Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link - Ep. 17 Dodger Leigh - Ear Biscuits

Episode Date: January 24, 2014

Brooke “Dodger” Leigh Lawson, arguably the most well known girl gamer on YouTube, joins Rhett & Link this week to talk about being the face of Maker's new gaming channel, Polaris, her experience in a predominately male-driven industry, and a recent private development in her life that she's chosen to share with her fans. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This, this, this, this is Mythical. Welcome to Ear Biscuits, I'm Rhett. And I'm Link. It's time for another conversation with an interesting person from the internet. This week, that person is Brooke Dodger Lee Lawson, arguably the most well-known girl gamer on YouTube. Yes, we have a fascinating conversation

covering her small-town roots and her sword collection. The challenges of being a female in the male-dominated world of gaming. And what's caused her to cry in two of her vlogs. Here's a hint. It has something to do with a recent bombshell she dropped relating to her love life. Now, I've got to admit,

I'm a little intimidated in talking to Dodger because I'm a little intimidated in talking to anyone. It's already happened. You're still intimidated? We know that. We're talking, we just teased the things that we're talking about. The people know that. I'm saying that

the process of talking to someone who is a gamer is an intimidating thing because it's such a big part of the YouTube culture now. You know, everybody's got a gaming channel. Everybody cares about games. Well, not everybody. We don't. And that's your point. We're kind of disconnected. We kind of feel like old farts when it comes to this or just out of the know. But I will say that, you know, I also have a certain sense of pride of being one of those guys that, you know, when the original NES came out, like I was a child who experienced that as a child at Christmas. I specifically remember,

it was probably Christmas 1986. It may have been 87. It was the year that it was out in the US and that people were getting up for that first Christmas, so I guess 86. I got it at the same time. My stepfather at the time, Jimmy, was just as excited as I was.

That's a weird thing, though, because my parents weren't even the kind of parents who were into that kind of thing, that they would get you the thing. I never was the kid that got the thing that everybody was getting, but that year, for whatever reason, they were like, well, I guess we gotta get this thing

because everybody's getting this thing. And so there it was. And I woke up, and I remember it came you know when i woke up and i remember you know it came with mario brothers and then duck hunt did you get the power pad you got the power pad i think no i did not get the power pad i didn't either um and i didn't really care but i just remember specifically super mario brothers man i i played that with, we played that all day and then my parents came up and they said, you've got to go to bed.

And I remember thinking that, no, you don't understand, Mom. My life has just changed. Like the fact- I'm not ever gonna sleep again. That this exists. That something that is so unbelievably- I mean, did you have an Atari?

I had an Atari. I mean, it wasn't like- Yeah, yeah. But it was nothing, there was no comparison. Yeah, that's true. There was no comparison. And then I would, did you have an Atari? I had an Atari. I mean, it wasn't like. Yeah, yeah, but it was nothing. There was no comparison. Yeah, that's true. There was no comparison. And then I would go over to your house,

and you're like, I got this gold one called Legend of Zelda. I'd be like, eh. This gold one. Take it or leave it. So what? The main character is my name. I have never played it. Never. And that's

sad, and I'm ashamed of that. You should be. It is sad, and you should be ashamed of it. Last night, Lincoln put it on his DS, like the old school version. We got it for like five bucks, so I think I may play Zelda for the first time. It's like that viral video from a few months back where

Mike Tyson played Mike Tyson's Punch-Out for the first time in the ESPN lobby. It's a little different because that game was kind of built around him actually. Oh, that's not actually me? No. I mean, people ask me when they meet me, oh, your name's Link? Yeah, I was like, they named the game after

me. They believe me. Or sometimes I say the opposite, which can't be true because I'm too old for that. Right. But that makes people think you might be young. Either way, it's not true. But I mean... I'm going to go ahead and tell you right now, as much as I love that game,

you're going to be disappointed. I mean, first of all, you'll never play it to the amount of time, the amount of gameplay that goes into any Zelda game. It's not something that you're just like, oh, my son's got it on his DS. That's why I never played it in the first place because I couldn't beat Mario Brothers.

I just didn't have the commitment or the wherewithal to stick with something that long. You didn't need commitment. You needed Chad Landrum. That was your problem. Yeah, I didn't. Chad Landrum had a subscription to Nintendo Power, and he was the key.

If you wanted to beat something, first of all, I mean, you couldn't beat Mario Brothers? Now, there's a problem. That's just a personal problem. I mean, you know, your wife can beat Super Mario Brothers in like seven minutes. I've seen her do it. And I'm married to her, so why do I need to do it? She completes me, right?

It's romantic. But when it comes to something as complex as, you know, the first Zelda and then, you know, the subsequent games. I can't handle that. You had to have Nintendo Power or a Chad Landrum or both. Now, Contra, I would go to your, it's funny, I would go, I had a Nintendo, but I would go to your house and play Nintendo. Yeah. Well, Contra was great.

That was revolutionary for me because then I could, like, ride the coattails of someone simultaneously. Okay, you get in front with that spread gun, and I'll just kind of hang back and take the credit. That's a great game. I can never beat Contra. We never beat Contra, though. That was difficult.

I made it. Not even with 34 men. 30. Oh. We each had 30. Oh. Well, it didn't happen. But I didn't get into a lot of other games.

