for watching! I appreciate it :)

I see BDG has entered his Greek god era

This truly is the greatest and most unexpected collab ever

BDG growing his hair and beard out has been such a power move it’s insane

I literally shouted when I heard Brian say "my fiance Karen" that made me so happy

BDG lets fucking go!!!!!! I still go back and watch "Waluigi, Unraveled" all the time.

Now you need Brennan Lee Mulligan on the podcast

BDG connects the Dropout cinematic universe (guest starring on Game Changer) to the commentary universe now.

Taking bets on whether the podcast becomes musical or deeply horrifying

After 3.5 yrs at my current job, I was finally able to explain that my digital skills are no less worthy of compensation than the ability to manage humans and I got my first promotion! It took spelling it out literally; that my value is managing PROGRAMS not managing PEOPLE and wow it truly felt like a Big Breakthrough to the corporate boomers. 😂

I have definitely spent a not-insignificant portion of my life thinking Adika was Jordan's last name

Absolutely enormous props to the Boyz for having edited captions for a podcast! That's so much work and I really appreciate it, the auto-generated ones are simply not as good

46:23 this is such an interesting conversation. I work in manufacturing and it has always blown my mind that the people who make the actual products make the least amount of money. I'm an engineer and I can design things but without the machinist who knows how to actually make it, my design is worthless. We were actually talking about this today at work.

so nice for the Sad Boyz to collab with such small creators

jordan having to pull his shirt up over his face during the "slide" description so that he could wheezecackle without looking weird was extremely cute and I could watch him all day

This could not have come at a better time. I've been re-listening to "Don't tell your wife about this game", "2winz²", and "Pumpkin Cowboy" for days.

It's really interesting to hear how massively popular that animal crossing painting guide was, because I remember constantly returning to it week after week whenever Redd came to my island, lol. Thank you so much Polygon Guide Writer

I think one of the only things that makes me more excited than BDG talking about cool stuff is BDG talking about Unions, and The Animation Guild. ✊

Your conversation on systemic issues in the work place about how companies view success was so on point. I feel like it really comes down to how in socio-independent countries reward people based on having a multitude of achievements, and not the mastery of any one thing in particular. Like, if you harken back to how our public schools are, it's easy to see how we're instilling this idea that becoming as "successful" as possible should be your top priority, and that this idea of what success means is thoroughly flawed. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

This notification made me gasp and immediately get up from my bed I’d been trying to coax myself out of for hours. Thank u sad boyz!!

31:55 i really felt this as a baker. Its my job but im also considering pastry school and i cook for friends and family on a daily basis. Its just hard not to get burnt out because like... you have to eat. But sometimes after decorating a cake for 6 hours, i feel like i never want to look at food ever again. Its a strange combination of passion and burnout at the same time

omg as someone who has worked as a storyboard artist I nearly welled up when Brian acknowledged how much effort goes into it 🥺

BDG wearing Ginger Root merch is immaculate ✨ if they ever collaborated together on a track I’d cry aggressive elevator soul tears

currently going through the ugliest breakup of my life and seeing my actual dream collab in my subs made me tear up a little bit. thank u boyz

BDG really just randomly pops up in the most pleasantly unexpected collab videos every few months, and I love that for us.

I honestly yelled out “Brian!!” when I saw the thumbnail, this is awesome!

When I played animal crossing consistently, I LIVED off the guide for the paintings, to the point I never closed the tab with it open. I still use Polygon guides (specifically Pokemon ones for type matchups bc I never remember) and it's wild to hear that just one guide can blow you out of the water compared to your colleagues.

BDG is slowly morphing into Rhett McLaughlin

this collab feels like it was made for me specifically oh my god

Sad Boyz is probably THE place to get the most unexpected guests. Love it. Call em Sad KINGS!!!!!!!!!!

I actually had that physics professor in college! He was great, always did very interesting demonstrations and talking about when he worked on myth busters

It's so wild listening to the "bad filmmaking" chapter. I'm the storyboard director on an FX animated show, and the strikes are affecting us very directly. They weren't at first when it was just the WGA, but we started being affected as soon as SAG moved to strike. Also, projects that we had lined up are now on hold until the strikes are over, because collaborators on those projects are in the striking guilds. And yeah, boarders do A LOT of work that's uncredited that would fall under Design, Writing, Backgrounds, etc.

THE THING HE WASN'T ABLE TO TALK ABOUT MUST'VE BEEN HIS APPEARANCE AS THE WINTER KING IN THE NEW EPISODE OF ADVENTURE TIME: FIONNA AND CAKE!!

Brian is my all time favourite RU-vidr, everything he does is great and I've watched him for years before unravelled. This is the man.

