Hi there, hello, it's the trope page for Ryan George.

Ryan George (born June 21, 1989 in Montreal, Quebec) is an actor and web video producer, known for his work with Screen Rant and his personal YouTube channel, where he regularly releases comedy sketch videos, usually a deconstruction of society that ends with a joke. His most popular variation on this concept is his "The First Guy" series, which depicts the first guy to do a mundane activity, such as swim, celebrate a birthday, or open a restaurant, with the joke being that it sounds ridiculous when described for the first time.

With Screen Rant, he does voiceovers for videos, and also produced the hit Screen Rant Pitch Meetings.

Has another channel titled "Ryan George Extra Plus" for longer videos, reactions, and (still comedic) video essays. Some of his favorite topics are reacting to ridiculously expensive houses available for sale, strange niche social media posts, and bizarre news stories.

"Hey look it's the tropes for the guy, see you read the tropes from... from his videos":

• Accentuate the Negative: Very common in his content. He makes fun of things society takes for granted, talks about how weird and/or inconvenient many everyday things are, and points out the flaws in popular movies.
• Affably Evil: Even the criminals are polite and understanding in the Ryanverse, since most of them are the first people to ever actually do any crime and aren't completely sure about what they're doing.
• Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: Discussed sympathetically in his video on street interviews, as he realises that women (and it tends to be women targeted) who are very drunk and having fun probably aren’t in the right frame of mind to think about the ramifications of sharing sexual details, and blames the street interviewers for taking advantage.
• The Alleged Car: The YouTuber's new car model in "When YouTuber Products Are Dangerous" has "touch-screen seatbelts", steering wheels made of cheese, the driver's seat that reclines like "one of those old leather chairs [the YouTuber's] grandpa died in", has a "VIP section upstairs", can fly, and has lead paint. When the engineer the YouTuber hired to build the car points all this out along with the fact that the YouTuber's audience mostly consists of kids who obviously can't drive, the YouTuber ignores all his complaints and decides to make a challenge video in which 1000 of his fans try to survive 24 hours in it.
• All Girls Like Ponies: The first guy to ever ride a horse insists the trend will be popular with "rich people and little girls with intricately-braided hair."
• All Men Are Perverts: The only way he got people to buy his "Sandwich with a Pretty Big Pickle in It" was to say that "if you buy it, women will want to sleep with you." Everyone at the network office immediately ordered multiple sandwiches.
• All of Them: In "The First Guy To Ever Be King," when the other guy asks the king what he's in charge of, the king says "Just, you know, just all of it."
  • Similarly in "Time Traveler Discovers Elon Musk", when the reporter explains that Space X's work on getting humans to Mars seems less about helping expand humanity's horizons and more of a cynical escape plan, he is asked "Escape from what?", and replies "Just... all of it."
• Anachronism Stew: Big part of humor of "The First Guy to Ever..." series is that the titular characters do something in a vaguely modern era, but without some obvious-for-us things.
• Anxiety Dreams: “The First Guy To Ever Dream” dreams of his best friend hating him, and being considered so dumb that he has to be put in a room.
• As Himself: Played for Laughs at the end of "How Billionaires Will Act During The Apocalypse", as the usual adstronaut spiel gets interrupted with Ryan promoting Douglas Rushkoff's "Survival Of The Richest" (the inspiration for the sketch). He apologises for jump-scaring us with his real self, and it cuts back to the adstronaut having blacked out.
• Bad Present:
  • A common theme of the "Time Traveller Discovers" series, where a reporter from the 90s is sent to whichever year the video was made in and is reporting back his findings to a 90s-era TV show. Practically every second sentence out of his mouth is some variation of the phrase, "I don't like it here, please send me back!"
  • Another example is “If Captain America Arrived In 2018”, where the guy has to explain to Captain America that he can’t meet the President because the dude lies all the time. There are also children in cages and a load of gun violence, but at least Beyoncé exists.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • "The First Guy to Ever Punch Someone" starts with a guy proclaiming another guy has an ugly face and that he is forcing his hand while raising a clenched fist, only to use the hand to list off every thing he doesn't like about the other guy's face. It is the insulted guy who first punch the first guy in the mouth to stop it from spewing out insults.
  • "The Guy who Invented Sarcasm" begins with a guy responding to news of an office meeting in a sarcastic tone. Then his coworker Roger comes over and declares that he (Roger) just invented sarcasm, with Roger's coworkers telling him to go away. It's implied that the guy speaking in a sarcastic tone wasn't even doing it on purpose.
  • In "Ghosts Are Bad At Revenge", the guy who just died learns the last thing he did was decide to jaywalk across a busy street, but it turns out he got stabbed to death before he could do it.
  • "If Presidents Had Court Jesters" opens with the president insisting he get assistance from not his secretary of defense, but Blimpo, his court jester. In walks a guy in a full clown outfit... who is actually the secretary of defense called in on accident. The real Blimpo comes in next, and he's just dressed like an average businessman.
  • Ryan very rarely includes anything from “Pitch Meetings” in his sketches or Extra Plus, but in “Making Fun Of Billionaires Because I’m Jealous”, he says it will be “super easy… barely not even difficult at all”. Bonus points for the TV in the background having a “he’s going to say it” countdown and then shorting out when he catchphrase-edges everyone.
• Ban on Politics: In-universe, a few Ryans would rather talk about another pandemic (the thing they were saying to not talk about the whole video) than the current state on American politics. Out of universe, Ryan has made fun of people telling him not to talk about politics more than once.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: In How Insects Got Their Names, the last insect got the name "roach", but the boss was not convinced, saying there should be something punchy at the beginning, then Pervert Guy said he had an idea, and the boss was completely dismayed of what would be.
• Berserk Button: In "How Animals Got Their Names", one guy is very inexplicably judgmental towards each big cat that comes up for naming, angrily insisting (and naturally giving them their names in the process) that they are clearly liars, cheaters, or horrible mothers (the last one he initially tries to name "sh*t mom", but upon being admonished to keep it PG amends it to "poo ma").
• Bile Fascination: invokedMocked in "When People Hate-Watch Stuff," which features two guys watching an offensive prank video by a Youtuber they both hate, questioning why he keeps doing what he's doing while also giving him ad revenue and buying his merch just to make fun of it.
• Birthday Episode: The First Guy to Ever Celebrate a Birthday is about somebody celebrating the day he came out of his mom's "parts" and awkwardly listening to someone singing "Happy Birthday To You" to him while a bunch of fiery candles are in his face.
• Bittersweet Ending: "Buying Concert Tickets in 2023" amounts to this. The concert fan can't buy the ticket he wanted from Ticketmaster, but he now won't become homeless like he would have as a result of the ticket's exorbitant price.