I mean, I got the Genesis when that came out, but I was't get into a lot of other games I mean I got the Genesis when that came out but I was such a shallow I only waited in the shallow end of video gaming you were afraid to go all in, you were afraid to commit it's amazing at how pervasive it is now to culture

I mean not only obviously to YouTube, I mean you look at the top videos and it's just, it's pervasive. There's no other way to say it, that they are everywhere, and it's an entire business that's just, it's mind-boggling. Well, and I've gone, you know, I spent the first couple of years that we were on YouTube with this mentality that when I saw something working, I was either jealous of it or just frustrated

that it was working and I didn't understand why it was working. Now my life has become one, you know, one realization after another, like, oh, this is what's working now. I'm not going to question it. People like watching people play video games. Okay, maybe I don't.

I understand that people do. I understand that a lot of people do. So I'm probably even in the minority. So I'm not going to sit around and make fun of it. I'm going to embrace it as this is the reality now. The most popular YouTuber out there is a Let's Play gamer. PewDiePie. He's not on the show.

But the most popular female gamer arguably is. And like I said, we had a fascinating conversation with her. Even though we might have been in the dark, she was very gracious with us. And I think whether you're into gaming or not, I think there's lots to learn here. And I think you will enjoy it. Yeah, Dodger is a rising star in this massive, growing community of video game vloggers and gamers.

She's the face of Maker's new gaming channel, Polaris. I always want to say Polaris, but it's Polaris, I think. Well, Polaris is like an ATV company, right? I don't know. Yes. And also, she maintains her own two channels, Press Heart to Continue, on which she dishes out weekly industry updates

and Dexterity Bonus, which features daily personal content. She's also one of our favorite guests from The Mythical Show. You may remember her from the most complicated board game ever. She milked herself. Yes, she did.

And here we go. You said Oregon. So that's home. Is that where you were born? That's home. Yeah. I lived there my whole life before I moved here. Now, is there a trail that ends there or what's the deal? There is a trail that ends in Oregon. There's actually a huge wagon. I really want to know now, so don't pull my chain. If you go to Oregon, if you go to the Clackamas County, Oregon City area, there's a city called

Oregon City. I'm not just saying cities of Oregon, but there's a huge wagon where the trail quote, ended, end quote.

So there's a big, there's a big, maybe big's the wrong word. There's a museum there next to the wagon and they teach you how to make butter. Really? All the, yeah big's the wrong word. There's a museum there next to the wagon, and they teach you how to make butter. Really? Yeah, all the kids wind up having a field trip there at some point. Now, do you play Oregon Trail with a special sense of pride?

We did play that game a lot, yeah. And which version are we talking about here? Because when we, I mean, we're old. We played the Apple computer. Yeah, the green text on know, we're old. We played the, the Apple computer. Yeah, the green text on, you know,

on dark screen. 1987 version. I actually can't remember what the version was that we played when I was a kid, but I know that I never made it

ever. I never once made it all the way to the end. I didn't even realize you're a master of dysentery. Yeah, I'm just, everybody does.

I didn't even know that there was an end. I thought that the game was just being on a trail. Just living? Yeah. You're a master of dysentery. Yeah, I'm just, everybody dies. I didn't even know that there was an end. I thought that the game was just being on a trail. Just living? Yeah. And I think that's what everyone said. Frontier life.

Who was doing it. That was the rationale. You mean in real life? Yeah. There is no destination. Right. Let's just not die while fording this river. Simple as that.

Let's take it one river at a time. How many more days can you live this time? So where in Oregon did you grow up? Where? Where? I grew up in a little town called Malala. It's very small. Malala. Malala.

It's named after a Native American tribe of which there are none left, I believe. There was one woman who was left in town, and I think she's gone now. But it's a very small town, very, very small. And I lived there my whole life until college. And then I went to another very tiny town called Monmouth and lived there for all of college and then in Oregon yeah and then I was offered a job in LA so I've only lived in small Western Oregon University it is one of two colleges in Oregon that have a Bachelor of Fine Arts in theater and that's what I wanted so okay I went to the one that was a little less hectic because Southern Oregon University

is where the Oregon Shakespeare Festival is, so it's like crazy all the time. So I went to Western Oregon instead, and it's only an hour away from where I lived. And how big was it? What was the student body population? Western Oregon? Yeah. Western Oregon was 5,000. Oh, okay.

I think. Okay okay it was pretty small so so what was the growing up situation you we talking both parents yeah an ox both both parents an ox there's no ox but we did have we had uh chickens we had a bunch of horses we had bunnies there were pigs before i came into the picture. We got two sheep that were awful while I was a kid, and we wound up giving them to somebody else. But I also have two siblings. What makes a sheep awful? They, okay, so sheep, you might not know this. Some sheep are very sweet.

Some sheep are just so ornery, they'll do whatever they want. So we had these sheep that broke down our fences constantly and they would just escape and then they'd come back and they'd ruin the fields they'd get all over the place so we had a really hard time controlling them unfortunately out of control sheep out of control sheep horses like can break down fences but their their bodies are shaped a bit differently, so it's harder for them to... I don't know how to explain this. Bust down a fence?

Yeah, because with the sheep, they're just this compact muscle body, and they just ram themselves into it, and then they're gone. I thought that was wool. That's muscle? That's all muscle. There's no wool there. It's like a thin layer of wool. Yeah, it's like half an inch thick. So this is like a bona fide farm situation?

