ProZD makes cool nerd humor

You know a video ProZD when you see one: they are tacky, hilarious and short, and immersed in a kind of deep geekery that has recently returned to fashion. He amuses himself with animated tropes, common frustrations in role plays (think: this character who has only one line of voice for a specific action) and the subtleties of the mechanics of table games. The experience is perfectly viral; that is, if you know the topics, you will have the impression that someone has entered your brain, rooting a bit and coming back in the air with a thought that you felt but has never been expressed noisy.

What is different from ProZD, which is also known as voice actor and YouTuber SungWon Cho, is that everything it makes is just pleasant. Online games and cartoons are notoriously toxic – think of the avatars of Gamergate and Twitter – and it's truly refreshing to discover work that feels genuinely nerd-centric, but without the fandom from Trainwrecks. On YouTube, this earned him about 2 million subscribers; Cho's dubbing work has appeared in games and animated series (such as Netflix Tuca & Bertie). And he also worked as an actor, notably in "Anime Crimes Division", which parodies anime and detectives.

"I think I'm just a nice guy," says Cho. "I do not feel the need to be a kind of lord of the order, who tries to offend people – it's just out of my nature," he says. "I'm just doing what I love to do." He is proud to be authentic. "There is no reason to be a dick if you can help him."

Cho's videos are low budget, consciously and consciously: "I use my phone, because I do not care," says Cho, though he notes that he could get a nicer setup if he really wanted one. "Who knows, maybe someday it will happen, but I find that I'm lazy, and it's almost funnier to say that it's slapped together." Filming takes less than an hour for a short sketch, although it may be much longer if the idea is more involved. But editing takes forever. "A lot of people do not realize YouTube is that if you do not hire your own publisher, you do the editing for each video. So it's just hours and hours of editing, "says Cho. He also plays pretty much every character.

Most of Cho's videos are also similar: there is the parody of the anime harem ("The Tomoko Chairem Anime"), the sending of the role play ("King Dragon") and the many numerous sketches that distil the worldly scenarios to their essence. (To name a few: "When a song is played, it's more intense than what your current mood is ready to do", "When a friend starts watching a show you like," Googling your symptoms "etc.)

Even with all the work that goes into it, the scenarios are not planned. King Dragon and Tomoko Chairem Anime were two ideas on the spot – although in each of them the videos connect to form a larger and interconnected world. "My cannon is rock solid," says Cho. And that's it. The King Dragon RPG game, which started from a disposable vineyard, revolves around the quest of Dennis (the player) to save Prince Horace from King Dragon (and, of course, from the death of Archibald, betrayed by the villain Lysanderoth). In the anime Tomoko Chairem, the main character, Tomoko, is surrounded by several adorable boys who are also furniture – Lamp-senpai, Refrigerator-senpai, Bed-chan and The Twins (two chairs) – up to the end. Refrigerator-senpai kills Lampsenpai. "I did not have a choice, Tomoko," the fridge said immediately after the murder. "You have no idea how tall this is going to be."

"I assure you that everything works with what has already been established. And I like to get back to things, "says Cho. "It's just building and building without any plan. We do not care? These are just stupid little videos. Although, he notes, people will follow the themes and intrigues that come up, and that's exactly what Cho wants to achieve. "I have a kick. Because I think it's funny to build a story from scratch.

And these stories tend to be the kind of material that conclusively proves that the nerds have finally won. Think about it: Game of thrones – a television series based on an unfinished collection of high fantasy novels (naturally a trope in high fantasy novels) – is by far the most popular show in America, even after its much-maligned end; Avengers: End of the game, the conclusion of a ten-year-old saga of superheroes based on Marvel's comics, recorded the strongest already; and these days it's even cool to play Dungeons & Dragons. The jocks are outside, man. ProZD is in.

Today, YouTube is Cho's main task – even if it's never been his goal when he started posting videos that he'd made with a friend while he was still there. ### He was in high school. "Honestly, YouTube was a kind of accident as a career," he says.

Cho began by creating videos on other platforms, such as Tumblr, Twitter and Vine. Finally, he said, he snowballed. He remembers it because it was Christmas Eve 2016; subscriber numbers began to climb without stopping. "It was like a nice Christmas present," Cho says. "I just found it very surreal." The reason, he thinks, is a video that he has shot where he jokingly tried to sing all the high notes (notoriously high) in A's song. -Ha "Take On Me". "I did not do it. I do not think so. I just throwing it just for fun, "he says, though he thinks he's been stimulated by something like Reddit.

The success he's had since then has been the same as the fame of the Internet: people tell, and then they follow. Cho says that his fans tend to be between 18 and 35 years old, and nerdy – because "my videos have a lot of jokes and nerdy content". And that's what is said: Cho does a lot of different things, but they level nerdery.

Still, making things online can be difficult. And, as Cho says, it's the same thing with dubbing. "I think a lot of people do not realize that it's just a case of rejection. Because you will not have 90% of the auditions you are going to do because so many people with whom you are competing are so good, "he says. The most difficult thing in this space is rejection. YouTube, by contrast, is another beast. "I think burnout is a problem that many people struggle with," says Cho. "I'm trying to alleviate this problem as best I can, by doing things that interest me and not just trying to produce content that satisfies my audience." Many great creators are exhausted because they feel compelled to do the same things that they do not excite you for, he says. It's hard to balance the desires of your audience with the wildness of creative development.

This is a real concern, because these days, most of Cho's revenue comes from YouTube – mostly sponsorships, then advertising revenue. He participates in dubbing concerts that report well, but these advertising partnerships are those where real money is. "I'm actually in a pretty lucky position, where, for the moment, I can somehow create videos whenever I feel like it," said Cho, adding that he had already felt he needed to publish messages every day. "But I definitely slowed down, just because things are going well. And since I've been in Los Angeles, I've had a lot of dubbing roles, "which, as he points out, has always been his goal.

"If I could get to a point where YouTube is more than a hobby, yes, I would," Cho says. "If I play often enough, I do not have to worry about YouTube. If I do not have to worry about my work? Yes, I would do it for sure. He does not feel stuck. What is it? Is to feel, however, is grateful.

"Ideally, I would like more and more people to know," Oh, it's a doubler that's also playing on YouTube, "said Cho, and he gets there." But at the same time, I I'm very grateful to people who love my videos on YouTube, and you know, who gives shit, no matter what you know me, I'm glad you like what I do. "