INFLUENCE

Matt Silverman
INFLUENCE

What does it really take to make a living (and an impact) on the Internet today? Join Matt Silverman (who has been covering online culture for 15+ years) in conversation with YouTubers, musicians, podcasters, streamers, journalists, TikTokers and more about turning creativity into a job, building community on ever-changing platforms, and their complex relationships with huge online audiences. INFLUENCE is the relaunch of 2 GIRLS 1 PODCAST, a weekly comedy/interview show about fascinating online communities, which ran for 7 years and nearly 300 episodes.

  1. 20 HR. AGO

    35 This Is the Worst (and Also Best) Advice to Anyone Starting a Podcast | Ep 35 Gary Arndt, Everything Everywhere

    Gary Arndt ignored all the advice for new podcasters. Instead of focusing on a specific topic, he made a show about literally everything he could think of: history, geography, quantum physics, games, technology, and more. Instead of pacing out episodes weekly or monthly, he decided to publish every single day. 1,600 episodes later, his show “Everything Everywhere” has a community of 1.5 million monthly listeners. This success story leaves out that Gary is uniquely (and perhaps exclusively?) qualified to make this specific show. He’s been working on the Internet since the dawn of the World Wide Web, and his success during the first dot-com boom allowed him to travel the world as a self-taught photographer. He’s visited more than 200 countries and every U.S. state. He’s won major photography awards and had a wildly popular travel blog long before social media was a thing. That is until ALL travel ceased in March 2020. Knowing he needed to reinvent himself (again), he started the podcast. Slowly but surely, Gary’s daily “mini audiobooks” cut through the algorithmic noise where everything else is hyper-targeted to your existing interests. Gary sits down with Matt to discuss his world travels, the power podcasts (and other RSS-powered media) have that social media never will, why he DOESN’T want you to follow him on Instagram, his process for producing a show every single day, and the lessons from the dot-com implosion of the early 2000s that feel so ominous for the modern social Web. Subscribe to the Everything Everywhere Daily Podcast wherever you listen: https://everything-everywhere.com/ This show is made possible by listener support: https://www.patreon.com/influencepod Listen & subscribe wherever you get podcasts: 🍎 https://apple.co/44FeACS 🟢 https://spoti.fi/3UGQjrN ⏯ https://amzn.to/3wCdueF Join our Discord community! https://discord.gg/influencepod Call the show and leave a message: (347)-871-6548 Email me with guest & trivia suggestions! influencepod69@gmail.com (NOICE) Follow me: 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/mattsilverman.bsky.social 🧵 https://www.threads.net/@matt_silverman 📸 https://www.instagram.com/matt_silverman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1h 22m

  2. JAN 8

    34 The Internet Is Obsessed With His Tiny Video Game Sculptures | Sky Burkson, Miniaturist

    When Sky Burkson was a kid, he had two obsessions: drawing and video games. He went on to pursue a career in set design, but his love of games never faded. And when life threw his family a curveball, he knew it was time to recombine his passions. These days, his painstaking recreations of video game architecture and environments delight thousands of fans around the world, including some of YouTube's biggest gaming influencers, who regularly commission new work. His sculptures, which are made mostly of paper, are incredibly detailed, impressionistic miniatures of our favorite moments from Super Mario 64, Bloodborne, Elden Ring, Monster Hunter, Resident Evil, The Legend of Zelda, and more. They often take months to create, but Sky credits that slowness for their popularity among online fandoms. This week, Sky joins Matt to discuss how he documents virtual spaces, why 1:1 re-creation doesn't always work, the hidden details players can't see, the reason he dumped 3D modeling software for good-old-fashioned pencils, and how to take that ONE perfect shot for social media. Check out Sky's website: https://www.skyburkson.com/ Follow him on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/skyburkson/ This show is made possible by listener support: https://www.patreon.com/influencepod Listen & subscribe wherever you get podcasts: 🍎 https://apple.co/44FeACS 🟢 https://spoti.fi/3UGQjrN ⏯ https://amzn.to/3wCdueF Join our Discord community! https://discord.gg/influencepod Call the show and leave a message: (347)-871-6548 Email me with guest & trivia suggestions! influencepod69@gmail.com (NOICE) Follow me: 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/mattsilverman.bsky.social 🧵 https://www.threads.net/@matt_silverman 📸 https://www.instagram.com/matt_silverman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1h 33m