Yeah, I grew up on a farm. So were there crops grown or was it just like, oh, we love animals and we have a lot of land situation? We grew grass hay and oats a couple of years, but it was mostly grass hay. And then you would sell that to people who wanted to feed their fill-in-the-blanks. The intention was to sell it, but we didn't have the necessary equipment to be able to bail it. So we had a neighbor who had a ton of cows and we had our horses, and so he would come, bail it,

and then we would split it okay so we actually didn't sell it we just grew it for lols and for animals well it was this i mean this your source of sustenance i mean was your mom or dad doing something else at the time or they didn't need it we did well i know i mean we ate the grass hay and and the horses no my my mom worked full-time my entire life and my dad maintained the farm and raised the kids so so what did your mom do my mom was human resources at a grocery store called fred meyer well it was a department store actually so she did that employee discount situation oh yeah oh man we would go there all the time and be

like, getting all the clothes. So it's not food, it's clothes. Zero dollars. It's a department store, so there's lots of food there, there's lots of clothes there, but we didn't have one close enough to us where we could get perishables. So normally when we would go all the way there, it would be to get clothes and

stuff. So growing up on a farm, you know, i have to assume that something like my brother stuck his hand in a horse's mouth and lost a finger like you know right when you grow up in that situation that kind of stuff just occasionally happens because we love to hear about it oh you want to hear one hear one? Yeah. I have one. If anybody's lost a digit, we got to know. My brother, when they first bought the farm, was running through the forest because we're surrounded by woods at my house. So he was running through the forest, fell, and then heard my dad calling for him, got up, and came out of the forest. And my dad looked at his arm arm and there was just blood everywhere.

My brother hadn't noticed. He hadn't even felt it happen. But there was a machete in the middle of the woods that he had fallen on. Of course. And now he has a scar from his elbow all the way down to his wrist. Oh, my. Oh, it sliced him. It sliced him open.

And he didn't realize it? And he did not feel it. It was very strange. So then it was my mom and my dad rushing him to the hospital and my dad holding onto his arm. Like keeping it together. Yeah. Ew. Yep.

You didn't employ a sheep for that. There was no sheep involved. No sheep were involved in this story. Just wrapped his thing up in wool. There's a lot of weird stuff in the woods out there, though. There was also the remnants of a shack. I used to go out there and play all the time. Like alone?

Yeah, and I'm pretty sure if my dad knew that I was playing in an old shack, he would have been concerned, but I didn't mention it. I mean, as kids run, I would go into the, you know, there's assorted pockets of woods around Buies Creek, North Carolina. And you can manage to find like an old shack or something. And it was always very spooky and very cool to kind of go into those rundown buildings. It was, I'll go so far as to call it a pastime. But I would not have done it alone.

Yeah. I would have been too too too creeped out yeah you gotta have a buddy for that situation so I'm I'm good for you I mean you're going in those because it has to be creepy well they're not I mean when I say shack it's not it wasn't put together enough to still look like a shack it it was busted you know but yeah i you know i was so used to those woods i i grew up there like i was born near that farm and was raised on that farm so as i got older i just went further and further into the woods so it didn't seem as creepy to me i don't think so a bona fide farm girl type situation here. With, you said you had a brother.

Two siblings, a brother and a sister. Both older? Both older. My sister is 17 years older than me and my brother is 11 years older than me. Really? Yeah. That's quite a spread. Yeah.

Yep. So my sister was basically out of the house by the time I was like up and walking around and able to understand what things were. And so you and your brother, I imagine, weren't that close if he was that much older too. We're really close now. And as kids, I loved him so much. I wanted to be just like my brother. And he was so annoyed by me. I would do the most obnoxious sister things. Like I would sit in front of his room while he was sleeping because he would sleep in. But everybody else on the farm would wake up at like 6.

So I would sit outside of his room waiting for him to wake up because I wanted to play Super Mario or just hang out with him at all. Do you want to build a snowman? Yeah, it was basically that. He's good, Link. Have you seen that? Yeah, I have seen that. It's pretty good. Yeah, it's a cute movie. Yeah, it was basically that. He's good, Link. Have you seen that? Yeah, I have seen that.

It's very good. Pretty good, huh? Yeah, it's a cute movie. So you mentioned Mario Brothers. So growing up on the farm, you obviously were not discouraged from playing video games. It wasn't, hey, don't go outside and pet a sheep. You can find a career in this video game thing, so get to it, young lady. No, I mean, my dad.

Farmville, anyone? Lol. My dad felt very strongly that everybody should be helping out outside. So it was, you know, it's fine for you to play games. It's fine for you to be on the computer, but that can't be all you're doing, you know. So my jobs were weeding and picking up acorns and just the tedious, awful jobs. Every now and then I got to cut wood. That was a bit more interesting.

But, no, my dad. Picking up acorns, why would one do that? Because they would get all over our driveway, and then when you would drive over them, they would just be crushed on the driveway, and it just didn't look good. And they're poisonous. And they're poisonous? Yeah.

You look at me like I'm crazy. Acorns are poisonous. Google that, and then tell me that I'm right. I will Google that. And then the other thing is that— We're not going to Google it. Don't worry about it. If you cook them or boil boil them they are no longer poisonous

and then you can drink acorn tea why would you do that which I'm drinking right now whatever okay all true by the way except for the fact

that I'm drinking it so when was the inception of the video games into your life that you know how do we trace that back

to being something that i i assume you would say is so life-changing now right yeah i mean games have been my life my whole life i feel like my dad is still obsessed with tetris plays it all the time like on what a game boy no on nes original nintendo he still has it he has a a replacement NES in case the one he's using breaks. He has replacement controllers. Just to play Tetris? Just to play Tetris. The little screen that's in the garage,

because my dad's garage is where he hangs out when he's not working outside. So the little TV that he has in there has the You Failed screen burned into it. So anytime you look at that TV, it looks like the game is on, but it's not. It's burned that hard into the screen. Oh, wow. Well, that must mean that he would leave it on that screen. Mm-hmm.

