Ryan

Editor in Chief and Co-Founder
The Loud One
That face to the left, that’s Ryan. He is a husband to Millie, a father to James, a player of video games, a lover of film, and an occasional comic book reader.
Ryan’s love of gaming all started on his 10th birthday when his parent gifted him a PlayStation with the ReBoot video game. Since then he has been in love with PlayStation and games.
He has lived all around Victoria, Australia in his almost 30 years. Born and raised in Traralgon until he moved to the big city of Melbourne where he studied to become a full blown real scientist, then made his way to Geelong and settled down with his wife and began raising his son. Oh and while he was here he founded The PopCulturists with Josh!
He loves playing many and all genre of games (also never really finishing them), dissecting and breaking the down, and sharing his thoughts. Same can be said for movies, his second pop culture love.
Ryan’s role at The PopCulturists is to keep everything moving forward and afloat. He ensures it stays funded, the content is regular, and of the best quality PopC can create. He LOVES streaming pre-release and new games to help get you hyped and try-before-you-buy.
Ryan hopes to grow The PopCulturists into the biggest influencers in the Australian video game scene and have For The Players as the #1 PlayStation Podcast in Australia.
PSN: BETSON
Favourite Game Genre: Farming Simulators (really!)
Favourite Movie Genre: Kevin Smith (it’s a genre right?)
Favourite Comic Publisher: DC Comics

Josh

Josh Saunders
Senior Editor and Co-Founder
The Short One
This is Josh. Josh likes games. Josh likes games A LOT. Ever since being gifted a SNES at the tender age of 5, you will see him more often than not with some sort of controller in his hands. From Zelda to Kirby to Warcraft to Uncharted, he’s played it all (may or may not have, in fact, played it all).
Josh lives in Geelong, and his absolute favorite thing to do is play Video Games with his 2 kids. He’s doing what he can to make sure the next generation of gamers are well prepared for the dungeons, castles and lost princesses that await them.
Joshs’ role at the PopCulturists is primarily to show up and cop the brunt of height-related jokes. Other than that, For The Players is his driving force. Together, he and Ryan hope to make this show the #1 Playstation Podcast in Australia.

PSN: Microcuts88
Favorite Game Genre: JRPG
Favorite Movie Genre: Horror
Favorite Comic Publisher: Image

Dylan

Senior Editor & Co-Founder

The Arrogant One & Editor Extraordinaire

Born in the suburbs of middle class Adelaide, Dylan grew up on an unhealthy amount of 80’s movies, 16-bit videogames, animated TV series and cheesy 90’s sitcoms. Embracing his love of pop culture from a young age he absorbed and dissected everything he could get his hands on from Video Cassettes and DVD’s, figurines and magazines to special features and behind the scenes.

Cultivating that knowledge creatively by drawing his own comics books, writing his own movies scripts and editing his own video’s led to an education at in Film and Television at the prestigious institute of TAFE (classy community college).

Migrating to the big smoke of Melbourne he has since channelled that energy in to writing for national independent website Novastream and making video content for international entertainment website JoBlo.com finally culminating in to joining forces with the ultimate no budget, back room, you tubing empire The PopCulturists!

Now residing in Geelong Dylan works to bring entertainment news, reviews and insights to the people of Australia and the world through the triple threat of hosting, videoing and editing weekly content.

Favourite Game Genre: Third Person Adventure

Favourite Movie Genre: All

Favourite Comic Publisher: Marvel

Joel

IT Technical Support
Resident Hacker
This is Joel. He’s the guy that takes care of our technical tasks, he made this website for us. He’s a husband and father to be, lover of games and anime.
Joel’s love of games started around the age of 5 when he first played the SNES, and to this day still believes Super Mario World is one of the greatest games of all time.
Moving on from the SNES Joel got the PS1 and has been a lover of all things PlayStation ever since.
Unlike the rest of the PopCulturists crew, Joel resides in Sydney and communicates with the guys primarily via text. After finishing high school, Joel studied website design and development and then later computer programming before landing a job as a website developer.
In his spare time Joel runs Ani-Game.com and enjoys chilling out playing video games, watching some anime/movies and spending time with his wife.
PSN: reaper_joel
Favourite Game Genre: Story driven adventure games and visual novels.
Favourite Movie Genre: Psychological Thriller
Favourite Comic Publisher: Alternates between Marvel and DC on a regular basis.

Jess

Social Media and Community Manager
“Nerd-mum-chic”
This is Jessi, mother of two, wife of one, n00b gamer and pop culture obsessed.
Jessi started her “official” gaming life as a late bloomer. Diving head first into World of Warcraft at 20 years old to impress her now husband Lee. ( I mean, if it works it works….Right? ) And was primarily a #Pcmasterrace gamer until she picked up her very own PS4 this year.
Now she comfortably flits like a hummingbird between the two. Jessi has lived in and around the western suburbs of Melbourne all her life, not getting out much, doing her daily quests with the kids. The majority of her skill points were earned not through the aide of trainers, but through grinding level upon level upon level. I’m sure she’s still grinding away now.
If she doesn’t know the answer, give her about an hour and she’ll have come up with something. Jessi’s role at the PopCulturists is to keep the fans up to speed with all the latest and greatest gaming/movie/pop culture happenings and to hang and chat with you guys, the community and create events where you can all have a bunch of fun. Without you she’d be out of a job.
PSN: Rockamommy
Favourite Game Genre: Open World RPG
Favourite Movie Genre: Animated (She’s just a big kid really)
Favourite Comic Publisher: Top Cow/ DC
Favourite Pokemon: Venusaur/ Milotic

Jem

Sub-Culturist and Wrestling Liaison

This is Jem. By day she is a professional body piercer, by night she is a co-host to Ryan on The Young and the Wrestlers. Jem has a passion for all things pop culture so much so that she has tattoos of some of her favourite TV shows, Jem and The Holograms and Archer with more movies and game pieces to come.

Jem was born and raised in Melbourne’s western suburbs where she developed her love for wrestling on the weekends, watching with her father and having play matches against him during the ad breaks. Gaming came shortly after by watching her brother play games like Metal Gear Solid and Tomb Raider, they set a fire in her that has never extinguished.

Jem has been a member of the PopC Community for some time, now taking her seat as the “Sub-Culturist” as Josh put it. She is hoping that alongside Ryan, with their shared passion of wrastlin’ she can help propel The PopCulturists into a whole new genre of pop culture.

PSN: jemthepiercer
Favourite Game Genre: Point & click adventure.
Favourite Movie Genre: Stoner comedy.
Favourite Comic Publisher: DC Comics