• Bland-Name Product: “When Giant Companies Say They Care” is about a tweet by a company called Wide-Mart.
• Brick Joke:
  • In "The First Guy to Ever Open a Restaurant", the owner tells the potential customer that he's going to walk into the building and that it's going to be very unclear if the owner wants the customer to follow him. At the end of the video, that's exactly what happens.
  • In "The First Guy to Ever Get Ripped", the muscly guy tells the construction worker Jim building his weightlifting room to work on that fourth wall. At the end of the video, when the skinny guy points out that the muscly guy's buff body is just a Photoshopped image, the wall collapses around them and the construction worker remarks that "the fourth wall just shattered."
  • In "First Day As A Sports Coach", the assistant coach confesses that he poisoned the coach soup in the hope of becoming the new coach but instead they called in a substitute coach because he had a stronger moustache. At the end of the video, when he realizes the substitute coach is really bad at his job, the assistant coach asks him if he wants some soup, to which he obliviously responds he would love to.
• Breather Episode: He has a semi-regular news show called "It's Weird Out There", where he looks at weird news that doesn't give him or us a panic attack for once.
• Brutal Honesty: Played with, as everyone delivers like an overly optimistic or confused toddler, but the CEO will outright tell you that he wants to buy your life and only give you minor sums of money.
• The Bus Came Back: Ryan Jr for Ryan’s video on Cocomelon and how awful it is for children’s brains. The horror does serve a purpose, though, as the little blood lover is a way for Ryan to talk about his daughter while also protecting her from the internet.
• Call-Back:
  • The names and descriptions of things in the series as characters describe them tend to remain consistent in later videos, such as being arrested/going to prison being "getting put in a room", water being called "the drinking stuff", and drinking alcohol being "slightly poisoning yourself for fun".
  • In “The First Guy To Ever Dream”, the friend is watching “All The Noises I Know How To Make” on the TV.
• Call to Agriculture: This Video Will Age Terribly predicts that Donald Trump would become a farmer, read stoic philosophy, and swear off all social media.
• The Cameo: Sometimes co-writer Geoff Haggerty will make an appearance, usually playing it like he’s in love with Ryan, or a yacht designer learning to stand up to himself. Jamie Lightfoot the editor and Jonny Wanzer the second editor show up too, mostly former making fun of Ryan in Caption Humor and the second to be a dork.
• Cannot Convey Sarcasm: Subverted in "The Guy Who Invented Sarcasm." Despite the guy responding to his coworker's news about a meeting with a clearly sarcastic and disinterested tone, the coworker keeps talking about it as if the first guy is being earnest. It seems he really was excited about the meeting, however, and his sarcastic tone was accidental, since the actual guy who invented sarcasm was their coworker Roger.
• Capitalism Is Bad: A frequent theme in his more social commentary videos. For example, in the 90s talk show, the host and the time traveller react with horror at how much worse and more obvious various money-grabbing ventures have gotten.
• Caps Lock, Num Lock, Missiles Lock: In "Robots Are Definitely Turning Evil", the button that turns all robots violent is right next to the office light switches.
• Cardboard Box of Unemployment: Lampshaded in "The First Guy To Ever Get Fired," in which the boss insists the employee collect his things in a cardboard box and sadly leave in the elevator, as he insists it'll be a good image to "cinematically" represent being fired in the future.
• Casual Kink: While he doesn’t enjoy it at first, the first guy to get kidnapped ends up getting stockholm, and aspires to be more than friends. The kidnapper is creeped out and turns himself in.
• Catch-22 Dilemma: In "The First Guy To Ever Open A School", the man "who people decided decides things" explains to a child that 12 years of formal schooling won't necessarily prepare him for life:
  Child: Will I be able to get a job?
  Adult: No, you need experience to get a job. This isn't going to give you experience.
  Child: Well, how do I get experience?
  Adult: You need to get a job.
  Child: [groans in disbelief]
• Catchphrase:
  • In addition to the many that make up Pitch Meetings, his characters always greet each other by saying "Hi there, hello," (adding "it's me, I'm [name/title]" if they're introducing themselves) and have a tendency to end sentences with "I/we decided".
  • The "Adstronaut" who shows up at the end of sponsored videos to promote said sponsor, always opens his section with, "Hi there, hello, it's me, I'm the Adstronaut. I'm out here in ad-space to talk to you about [sponsor product]."
  • Many characters love to respond to questions such as "Is that true?" (of a usually-implausible or even impossible idea) by aggressively shouting "It might be!"
  • When talking about something they dislike, the characters will often exclaim, "Get outta here, [unwanted thing]!"
• Cats Are Mean: At least, the one in "If Cats Were Able to Talk" is. He seems to be actively trying to ruin his owner's love life with noises, and when he does finally speak, he's racist.
• Charity Workplace Calendar: Discussed in "The First Guy to Ever Be a Firefighter" video, which ends with the victim of the fire telling the firefighter to take his shirt off before putting out the fire, saying, "You're gonna be a genre of calendar, I've decided," much to the new firefighter's total confusion.
• Cheating with the Milkman: In How Tools Got Their Names, Steve admits to his office that he caught his wife having an affair with his chauffeur and his mailman, hence he names one tool Screwdriver in her "honor".
  Steve: I put some vodka in some orange juice. I don't even care anymore! And you know what, I'm calling it a screwdriver too does that make you happy?!
• Close to Home: Ryan (husband, father, slowed down Pitch Meetings to spend more time with his daughter) is bitier than normal to the part two “Linkedin Lunatics”, as they mostly consist of shitty parents who care more about business deals than their own children or their partner’s exhaustion.
• Comedic Mustache: During Sketches, Ryan often wears a fake mustache when mocking people with authority.
• Continuity Nod: The guy who quits in frustration after a coworker is given credit for the name "bee" in "How Insects Got Their Names" later shows up in "How Sports Got Their Names", where he names a sport "cricket" and is criticized for just reusing names from his old department, and also corrects the guy who comes up with the name "rugwasp" that the insect flying around is actually a bee.
• Covers Always Lie:
  • The thumbnail for "Showing Off Our Cool Stuff To Other Dimensions" has a character talking about wasps. This does happen in the video, but only for the first minute; the next three or so minutes consist of an Author Tract about the dangers of social media algorithms, and the wasp bit only comes back briefly at the end.
  • The thumbnail for "If Sports Started Playing Out like the 2020 Election" has the words "GOAL FRAUD." written on it. These words are not said at any point in the video.
• Creepy Blue Eyes: Ryan will self-deprecate every so often about having haunting blue predator eyes, or Geoff thinking they’re weird, or the first guy to punch someone pointing out that said other guy doesn’t blink enough.