Like to taunt himself or something? He would play it all the time, and when he would die, he'd be like, all right, back to work, and he'd get up and go work. And it would just sit there. It would just sit there, yeah. You failed, you failed, you failed, you failed, you failed. Yep, he just sits.

That's pretty sad. He'd watch Matlock and Perry Mason and play Tetris. In tandem. Oh, yeah, of course. And he hasn't upgraded, though. I mean, he still, he's not, he doesn't want more buttons. No, absolutely not. I mean, he understands this system.

Have you ever shown him or tried to get him to play a new system? Oh, yeah. I mean, he's played other games with us, but the original Tetris is his. He keeps going back to it. It never gets old. Now, I think the sad fact of the matter is just to be totally honest with you here is that we're right there with your dad. So for the rest of this conversation, you're just going to have to bear with us. Okay. So I could just make stuff up?

Our hope is that you will be our Sherpa on this Oregon Trail of gaming. But we do have kids now, and my kids are introducing me back into the world of gaming. So it's interesting how that's happening because I kind of missed the window with the 16-button controllers. That was just a— Too much for us. I feel like there was a big period of time where a lot of really good games came out that I did not play at all. Like kind of when I was in high school, mostly when I was in high school, I just never really played any new games at all. And so now sometimes when I'm working with colleagues or just talking with

friends and they're like, oh man, that game, right? Such a good game. I can't contribute at all because I don't. So what was happening in your life in that, like growing up, what are pivotal moments from the picking up acorns through the high school years for you? I think high school is when I started to feel like I shouldn't ask my parents for things. Like I should get a job and start trying to pay for things myself. But I was involved in a lot of extracurricular activities, so I didn't really have time to have a job. But because of that, I still, if there was a game that came out that I was interested in playing, I just wouldn't ask for it. So once I got into college and I was making, like, a little bit of extra money, I started playing more games again. Okay. So, so what was life like in that, in that time period for you?

In high school? Yeah. Lots of theater. Heck yeah. Theater girl. Yeah. That's, that's what I studied in college too. Right. So I was doing a lot of plays. I was on dance team, doing dance team. I tried to do a play dance team and the tennis team all at the same time. That did not of plays. I was on dance team. Doing dance team. I tried to do a play, dance team, and the tennis team all at the same time. That did not work out. I dropped tennis real quick. But the plays were always really fun. That's usually not a combination that you see, though. You don't normally know someone who's on the tennis team and the dance team and in theater at the same time.

Typically, there are some, for better or for worse, there are some cliques in high school, you know? Yeah, our school was actually really good about that. The kids that I would say were the popular kids were all, for the most part, really nice. There wasn't a lot of bullying that happened in my school. And even the kids that got kind of teased had a lot of friends, had a lot of good positivity. And I don't know if that's because I went to a smaller high school as well, but we didn't really have a whole lot of problems with clicks. So I think people felt more

like they were able to try things, I guess. So as a theater kid, were you thinking, oh, this is it? I mean, obviously to the point where you wanted to go study in college, what was the aspiration there? What did you want to do ultimately? I liked doing all of it, which wound up being a problem because like I said, I went to Western Oregon for their Bachelor of Fine Arts program. And that basically means you choose one thing that you want to do and you study it real hard. Like all of your classes have to do with it. So I decided, well, I'll go for the Bachelor of Fine Arts in acting.

And I did, and I got in. There were only two of us that got in, and I was really excited. I was so jazzed. But every term, I wanted to be designing costumes, and I wanted to be helping with building sets, and I wanted to be doing other things that were adjacent to acting but weren't acting in the shows. And I was basically sat down by my advisor, and he said, you need to decide whether or not this is what you want to do, if this is the program for you.

And if it's not, then just drop it. I mean, you can still be in our department, but I don't think that this program is good for you. So I wound up dropping it and then I got to design and act and it was great. What kind of plays were you involved in? What kind of roles did you play? What did you gravitate towards? I played a lot of nervous people. I played a lot of really crazy people.

Did you volunteer for that or they spotted something in you? I was definitely never the standard female lead or like the sweet ingenue. I was always a little strange. All of my characters were always strange but it was it was really fun because then you got to kind of pinpoint something to to bring out of that character you know you got to be a little bit larger than life and i always really enjoyed that so i think was there something does it say something about you that you gravitated toward those roles i think so i didn't do very well with roles this is gonna sound awful i didn't do very well with roles that were supposed to be very honest um like roles where you needed to put a lot of

genuine emotion into it, I guess. Like that was always very hard for me. It was very hard for me to be in the moment when it was a very real feeling. But if I was somebody who was kind of outside of the norm, it was a little bit easier for me to justify what that feeling would be. That doesn't make any sense, does it? That was such a strange way to explain that.

But kind of to take an angle, like it's easier for you to take more of a, okay, in this instance, I'm, I'm going to be the lying evil person or the weird crazy person versus the person who's about to break down and cry. Like, yeah, it's the difference between being the completely normal girl who's upset about something versus the straight-up crazy villain who's upset about something. Maybe more of a character actor. Yeah. I think that those are more engaging.

They're just more fun, and it's easier to connect with them for me for some reason. Okay. Did you intend to go on and do something with theater after college? Really? You wanted to be an actor? Yeah. I mean, YouTube is literally the reason I'm in L.A. So if YouTube hadn't happened, I was fully prepared to be making coffee most of the time and interning

at whatever theater would take me until they would actually hire me. That was like the big plan. The theater where? In Oregon somewhere. In Oregon. Yeah, because I wouldn't have had the money to go anywhere else. So you felt like, okay, just because of finances, I'm going to be staying around here and I'm going to attach myself to some theater company type situation. Yeah.

