Game influencers Jessica Chobot and Greg Miller share their secret: authenticity

GamesBeat: I follow some tweets by the Mega Dads guys. They’re always talking about playing games as parents, trying to find time for it.

Chobot: I was just telling Greg, there are a lot of games I need to get to, and every time I try to hop on the console, my son sees me and stops me because then he wants to play, and so all I do all day is either play I Am Bread, because he thinks it’s hilarious, or make these gigantic time-consuming houses in Minecraft for him, and then he requests that I burn them down. This is not the way I thought this was going to play out.

GamesBeat: It’s good to have a following.

Miller: They grow with you. They want to see everything that—this year we were able to launch a cooking show, right? That’s weird. IGN wouldn’t have done that.

Chobot: When I saw that bust out, I thought, “Well, that’s different. I didn’t expect Greg to do that.”

Miller: But I’ve been stoking that passion in myself and talking about it for years. I’ve been talking about it on shows, talking about it on Instagram, and finally kids got to the point where they said, “I see what you do and I’d love to know how to do that.” We launched a super successful show about it. That’s so weird. But you find a way to what your audience wants and what they want from you.

GamesBeat: What are some tips for influencers who want to be bigger celebrities? What do you think about the kind of work they should have to do, what kind of expectations they should have? Should you quit college to become an influencer?

Chobot: Oh, God, don’t do that. Plan ahead, because you never know when the bottom’s going to drop out. I would say for me, as a combination of having certain social media that I’ve done already established, and then trying to do other stuff with Bizarre States and my little fashion blog—the biggest problem I’m coming up against, that even I need to get better about, is consistency. Consistency is key to all of that. It’s just tough for me, because I do have a full time job that requires me to do other social media stuff, unconnected to what I’m trying to launch on my own. And then just the fact that I’m a mom and all that stuff. Consistency is key. You have to buckle down on that.

I’d also say, and I think we’ve mentioned this before, be very careful how you present yourself. You never know who’s going to end up seeing it, being your boss later, potentially being the head of the company that would normally have done business with you, except they saw that one random tweet from years ago where you slammed their product or slammed them. That does nobody any good. Keep that in mind.

Miller: On top of everything else, read the YouTube creator’s playbook, even if you’re just worried about making Instagram videos, because that’ll give you so many great tips. But put the idea of becoming a celebrity out of your head. Because what does that even mean?

Chobot: It’s work. This is work. If you’re getting into it to be famous—

Miller: Your numbers will be so bad for so long, and even when they get good, they’re not going to be as good as Philip deFranco. What are you trying to do? That’s not how it is. You want to be laser focused on something, because that’s what it’s about. Find your niche. The people who want to work at IGN one day and act like IGN now, they can’t find an audience. It’s way more valuable if you’re super into Japanese RPGs and you run your site or blog just about Japanese RPGs. Be that person, rather than trying to review everything and talk about everything.

Chobot: Plus, you’re going to have more fun, which means you’re not going to get burned out as fast or as much. If you’re trying to sit there and do what’s popular at the moment, it’s not as satisfying. Focus on what you like to do, whatever you happen to choose.

GamesBeat: I’ve seen a lot of startups come out that are targeted to matching brands and influencers. It seems like this is a pain point, to have a brand find you and get the message out that it wants, but still understand that you’re going to do what you’re going to do. One came out this week called Influential, a platform that will analyze the social atmosphere around an influencer and see if they’re a good match for certain brands.

Chobot: It sounds cool, but—people find me by just going directly to my manager or my agent. My manager and agent both take a percentage out of everything I land, so as far as I’m concerned I’m already paying for that.

Miller: That’s the thing. It helps and benefits and behooves the people who are starting in a different place than when did. When we left and started Kinda Funny, well, Tim and Nick were part of all the video and ad production meetings. They knew how to approach brands, how to work with them and how to pitch. But if I’m somebody who’s 17 years old and making Minecraft videos, you don’t know how to do that, don’t know how to connect. If you’re in that midrange, if you didn’t just explode, you have an audience and they can be activated, but how do you do that? You’re not even sure. That’s where that might come in.

Chobot: Midrange would be good. If you do blow up and you’re actually that big, there’s no reason to stop yourself from cold-calling agencies and seeing if they’re interested. You should do that first. They’ve been in the business for a long time. They’re legit. You know you’re not going to end up necessarily getting taken advantage of.

GamesBeat: Would you have advice for brands in how they should approach influencers?

Miller: They need to know what’s going on. That’s the biggest thing about it. The ones that have reached out—not even to sponsor us, to be part of it—it’s the ones who catch a Twitter conversation where someone isn’t mentioned. This is a weird one. Stick with me. A couple of years ago, somebody tweeted out about, “Hey, Digiorno pizza is great.” And I’m like, “Yeah, but they never sell the buffalo chicken pizza anymore. They discontinued it.”

A year later, they responded to that tweet and me. “We brought back the pizza! We’ll send you a bunch of pizzas.” And they did, and then we did a topic about frozen pizzas, which got all these different frozen pizzas name-dropped in there. Not trying to get sponsorships or anything. But then kids started tweeting about that. Those brands then sent us more pizzas. We suddenly had this pizza war, where every three days new people were sending us frozen pizzas to be part of this Instagram/Twitter thing.