• Creepy Child: In The First Guy To Ever Celebrate Christmas, the titular guy's son has Ryan George's face edited be longer, to have larger eyes, only two teeth, and to still have a beard and mustache. This child appears again in The First Guy To Ever Be King as the King's designated successor and he's already showing signs of becoming The Caligula.
  Kid Ryan: Blood!
• Dada Ad: The second commercial in "The First Guy To Ever Make A Commercial" is a parody of meaningless commercials, showing a bunch of black-and-white natural vignettes that have nothing to do with the product.
• Daddy's Girl: Over on Extra Plus, Ryan will take every opportunity to mention that he’s a dad obsessed with his baby daughter.
  Ryan: She does this thing where she sits there and looks cute, so what am I supposed to do? She has chubby cheeks, my hands are tied.
• Deconstructive Parody: Most of his videos are this for Real Life and sometimes fictional traditions and phenomena that are otherwise taken for granted. The first guy to be a motivational speaker features an in-universe example: a story about a dog that joins a human basketball team and gets absolutely destroyed.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: Usually Played for Laughs by the "90s Time Traveler Discovers" series. For instance, in one episode he assumes that the 2023 person who made an AI version of the reporter is a huge nerd because he works with computers. Said guy protests that he's average and he just used the free-to-use chatbot and AI art programs available to everyone now.
• Department of Redundancy Department: Characters typically introduce themselves with the phrase "Hi there, hello".
• Destination Defenestration: In "The First Guy To Ever Get Fired," the titular employee worries the boss and human resources guy are going to throw him out a window when they say they're "letting [him] go." At the end of the sketch, they decide to do this instead of giving him severance pay.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: The "The Guys Who Named the Dongle" sketch is subtly alluding to the similarity between a dongle and a dong.
• A Dog Named "Dog": In the "When Fast Food Restaurants Give Out Toys" video, Michael Pickleseller introduces the mascot for the Sandwich With a Pretty Big Pickle In It company, a giant pickle named Pickles, The Pickle Who Doesn't Bite (results may vary).
• Downer Ending: Most of the Ryan George Extra Plus videos end on a Hypocritical Humor joke, even if he’s talking about serious stuff (like using AI for a pitch meeting, or wanting to live in one of the mansions he’s made fun of). “What The Hell Happened To Google Search” ends on Blatant Lies that everything will be fine and looking like he’s going to cry.
• Drive-Thru Antics: "The First Guy to Ever Order Drive-Thru" has a guy drive up to a restaurant and demand the food be brought to his car so he doesn't have to get out of his warm seat, inventing drive-thru.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: In very early videos, he would do a shaky cam because he felt bad about having so many green screen videos. Essentially, he got over himself and stopped giving people motion sickness.
• Eat the Rich: His series on “Big Dumb Luxury Homes”. In a foretold to exist house on the third episode, he’s delighted to see what looks like a guillotine “so when the poors rise up you can be executed in the comfort of your own home”.
• Even the Guys Want Him: The guy of “What Guys Expect When They Post Workout Videos” has a fantasy of every guy around him just fawning over his workouts.
• Every Episode Ending: Every ending of the 90s talk show is the reporter telling the host the Bad Future punchline (like Cosby being convicted of sexual assault) and the host going “holy sh-”.
• Exact Words: At the end of "The First Guy to Ride a Horse," the horse-rider defends his confidence in riding horses with, "This isn't my first rodeo." His boss is confused about what a "rodeo" is, and is even more confused when the rider explains it's another idea he just had recently. The rider reiterates that this indeed isn't his first rodeo, because he hasn't scheduled his first rodeo yet.
• Eye Scream: In "The First Guy to Ever Wear Contact Lenses" the way the optometrist explains how to wear them is incredibly graphic and uncomfortable. The patient outright says it sounds like torture.
• Fake Facial Hair: Ryan often wears a fake mustache for his sketches.
• Fair Cop: Parodied in “The First Guy To Ever Wear A Costume”, as a guy wearing a Sexy Whatever Outfit pretends to be a cop, and the financial planner admits to killing people, thinking the former is a real cop. Everyone agrees then that costume should be off-limits.
• False Reassurance:
  • How Is The Ocean A Real Thing has the boss misunderstand his employee asking if anyone's ever died in the ocean and assumes he's talking about the break room he'd just mentioned.
    Employee: Has anyone died in there?
    Boss: In the break room? Not very many, no.
  • When "The First Guy to Ever Climb a Mountain" casually alludes to two of his cousins dying while helping him test out methods of climbing the "triangle", the guy he's talking to asks exactly how many cousins were lost in this venture. The climber-guy assures him it was "less than twenty."
• Follow the Leader: Mentioned in-universe during “The AI that Writes Every Pop Song”, as the human forces the AI to make a song that’s like Sabrina Carpenter, but bland enough so that the middle-aged moms won’t be put off.
• Formally Named Pet: The cat in "If Cats Were Able to Talk" is named Mr. Marbles.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: At the end of “When We Finally Discover Aliens”, the newspaper actually has writing for the first few paragraphs (as a Take That! to capitalistic clickbait), before saying nobody is going to read ahead, so time for lorem epsom.
• Funny Background Event: In “The First Guy To Ever Dream”, a dreamcatcher is on the wall with a caption “feather circle art with no discernible purpose: no idea why this thing exists but it looks pretty cool”.
• Gilligan Cut:
  • In "The First Guy to Ever Break an Arm," the guy in a plaid shirt tells the guy with a broken arm that the doctor can snap his arm back into place. The guy with a broken arm says, "Well, that sounds a little intense. I don't think he's gonna want to snap it back into place." Cut to the doctor's office:
  Doctor: I think we should snap it back into place.
  Guy with broken arm: Oh my god!
  • Subverted in "The First Guy To Ever Climb a Mountain," when the mountain climber assures that he's confident he won't freeze to death, then it cuts to an image of the mountain climber frozen to death... then cuts to the mountain climber holding the image of him frozen to death, explaining that he photoshopped it to show what it'd look like if he did freeze.
• Gonk: Young Ryan is a heavily altered and ugly version of Ryan.
• Gratuitous French: Ryan is a bilingual Montrealer, and he just loves to show off his perfect French. In particular, "How Meats Got Their Names" and "The First Guy To Go on Vacation" make extensive use of his skills with the Gallic tongue.
• Groin Attack: In The First Guy To Make A Friend, the two characters bonded over the fact that they both had crocodiles bite their penises.
• Growing Up Sucks: In “Video Games As You Get Older”, Ryan tries to play games he liked as a kid, but his brain keeps reminding him of adult issues.
  Ryan: This would be relaxing if you did that dopamine thing you used to do.