Okay. I had interned a little bit during college at different theaters in Portland. And so I thought, well, I can keep doing that sort of a thing, have a job on the side, and hopefully eventually endear myself enough to one of these companies

that they take me on and and actually pay me and then move from there but the other option was to go to grad school and learn how to make armor that was like my big thing that i wanted to do okay armor yeah now so that's that seems now when you say that all of a sudden it's okay that seems expected like that's decidedly geeky right so was were you uh would you label yourself as a geek at that point or i mean when you're into armor if i'm okay one of my career goals is i might go into making armor yeah it was because i mean yeah i've always i've always been interested in an armor and like larping like i i loved making fake swords and stuff and and beating up my friends so you actually larped yeah oh full-on in high school but oh okay well hold on we got to talk about oh sorry okay

because i mean this is something that we have definitely referenced many a time in a few different internet videos. Comedy. Yeah, right. In the comedy context. But I don't think I've ever. There's a big opportunity for LARPing in Oregon? No. A lot of open space.

That's why, yeah, people have got fields. You're able to, if you've got the round the round balers okay so here's what you got to do you got to find somebody who's using round bales instead of square bales and then you can turn those into targets and you can have archery oh wow and you did this uh no we wanted to we dreamed about it we dreamed we dreamed big how many people do you need to LARP, and then how did you organize that? You don't need that many people at all. It's, I mean, it wasn't. More than one, right?

Yeah. Well, even, I mean, you can do it on your own. He's LARPing by himself. You know, you just create an adventure for yourself, you know? It's just like some people play D&D by themselves, and you think, well, how do they do that? They don't even have a dungeon master, but you can do it. But with kind of the LARPing that happened with us,

it was basically a group of friends, just a bunch of us. We all thought that it sounded like a lot of fun to just take a day and all make our swords and then dress up in whatever we had and then go out into the backyard at one of our houses and just you know attack each other like that's literally as far as it went it wasn't super organized it wasn't like a group per se it wasn't like i hit you with my sword you're out oh it was it was it was that um one of glorified tag yeah Yeah, basically. For high schoolers. Tag with fake swords. It was great.

No judgment. I don't know the origins of LARPing. Because what are we talking about? When were you in high school? When did you graduate high school? I graduated in 2005. So I started doing this 2003. So this is, I mean, I guess there's been somewhat of a larping revolution right uh this seems like this is probably right in the throes of that or maybe

the beginnings of that right this is the kind of thing you're like did you hear about what those people are doing they're they're larping and we can also do that maybe i don't feel like i knew of anybody else who was doing that we were just all kind of bored there wasn't really anything to do in our town did you call it LARPing? no that's kind of what I was getting at this is the kind of thing that the right group of people

it could just spawn you invented LARPing we invented it we were the first in your minds I mean it just sounded like fun, so we just did it. So by the time you're thinking about graduate school, it's like on steroids. You're like, I can make actual armor.

There are people who do this. Yeah, because at that point, I had spent my entire senior year focusing a lot on costume crafts and props. So I had made puppets and dead bodies and all sorts of weird stuff and when I was looking into grad schools one of the coolest ones had this huge program where they were like we'll teach you how to make legit armor swords anything like that and I wanted to go there so bad do you own a sword now I own have you realized this dream this is actually really funny I just took a picture because I have all of my swords on my kitchen floor right now, just like sitting there because I don't have anywhere to put them.

I've been going through all of my stuff and I don't know where to put my swords, so they've just been in my kitchen. I have, okay. You spread stuff with them. I just don't know. It's one heck of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Right, yeah. I'm going to keep doing Zelda packs all night just so you know.

Yay! Yeah, I have a Zelda Master Sword. I have my Epe from when I was in college and took stage fighting. I have a katana. I have like an old style wooden sword that someone sent me. And one more. What's the last one i can't remember well while you're thinking about that have you been to the sword and stone here in burbank no what is that she hasn't been i mean this is he's a forger of swords this is the guy he has a he has a web

series where he he forges he's a blacksmith and he forges the recreations of famous weapons from different movies and shows and stuff. But he's also, he goes way back, he made Conan's sword. And I'm talking about Arnold Conan. And it's in the shop and he's got all kinds of stuff like that. And it's right here in Burbank. We shot some scenes for a video. Nerd versus geek.

But as I was in there, I definitely had this sensation that like, I think this is awesome. Dodger should be here. I know that there are other people out there who would really, really appreciate this more. I should go there. You have to go. Yeah. You have to go. That sounds awesome.

But we digress. Do we? Okay. So you decided. Right. Well, what happened at that point when you were looking at graduate school and theater around Oregon? Like, why did I do YouTube? Yeah, how did that happen?

Well, YouTube happened because I had a couple of friends who were doing YouTube. One of them was being very successful at it, and I was bored out of my mind. Husky Starcraft. Okay. So I was taking my very last class to get my degree. It was math. It was summer. I had a part-time job at a farm, and I just had a lot of free time, and I didn't know what to do with it, and it was suggested to me that I try making a YouTube channel. And so I was looking to see what other ladies were doing in the gaming world on YouTube.

And not many people really had like consistent shows or were doing much of anything. So I decided to try doing just a news show and doing it every other day. And what year was this? When did I graduate? 2010. Okay. So this is sort of before Let's Play just took over, but it was. It was before Let's Play really took over, yeah.

