Web Video / HIVEMIND

Welcome to HIVEMIND, the most [superlative] show on the internet.

"My name's Riley, and as always I'm joined by my (insert word here) co-host Graydon."

— Riley at the beginning of every video.

HIVEMIND is a Youtube channel hosted by, in their own words, two white guys from the Midwest, Riley Savage and Graydon Weaver who make content such as vlogs, music videos, and original content. They're most known for their hip hop related quiz games, including "Guess the Rapper from the Really Old Song", "Guess the Album from the Features" and "Guess the Album from All the Songs Playing at Once". From their first video on September 1st, 2016, they have amassed over a hundred thousand subscribers as of November 2021. They are known for their weird and strange sense of humor and often crazy stories as well. They also have a DJ, DJ Grant Meeker, who is the one who plays the songs and tells them the right answers after the two are done guessing.

Their Youtube is here, their Patreon is here, their second Youtube account is here ,their Instagram is here and their Twitter is here. Grant's Instagram is @meekergrant.

DJ Grant, serve us up those tropes!

• Accidental Truth:
  • They joked once that there should be an adult version of SpongeBob SquarePants. This was actually proposed in real life but was turned down.
  • In an episode of "Hivemind Feud", Graydon says there should be a comic book character named Catman. He does actually exist, although he's more of an obscure character.
• Actually Pretty Funny: Grant's reactions to the other two's antics. Riley has said he doesn't like it, calling it one of his many Grant Gripes, but the fans in the comments on the other hand love it.
• Affectionate Nickname:
  • They call singer and actress Olivia Rodrigo O Rod.
  • Graydon/Dignan often calls Grant G Money and sometimes calls Riley Riles.
• Animal Lover: Graydon.
• Author Appeal: The games they play on the main channel are mostly centered around Hip-Hop because Riley and Graydon are big fans of the genre, though they do discuss non-hip-hop artists a fair amount.
• Ax-Crazy: Dignan.
• Bait-and-Switch: Riley says he's going to do an impression of Pikachu, then does an Obama impression instead.
• Berserk Button: Machine Gun Kelly, just Machine Gun Kelly. If he's in a game as an option or revealed to be the right answer to one of the questions, his name simply being mentioned sends both hosts into a small hate-filled rant of how much they dislike his music and just him as a person. Riley once prayed to god to ask him to just stop releasing music.
  • Pete Davidson also gets many (much more) friendly jabs from both hosts, mostly Riley.
• Big Guy, Little Guy: Somewhat. Riley is not little at all (he's 6'1''), it's just that Graydon is so tall that it makes him look a lot shorter in comparison. Riley compares them to Rhett and Link in this aspect of their dynamic.
• Blatant Lies: Most of the stories they tell are these.
  • Graydon and his alter ego Dignan are referred to as completely different people... despite the fact that Graydon and Dignan are the same person. They are very committed to this bit to the point where they will sometimes refer to Graydon/Dignan in 3rd person if they are talking about either one of them.
• Blunt "No": Grant will usually say "that is not included" when either of them gets an answer wrong during Feud - sometimes he just says "no."
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: The results of the "What do you want to be remembered for?" question they polled to fans. Number's 5, 4, and 2 were being kind, being funny, and music/music taste.
  Grant: "These last two are very touching. Three is 'my fat ass' and one is 'my huge cock.'''
• Bromance: Their one-liners bracket is full of platonic "I love you's" towards each other.
• Butt-Monkey: Graydon. He usually loses the games, sometimes getting zero points, and more often complains if he's doing badly compared to Riley. Though, because Riley often wins the games, the fandom sees him as an okay target for the butt-monkey treatment.
  Grant: "Can you guys tell me the most unattractive names according to Hivemind fans?"
  Riley: "Oh, this is first names? Tanner."
  Grant: "Not there."
  Graydon: "Riley."
  Grant: "That's number one."
• Canine Companion: Riley's dog Hank.
• Careful with That Axe: One video cold opens with Riley and Graydon destroying the old red table they used to sit at, with Graydon screaming while revving a circular saw.
• Chromosome Casting: All the main members of Hivemind - Riley, Graydon, and Grant - are all men, though they have had women as special guests.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Both hosts, Graydon more so than Riley. Exaggerated with Graydon's alter ego Dignan.
• The Comically Serious: Their main way of making jokes. They'll often tell outlandish stories about things that happened in their pasts while managing to not laugh and remaining serious enough so people never know when they're telling the truth or not.
• Converting for Love: Eden (who is Jewish) jokes that she wouldn't marry Graydon unless he converted to Judaism.
  Graydon: "Shalom shalom, brother."
• Contagious Laughter: Grant, since he almost functions as a Laugh Track for Graydon and Riley, who admit that the videos would just be unsettling if he wasn't there.