  Brain: I think we’ve seen too much for me to properly do that anymore.
• Hates Rich People: Played straight, as so many sketches and Extra Plus centre around Capitalism Is Bad, but also parodied at the start of “Making Fun Of Billionaires Because I’m Jealous”, where he has fake clips of nonsense rhyming at Larry King’s skeleton.
• Have a Gay Old Time: In "When Ancestors Appear In Your Time Of Need", the pilot's great-great grandfather remarks that handphones are "queer" (odd) and they make him "gay" (happy), exasperating the pilot who tells him that those words aren't used that way anymore.
• Heel Realization: "The First Guy to Ever Go To Prison" doesn't agree with most of the reasons they decided to keep him in a small room for a long time, but agrees that cutting off someone's face and wearing it like a mask was messed up and he deserves to be punished for it.
• Heroic BSoD: He bluescreens and Geoff has to ask him if he’s okay when he finds out that Cocomelon’s videos get over 7 billion worth of views.
• Home Nudist: He explains to a ghost that they need to leave his house because he walks around naked.
• Hypocritical Humor: Most of the videos on Ryan George Extra Plus end this way, like embracing AI for a Pitch Meeting when he spent ten minutes video essay-ing why it’s terrible.
• I Never Said It Was Poison: In The First Guy to Ever Open A Hotel, a guy whose house burned down tells the prospective hotel owner that he thinks the idea will really catch on. The hotel owner's response gets the other guy suspicious that he's not just a prospective hotel owner, but an arsonist.
  Hotel Owner: You're dang right it's gonna catch on! Like a fire in a basement, eh?
  Hotel Guest: Eh!... Wait, I didn't tell you the fire started in the basement.
  Hotel Owner: (Beat) Listen, I had to get the word out somehow.
• I Have No Son!: How The Last Jedi Trailer But Every Lightsaber Sound Replaced With Owen Wilson Saying Wow ends with the person making the titular video - Jason - being told this word-for-word by his father.
• The Illegible: The doctor (implied to be the first doctor ever) in "The First Guy to Ever Break an Arm" has handwriting that's impossible to read but insists he's always going to write like that going forward.
• Injured Limb Episode: "The First Guy to Ever Break an Arm" is about, well, the first guy to break his arm, who goes to a doctor to get it put in an "arm shell," though he doesn't like the idea of being unable to move his arm while his friends draw penises on the shell.
• Innocent Innuendo: In The First Guy To Ever Make A Friend, there is this line.
  Person 1: We could set up a time to hang out.
  Person 2: Oh, I actually make a habit of not hanging out since the crocodile incident.
  Person 1: Not what I meant. We could meet and do something.
• Insistent Terminology: In "How Meats Got Their Names", one guy keeps insistently suggesting each meat be called "[animal] corpse bits".
• The Internet Is for Porn: In "The Focus Group That Gave Us The Internet", the Weird Pervert Guy wants nothing more from this new product being tested than "naked people", and pushes for there to be a rule requiring there to be a naked version of anything that exists. The guy running the focus group says that they already have 33 rules for this thing but agrees to add another.
• It Will Never Catch On: Many of his "The First Guy To Ever" videos have the character talking to the first guy to ever do something saying it doesn't seem like a good idea.
• Knights and Knaves: “When People Say ‘I’m Not Gonna Lie’” ends with one of the characters resolving to never tell the truth again after learning the other character never learned how to lie, in order to “balance it out.”
• Lampshade Hanging: In Guys Who Wear Expensive T-Shirts the characters seem to be aware that they all look the same.
• Laser-Guided Karma: In "What Kids Commercials Were Like In The 90s", after the two kids have subjected their father, who is only trying to connect with them, to a barrage of insults about how lame and pathetic he is, he finally gets fed up and declares that he's going to make it impossible for them to buy real estate in the future.
  Dad: Enjoy the 2020s, you little idiots!
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: In "The First Couple to Ever Get Divorced" - which, as a collaboration with Julie Nolke, is one of the few videos where Ryan does not play every character - the husband at one point expresses how much he dislikes his wife's face and that he would rather it be more like his own.
• Least Rhymable Word: In "How Fruits Got Their Names," the guy who names the orange struggles to find a rhyme to explain his decision, and just shrugs it off.
• Line-of-Sight Name:
  • In "How Tools Got Their Names," the employee in charge of naming the hammer got the idea for the name because he was eating a ham sandwich when the boss called on him. The jackhammer comes from another employee seeing the hammer employee still eating that ham sandwich ("jack-" coming in when the employee in charge of naming it gets told he can't name it the same as the hammer and has to come up with "[his] own name"… so he appends his first name to it to solve that).
  • One of the employees in charge of naming sports claims to be very quick at thinking of names on account of his incredible creativity. When asked to demonstrate, he names one sport by looking at his socks and another by looking at the rug and a black-and-yellow insect flying around the room.
  • In "How Pirates Decided On Their Branding", the guy in charge of thinking up a name for the activity looks around and spots a rat on top of a pie. He suggests they call themselves... "dessert mice", before quickly amending it.
• Literal Genie: The genie in "If Cats Were Able to Talk" grants a wish for Ryan's cat to talk...in the sense that the cat can make infantile human babbling noises, because Ryan never wished for the cat to know how to speak English.
• Little Green Men: Florp-flap, an alien who occasionally shows up with the Adstronaut at the end of sponsored videos.
• Made Myself Sad: At the end of “What The Hell Happened To Google Search”, he sees the False Reassurance of why Google decided to remove “don’t be evil” from their code of conduct, does some False Reassurance of his own that everything will be fine, but can’t keep the energy up and just looks so sad.
• Mad Scientist: Subverted in The First Guy To Ever Eat Dessert, where the titular first guy introduces the scientist who developed pure sugar as a wacky science guy. Then the science guy actually speaks and he reveals he's being held as a hostage.
• Magic Countdown: Parodied in How Bomb Timers Work In Movies. Two Ryans are panicking over time bomb with ten seconds remaining, but the sketch itself lasts for over four minutes. During that time, one makes a confession, looks up videos on how to defuse a bomb, and then flies on a plane to another location for help, flies back, and the bomb still hasn't detonated. The timer even goes backward a couple of times.
• A Match Made in Stockholm: "The First Guy To Ever Kidnap Someone" ends with the abductee deciding that they've formed a psychological bond and want to be friends or maybe more. The kidnapper is creeped out and immediately turns himself in.
• Meaningful Name: Almost every character in the Ryanverse with an established last name has a profession that ties directly to it, including Jonathan Lawyer, Brett Newscaster, Frederick Noisemaker, Michael Pickleseller, and Bob Unemployed.
