Everything Geek Podcast: Ruari celebrates 10 years producing and hosting

Thursday, June 15 marked a full decade since Ruari Williamson recorded the first edition of his Everything Geek Podcast, and five years since the Echo last spoke with him to honour a significant milestone.

The podcast has evolved, endured, and thrived over the past 10 years, while continuing to engage a supportive audience and community as it frequently features interviews from cast, crew, and others important to some of the most world-renowned franchises in the entertainment industry.

10 years from the inception of his project, Ruari spoke to The Echo about his experience running his podcast.

He touched on some of the things he enjoyed the most, as well as what has proven to be a challenge during the past decade.

What has been your biggest motivation to continue recording podcast episodes a full decade since the first one released?

The enjoyment.

I’ve loved doing podcasts ever since I first found out about them as a teenager.

I started Everything Geek Podcast in June 2013 when I was 17 years old, after having been a joint co-host on a Star Wars podcast beforehand, but I felt I wanted to start a podcast that could appeal to many different fan bases which is how I came up with Everything Geek Podcast.

On the podcast we mainly interview cast and crew members from films, TV shows and videogames and, while we’ve done other things like discussing news topics from that world, the interviews have always been my favourite part and part of my motivation.

Another big part of my motivation is the listeners.

It’s great to get responses from people that enjoy the interviews and that are interested in the people we interview.

It’s definitely a nice feeling when people take notice and enjoy something you’re doing.

How has the podcast changed over the last ten years? How do you see it changing and evolving in the future?

The podcast has changed quite a bit.

At the start we used to do the interviews and discuss news topics from films, TV shows and videogames, and we used to write articles for the website about those news topics, but the interviews was by far my favourite part and when my personal life began getting busier with colleges, jobs etc it made sense to me to drop the news part.

The interviews are what resonates most with our listeners, so it made sense to put all the focus on the interviews, which I still love and I’m always looking at interview possibilities.

In terms of future changes and evolution, we’re always looking at new films, TV shows and videogames to do interviews for, as well as continue to do interviews for previously released media.

My big goal for the podcast going forward is to put it on as many podcast platforms as possible to reach a bigger audience, and to get back into uploading content more regularly on platforms like YouTube.

How has running Everything Geek assisted you in your personal life?

Running Everything Geek Podcast for ten years has definitely helped in my personal life.

I currently work at Dublin South FM as their Head of Social Media, and running a podcast for a while was definitely something they took interest in when I did my interview. In the job itself sometimes things I’ve learned from doing the podcast and creating social media pages for it on the likes of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram has come in handy.

Recently, my boss asked me how to boost a post on Facebook as they wanted a specific post to reach a larger audience, and I was able to show him exactly how to do it and knew what he was looking for because of doing posts for the podcast.

I’ve learned things at the job for social media that will come in handy for the podcast, but I’ve also been able to do the opposite and use things I’ve learned from the podcast for my job.

 What has been the biggest challenge you have faced in the last ten years? In the last five years?

The biggest challenge in the last ten years has probably been finding ways to continue keeping the audience engaged.

The listeners are the key to any podcast like mine, so you want to appeal to your existing listeners but also bring in new listeners at the same time.

Like I said before, I try to look at new films, shows and videogames for potential guests but also continue to do interviews for media that has already been released.

Trying to do both is a good problem to have though as you want to keep your listeners interested and potentially bring in new ones as well.

There’re so many franchises out there and within big franchises like Star Wars, Marvel etc and many more there’s many different projects you want to interview guests from and for potential listeners to take notice of.

In the last five years since the five-year anniversary, probably the biggest more recent challenge is balancing the podcast between job searching as an adult (leading me to Dublin South FM) while still trying to regularly do podcast content.

I’m trying to get into editing so we can upload more content to YouTube on a more regular basis, but it’s all a balance between the job, the podcast, doing new interviews and editing interviews we’ve already done.

Who has been the biggest source of support for you? The community, your listeners, friends, or parents?

I’ve been fortunate to have a lot of sources of support with the podcast.

My family and friends have really backed and supported me with it, and I’ve done many interviews as a result in the hundreds.

They’re always happy when I’ve done a new interview and when we’re approaching another anniversary, and their support means everything.

The community and listenership as well has been amazing.

It’s always great to see their feedback on our interviews and know that we gave them something they enjoyed.

It means a lot to me when people take notice of something we’ve done.

I look forward to providing more interviews in the future that I hope they enjoy.

Anything else you would like to add?

I want to say again that I’m very grateful for the support of my family, friends, and our listeners, without whom we wouldn’t still be doing the podcast.

I’m very grateful and looking forward to bringing more interviews with the support of my family, friends and the listeners.

Also, a specific thank you to anyone who has watched our Lars Mikkelsen and Haven Paschall interviews.

Our two interviews on YouTube with over 10,000 views.

17K for Lars and 11K for Haven.

It has been amazing to see the response those two interviews got in particular.

As a fan, it was great to see Haven reprise Serena for the ongoing Pokémon Journeys dub and Lars, who our interview with was his first ever Star Wars interview for anyone, will now be the live action Grand Admiral Thrawn in Ahsoka coming in August, having previously voiced Thrawn in the animated series Rebels.

It’s amazing to think two of my interviews have been viewed over 10,000 times, so thanks.

Maybe one day we’ll have an interview that will overtake those two!

For full access to all content on Echo.ie and to support the continuation of local news and local journalism in your community subscribe HERE.

Thanks for your ongoing support.