''"Welcome to Guys: A Podcast About Guys."
— The show's opener
Guys: A Podcast About Guys is a comedy podcast hosted by leftist internet personality Bryan Quinby that explores different types of subcultures and internet communities built around shared interests, and the guys who participate in them. While having an interest in any of the topics discussed is not necessarily a bad thing, guys who have a fanatical or narrow interest in the topic or have some other personality quirk, are going to be examined.
Guys Hosts:
- Bryan Quinby: A former cable guy and the show's host, known for his love of wrestling, Legos, terrible nu metal music, and his own bizarre personal habits.
- Chris James: An internet streamer and professional prank phone caller who serves as the show's co-host.
Welcome to TV Tropes, a website about the tropes found in Guys: A Podcast About Guys:
- The Alcoholic: One segment of Bourbon Guys looked at a debate prompted by bourbon Youtuber Fred Wennick about whether it was problematic for Bourbon Guys to hide their alcohol purchases from their spouses. Nearly all of the Bourbon Guys in the comments admitted to doing just that.
- Parodied by Bryan and Chris who insist that their Bourbon of choice is Pappy Van Winkle. In reality, they both are teetotalers.
- Ascended Extra: Chris started as a regular, almost permanent, guest before officially being elevated to Cohost in Summer 2023.
- Bait-and-Switch: The poor Bourbon guys fell victim to this. Some of them took a tour of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail with the assumption that visiting a certain amount would land them a free t-shirt as a prize. When they instead received a souvenier shot glass, they took to Tripadvisor and Yelp to voice their displeasure.
- Butt-Monkey: Even though he is the host of the show, Bryan’s flubs and strange habits are often brought into question at least once per episode.
- Bryan admitted in "Cask Ale Guys" that when he was younger, he would enjoy several Jell-O shots after a long shift at work; the same way most people would relax with a bottle of beer or glass of wine, which has led to much teasing.
- "Productivity Guys" was a Humiliation Conga of his eating habits.
- Chew Toy: Many of the shock jocks that Bryan has covered on other shows (Opie, Mancow, etc.) get this treatment.
- Cloudcuckooland: In the world of guys, each episode focuses solely one one particular type of guy and the kinds of places (i.e. message boards, Reddit, etc.) where they would be found talking about their specific interests. In that context, some of the individual guys come off as less intelligent or stable than they might actually be in real life.
- As one reviewer commented, “Guys is a building full of freaks, and Bryan is the doorman who lets you in to wander the halls.”
- Couch Gag: Each week, Bryan introduces Chris with a different nickname referring to something that is looked down upon by whatever guys are being looked at in that particular episode. Chris always gets annoyed by this, as he has no idea why he got that nickname or why it would be considered funny.
- Deadpan Snarker: This is Chris to the letter.
- Department of Redundancy Department: The show's subtitle, in case the topic of the podcast wasn't clear enough.
- The Patreon show takes it even further: "Guys+: A Podcast About Guys: A Podcast About Guys."
- Ensemble Dark Horse: Even though each guy is an entity unto himself, there are a few who have become so beloved that they are referenced or even reexamined in unrelated episodes.
- David the Shark: A sales guy who writes long "motivational" Linkedin posts wherein he refers to himself in the 3rd person while dropping as many shark/fish puns as he can.
- Michael Noland: A classic rock guy who hosts “The Bottom Line”, a Youtube show where he posts videos detailing his very linear thoughts on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Led Zeppelin, and The Beatles, and basically nothing else.
- Randymon: The pen name of Randy Russell, the former Director of Marketing and Sales at Hedonism II who would occasionally respond to reviews left on Hedonism's Trip Advisor page. He was a middle-aged white guy.
- Tom and Bunny: A middle-aged swinger couple that gives tours of various sex clubs on their Youtube channel.
- Tony K.: A native of Vancouver, British Columbia who will write one-star Yelp reviews for restaurants that have rock music on the speaker system or serve his water at too cold a temperature.
- Foil: Chris to Bryan and sometimes the guests of the episode.
- In the "Real Or Fake" Pop Quiz of Hot Sauce Guys, Chris automatically guessed the opposite of whatever the show's guests, The Dough Boys, had selected for almost every question. He only got 3 questions right and lost handily.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: Averted. Bryan said that the very first episode (Sex Guys) was almost this as he found women were more likely to review sex board games and toys than men, but he just wanted the show to be about guys.
- Hate Sink: Count Jackula from the Horror Guys episode rubbed everyone the wrong way with his openly horny antics.
- The Loss Prevention Guy who posts videos of himself in a parking lot telling stories about times he's stopped shoplifters in whatever store he's parked in front of also got a lot of revile. That said, his persona was depressing enough that some people just started feeling sorry for him by the time the episode ended.
- Manchild: Bryan is an avowed Lego guy, although he does only buy the 18+ sets.
- Nice Guy: For all the teasing Bryan gets about his flubs, bizarre tastes in pop culture, and spending habits, everyone who's worked with him states that he's a solid guy and easy to get along with.
- Pop Quiz: Some episodes feature Bryan playing a game called "Real or Fake?" with Bryan reading off the name of a product related to that show's theme (i.e. an alleged brand of hot sauce) and Chris and the show's guests must decide whether the name is real or if Bryan made it up.
- Running Gag: Where to start?
- Bryan identifying as a Canadian or a Los Angeleno, even though he’s a lifelong resident of Ohio and has only visited those places on rare occasions.
- Bryan being a sex guy and a regular visitor to Hedonism II, which he heatedly denies. Some fans have even offered to set up a Go Fund Me to pay for a trip for Bryan to Hedonism II.
- Whenever Bryan brings up his career working for a cable company, Chris will immediately reference The Cable Guy and suggest that Bryan was a lot like Jim Carrey's character in that movie.
- Sore Loser: A sex guy in Episode 01 reviewed a sex board game called "Monogamy" complaining that the rules were arbitrary and didn't let him win.
- Special Guest: Each episode comes with a special guest commentator, usually someone who brings enough knowledge of the subject matter without necessarily being a “guy” themselves.
Join us next week, when we will look at TV Tropes Guys. Goodbye!