• Metaphorgotten: In "The First Guy to Ever Order Drive-Thru," the driver tries and fails to explain why he can't leave his car when his butt is so warm in his seat:
  Driver: If I got out of this car, that'd be like taking two perfectly toasted buns... and making them leave the car.
  Restaurant Guy: That— You lost track of the analogy right away.
• Mister Seahorse: In the video on chumbox ads, just saying Elon Musk’s name gets him swarmed and impregnated.
• Mondegreen Gag: Occurs sometimes in the "How Things Got Their Names" sketches, where a staff member will say something unrelated to the situation, only for it to be misheard and used as a naming suggestion.
• Mood Dissonance: "The First Couple to Ever Get Divorced" features the husband and wife bluntly discussing how much they utterly despise each other now, all in very agreeable and polite tones.
  Wife: I think I'd prefer to not be your wife.
  Husband: Oh yeah, no, I'd prefer that as well. Cause when you talk, the sound of your voice makes me feel like my ears are bleeding?
  Wife: (sympathetic wincing noise) That's not good! Yeah, the way you brush your teeth, it, it makes me want to impale you with a harpoon.
  Husband: I can- I got that vibe, for sure, I could see that in your eyes, yeah.
  Wife: Yeah. Yeah, what was once a lustful desire is now definitely more a harpoon-related desire.
  Husband: Yeah, no, I feel the same way.
• Mood Whiplash: While all delivered in a funny deadpan way, the sketches can range from the word dongle sounding like dicks, to existential dread, to gentrification, incels getting radicalised on the internet and billionaires being the worst.
• Nepotism: In "How They Wrote Classic Christmas Songs," this turns out to be the reason for some of Winter Wonderland's more nonsensical lyrics. When the team isn't buying the one guy's insistence that his suggested lyrics about pretending a snowman is "Parson Brown" and "a circus clown" are in any way relatable winter activities:
  Guy 1: Listen, fellas, we could always run these ideas by my father, see what he thinks.
  Guy 2: (reluctantly adds in the lyrics) Alright, alright... You're lucky your dad's the CEO of this vague company that writes all Christmas music for some reason.
• New Job as the Plot Demands: The "Weird Pervert Guy" who first appeared in "The Guys Who Designed Public Bathroom Stalls" has since been shown to be on several of the committees for naming things, where he continually creeps out his coworkers to the point where they'll accept his suggestions just so they don't have to keep talking to him. (Perhaps unsurprisingly, he is also shown to have been a prominent contributor to "The Focus Group That Gave Us The Internet".) Lampshaded in "How Meats Got Their Names":
  Moustache guy: How many departments does this guy work in??
• News Parody: "It's Weird Out There" is a series Ryan hosts on his second channel, where he presents himself as a newscaster and reads weird news stories to counter the depressing news his viewers may have been hearing, incorporating jokes and sketches about the material.
• No Clear Leader: One of their sketches is about an "Imposter Syndrome Support Group". Naturally, no one in the group feels they are qualified to lead it, let alone join the group in the first place.
• Non-Indicative Name: Several of the "How Things Got Their Names" videos provide explanations for various real-world examples of this trope; for example, the people responsible for naming bugs are so grossed out by images of a centipede and a millipede that they implore the chairman to just name them something that means "a hundred/thousand feet" so they can quickly move on, and refuse to look more closely to confirm if those numbers are accurate.
• Noodle Incident:
  • A Running Gag in "90s Time Traveler Discovers" is that the anchor still in the 90s dies in 2004 in an apparently awful way, but to his increasing distress he's never able to find out exactly how or why.
  • In "The First Guy To Ever Host a Party", when told the name of this new activity, the guy being told of it jokingly asks, "What happened to parts A through D?" The inventor of parties very seriously responds that those were unsuccessful trial runs that he can't legally talk about, at least until the autopsies are done.
• Not So Above It All: After spending most of his time in "The Focus Group That Gave Us The Internet" criticizing the bigot and the weird pervert guy for their contributions to the Internet, the resident Only Sane Man realizes he could take advantage of this cycle of rage and misinformation and become extremely powerful.
• Obituary Montage: In "The First Guy To Ever Win An Award", the Presenter has prepared a slide show comprised of pictures of dead people—of when they were alive, of course—that he wishes to show at some point in the parodied awards ceremony.
  Presenter: Wrap it up, Todd! I got a slideshow of pictures of dead people I wanna get to.
  Billy: Oh, my god!
  Presenter: No, it’s pictures from when they were alive. It’s gonna be a nice moment.
  Billy: If you say so…
• Offscreen Afterlife: In "Ghosts Are Bad At Revenge", a newly-deceased guy is shown a door that leads to the afterlife; when he asks what's behind it, he is told "It's just... y'know, whatever leads to the least-toxic comments section." At the end of the video, however, the Unfinished Business Bureau guy accidentally lets slip that it's reincarnation.
• One Dialogue, Two Conversations: In "The First Guy to Ever Play Tag" One guy describes how to play tag by "touching each other." Of course, The other guy thinks of something else dirty.
• One-Steve Limit:
  • Discussed in "The First Guy to Ever Have a Name" when Ryan's two friends decide their new "sound" is going to be Bob, so Ryan comes up with the idea of last names to distinguish them. However, when Ryan comes up with the idea of last names based on your profession, they both end up with the name Bob Unemployed.
  • Averted in "The First Guy to Ever Win an Award" when three out of five award nominees are named "Billy" with no last name. The host is grateful that none of them win, as it could've been confusing.
• Picky Eater: In "If Adults Still Ate Like Little Kids", the judge of a cooking competition show refuses to eat the dish that a contestant has prepared on the grounds that "it looks yucky" and demands chicken nuggets instead.
• Pinocchio Nose: The guy in "If Cats Were Able to Talk" wished for Pinocchio nipples. He claims everybody loves them (which causes them to grow).
• Pokémon Speak:
  • One of the employees who name tools, Alex, can only say his own name in a strange voice. This is how the axe got its name, as Alex's name kind of sounded like "axe."
  • A similar situation occurs in "How Sports Got Their Names", where an employee named Dennis just repeats his own name in enthusiastic-sounding tones, leading to the naming of tennis. Dennis is, at least, capable of saying a few other words, however- he is able to complain about the pain of "Dennis elbow".
• Precious Puppy: Sometimes Ryan will show off his actual dogs instead of just getting a dog cap and a big fake moustache.
• Prophetic Name: Jonathan Lawyer - Lawyer at Law, Michael Pickleseller & Frederick Noisemaker all fit into this, unless you buy into the theory that all his videos take place in the same world, in which case "The First Guy Ever To Have A Name" explains this.
