Brian David Gilbert

Brian David Gilbert (born January 29, 1994), also known by his initials BDG, Gilbert graduated from Johns Hopkins University's School of Arts and Sciences in 2016. The following year, Brian and Laura Gilbert and musician Jonah Scott released the comedy musical YouTube video , a backing track that syncs up with Stranger Things in place of the show's audio. It depicts the characters as a boy band and replaces the Demogorgon with the "Jazzman".

Brian David Gilbert became a Polygon.com video producer in late 2017. He gained popularity for Unraveled, a series of comedic video game deep dives, At Pax East 2019, he performed a version of the PokéRap from the Pokémon series that he rewrote to include all 812 Pokémon at the time. After developing a fanbase on Polygon, Gilbert began to create his own content full-time. He left the publication in late 2020 to pursue writing and voice acting, and started a Patreon for his own YouTube channel. He later left the band in 2021. In October 2020, Gilbert and Han released a YouTube video titled Earn $20K EVERY MONTH by being your own boss, described by The A.V. Club as "one of the year's most unnerving horror movies".

For Halloween 2021, Gilbert released a series (co-written by Jonah Scott) of monster-themed ABBA covers under the name . The series included a cover of "Lay All Your Love on Me" from the perspective of a vampire, "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)" sung as Victor Frankenstein, "Money, Money, Money" as a mummy, "Under Attack" as an evil robot, and "S.O.S." as Captain Hook. After a 2021 video in which he invented ice cream flavors, he collaborated with a Baltimore ice cream shop, The Charmery, on a limited-edition flavor.

In 2022, Gilbert released a 30-minute video explaining the American health insurance system. The video, titled A terrible guide to the terrible terminology of U.S. health insurance, was inspired by his experience losing health benefits from his Polygon job and continuing coverage under the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act until it expired. A podcast produced by Kaiser Health News called it "the best video about health insurance ever", and The New York Times said it was "silly, but useful", contrasting it with Gilbert's usual "geeky sense of humor".

Gilbert and Han announced their engagement in December 2022. At the time, they were writing a Netflix animated series and an Annapurna Interactive game.

Gilbert appeared in the 2023 animated series Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake as the Winter King, an alternate version of the Ice King. The same year, he voiced a non-playable character in the video game Honkai: Star Rail; his role was uncredited, but fans recognized his voice. In 2024, Gilbert became a cast member of two Dropout series: Um, Actually, on which he replaced Michael Saltzman as the fact checker for the ninth season, and Nobody Asked, a new science-entertainment series. The same year, he and Han worked on a pitch for a children's puppet television series titled Outdoor Ed, releasing a pilot on Gilbert's YouTube channel. Gilbert appeared in the 2024 video game Duck Detective: The Secret Salami and its 2025 sequel Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping as Freddy, a crocodile. In 2025, Gilbert was announced as the host of The Gotta Catch 'Em All! Game Show, a web series hosted on the official Pokémon Twitch channel.

Style Gilbert's YouTube videos include music videos, comedy sketches, and tutorials.

Filmography

Film

Television Year Title Credited as Role Notes Among Us 2 episodes

Web series

Ludography