Today we’d like to introduce you to Cody Borden
Hi Cody, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I’m originally from Winchester, Virginia, a small town in the northern region of the state. I grew up in an amazing household with two older siblings and my mom and dad. My parents owned an auto parts store that my father founded, ran, and operated until we all grew up. While I do think my parents wanted me or another one of my siblings to potentially take over the family business, they gave us the freedom and opportunity to pursue our own interests to make our own way. From a young age all the way till now, my favorite things are pro wrestling, music, sneakers, Pokémon games, and movies like Star Wars. Nothing gives me as much joy like suspending my disbelief in one or all of these things and then finding a way to express myself through it.
I’ve always enjoyed making people happy. To me, the greatest thing I can do is put a smile on someone’s face or make them laugh. Naturally with my interests, I felt very drawn to the entertainment industry and loved expressing my creativity. This was kind of unheard of coming from where I’m from, but I was all the way determined and maybe a bit delusional at times – all in a good way though. I believed I could do anything I wanted to if I did the right thing and tried hard enough. However, I really didn’t find a proper way to get all of this creativity out until I went to college.
When I went to college, I thought I wanted to be a sports broadcaster. I didn’t really tell anyone, but I was absolutely trying to become a wrestling commentator. These plans hit a brick wall when I found out there was another kid that was in my class that came into college with something crazy like 300+ hours of sports broadcasting experience already. Plus, I quickly learned that the sports world is very demanding and that it would be difficult to branch out to other areas of entertainment if I was committing to sports.
Luckily, I was close with the staff and students that ran the television station on campus, and they gave me the opportunity to create my own show. Together with a couple of my friends, I started a Tonight Show-esque “late night” show where I would interview guests and even do field segments in the local community. It was a ton of extra work, but also a ton of fun. I feel like I got to see every side of my college and met a lot of interesting people by doing this show.
Around this time, I also started a YouTube channel to practice my camera presence and video production / editing, while also expressing all the interests I talked about earlier. I was following Merriam-Webster or another Twitter account that tweeted out a Word of the Day every day. One day the word was “Ipseity” which basically is your selfhood or individual identity. Since that’s what I was expressing, I felt like that would be a good brand for my channel. It took me a while to find my niche, but when I started doing music reactions and reviews, it started getting some momentum. At least more than it had previously.
I kept uploading videos once I graduated and got my first jobs out of college. December 2019 was a weird time to graduate and have to find a career because just a few months later, the entire world shut down. I had two jobs at the time. I was laid off from one, and had my hours significantly cut from the other. I was working for ESPN as a live events streaming operator, and I vividly remember being in the office the day the March Madness tournament was cancelled. No one knew when their next shift would be. It took a few scary months, but eventually they were able to convert to a work from home model, and I found myself with a lot of time on my hands. So I did what I always did in my spare time and made more YouTube videos.
Music reactions became the main focus of my channel. I made a video for Mac Miller’s album that got over 25k views, which was a huge achievement at the time because I was struggling to get even 100 views. One of my videos also got the attention of T-Pain. He ended up reposting my video, following me on Twitter, and having a brief conversation in the comments with me. This was also a huge deal for me because T-Pain’s music was such a staple of my childhood. Although my channel was still very small, I felt like I was able to reach beyond what the numbers were reflecting.
Fast forward nine months later, the quarantine year had its ups and downs. I was living in a townhouse with people I went to college with and was really dissatisfied with where I was at. The ESPN job sounded good on paper, but the work from home aspect really meant I had no upward mobility with it. I was just signing in and signing out every day with nothing on the horizon. That’s when I saw T-Pain post about his company, Nappy Boy Entertainment looking for interns. I had my resume ready, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to apply.
Fifteen minutes after I sent my application, I got an interview. Shortly after the interview, I was offered the internship. The only catch was I had to move from Virginia to Atlanta. I knew I wanted to take the chance. So I accepted the position, uprooted, and started my new life in Atlanta to try and turn an internship into a full time job with T-Pain. I was 10 hours from my friends, family, and everything I was familiar with.
The internship was a heavy learning curve. I not only had to prove my worth by doing the typical intern duties like food runs and errands, but I also had to learn how to navigate the music industry. I did my best to be observant and patient for my opportunities. Eventually, I worked my way into an associate position in the social media department. Now I was able to use my content creation skills for T-Pain and the subsidiary Nappy Boy brands. I was put in charge of the entire post-production process for the Nappy Boy Radio Podcast and continued to earn my stripes.