• Racist Grandpa: In "When Ancestors Appear In Your Time Of Need", while the pilot's grandpa isn't racist, the pilot's grandpa's grandpa voices sexist views on women and denies being racist only because he loves the white race, to both the pilot's and the pilot's grandpa's embarrassment.
• Rapid-Fire Comedy: A big believer in a lot of jokes per minute, as that means if you don’t laugh at something, you might a minute later. Jamie’s editing just packs even more jokes in.
• Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic: In the sketches, all the Ryan clones tend to talk in a very particular way. Ryan, if he plays himself, talks more naturally (though still not with his real behind the scenes voice).
• Recurring Character: Most of the guys, whether first to do something or deciding something or not, are random and interchangeable, but there are a few: The 90s host who dies in 2004 and has no idea how. The 90s time travelling reporter who really wants to go home. Weird Perv Guy, who creeps on everyone and seems to appear whenever there’s an opportunity to… well, perv. Michael Pickleseller, who owns the restaurant “Sandwich With A Pretty Big Pickle In It”, and appears whenever Ryan wants to punch up at corporations claiming they care about anything. The adstronaut, cloudcuckoolander who sponsors everything and would rather not think about the fact that he's photoshopped. And finally Ryan As Himself, an anxious guy who talks more normal than everyone else but owns all these clones and can make them black out like some kind of eldritch god. Geoff Haggerty, his often co-writer, pops up quite a bit on the Extra Plus channel, as does Jamie and Jonny his real editors.
• Rewatch Bonus: He does a lot of Rapid-Fire Comedy, and it requires a few viewings sometimes to get all the jokes. Goes extra for the videos edited by Jamie Lightfoot, as they have special effects pop up everywhere or will have a TV for Funny Background Event.
• Rich Jerk: In "How Billionaires Will Act During The Apocalypse", the billionaires are busy talking about how to escape the planet, how to keep control of the masses, exclude their fellow member when his account drops to 998 million dollars instead of a billion, and think developing a conscience is a medical condition.
• Running Gag:
  • In the "The Future is Dumb" series, the time-travelling reporter (reporting from the present day) always mentioning at some point that the newscaster (back in the 90s) is going to die in 2004, and never giving him anything more than vague hints as to how it happens.
  • Over on Extra Plus, teasing that he has a secret onlyfans page. Sometimes complete with a Visual Pun of a shop full of only fans.
  • Whenever someone tells a fictional story, only the ending is shown, which is "So then [Character] did a backflip, snapped the bad guy's neck, and saved the day".
• Sad Clown: Ryan has the “social anxiety expansion pack in real life”, and will sometimes make (still funny) videos on how bad the anxiety gets, or his brain making it a mission to torture him. The negative aspects of capitalism are a recurring theme, especially within the Downer Ending Extra Plus episode, "What Happened To Google Search."
• Science Is Bad: Expressed by a scientist of all people when talking about how he developed pure sugar. Justified given that he did this under duress.
  Science Guy: He made me process and refine these plants until there were nothing but crystals of sweetness. It's not right it's not natural! (later) He threatened my family! You gotta help me!
• Screw Yourself: Downplayed, as there are a load of Ryan clones and they will occasionally (and very awkwardly) flirt with each other.
• Self-Deprecation:
  • In "The First Guy to Ever Have a Name," the guy inventing names gives "Ryan George" as an example of a full name, and one of the other guys calls it a "dumb sequence of sounds."
  • "The First Guy to Ever Reach a Million Subscribers" has Ryan make fun of himself for celebrating a pointless invokedMilestone Celebration.
  • In “If Fear Factor Used Regular Fears”, Roe Jogan makes fun of the “ohh mygod” Verbal Tic.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: The Time Travelling Reporter Guy believes that Facebook ruined everything, as well as the precursor (where Zuck made a site where guys can rate women’s attractiveness), so would like to go back and teach 11-year-old Zuck how to be nicer to women.
• Severely Specialized Store: The recurring "Sandwich with a Pretty Big Pickle in it" fast food chain, which sells moderately large pickles in hot dog buns. They also offer a kid's meal, which is the same sandwich cut in half.
• Shame If Something Happened: The First Guy Ever To Sell Insurance video outright starts the Insurance Guy's pitch off saying "something awful could happen" before telling his potential customer the solution is to give him money. It makes the pitch come off more like paying a Protection Racket.
• Shaped Like Itself:
  • In "The First Guy to Ever Climb a Mountain":
  Guy 1: Right, but why do you want to be up there, exactly?
  Guy 2: Ah, well see, once I'm up there... I'll be up there.
  Guy 1: ...Yeah.
  Guy 2: So.
  Guy 1: So... what will that accomplish?
  Guy 2: Well, I'll have accomplished it.
• Shout-Out:
  • "The First Guy To Ever Shoplift" has a semi-random scene where the store owner and the shoplifter talk about how good Jurassic Park (1993) is and watch a clip of it (re-enacted by Ryan, naturally).
  • The beginning of "The First Guy To Ever Be A Bodyguard" has the bodyguard bring up that he had gotten his new suit from a store called the "Soup Store" (though he mentions that it was likely actually called the "Suit Store"). In other words, he was buying clothes at the Soup Store.
  • More on anime, one of the office workers in The Guy Who Invented The Tunnel Of Love looks partially like Okarun.
• Shown Their Work: “Making Fun Of Billionaires Because I’m Jealous” is still Rapid-Fire Comedy, but probably his most sourced video, putting up tweets of Musk’s ex-partners detailing his being terrible to his kids, or showing Bezos firing employees in Quebec because they wanted to unionise.
• Significant Name Overlap: Three out of five nominees in "The First Guy to Ever Win an Award" are all named Billy as a gag, and the presenter is thankful that the winner is the guy named Todd instead because this could have been very confusing.
• Skewed Priorities: “When We Finally Discover Aliens” makes fun of the media obsessing over directors not liking Marvel, with news guys caring more about Marvel than aliens existing.
• Snake Oil Salesman: Media Guy in "The First Guy to Ever Get Ripped" insists that his weight loss tea, cologne, and a magazine can help somebody get muscles, despite the guy who actually has muscles saying he didn't use any of that and got ripped from a healthy diet and exercise.
• So What Do We Do Now?: In "The First Guy to Ever Reach a Million Subscribers," someone asks the titular guy what he's going to do now that he's reached his goal. The guy doesn't know, and this causes Ryan to walk away from editing the video and contemplate how to proceed with his channel. Subverted when he decides to aim for two million subscribers...or just not let numbers dictate his life.
• 'Stache of Duty: He likes to put fake mustaches on top of his already real one. Usually to emphasize authority.