  3. JAN 1

    33 How They Beat All 800,000 Remaining "Mario Maker" Levels Before Nintendo Pulled the Plug | Team 0%

    Happy Nude Year, one and all! I'm still on holiday break, but wanted to check in with out about the YouTuber(s) who exposed the Honey browser extension (owned by PayPal) as a massive scam, my upcoming guests, and sharing an encore episode from my other show, Colette & Matt Have Entered the Chat, about a small but mighty video game community that did the impossible, just in the nick of time! Exposing the Honey Influencer Scam, by MegaLag: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc4yL3YTwWk Original Show Notes from May 3, 2024 Since 2017, a small collective of "Super Mario Maker" enthusiasts have been trying to complete every single player-created level — a quest to truly "beat" a game with hundreds of thousands of uncleared stages. But when Nintendo announced that the servers for Wii U games would be taken offline in April 2024, the urgency reached new heights. Team 0% began to grow from its humble beginnings of about 500 members, to 15,000+ players, committed to identifying and clearing the remaining levels before they were lost to time. Playing the levels was only half the battle. Finding and cataloging the unbeaten stages using Nintendo's arcane databases was no simple task. But through some clever reverse-engineering and lots of spreadsheets, they had whittled it down to a handful of levels with just days until oblivion. What remained were some of the hardest, most obtuse Mario monstrosities ever created. And one level in particular could only be beaten by a robot — until... This week, we talk with MagicMason1000, a long time member of Team 0% who now manages the community's YouTube and social media. Mason walks us through the fascinating history of this monumental undertaking, the Team's massive popularity boom amid global headlines, what happens when Nintendo patches glitches in Mario Maker, the exciting (and then somewhat anti-climactic) final victory for the team, and the mysterious fate of all those levels now that the servers are gone. If you'd like to pitch in to beat every uncleared level of "Super Mario Maker 2," you can join the Team 0% Discord here: https://discord.gg/team0percent Check out the Team's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@TeamZeroPercent And watch henryst's The History of Mario Maker's Last 100 Levels video, as discussed in this episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUqUUXDmk40 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1h 46m

  4. 12/18/2024

    32 The Internet Has Been Searching for the Name of This '80s Song for 17 Years | The Most Mysterious Song

    In 1984, a German teenager recorded a moody new wave song from the radio. The mystery song, with crunchy guitars and English lyrics, was preserved on a cassette and forgotten. That is until 2007, when his sister discovered the tape, and began a 17-year quest to identify it. From Usenet groups, to music identification forums, a Discord server, a popular YouTuber, and a dedicated subreddit called r/TheMysteriousSong, thousands of Internet sleuths have been decoding clues and comparing notes for nearly two decades, in the hope that someone, SOMEWHERE would recognize the song. Finally, in November 2024, one Redditor found the final piece of the 17-year-long puzzle. "The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet" is now a passionate music fandom that has reunited the band after 40 years, and sparked media coverage around the world. This week on INFLUENCE, Brandon, a moderator from the subreddit r/TheMysteriousSong, and Hans-Reimer Sievers, the drummer from the band FEX, join Matt to discuss this epic musical quest, how the puzzle was solved, what the members of the band were doing all this time, their reunification and newfound fandom, and the strange "discomfort" of unidentified media in a world where everything is Google-able. Join the community: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMysteriousSong/ Listen to the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPGf4liO-KQ The FEX Official YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@FEXband-official This show is made possible by listener support: https://www.patreon.com/influencepod Listen & subscribe wherever you get podcasts: 🍎 https://apple.co/44FeACS 🟢 https://spoti.fi/3UGQjrN ⏯ https://amzn.to/3wCdueF Join our Discord community! https://discord.gg/influencepod Call the show and leave a message: (347)-871-6548 Email me with guest & trivia suggestions! influencepod69@gmail.com (NOICE) Follow me: 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/mattsilverman.bsky.social 🧵 https://www.threads.net/@matt_silverman 📸 https://www.instagram.com/matt_silverman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1h 15m

  5. 12/11/2024

    31 WikiProject AI Cleanup: Why Humans and Bots Make Different Mistakes on Wikipedia | Richard Knipel

    Wikipedia continues to be a modern miracle. Unlike social media platforms — which are rife with misinformation and grift — Wikipedia's openness and non-profit status are key to its two+ decades of value and accuracy. But a new threat is looming. Generative AI now touches everything we read, watch, and listen to on the Web. And some Wiki editors have begun experimenting with it, with mixed results. Where do large language models fit into the pursuit of accurate, reliable knowledge, if at all? And what is the Wiki community doing about generative articles when they go horribly wrong? This week, the president of Wikimedia New York City Richard Knipel joins Matt to discuss WikiProject AI Cleanup, a volunteer effort to identify AI-generated content on Wikipedia and assess its value as community standards rapidly evolve. The solution to this challenge, as with most things, is way more complicated than we initially thought. Richard explains how AI tools have been used for years to make Wikipedia richer and more inclusive, why humans and bots make different kinds of mistakes, the standards for accuracy that both must aspire to, why hot-button Wikipedia articles about politicians and current events are often MORE accurate than niche topics, and how you can contribute knowledge to Wikipedia in small but powerful ways. Learn more about WikiProject AI Cleanup: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_AI_Cleanup Connect with Richard: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardknipel/ This show is supported on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/influencepod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1h 15m