As a swimmer I’ve never understood why I love it so much until Jordan said why he liked it

YAY NEW SAD BOYZ FEATURING THE MAN THE MYTH THE LEGEND

I literally never use "mother's maiden name" as a security question because its my surname. And my daughter has my surname so she will have the same issue. Also feels like its much easier to find out mothers maiden name from social media when a lot of mums will put their maiden name literally on facebook and then people put their family on Facebook too.

I just love that every guest of this podcast is mature and chill and gives interesting insights and inadvertently some great advice on work ethic or life in general. It's very entertaining (and funny) but also educational in it's own way for me as a young adult.

LOVE that you guys talked about the animation industry while talking about unionization. it is rough out here. and yes residuals are not the same. had a professor who wrote for looney toons and never saw a cent after it aired.

really struck a cord with me when you were talking about "the only way you move up in the world is becoming a manager" my boss once said to us that he imagined all of us becoming future managers in some part of the company

Brian's discussion at the end was really interesting. I always viewed Unraveled Brian as a commentary on hyperfixation leading to a nich hobby becoming a replacement for a personality, and commiting to a bit well beyond the point of reason, so seeing him say that it was partly about gatekeeping 1000iq types was interesting.

the collabs are crazy lately, i cant wait for the hasan episode next week😭

This collab was the last thing I expected but the thing I needed the most. I love BDG and I get so excited whenever I see him

It's adorable that you guys answer those security questions honestly instead of assigning standard, alternate answers to them. My first pet's name? Absolutely not my first pet, but a standardized lie.

54:23 omg yep this documentary is wild. It shows how much the directors and head writers made every other crew members work a living hell. They show people leaving for work at 6am and not getting back till 10pm and being on 12 of no days off as normal and a joke haha. You can really see these issues with the song “show yourself”. The directors/writing team until very last minute like a few months out we’re still not entirely set in what the voice calling out to Elsa was. Between this and multiple scenes that were close to being final draft were cut which killed months of animators work put them behind schedule. This meant that during that song the background is incredibly minimal, and the lighting, framing and rigging is much more simple when you compare it to the rest of the film. The animation team both didn’t have the time, and because the director didn’t have a set in stone vision they couldn’t do anything super specific or detailed cause it could just be scrapped the next day. Even though the documentary tries to paint the project in a very heavily filtered positive light, these issues are very apparent so I would be interested to see what the true unfiltered experience working on Frozen 2 was like. They kinda comment of this in the behind in the behind the scenes in Turning Red too. A large part of the project was done during the early pandemic, and multiple people on the team they interviewed said that working from home was definitely different, they had never got to see their family and be a part of their lives more. Like damn that just really sucks they deserve so much better then that.

I never would’ve thought about this collab but i’m obsessed

Their conversation about business and having to be a multipurpose tool is so important. Man I wanna hear Brian all riled up about it for longer

I'm so happy to hear my exact philosophy about how management should not be seen as hierarchically above the job the job they manage! Not what I was expecting from a BDG interview but I feel very seen.

This is actually absurd to me. Some of my biggest creative influences talking to each other in such a genuine and charming manner

Oh my God these are three top tier boys all together in one episode!! Incredible sequence of guests they've been having lately. This seriously made my day

1:17:42 not only is The Closer a real show but it was probably the best show they had on TNT. Even had a spin-off

ngl - 2023 has been a nightmare for me. which is what it is. sad boyz is a weekly treat that helps me get through, and this episode with bdg (one of my favourite writers ever) was exactly what i didn't know i needed. thank you, sad boyz. i love you, and i'm sorry, too 💙

honestly bdg could just straight up do a concert his music is great

BDG and class consciousness is a combo i didn't know I needed. I have even more respect for him than I did already.

This is like the ideal podcast guest

bdg is like one of two people that would star stun me if i saw irl

I so deeply enjoy this short hozier clone ❤

Every single one of my organs stopped when I saw the thumbnail

Brian Gilbert actually made the Stephen Fry starring biopic of Oscar Wilde. Kind of a cheat code having his reincarnation to play Wilde, but it's a great movie.

Jarvis, your hair looks lovely

This was very unexpected but I am so happy it is happening lol

this is crazy, like two worlds combined... I might cry August 18 2023, the day I broke out in tears

i SCREAMED when i saw this notification oh my god

What a day to be alive, BDG joins the Boyz

everybody looks so good in this episode

Come for the BDG stay for the group charisma. Jarvis asks great questions and Jordan is so witty

enjoy that whenever BDG renters my brain, it’s with an entirely different appearance. what a lovely modern cryptid

The gasp i gasped

Fuck, I heard his voice and immediately smiled. Love this guy and his work

Jarvis is so me when someone brings up my special interest

all three of my bespectacled fathers??????

hi stop motion animator here, adored the animation talk 😍❤ rdg is such a delight and i love him passionately talking about animation 😊

i was fully and completely not expecting to see bdg on this pod but i’m legally required to watch every piece of bdg content because i sold him my soul in a back alley behind the sonic drive in so i have to watch this

Lil Jon is playing next week at the North Idaho State Fair (Yeah, I know) and I'm so glad that is exactly how I pictured his show as well because imagining him doing that In Coeur d'Alene, Idaho is such a wild thing. Truly blessed.