• Stepford Smiler: The other guy assumes “The First Guy To Ever Wear A Costume” is one, as he dodges the question of not liking himself enough that he’s putting on a cat costume. He might not be wrong, as costume guy points out that Halloween has to be the time where everyone pretends to be happy to see him, and wants to invent Sexy Whatever Outfit for Sex for Solace.
• Straw Fan: As the title suggests, "The First Guy to Ever Be a Toxic Fan" is a parody of creepy fans. A guy aimlessly makes some "Bah-bah-bah" sounds with his mouth, and gets hassled by someone who begs him to do more sounds even when he doesn't really want to, gets overly critical as soon as he makes a new sound before quickly insisting he do more of that sound, and accuses someone who becomes a fan of the same guy of being a "phony" for not knowing him as long as the first fan. Then when the sound-making guy expresses that it's at least nice to bring them joy with how "things are in the world right now," the fans lash out at him to "stay out of politics."
• Surreal Horror: To match the dystopian AI vibes, a lot of Jamie’s editing for “Why Is AI Such A Freaking Liar” falls under the umbrella. Ryan’s background keeps morphing and changing. At one point, it looks like he’s in a dark basement, foreboding music plays while the fake AI therapist chats, and Ryan completely glitches out at the end.
• Stylistic Suck: The film Plooper Dink in "When Your Favorite Movie Aged Terribly" is very intentionally awful, with stilted acting, badly-written dialogue, incredibly fake-looking special effects (including a Nightmare Retardant skeleton monster that the viewer insists was terrifying to him as a kid, and which never shows up again), and crew members blatantly left in shots - and that's all before they remember all the horrible stuff that has since come out about or been done by basically everyone involved with the film. One of the viewers tries to spin it as So Bad, It's Good until he notices a character in full Blackface.
• Sucks at Dancing: The first guy to ever dance isn't actually good at moving his body, but he insists some people might succeed at it, despite the other guy's doubts. Justified in that he's, of course, the first guy to ever dance, and he'd discovered dancing while fending off a swarm of bees.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: In "If Cats Were Able to Talk", Ryan asks a Genie to make his cat able to talk. As the genie points out, it takes humans about a year to learn to talk, so the cat just makes random, creepy vocalizations rather than speaking English.
• Surreal Humor: As expected for a guy who made a whole universe where everyone has the same face. There will be social commentary loaded in there too, and even on “talking as himself” Extra Plus, plenty of sketches happen.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial:
  • In "The First Guy to Ever Open a Restaraunt," the customer is extremely suspicious about the fact that the owner won't allow him into the kitchen where the chef is making the food after the owner brings up the possibility of the chef "having an itchy a**hole" while he prepares the food.
  • "When Fast Food Restaurants Give Out Toys" introduces a mascot named Pickles, "The Pickle who Doesn't Bite."
  • In "The First Guy to Ever Climb a Mountain", said guy explains that you can't just drive up the "triangle" because the car would flip backwards, explode, and "your cousin Ron'll die but you'll make it out on time."
    Guy 1: That seems extremely specific, did that happen to you?
    Guy 2: Ehh, I'll never tell.
    Guy 1: I feel like you just did.
    Guy 2: Anyway, since I can't drive up there, rest in peace, Ron...
  • In "The First Guy to Ever Open A Buffet", the waiter offers a customer some bread like this:
    Waiter: Hi, there, hello, sir, can I get you started with some bread that didn't fall on the floor?
    Customer: Wh... did the bread fall on the floor?
    Waiter: No, sir, I said it didn't fall on the floor.
    Customer: That's a weird way to describe it, then.
    Waiter: It's just bread, sir, it didn't fall on the floor and accidentally get kicked under the fridge for a little bit.
    Customer: It's no — it's suspicious that you're being so specific about this.
    Waiter: No it's not!
    Customer: Oh, okay, then yeah, I'll have some bread!
  • In "90s Time Traveler Discovers AI", the newscaster's latest excuse for why they can't bring the reporter back to the 90s is that the time machine has apparently been hijacked by someone from the very distant future, whom the newscaster thinks seems very friendly...
    Future Person(?): Hi there, hello, everything's fine in the future! Please send us some of your flesh for no suspicious reason!
• Sustained Misunderstanding:
  • In "Time Traveler Discovers Minecraft":
    Reporter: Anyway so Minecraft, if I understand correctly, came out around 2009, about five years after your death...
    Newscaster: My god, okay, how does it happen, though?
    Reporter: Well this guy named "Notch" created it.
    Newscaster: Not what I wanted to know.
    Reporter: Okay, well then why did you ask? God! Now I don't feel so bad about what happens...
    Newscaster: What happens?!
    Reporter: Well he releases the game as an "early access" in 2009...
    Newscaster: Aaahhh.
  • In "Traffic Reporter Who Doesn't Understand Helicopters", the reporter absolutely refuses to accept that he has in fact been elevated high in the sky and that the "ants" he sees riding "Hot Wheels cars" on a "gray line" between various-sized "squares" are actually people in regular-sized cars driving to and from houses and buildings, forcing the exasperated anchor to play along just to get any meaningful traffic data from him.
• Take Our Word for It: Most of "When Your Favorite Movie Aged Terribly" features clips of Plooper Dink, the film the characters are watching, so we can see the wooden acting, Special Effects Failures, and accidental appearances from crew members in the shots... but when it gets to the Blackface scene, all we ever see is the characters' horrified reactions.
• Take That!: A lot. He’s mentioned several times that good comedy punches up, and there’s plenty to punch at.
  • Frightened TikTok Star Finds A New Home (WHOLESOME) is a parody of wholesome animal adoption stories which features a Tik Toker as said animal. It makes fun of a lot of weird TikTok trends, including their weird dances, poses, and lip syncing.
  • "The First Guy to Ever Get Ripped" ends with a "Media Guy" coming in to pressure the skinny guy to get as buff as the muscley guy, or else nobody will ever love him, then pushes weight loss tea, cologne, and a magazine subscription to help him get buff (or a sports car to compensate for his body) despite the actual buff guy saying that's not how he got muscles. This is clearly making fun of unrealistic media standards and marketing that exploits the viewers' insecurities with their body.
  • The First Guy To Ever Sell Insurance is one to the insurance companies. People are expected to continuously pay for insurance for various aspects of their lives so that if one day something bad happens, the insurance provider will maybe pay for some of the costs, as opposed to the person in question just saving the money and putting it aside for such needs themselves. Insurance Guy even outright says his business model is "monetizing your anxiety".
