Today we’d like to introduce you to Chauncey Dickens.
Chauncey, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Back in 2019, my friend and co-worker Aaron Mayzing approached me about starting a podcast where we’d talk about the same nerdy stuff we had bonded over and discussed at work. I didn’t even know what a podcast was at the time, but because he was my guy, I said yes.
We got into the earliest stages of planning, and then life hit Aaron—as it tends to do when you’re an adult. I told my wife, Kena, what happened, and she could tell I was disappointed. This is where having a marriage that is also a partnership can be both a blessing and a curse. She looked at me and said, “Why don’t you do it yourself?”
And down the podcasting rabbit hole I went.
Luckily, I didn’t have to learn the ways of the Force alone. I had an “Obi-Wan.” Kris Roley, a longtime podcaster in Virginia Beach and, at the time, another co-worker, gave me all the knowledge he could to help me get started. I’m still incredibly appreciative of what he did for me.
In September 2019, Do You Speak Geek was born, named after a private Facebook group I had previously created. I quickly learned what to do—and definitely what NOT to do—when recording, editing and promoting a show.
During the pandemic, I connected with Montel Thompson, better known as NavyMontel, who opened my eyes to conducting live, one-on-one interviews with people operating within nerd and geek culture. That changed things for me. Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to talk with some amazing people, including Chef Mary Lou Davis, nerdcore rapper Crazy8TheGreat, actor Gary Anthony Williams, cosplayer and costume designer Alicia Marie, and BlerdCon chairman Hilton George.
I kept grinding as a podcaster and content creator until 2024, when I was hit with an undeniable wave of burnout.
At the time, I was running three podcasts, posting across multiple social media platforms for those shows, creating my own original content, and managing a website—all while working a day job and trying to remain a present husband and father. On top of that, my family was dealing with financial struggles, and my wife had received an early breast cancer diagnosis.
It became too much.
So, much like that incredible panel from *The Amazing Spider-Man #50* where Peter Parker walks away from being Spider-Man, I sold all of my equipment out of desperation and walked away from DYSG.
The next two years were lonely. I watched colleagues continue moving forward in the media space without me. I’d post something here and there, almost as proof of life, but my heart wasn’t really in it.
Thankfully, my wife kicked cancer’s ass, and that lifted some of the weight I’d been carrying.
Then something happened to me that hadn’t happened in a long time:
I got inspired.
I started writing a book—speculative fiction with a superhero focus, all moving to the beat of hip-hop. It’s so…me!
I sent it to a few friends, including Aaron. Eventually, he and I started talking about DYSG again. I asked him, “If I jump back out there, would you be willing to ride shotgun with me, as the Good Lord intended in the first place?”
He said yes.
DYSG relaunched two months ago, and now, with the addition of my good friend and fellow content creator La “BlackGirlMarvel” Harrison, I finally have a team.
Looking back, that’s probably the biggest lesson in my story so far: no one wins alone. DYSG may have my name attached to it, but every major chapter of this journey has involved someone helping me get to the next one.
And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Definitely not. As I mentioned before, 2024 and 2025 were rough. It felt like everything that was happening affected everything else in my orbit.
The financial struggles were probably the worst of it. Because of them, I eventually had to sell my podcasting and content-creator equipment. That was hard. Real hard. Those weren’t just microphones, cameras, and computers to me. Selling them became a physical symbol of what I was feeling on the inside: a void. It felt like an erasure of what I had known to be my life for the previous five years.
I’m never one to be jealous of my brothers and sisters doing well next to me. I want to see the people around me win. But when I looked up and realized they were no longer next to me—because the path is always moving forward while I was stuck in this stagnant stasis—it affected me. I won’t pretend it didn’t. I became depressed.
Then there was my wife’s battle with breast cancer.
There’s a particular kind of helplessness that comes with watching the person you promised, before God and everyone else, that you would love, cherish, honor, and obey suffer through something like that, while knowing you can’t do a damn thing to take it away from her. That was horrible.
And because all of these things were happening at once, there wasn’t really a clean separation between them. Financial stress affected creativity. Losing my creative outlet affected me emotionally; what I was feeling emotionally affected how I experienced everything else. Meanwhile, I was still trying to be a husband, a father, and simply keep life moving.
