Michael Swaim (born June 7, 1985) is an American actor, comedian, filmmaker, podcaster, and writer. While attending the University of California, San Diego, he became a columnist for the humor website Cracked.com, and after graduating in 2007, he joined with Abe Epperson to co-found the internet sketch comedy troupe Those Aren't Muskets. Along with Epperson and another frequent collaborator, Daniel O'Brien, he spent the late 2000s establishing a video department for Cracked. His subsequent tenure as Head of Video for the website produced several viral web series that he and O'Brien often starred in; these include the Webby Award-winning After Hours and the Streamy Award-winning Agents of Cracked.
The 2010 independent horror-comedy film Kill Me Now was co-written by Swaim and features him in a starring role. Swaim and Epperson are currently in production on their second feature film, Papa Bear. Two audio collections of short stories and poems by Swaim have been released, and in 2023, Swaim self-published a novel, The Climb. In 2024, he self-published a comic book, One Last Job.
Through his affiliation with Cracked, Swaim contributed to the 2010 New York Times Best Seller You Might Be a Zombie and Other Bad News. He then served as a Senior Editor on a 2013 followup, The De-textbook. Until his departure from Cracked in October 2017, Swaim was a regular feature on podcasts produced by the website. At that time, he co-hosted the series Kurt Vonneguys with Alex Schmidt.
Currently, Swaim runs Small Beans, an online comedy network funded through Patreon. Small Beans was founded by Swaim and Epperson together in December 2017; the two were joined from the outset by a co-worker they had befriended at Cracked, Adam Ganser, and numerous Cracked alumni have since come to be involved in content produced by Small Beans. In October 2019, Swaim began producing video content for IGN while continuing to operate Small Beans. From 2022 through 2023, iHeartMedia distributed Swaim and Ganser's gaming-themed podcast series 1Upsmanship. The A.V. Club, Collider, The Nation, and Paste have all named Swaim's work at Small Beans as among the best in podcasting.
Early life Michael Swaim was born on June 7, 1985 and grew up in San Diego County, California. His parents divorced when he was seven. Swaim's uncle is folk singer and Waterbug Records founder Andrew Calhoun.
At age nine, Swaim and his younger brother, David, survived a car accident that occurred on Thanksgiving Day. Swaim sustained a brain injury from the crash and subsequently suffered from panic attacks as a child. Soon after the crash, he developed depression, which has reoccurred throughout his life.
Swaim attended a Montessori school for sixth grade and Standley Middle School for seventh grade. His family then moved to Ramona, California, where he finished his schooling.
In a 2011 interview with The Huffington Post, Swaim explained his artistic influences saying, "I'm sure The Simpsons is a big part of it, and I'd like to think there's some Vonnegut and even a little Shakespeare in there. Shakespeare for his appreciation of a good pun and his cavalier abuse of the language he so clearly loved, Vonnegut for his eye for truth and his brevity. I doubt anyone will see any of that in my writing, but I try, dammit."
Career
Those Aren't Muskets and early writings Swaim attended the University of California, San Diego, where he majored in theatre with a minor in creative writing. Before beginning his career in comedy, he contributed short stories to science fiction magazines. He also aspired to become a playwright. While attending UCSD, he served as an editor of the university's satirical publication, the Muir Quarterly, commonly known as "the MQ". In 2006, he began writing comedy articles on a freelance basis for Cracked.com. The website gave him a blog, called "The Specious", and during Swaim's senior year of college, he became a columnist for Cracked. Around this time, he also contributed articles to McSweeney's and Yankee Pot Roast. In September 2007, "The Specious" ceased publication. Swaim's columns for Cracked were later published as part of a separate blog called "S.W.A.I.M.".
Fellow MQ editor Abe Epperson befriended Swaim when they were both UCSD sophomores, and the two have remained frequent collaborators throughout their careers. Together, shortly after graduating in 2007, they founded the internet sketch comedy troupe Those Aren't Muskets. Swaim continued during this time to be involved with UCSD's theatre program, producing his own original comedy play, Olympus Inc, from which cast members occasionally crossed over into Those Aren't Muskets videos. Within months, the troupe's content had attained over 100,000 views. Videos produced by the troupe were posted to websites like YouTube, Revver, Cracked, CollegeHumor, and Funny or Die, in addition to the now-defunct thosearentmuskets.com.
Towards the end of 2007, Those Aren't Muskets began a partnership with Cracked. The first video produced through this collaboration, "Internet Party", found success on Digg and was featured on YouTube's homepage. The video quickly surpassed two million views. Gaining media attention, it was identified by The San Diego Union-Tribune as Swaim and Epperson's "first bona fide hit". Years later, Cracked video producer Breandan Carter identified "Internet Party" as the "breakthrough video" that "put [Cracked.com] on the map as observational humorists."