It capped off with my local pizza shop in the suburbs of Chicago, Home Run Inn, sending us all these pizzas and a pizza oven. This was a weird fun social media brand thing—

Chobot: Maybe you could share the wealth next time!

Miller: Come on up! We still have a lot in the freezer. But that was a fun thing. A lot of brands would scroll by and think, “Okay, people are talking about us, cool. These guys aren’t the biggest thing in the world, but it’s a conversation about pizza involving hundreds of people and we should be a part of it.

Chobot: Mine was Taco Bell.

Miller: That’s a great one.

Chobot: I know. I love Taco Bell. I probably eat it at least once a week. I’m not ashamed to admit it. Then they ended up sending me—they saw me talking about Taco Bell. They ended up sending me some gift cards, and then a Taco Bell bathing suit that is—it’s a one-piece, and the front of it looks like a hot sauce packet. I’m like, “This is perfect.”

So, brands reaching out to influencers—if they can do it organically, because it makes sense to be part of that thread and it’s a great way to reach somebody that appreciates you and promote the brand organically, that’s a great idea. On a higher professional level, if they actually want to do a contract, do a deal, the most important thing to keep in mind—I’m sure they’ve all don’t their own analytics, but I would say—I do feel this is changing. But don’t just go for numbers. Go for engagement. Engagement is key.

Just because you’re throwing yourself in front of a lot of eyeballs, if it doesn’t make sense that those eyeballs would ever be attracted to your brand normally, you’re throwing your money away. You might get something out of there, but it’s not benefiting you. It’s all about engagement.

Miller: That’s what we always talk about, about how small the Kinda Funny audience is. But when we say, “Hey, try Omaha Steaks, because we really love it,” they go and do it. Not only that, they tweet me about it and we do this whole thing. See, it’s working. It’s authentic. It’s not just pandering for whatever. It’s a real thing. You’re going to forget Father’s Day! Order these steaks! They’re giving you a deal!

Chobot: You’re a terrible son. I never forget Father’s Day.

GamesBeat: You’re primarily entertainers. But every now and then someone like Geoff Keighley will do something at the Game Awards that’s a bit more about responsibility, given where he is in the industry. Do you also feel something like that responsibility, given your followings?

Miller: 100 percent, yeah.

Chobot: Although I have to say, I’ve never really seen anything too awful. I mean, there’s been some stuff in the past that’s come out that I definitely had conversations with people over, in regards to Gamergate and all that other stuff. But I’ve never felt like it was necessary to drag anybody. I’m not out there to do that.

Miller: In my context, all I do is talk to my audience. All I sell is these podcasts and shows that are off the cuff, just us talking. In Kinda Funny Games Daily, yeah, we talk about loot boxes. Yeah, you don’t agree with this, but this is how I think you should address the situation. Recently with—not even today’s speech from Trump, but last week when somebody brought up violent video games—

Chobot: Oh, my God.

Miller: I had a whole rant on Kinda Funny Games Daily about, “Don’t get distracted. This is a distraction method. Stick to mental health, gun control, what the NRA is doing. This isn’t a fight we need to fight. That’s bait.”

I use my own personal mistakes all the time. I know we talk to an audience that’s around my age, but skews younger too. It’s little stuff. We’ll get people to write in or something and then it’ll be a conversation, especially with how it’s all been lately about safe spaces or people’s feelings or this or that. “You just have to remember that, when I was growing up, I used to throw around ‘gay,’ all the time, and it wasn’t until I got to college and met openly gay people that were my friends that they said to me, ‘What do you think you’re saying when you do that?’ I never understood that.”

I get to use the show to say, “I understand where you’re coming from, but you’re where I was.” Tim has so many horrible stories of things he did when he was young and stupid. We get to teach by example. We’re not infallible by a long shot. So when we screw up, we say, “This is where we screwed up.” When we’re talking and something like “retarded” slips in there, we’re like, “I didn’t mean that. That’s not cool.” To have those open conversations with people, to show that it isn’t as if when somebody says something horrible you have to demonize them when they’re not there to back up—it’s about what your intentions are.

GamesBeat: It’s good to be able to understand and explain gamer culture to the rest of the world. I’m also hopeful that gamer culture goes in a positive direction.

Miller: The problem—it’s always what we used to talk about at IGN. You go in there and you read a review, and they say the game’s good or they say the game’s bad, and 98 percent of that audience says, “All right, cool,” and they go about their lives. But then there’s the two percent that’s going to get in the comments, and then of that percentage in the comments, there’s another percentage that’s just going to be an asshole.

You get so wrapped up in it that you think the vocal minority is the majority, when they’re not. The majority of people consume our content and move on. But when I go to my subreddit and one guy’s mad about something, and another guy’s mad about it, and they have a thread that goes on for 15 responses, it looks like a whole bunch of people are mad when in reality it’s just two guys arguing with themselves.

Chobot: I just ban them. If you can’t be civil you’re not allowed on my playground.