But it was catching. Gameplay was big. It was catching, yeah. Yeah. But what was big? was catching yeah yeah and so what was big uh gameplay in general so like not necessarily let's plays or walkthroughs or playthroughs of an entire game but watching people play a game oh see we we were kind of we thought it was the same thing yeah yeah i mean just basically someone playing a video game and then talking over the top of it

i mean what's ubiquitous at this point is not just let's play. What's the proper terminology? Let's play. Let's play is a series in which you play an entire game. Okay. Whereas just gameplay would be just a scene or a part of a game. It doesn't necessarily have to be the entire game. But in form, it's the same thing.

It's just a question of is it complete or not? Is it going to continue? Could you watch it from the beginning and could you see the end? So it was really, I mean, so Husky Starcraft, he was very successful. And a friend of yours? Yeah, yeah. He and I went to the same high school. Really?

Yeah, and we were, we kind of reconnected in college and we were chatting. And I went and looked at his YouTube channel and I was like, whoa, you get a lot of views. People love watching this. And he was like, yeah, because he basically, he would just bring up professional StarCraft matches and he would commentate over them like ESPN style. And that's that's what he continues to do. That's what a lot of guys do for a lot of e-sports right now. And it's big.

It's huge. But he got in kind of on the ground floor of the newer StarCraft game. So he just blew up. He was a friend of yours from high school towards the end of college. You're talking with him. Is he the one who's saying hey you need to get in on this what's funny is it was actually

originally he thought that my brother should have a YouTube channel because my brother is a incredible singer incredible pianist and so my brother was like not my brother sorry Mike Husky said that you know music is real hot on YouTube.

He was like, if Jared wants to try that out, he should totally do it. And Jared made like a couple of videos, but he was like, eh, it's whatever. And wound up making one myself instead. So you're like, but I can do it. Yeah, I was was like that sounds fun i'm bored i'll yeah i'll try it and you were like why didn't you tell me to make a youtube channel why are you talking about my brother nah it's interesting you said that you looked at kind of the landscape of how many girls were doing it or not doing it that so you told me that was kind of a part of your initial analysis of

an opportunity for you, even from the beginning? Kind of. I wasn't going into it thinking, this could be a career. But I was looking at it from the standpoint of pretty much everybody who had said, hey, you should think about making a YouTube channel, said, oh, a girl doing video game stuff, that would do really well. You know, just the stereotypical thing. And I wanted to see how girls were doing on YouTube in the gaming world. Like what were they doing? How was it going about?

So what did you find specifically when you looked that way? I found a lot of inconsistency. Like a lot of people who would make one video every month or two months and didn't really have a clear focus on what they were doing. So you couldn't find any girl that you, okay, I'm going to emulate what she's doing. Not really. I mean, I picked and choose some things. Like, I knew I didn't want to be, this is going to sound awful, but I knew I didn't want to be another girl who was aiming the camera at my boobs. Didn't want to do that. I knew that I didn't. I think that's always an accident. Always. Always, obviously. You know, it's, there were just.

Why? I mean. Why? Yeah, why for you was that important? I mean, yeah, some girls make that choice. It's effective. Yeah, absolutely. You could have made that choice.

Yeah. What was behind that choice for you? I wanted my videos to be as much about what I was saying as possible. And you usually say them from your mouth. I say them from my mouth. So, yeah, and I just, like, being friends with mostly guys at the time, it was interesting discussing it with them because all of them unanimously said, oh, yeah, of course I would watch that. But they also all unanimously didn't respect the person that they were watching.

And that was not something I wanted at all. I wanted to know that if I was going to be making videos, especially about news, like the gaming industry, at all. I wanted to know that if I was going to be making videos, especially about news, like the gaming industry, I wanted to know that my opinions were going to matter at all, if that makes sense. Yeah. And so what was the

first video? The first video is so weird to go back and watch. Your boobs, right? It was just boobs. I don't know what happened. It was so strange. I can't help myself. It's tilting down. No, the very first video was me just sitting with this strange camera from here.

But it was just this weird shot from here up. Yeah, just like my face. And I talked in a slightly higher pitched voice and I don't know why. It's always good. It's very weird to go back because I'm like, why was I doing that? That sounds so strange. But, you know, it's your first videos when you're kind of like nervous and not really sure what you're doing.

And now I'm so comfortable with the camera. It's just like, hey, guys, I'm farting right now. And that's kind of nice. That's happened? I missed that one. Oh, yeah. I actually, like a couple of days ago, I made a video. And at the end of the video, I was like, gosh, guys,

this whole time that I've been talking to you, I felt like there's a fart brewing and it just hasn't happened. And it was distracting me through the whole video. I was like, God, I just feel like there's a fart and it's not happening. And it was very distracting. So I figured I'd just like let them know. But then you cut the camera off. You didn't let it go?

It never, it didn't. Well, I could do Foley for that. Next time you're in that situation. Next time I'll call you. I need you now. I need you now. And you know what for? Put the phone up to the camera Okay so

Sorry are we off track again And what did you say Was it news Video game news Yeah it was I talked about And you named it you started Press hard to continue You thought through

the branding of all this you're like I'm gonna call it this I'm gonna shoot from a slightly high angle I'm gonna talk a little bit higher pitch

all that stuff and what and you talked about what? I talked about game companies I talked about game releases

I talked about really just the same sort of things that people write articles about, except I was making a video instead. So yeah, and I've switched formats at this point. Like at that time, I was doing three topics every other day. So like each video, I would cover three different things. And now I've switched it so that I do the video once a week and I cover six topics so that I'm able to kind of focus on the things, the most important things that happened that week rather than just having weird filler, you know,

like, oh, there's a Katamari body pillow that you should buy. So. body pillow that you should buy. So what was the transition from deciding to make the first video to being able to move to LA and make a career out of it? So I kept making the videos and Maker was putting together their gaming vertical. And you were like still kind of in college, like last semester? Yeah, I was just finishing up my class. And I was contacted by Maker. And they said, hey, we are going to be doing a launch of, you know, just like a few gaming channels to start with. And we know that you're small, but we feel like you're getting better with each video. And, you know, we'd like to have you involved from the start

if you're interested. And I said, sure. So they launched the vertical and I was part of it. And then a couple of months later, I was called again. And they said, we're actually looking for people who want to do network development for this vertical. And if you're interested um there's a job for you in la if you want it and so i said okay because in my mind that was like way better than making coffee and trying desperately to get a job in a theater so maybe even making armor or maybe maybe i don't know god making armor. Or maybe, I don't know, God, making armor would be so dope, right? Like, I don't know if you can beat that.