So no, the road hasn’t been smooth.
But looking back, I think those years taught me the difference between something being over and something being interrupted. At the time, I couldn’t see the distinction.
I can now.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Do You Speak Geek—or DYSG—is a media platform built around geek culture and the people who make it what it is.
At the simplest level, we talk about the things we love: comics, movies, television, anime, gaming, professional wrestling, hip-hop and everything else living under this gigantic umbrella we call geek culture. But what I’ve come to realize over the years is that the “what” isn’t nearly as interesting to me as the “who.”
I love talking to people.
Some of my favorite moments with DYSG have come from sitting across from creators and learning the story behind what they create. I don’t want to just ask someone what their latest project is. I want to know why they made it. What did it cost them? What almost made them quit? What part of themselves did they put into it? I pride myself on doing the research necessary to ask questions that hopefully make a guest stop for a second and say, “Oooh, that’s a good question.”
That’s probably what sets DYSG apart the most. We’re fans first.
We’re not trying to position ourselves above the culture and report down to the people participating in it. We’re standing right there beside them. If we’re talking comics, it’s because we read them. If we’re talking wrestling, we’ve probably argued about it. If we’re interviewing someone, chances are I was genuinely interested in that person’s work before the microphone ever came on.
And as DYSG enters this new chapter with Aaron Mayzing and La “BlackGirlMarvel” Harrison alongside me, “quality over quantity” has become increasingly important to us. I spent years believing that being a content creator meant constantly feeding the machine. More episodes. More posts. More platforms. More everything.
I don’t believe that anymore.
I’d rather create something worth someone’s time than create something simply because an algorithm says I’m supposed to.
What I’m most proud of, though, is what DYSG is becoming. My long-term vision is bigger than a podcast. I want DYSG Media™ to be a platform where creators—particularly independent and underrepresented creators within geek culture—can be seen, heard and celebrated. That can happen through interviews, articles, live events, original content and some initiatives we’re developing for the future.
There are plenty of places on the internet where you can find out what’s happening in geek culture.
I want DYSG to be one of the places where you meet the people making it happen.
Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
First and foremost, I’m nothing without God—my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ—and the Holy Spirit to guide me. My faith is foundational to who I am, so any conversation about the people and influences that have helped me along this journey has to begin there.
Then there’s my wife, Kena.
It sounds cliché to say, “I don’t remember what life was like before her,” but I genuinely don’t. Kena is the one person who has truly allowed me to be me at the most authentic level. She’s never asked me to become some edited version of myself to make me easier to understand. For that reason and a thousand others, she is my best friend.
And I won’t turn this article into smut, but let’s just say it’s tough to divert my eyes—and occasionally my hands—from that woman! She’s my everything, and I’m incredibly grateful to have her in my life.
I’ve already mentioned Kris Roley and NavyMontel, two people who played important roles in helping me learn and grow as a podcaster and interviewer. But there is an entire community of people who have encouraged me, collaborated with me, opened doors, shared knowledge, checked on me, and simply made this journey a whole lot more fun.
My Blerds in Arms: my POC A-Mayzing, Chris Fury, my boy Skip, King Curt, Shak, Big SmuTafariTV, Demetrius Holt, Kevin J. Murphy and everyone over at BlerdStation; the 4 Kages—JB, 8, HRGF and Clutch; Kingpakman, JunesEighty8 and THE Manuel Carmona.
My sisters: La, BaronessBree, Lu, Frankey, Karama Horne, Kira, Laney, and the homie Mary Lou.
And, of course, my family: my mother and father, my sister Casey, my kids—Kyra, Dono and Chantel—my aunts and uncles, my aces in G.H.C., and all the others who have lifted me up when I was down and cheered for me when I was up.
There are names I’m inevitably going to kick myself for forgetting the moment this gets published, so to anyone I’ve missed: charge it to my head and not my heart.
I’ve been blessed to have a lot of people in my corner.
That’s why I keep coming back to the same belief: **no one wins alone.**
Contact Info:
- Website: www.dysgmedia.com (Coming Soon)
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doyouspeakgeek
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dysgfb
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/doyouspeakgeek
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/doyouspeakgeek