  6. 12/04/2024

    30 Skip the Script: How Karen Cassady Built an Improv Empire, One Wig at a Time

    Karen Cassady had finally made it. She was working full time as a comedy performer and teacher, with weekly shows at Atlanta's top improv theater. Then March 2020 happened. She and her comedy cohorts tried to translate their shows to Twitch live streams, but the "lulz" in the chat just didn't cut it. Unemployed and painfully bored, she put on some wigs and began riffing other people's videos on TikTok. But it wasn't until she began improvising an original Rom Com (and playing every character) that her life completely changed. Today, Karen is beloved by millions for her over-the-top characters and extremely relatable social media sketches - most of which are improvised. The "strict teacher" and "cool mom" now reach a global audience, and brands want in. Karen joins Matt to discuss the trial and error that got her to the top of the For You Page, why online improv is finally having its moment, the fan messages that kept her going during the pandemic, why her video creation process never includes a script, and her involvement in one of the weirdest and most viral comedy videos in YouTube history. Follow Karen: https://www.tiktok.com/@karencassssss https://www.instagram.com/karendcasss This show is made possible by listener support: https://www.patreon.com/influencepod Listen & subscribe wherever you get podcasts: 🍎 https://apple.co/44FeACS 🟢 https://spoti.fi/3UGQjrN ⏯ https://amzn.to/3wCdueF Join our Discord community! https://discord.gg/influencepod Call the show and leave a message: (347)-871-6548 Email me with guest & trivia suggestions! influencepod69@gmail.com (NOICE) Follow me: 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/mattsilverman.bsky.social 🧵 https://www.threads.net/@matt_silverman 📸 https://www.instagram.com/matt_silverman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1h 30m

  7. 11/27/2024

    29 Upcoming Episodes & Happy Thanksgiving!

    Salutations, one and all! I'm taking this week off, but excited to share some episodes that are on the docket for the coming weeks, and a BRILLIANT piece of media theory that might explain what the world is going through at this political moment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    49 min

  8. 11/20/2024

    28 My Doctor Fat-Shamed Me, but TikTok Knew It Was Colon Cancer | Amanda Lee, Patient Advocate

    Amanda Lee was a passionate wedding photographer whose business was booming - that is, until, February 2020. Covid canceled her job and income, and to make matters worse, severe stomach pain was preventing her from eating (and pooping). When she finally got an appointment to see a doctor at the height of the pandemic, instead of offering scans or tests, he said it was "a blessing" that she hasn't eaten solid food in weeks, since she could stand to lose a few pounds. Distraught and in tears, she turned to TikTok to vent her frustration, then went to bed. She woke up to THOUSANDS of women in the comments, sharing similar stories dismissal and fat-shaming. They also urged her to get a colonoscopy ASAP. Turns out, a massive tumor was blocking her colon, and she immediately started treatment for Stage 3 cancer. Amanda's extraordinary story about our broken healthcare system and the power of women supporting each other on the Internet has garnered her a huge following on TikTok and Instagram, and media appearances on The Today Show and other outlets. She joins Matt to discuss how TikTok comments *literally* saved her life, fighting cancer with no income, her mom and friends who stood by her side, her innovative work with brands, and her new life's work as a patient advocate for women who need allies in the doctor's office. Follow Amanda: https://www.tiktok.com/@mandapaints https://www.instagram.com/mandapaints/ This show is made possible by listener support: https://www.patreon.com/influencepod Listen & subscribe wherever you get podcasts: 🍎 https://apple.co/44FeACS 🟢 https://spoti.fi/3UGQjrN ⏯ https://amzn.to/3wCdueF Join our Discord community! https://discord.gg/influencepod Call the show and leave a message: (347)-871-6548 Email me with guest & trivia suggestions! influencepod69@gmail.com (NOICE) Follow me: 🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/mattsilverman.bsky.social 🧵 https://www.threads.net/@matt_silverman 📸 https://www.instagram.com/matt_silverman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1h 21m
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4.5
out of 5
110 Ratings

About

What does it really take to make a living (and an impact) on the Internet today? Join Matt Silverman (who has been covering online culture for 15+ years) in conversation with YouTubers, musicians, podcasters, streamers, journalists, TikTokers and more about turning creativity into a job, building community on ever-changing platforms, and their complex relationships with huge online audiences. INFLUENCE is the relaunch of 2 GIRLS 1 PODCAST, a weekly comedy/interview show about fascinating online communities, which ran for 7 years and nearly 300 episodes.

Information

  • Creator
    Matt Silverman
  • Years Active
    2017 - 2025
  • Episodes
    358
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 445657
  • Show Website
    INFLUENCE

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