What's it like being a girl in a guy's world of gaming? I mean, I'm hard-pressed to find any girls to compare you to even now, right? I mean, I'm not that familiar with the space, but you're still very unique as a female immersed in the gaming culture in this way. There are some of us. There are a few of us, and I think there are more and more.

I think there are a lot more women getting involved in the more journalistic side of it, like on various websites that do articles in gaming. more and more girls are getting involved in that. Well, you know, you obviously respect your audience and that you expect them to be intelligent because you know that of them. So you respect that in them. You're not buying into the programming down to people. But that being said, there's still a lot of guys are still pigs kind of a thing. Oh, of course.

I would imagine that there's still – it's got to be hard for you at times being being a female in the position you're in when so much of uh your audience are these guys who you know with commenting can say anything that they want I mean how do you how difficult does it get and how do you navigate that it doesn't't get difficult, I don't think, because in the end we're all used to getting some brand of negative comment, but it's always the minority. And I count really misogynistic comments within negative comments. And I think the key is just focusing on the vast majority of your consistent viewers that really love what you do and do respect you. And so while if I do see somebody who says something totally out of line, I can block them. For the most part, it's like I don't really see them.

And I know they exist, but it doesn't affect my quality of life or the quality of my content or the quality of my community. Because I know that for the most part, they're all wonderful, intelligent, and they like what I'm doing. It takes a lot of strength to be able to do that. Now, another interesting dynamic. At what point did, and was this always the case, were you kind of a personal vlogger at the same time? People know about your personal life as much as you're willing to share through your vlogs. Was that a dynamic from the very beginning? Or did that kind of become something over time?

That kind of snuck up on me. There was a point where I realized, oh, man, you guys know a lot about my life. And in some ways, I'm totally fine with that. And in other ways, I've realized that sometimes there's a specific type of viewer that gets really upset when they find out that I haven't told them something. You know? So that's been very strange to navigate because on one hand, it's like, well, I understand why you're confused, but at the same time, I'm entitled to some privacy. So when it comes to disclosure via your vlog channel and connecting with your fans, your followers, you recently dropped like a bombshell on everybody i did why don't you tell us about that i was so stressed out and nervous about making a video saying that i had a

boyfriend and uh and i have never felt like there was so much support in my community until now. So that was the title, I Have a Boyfriend. I Have a Boyfriend with a wide-eyed smiley face, yeah. And a lot of people thought because I— But you decided, I mean, it sounds like you've been pulling back into privacy, but you decided that this is something that you were going on record with, you were going to be open yeah

and you know not cry but maybe cry in the middle I didn't want to I was like no but yeah

he I mean he and I talked about it a lot and he so first of all tell everybody who your boyfriend is oh my boyfriend is

Sam Thorne aka Strippen from the Yogscast and he's been wonderful to me. He and I have had a very— Yogscast, meaning he is a—what does he do? He's a gamer, too. He's a gamer, too.

Yeah. So he's part of a British network called the Yogscast. And they all do Let's Play gameplay videos, and they do big live streams. And around the holidays, they do a live stream every single day up until Christmas for charity. And it's good. They're a really good group of people, and I wound up meeting him, actually,

when I went to England with Jesse. He's one of those smelly guys who's like, I'm only going to take a minute of your time. He's one of those smelly guys. But, like, he looked all all right so i was into it no he uh he and i talked about it a lot and we were feeling feeling good about our relationship and it's been a few months and so we decided well rather than rather than feeling the stress of of needing to act like we're not secrecy yeah the stress of needing to act like we're not together. Yeah. The stress of secrecy. That's a good way to put it.

We decided that it was a good time to just come out with it and see what happens. And so you got a positive response. I got a very positive response. Everybody's very happy. No messages. Oh, plenty of mean messages. It doesn't matter. They don't matter.

They don't matter, guys. Well, I mean, the tears were tears of joy. Of happy. They were happy tears. I mean, it takes a lot of mean comments to overcome that. So I'm happy for you. Thank you so much. Have you ever cried in a vlog before?

Yeah. I've full-on cried in a vlog before because there was, man, like at the beginning of the year, last year, 2013, I had kind of a meltdown. In what way? I mean, what? I just had a lot of personal issues going on just had like this major meltdown and um and all of my friends in la had dropped what they were doing and came over to like be with me after seeing the vlog no no no no like i i had texted like like two of them being like hey like you want to like come hang out and uh and just like a bunch of people came over to just be with me and keep me company and are really emotional about it.

And then I wound up making a video kind of saying, you know, I'm going to take a few days off. Like, sorry about that. But I mentioned that all my friends had been so amazing, I just started crying. I was like, oh, no. Like, stop. So those were tears of joy, too.