39:12 oh my gosh this is so spooky. Swimming was my athletic thing for a long time. Years later I realized that the benefits of exercise were not the main reason I enjoyed swimming. Swimming is like an entire sensory thing - you're surrounded by water, you can only hear water, there is no phone, no music except in your head. And the repetitive motion, combined with the sensory experience, is very meditative. Unknowingly being AuDHD, swimming was enormously valuable and important to my well being because of that, and when I stopped swimming I suffered enormously as a result.

I discovered BDG after he had left Polygon and was working solely on his RU-vid. I love all his content.

The Art Garfunkel show story reminded me of a time when I saw John Oates from Hall & Oates do an acoustic set at a place I worked. He played a lot of his solo music but also a couple classic Hall & Oates tracks (which was slightly underwhelming because Hall was the singer on those and Oates does not have his range or vocal strength)

OH MY GOD IT'S HIM

BDG could absolutely put on a Halloween concert now that he has two entire albums out

I yelped with excitement seeing that BDG was the guest 😭

Whenever he said "being your own boss" i got flashbacks

The Frozen 2 documentary opened my eyes to so many things in so many industries that always bothered me. Definitely watch it if you have the chance.

jarvis the haircut is immaculate

"This is a problem in tech, which I know about because..." I almost expected Jarvis to pull out his giant diploma after saying that.

I got so immersed in this episode that I was almost late for work

NO WAY YALL GOT BDG HIMSELF ON THE POD

With the security questions thing: "where were you born?" always gets me, because for some reason I've used the name of the hospital in some places and the name of the town in others

I started this on sight, fuck whatever other video I was watching, god is good 😭

Hearing about how Frozen 2 was made makes me realize how the project couldn’t miss. They had so many people making it a bullet proof project without having any singular vision. To take it back to Unraveled that show was embracing how sometimes a premise doesn’t work and you don’t fix it in the end it just becomes undone. Capturing that into its own scripted story was genius but also true to many art projects.

MY HEART SKIPPED LIKE 10 BEATS WHEN I SAW THIS 2 FAV CREATORS GETTING TOGETHER MY DAY HAS BEEN MADE love yall keep up the awesome content

When I was playing Animal Crossing for hours a day several days a week, I was constantly pulling up the Painting Guide from Polygon, for two reasons, one it was very well written, a good balance between charming and concise, but two, because BDG got me to recognize Polygon from any other game media company and made it a favorite of mine, so I would actively pick their guides over others. I was very marketing pilled. But when BDG mentioned that guide writers where the backbone and many didn't want to be seen, it struck me that despite reading the names on guides several times, I couldn't recall any that weren't names I already knew from the Polygon YT channel, especially the AC Painting Guide. And what that means as a consumer.

important points

BDG!!!!! edit: holy shit i never thought we could have this, the level of excitement when I saw Brian David Gilbert is unmatched

I could honestly watch a 5 hour video of BDG reading a phone book out loud, the dude is so fun to watch

The talk of mastery vs generalized skills really hit home for me. I'm INCREDIBLY happy with the professional work that I do and I want to keep doing it and getting better at it... but my boss is... for lack of a better word, grooming me for management. He wants me to be ""more"" than what he calls a "doer". And like... but what if I like what I "do"? I've seen the stress of upper level management and I dont WANT that.

Ugh the management pipeline thing is so real. At every job I've ever had I've been told they "see me more in a technical advisor role than a management role," and I'm like yes 100% spot-on analysis, however- you pay your technical advisors like entry level positions. so

I've worked in animation for 20 years, primarily in TV in the UK. The comment BDG made about Frozen really hit close to home! And as a storyboard artist yup, we do all of that - dependent on the project. Most shows will have locked scripts. There are cases where boarders do actually write, and sometimes we get the opportunity to change the flow of an episode in some way. But yes, no residuals, we're played a flat rate across the world. I remember one exec at a company, to be fair was mainly live action, came over to me when I was working on a development board, on paper (hundreds of pages long) and said "what are you doing, colouring in?"

this is my avengers endgame

I can confirm, I had that Animal Crossing painting guide open on my phone for literally 2 years. It may still be there somewhere in the farthest reaches of my 100+ open Safari tabs. 😂