  • The scenario in If Elon Musk Bought A Restaurant is a clear satire of Musk's purchase and rebranding of Twitter, with Musk making a big deal about how he could buy the "Sandwich With A Pretty Big Pickle In It" restaurant, only to whine and try to get out of it when his offer is accepted and he is legally obligated to follow through, then proceeding to fire the people who make the food, open the doors to any unsavory types who want to come in, and rebranding the franchise as "Z", all while insisting that the restaurant is doing better than it's ever been even as its value tanks (and his every action being enthusiastically praised and defended by a fanboy).
  • He has no problem making fun of the people who will tell him to stay out of politics for literally any political mention, even just complaining about capitalism.
  • “The Focus Group That Gave Us The Internet” insults incels who band together and rile each up, misinformation on all sides, sexist guys who comment needlessly on attractiveness no matter what, racist trolls, how easily kids can see dead bodies, and the tech owners who make money off all of this.
  • Downplayed with the “Hawk Tuah” meme lady, as the sketch about a guy sneezing weird and wanting to be famous forever is directed at her, but the announcer acknowledges by name that she started a charity and in the end, it expands to alt-right guys with sexist podcasts and presidential aspirations.
  • While Trump gets more insults, it’s not like Biden got off easy either. When a ghost possesses a guy’s roommate in 2020, said guy is unphased because two shaky old dudes are going at it, “Elections in 2028” has more of that sentiment (and as comments pointed out, it’s adorably optimistic of him to include a third party candidate, even if it’s skeleton), and “Products Aimed At Politician” has no party line on politicians backtracking on promises, sexually harassing at best and taking bribes.
  Advisor: I’m starting to see why our political system is broken.
  • In "What The Hell Is Going On At Disney", he takes a shot at Trump wanting flags at half-mast for deaths like... Meryl Streep, closely followed by a Straw Fan telling him to stay out of politics and Ryan getting annoyed.
• Teeny Weenie: In "The Guys Who Invented Popular Names", one guy invents a name he wants to use for himself, "Richard" (a combination of "rich" and "hard", "so people know what I'm about"). Another guy suggests that a shortened version of that name could be "Dick", which the committee head approves of, phrasing it in a way that leaves the newly-named Richard very dismayed:
  Committee Head: Let's make sure everybody knows that Dick is short for Richard.
  Richard: Oh, no...
• Tempting Fate: In "How Insects Got Their Names", the committee head is a bit unsure about the suggestion of "roach", saying that he feels like it needs an extra something at the beginning to make it punchier...
  Weird Pervert Guy: (creepy grin) I have an idea.
  Committee Head: Oh god oh no— (video ends)
• That Came Out Wrong: In "What Debates Will Be Like In 2028" the 97-year old Candidate Promises to "Rizz all over the youth of America"
• Time Travel: In his "Time Traveler Discovers" series, a time traveler from the 1990's travels to modern times and reports back on how everything has changed, naturally resulting in a lot of Comically Missing the Point moments, as well as a Take That! to modern society.
• Too Dumb to Live: The guy in "When Your Life Flashes Before Your Eyes" is seconds from death due to trying to touch a polar bear's nipples.
  Dying guy: But why would polar bears have nipples if not for touching purposes?
  Afterlife guy: Ah, to feed their young.
  Dying guy: Thaaat makes a lot of sense actually. Alright, well, live and learn!
  Afterlife guy: No you're not gonna live.
  Dying guy: Dang it, right.
• Too Incompetent to Operate a Blanket: Parodied in "The First Guy To Ever Make A Commercial," where the Sandwich with a Pretty Big Pickle In It infomercial starts off with a guy who has no idea how to make a sandwich.
• Too Much Information: The titular employee in "The First Guy To Ever Get Fired" describes everything he buys with his money, including "various lubricants" before the human resources guy cuts him off.
• Unable to Support a Wife: Discussed in The Absolute Lunatics Of LinkedIn part 2, as a hotel owner's "friend" has decided not to hire women because supposedly men care more about family. As well as going in on the misogyny, Ryan points out that the dude is exploiting many guys' fear of not being able to provide.
• Undisclosed Funds: The final ticket in "Buying Concert Tickets in 2023" isn't given a specific number as a price; it is, however, known that it will cost the buyer all of his money, his car, and his house.
• Unfortunate Names: The First Guy To Ever Have A Name ends with this happening. While the person who created names makes a normal name (Ryan Baker) his two roommates both choose a name that's this trope (Bob Unemployed).
• Uranus Is Showing: Averted in "The Planets Hold An Intervention For Earth", a four-minute sketch about the solar system. The sketch has Earth pointing out that Jupiter is a gas giant, and then explaining the concept of poop to the other planets, yet it doesn't include any Uranus jokes.
• Verbal Tic: The various characters played by Ryan often use "freakin'" (pronounced "frickin'") as a filler word to describe something.
  • The "Weird Pervert Guy" character often makes a creepy "Oooooohhh..." while grinning salaciously, which always makes the other characters incredibly uncomfortable and dreading what he's going to say.
  • Like in Screen Rant Pitch Meetings, he delivers "oh my god" in a very certain way. Lampshaded in "If Fear Factor Used Regular Fears", where Roe Jogan comments that it's annoying.
• The 'Verse: For all the Surreal Humor, the Ryan Verse has a surprising amount of continuity, with a lot of call backs in the background. Even Extra Plus the commentary channel has recurring Homoerotic Subtext between Ryan and Geoff, Ryan managing his clones, and Ryan Jr (as a placeholder so Ryan gets to protect his actual daughter).
• Wacky Sound Effect: The sound used for malfunctioning equipment such as a creaky door or imminently exploding computer is a recording of Ryan saying "yip yip yip yip" rapidly.
• Who's on First?: In "How Insects Got Their Names":
  Guy 1: What would a good name for this one be?
  Guy 2: "Bee?"
  Guy 1: Yeah, that's what I said.
  Guy 2: No, yeah, I know.
  Guy 1: Okay, so what's a good name?
  Guy 2: "Bee."
  Guy 1: Be what?
  Guy 2: I'm suggesting the name "bee."
  Guy 1: What are you suggesting it be?
  Guy 2: "Bee."
  Guy 1: What do you— I don't— what?
  Guy 2: I'm suggesting it be "bee"! B-E-E!
  Guy 1: Now you're just saying gibberish!
• You Say Tomato: In "How Fruit Got Their Names," the guy in charge of fruits pronounces one newly-named fruit as "to-mah-to" despite the one who named it insisting it's pronounced "to-may-to."
• YouTuber Apology Parody: At the start of “Making Fun Of Billionaires Because I’m Jealous”, he fake-apologises for being so mean to rich people, while the TV in the background captions a clip from his ebay video as “youtuber apology”. He then proceeds to rip into Zuckerberg, Bezos, Musk and Johnson (with a bit of Trump) as much as humanly possible, all while sarcastically trying to be like them.