Michael Swaim

Michael Swaim (born June 7, 1985) is an American filmmaker, writer, actor, comedian, and podcaster.

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.

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.

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.

While attending the University of California, San Diego, he became a columnist for the humor website Cracked.com, and after graduating from college in 2007, he joined with Abe Epperson to co-found the internet sketch comedy troupe Those Aren't Muskets.

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 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.

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."

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".

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 Small Beans has since grown to include more Cracked alumni as both members and collaborators.

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.