I was an associate for a year when by happenstance, I ended up becoming the head of the entire department. In a two year span, I went from being an intern to running all of Pain’s social media. Honestly, the transition was very difficult and I did feel like I needed to prove a lot to Pain and everyone else in the company, but over time I was able to figure it out.
I still hold this position to this day and working with Pain and having the unique pleasure of framing him like the national treasure that he is across social media is a lot of fun. At the time of writing I’ve been able to grow his followers by over 1M+ and the content I make and post routinely goes viral.
I still make videos on my YouTube whenever I can. While my numbers are still pretty low, especially comparing it to Pain’s, I still have moments where I feel like I’m reaching above what a small channel should be. IG Reels and TikTok have made it easy for quick content whenever I don’t have time to edit a longer video. And I get to practice and get better at content creation every day for Nappy Boy.
If you would’ve told the kid that was recording “Buy U A Drank” off the radio on his sister’s MP3 player in 2007 that he would be one day working for T-Pain and making hundreds of thousands of people smile everyday with the content he was making, I don’t know if he would’ve believed it. I’m very thankful for what I’ve been able to do so far, and I plan to keep making my own videos when I can to see where else that can go too.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
My biggest obstacle has been consistency. I am the type of person that can’t force creative inspiration. It just has to come naturally in order for it to work best. I have had a number of creative slumps where I just haven’t felt like making anything.
I saw something one time that said a certain percentage of chefs don’t like cooking at home because they do it all day at work and don’t want to carry that same pressure at home. Sometimes I feel like that as a content creator. Working all day and making content for T-Pain and Nappy Boy, there are times where I don’t have the energy or desire to invest any more creativity into my own endeavors.
While I mostly try to keep my content just for fun and expressive purposes, there are times where I feel like I could be at a higher level or have a larger audience if I was able to balance a better routine.
Other factors come into play as well. Being a young man trying to pay bills, maintain an apartment, and just being a functioning adult takes priority a lot of the time.
Last year I would wake up at 6AM to edit my footage of Pokémon Legends Arceus before work. I’ve had many nights where I’ve been up all hours of the night trying to finish a video. Really I just have to fit it in when and where I can.
On these algorithm based platforms, I do feel like my lack of consistency has slowed my growth, but I still believe I make the most of my opportunities and always try to remember that everything is still just for fun for now.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I think the thing that sets me apart from others is my commitment to try and spread positivity with my content. Especially with music reviews, I feel like a lot of creators will purposefully be overly critical of artists and their projects just to get extra engagement from the audience. While this is a tried and true strategy and people are easy to bait into that, I just never wanted my channel to hold any negative energy like that.
If I’m recording a review and it turns out I don’t like the project, I’ll turn the camera off and scrap the whole video. I do not believe in going through all the work it takes just to be negative and make people mad with what I have to say. Plus being in the music industry now, I see how much actually goes into putting a body of work out. We really have no right as fans to act like we do to these artists. I’d rather just make videos for the music I like. It feels so much better to wait for the music that I can actually connect with and use it to connect with other people that enjoyed it as much as me.
That being said, I will troll the people who leave unprompted hateful comments. This also boosts the engagement, and I honestly just think it is funny. It probably looks bad from an outside perspective, but I’ve had videos increase by thousands of views just from arguing with people in the comments.
I’m all for the positivity, but if someone pops off in the comments being mean for no reason, you better believe I will turn their energy into something that will benefit me more. All in the name of fun of course. It’s never serious.
Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out?
My advice would be to just have fun with it. Your videos are going to be bad. Your thumbnails are going to be bad. You’re going to look back one day and cringe at your older videos. It’s all a part of growing and learning as a creator. It takes time to find your voice and rhythm with everything, but when you do, you’ll be off to the races.
It’s funny because I don’t think I got good at content creation until very recently. I feel like I’m always learning new editing tricks that will help take my content to the next level.
Also watch other people that inspire you. I have my favorite music reviewers, sneaker unboxers, and PokéTubers that I’m subscribed to and have taken so much inspiration from over the years. It can be anyone or anything you like to watch. Figure out what it is they do that you like watching and then emulate it while being yourself. You’ll have to find out what that looks like for you, and that can take some time. Eventually, you’ll come into your own and also start inspiring others.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/teamipseity
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TeamIpseity
- Twitter: https://x.com/teamipseity
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@IpseityMedia
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/@LiLCYNDAQUiL