According to Swaim, a "symbiosis" quickly developed between Those Aren't Muskets and Cracked, and from this came the web series Cracked TV - initially announced under the title S.W.A.I.M. and later rebranded as Does Not Compute. By 2008, Those Aren't Muskets had grown to an official membership of six. Non-members were often cast in the troupe's videos as well, and among them was Katie Willert, a then-UCSD student, who, later in her career, would co-star alongside Swaim in numerous Cracked video productions. In 2008, Swaim's brother, David, guest-starred in "Chops", a Those Aren't Muskets video which placed fourth - over hundreds of submissions - in YouTube's Sketchies II competition. That same year, Those Aren't Muskets was featured during the "Kings of Dot Comedy" segment on G4's series Attack of the Show. Over the summer of 2008, Swaim and Epperson moved to Los Angeles together.
Cracked tenure and Kill Me Now When Cracked decided to start producing its own video content, Swaim was enlisted to lead the effort. He and Epperson teamed up with Daniel O'Brien to create the first official Cracked web series, Agents of Cracked. The series began airing in November 2009 and ran for three seasons. Its first season won the "Audience choice award for best web series" at the Second Annual Streamy Awards. By 2011, the series had been viewed online over seven million times.
Those Aren't Muskets remained active for a few more years, producing the web series 8-Bits for Cracked, and joining in 2009 with several other internet sketch troupes for a two-week collaboration known as Genius Camp. One of the sketches resulting from this collaboration was featured on Comedy Central's series Tosh.0. Swaim had a cameo role that year in the BriTANicK video "Epic Phone Fail". He had a cameo role a year later in the MagicHugs video "Cover Me".
By 2010, Swaim had become Head of Video at Cracked. He continued starring in original video series produced by the website, among them After Hours, which won Best Writing at the 18th Annual Webby Awards. According to The Huffington Post, Swaim and his frequent co-star, O'Brien, came to be known as the collective "face of Cracked".
As Swaim became more involved with video production for Cracked, he wrote fewer columns for the website but took on supplementary work as a blogger for guyspeak.com. Swaim's work for GuySpeak was occasionally featured in Glamour. Offering humor-based relationship advice, Swaim contributed to GuySpeak for about a year, starting in late 2009.
In 2010, Swaim told The Huffington Post that he hoped his tenure at Cracked would be a step towards eventually making feature films. Later that year, Swaim and Epperson were contacted by filmmaker Travis Long, who expressed interest in working with the duo on a feature. Swaim and Epperson had already developed a story idea together, and with Long's help, this idea was turned into the horror-comedy film Kill Me Now. Swaim, who had a starring role in the film, wrote the screenplay and received a producer credit, while Long directed, and Epperson performed the cinematography. Kill Me Now was produced through Ketchup Media. It was shot in Effingham, Illinois. Filming occurred in October 2010 and lasted for twenty-one days.
Although Swaim was initially unsure about acting in Kill Me Now, he took a starring role due to the film's short production schedule. The film's cast and crew included several internet sketch comedians, among them, Beck Bennett and Kyle Mooney, who would both go on to join Saturday Night Live shortly after appearing in the film. Kill Me Now premiered in Los Angeles on December 5, 2012. It then had a limited theatrical release through Tugg, a service that allows people to bring screenings of films to their local city when enough tickets are pre-ordered.
Swaim contributed to Cracked's 2010 New York Times Best Seller, You Might Be a Zombie and Other Bad News, and served as a Senior Editor on Cracked's 2013 release, The De-textbook. Throughout his tenure at Cracked, he often appeared on - and occasionally co-hosted - the Cracked podcast. He also co-hosted the Cracked-produced podcast Kurt Vonneguys with Alex Schmidt. Kurt Vonneguys was hailed by The A.V. Club as "a must, both for those deeply familiar with Vonnegut’s work and those seeking an entry point."
After the release of Kill Me Now, Swaim hoped to quickly continue on to more feature films and grew dissatisfied with his position at Cracked, once it became apparent to him that the company's corporate owners were unwilling to fund any large-scale projects. A lack of creative fulfillment eventually prompted Swaim to relinquish his role as the head of Cracked's video department. Swaim later recounted that his depression, which he had suffered from since childhood, gradually worsened during this stage of his life, and over time, he continued to reduce his role at Cracked. He resigned from the company in October 2017. A few weeks later, Cracked laid off much of its remaining staff. Speaking to the company's struggles, Swaim expressed his view that Cracked had squandered its "potential to become an SNL or a National Lampoon-type brand with feature films and so forth." Nonetheless, Swaim has spoken highly of the work that has been continued on by Cracked's current employees.
Small Beans After Swaim's departure from Cracked, he and Epperson founded a new venture together, called Small Beans. Funded through Patreon, Small Beans is a podcasting network that also produces occasional sketch comedy videos. Swaim and Epperson were joined in the founding of Small Beans by Adam Ganser, who like Epperson, was a prolific director of videos at Cracked. Several other former members of Cracked have since come to join Small Beans or have contributed to Small Beans content.
Small Beans was first announced by Swaim on December 4, 2017. The following day, Swaim posted a video online, explaining his decision to resign from Cracked and offering further details about Small Beans. The formal launch date for Small Beans was on December 11, although the first Small Beans content debuted a week in advance.