Those were also tears of joy. I've never cried tears of sadness on my show. They've always been tears of joy. That was private, and then publicly it was the silver lining. Mm-hmm. Well, that's great. And did Sam, is his name? Sam, yeah. Did Sam also,

does he vlog? Does he have sort of a personal vlog? Or does he strip? I don't, there's a little confusion there. Stripping?

I know. Is that what that? So, originally his gamer tag. I'm in love with a stripper. That is a song. Is that a song? Yeah, it is a song.

I'm in love with a stripper. I should make him a mixtape and it'll just be that song over and over and make i should make him a mixtape and it'll just be that song over and over and over again no uh a mixtape by definition needs more than one song no no it just needs the same song over and over again his initials are st so as a kid he made a game tag that was st ripping whoops like like ripped yeah right and uh yeah it turned out that that says stripping turns out pretty much right after you write it that's when it turns out to be stripping so okay so but did he also disclose to his fans that he was dating you are you sure because i

couldn't find it he did he did talk about it in a vlog because i wanted to know if he was crying too i had to know he did not cry he was very he was very manly about it but uh he knows that i have a closer relationship with my fans so when we were talking about how to go about telling everybody he said well i i think that you should make i think that you should make like the video because your community is so close with you. But I have to assume that there is, amongst his fans, there's going to be some jealousy. I mean, that's just the way that it works. It's going to be like, oh, he's going out with Dodger. I'm going to send him a message.

He's got a few. I'm going to send him a message. He's got a few. No, but like it's not all that concerning, I don't think. Right. You've obviously developed a way of handling it, knowing that it is a reality, that when you put yourself out there like that and definitely as a woman putting yourself out there in that atmosphere you're going to be a target somewhat but it seems like you've just it doesn't get to

you you you've made a decision to be like i know this is part of the deal but i am going to ignore it because it is the minority i mean sometimes it's always going to get to you yeah but but that's what helps me get out of that is remembering that that is the minority, yeah, and that the people that I am speaking to are the ones, the nice, wonderful ones, you know. But in regards to like any negativity involving Sam, like that's why we waited so long to mention it in the first place is because there's, there's that weird, almost, almost like star magazine paparazzi feel to the whole thing where if, if we were to talk about it too soon, when our relationship wasn't quite as solidified, we would be getting those same messages and, you know, both be like, I don't, I don't know. Like, is she cheating on me? I don't know. Like, you know, like all these weird messages that are meant to mess with your head.

And so we decided to wait a little while because that way we would get to know each other better. We would get to solidify the relationship a bit more. And, you know, when any jealousy or negativity came toward us, we'd be able to deal with it as a unit rather than feeling kind of unsure of ourselves. Right. At the risk of sounding very cheesy, I'm going to own this one, but I draw a correlation between your name, Dodger, and the fact that you found yourself in a position of, like Red said, being a target.

So there's an art to having to either take the blows or be able to dodge them. So it sounds like you're navigating this zone pretty well. The Artful Dodger. The Artful Dodger. That's where the nickname came from. Is it? Yeah. I wanted to get back to that.

No, we got to go back to college. Where did Dodger come from? I was called that when I was working in- The Artful Dodger, man. What's your first name? What's the full spiel? Brooke. Brooke Lee.

Brooke Lee lawson is my full name and when i was working in the scene shop i had a co-worker who called me dodger after artful dodger and oliver twist so mostly because somehow i never died in that scene shop like so many people got hurt in there and i just i was perfectly fine and i was like i don't know how it's poetic that it certainly applies to everything we've been talking about about youtube yeah So many people got hurt in there, and I was perfectly fine, and I was like, I don't know how. It's poetic that it certainly applies to everything we've been talking about about YouTube. Yeah. I'm just saying.

Well, this has been extremely insightful. Yes. And I'll be counting sheep tonight, thinking about your sheep. Muscular sheep. There's no way to not be weird about what I just said. I don't know. And there you have it. Brooke Dodger Lee Lawson in full ear biscuit mode. Brooke Lee Lawson.

When she said Brooke Lee Lawson, I thought, news anchor. This is Brooke Lee Lawson coming to you live. You know, it's a good name. I mean, Dodger, that's a great name. It's even better when, you know, you're doing the video game thing. It's a cooler, more internetting name. But I'm just making the note that if she ever wants to go back into newscaster, you know, the fallback, Brooke Lee Lawson would be a really good. Or armor maker.

Yeah. Brooke Lee Lawson armor maker. It doesn't really sound likeormaker. Yeah. Brooke Lee Lawson, Armormaker. Doesn't really sound like a... I think you would go with Dodger for that. I hope she wouldn't be offended if I'm totally overwhelmed with the fact she's such a sweet person. I don't think she would. I mean, that's a compliment, right? I hope that she would not be offended with me thinking that she was a sweet person.

No, I think she's not like a sociopath. So no, I don't think she would be offended by that. Very strong person too. I think when you say that someone is sweet, you say, oh, it's like saying that they're just like, oh, isn't that a cute person? But she's not that. just like, oh, isn't that a cute person? Versus, but she's not that. I think we very well established that she has a lot of strength to be in the environs that she is on the internet.

And that she can not only survive and not only thrive, but she can respect her audience. And she believes the best in them and chooses to ignore the negativity that i mean i have to think comes at her more often than uh uh just the typical guy who's doing gaming content on the internet yeah there's a strength there there's a sweet strength that i admire yeah i think that you, I was definitely not surprised at all to hear that traditionally

this was a 90-10 breakdown. I mean, first of all, in terms of men-to-women ratio, YouTube in general is... There are more guys who watch YouTube videos. There are more guys who are on the internet on a regular basis, you know, habitually.