• Dark and Troubled Past: In their videos, it's hinted through many many bits that both hosts have had some extremely traumatic pasts, although these are obviously all played for laughs. Some examples include Riley having to deal with a family member dying in his own arms every day of a week, Graydon being friends with SpongeBob SquarePants only for him to witness him getting killed, and Dignan's numerous crimes against humanity he's committed.
• Darker and Edgier: Dignan is supposedly this compared to Graydon, referring to himself as a criminal who's been to prison multiple times, although there's hardly any difference between the two.
• Dog Stereotype: Discussed in the "Graydon feud" video. Riley recalls having lived with a pitbull before, a breed often stereotyped as violent and dangerous, and having no problems with the dog at all and being more afraid of German shepherds instead. Though he also says that the pitbull's name was Goat and once ate a screwdriver off of the table much like a real goat would do, making it the second weird goat-related animal anecdote told on the channel.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": In "Guess the Rapper from Quadeca's Styles of Rap", Riley failed to get a perfect game as he stated he'd do in the beginning. Graydon then berates Riley saying that "he should have taken those performance enhancing drugs he offered him" After stating that the steroids have nasty side effects... Graydon just proclaims that his name is now Dignan and that from now on to call him Dignan. Riley then questions Dignan about the performance enhancing drugs not really enhancing his performance but "Dignan" insists on changing his name to Dignan. In an ironic twist... Graydon is referred to as Dignan for the rest of the episode and his scoreboard graphic name changed from Graydon to Dignan. This is also the origin of Graydon being referred to as Dignan in various videos after this.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: In their first few videos, they simply interviewed people, with little to no comedy involved. In their early guessing games, Riley spoke much slower in the intro, and people other than Grant filmed the videos and laughed in the background. They also didn't use whiteboards.
  • This is also used in the game "Guess The Rapper From The Really Old Song/Their First Song", showing a certain popular rapper's first music that Grant can find, which is often different from their current output.
• The Faceless: Grant in most of the videos, such as the guessing games never shows his face, although on his Instagram this isn't the case, with some people saying jokingly that it ruined the secret of his Identity.
  • He would eventually appear on camera for the first time in a main channel video in the video "Is This a Perfect Three Album Run?".
• Fan Boy: Of quite a few artists, and also of the animated series The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius which they reference quite often. Grant has also described himself as the "biggest Adrienne Lenker fan."
• Fanservice: Brought up by Quadeca:
  Quadeca: "Is my [nipple] poking through my shirt right now?"
  Riley: "Yeah."
  Quadeca: "...That's cool. I think the people have earned that."
• Formula-Breaking Episode: For Graydon's birthday and to make up for how he always loses, Riley and Grant arranged "Graydon Feud," the exact same thing as Hivemind Feud except with questions about things that Graydon likes, such as dogs, cigarettes, and Bob Dylan.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Riley and Graydon, ever since they met in school, they've been best friends.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Grant is an accomplished music video director.
  • Riley is also experienced with and has a degree in art which is put to use in the Cartoon Puns guessing game as well as creating visuals for other artists and music videos.
  • Graydon has also shown that when he tries to sing seriously, he has some great vocal skills, his partial cover of "American Pie" in "Guess The Lyric From The Genius Annotation" being a good example. He's also a big fan of old school jazz and bossa nova, very different from the rap/hip-hop centric games they play.
  Graydon: "No points for jazz freaks."
  • Graydon, as evidenced by some of his "advice" segments and some of his Instagram posts, reads and is knowledgeable about poetry.
• Hiding Behind the Language Barrier: Luca and Ant from NFR podcast talk to each other about the answers in Quebecois since none of the Hivemind crew can understand what they're saying.
• He Cleans Up Nicely: Discussed about Quadeca in the one-liners bracket. They point out how he used to dress like a dork but has since changed his style and is "hot" now. Commenters even half-jokingly call him a sex symbol.
  Graydon: "He looks like a hot guy now. Not that he was, like, a hideous monster there, but he looked like a doofus."
• Hell Is That Noise: In games such as "Guess the Base Boosted Audio" and "Guess All the Songs Playing from the Album at the Same Time", some of the resulting noise can be best described as pure chaotic insanity. Riley once said it sounded like something in the room broke when one of the bass boosted songs was played.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Graydon and Gabi Belle whenever she's on as a guest.
• Hypocritical Humor: Occasionally, such as when Riley (a cartoonist) lambasts artists for not "getting a real career," and when Graydon (a big fan of jazz) calls jazz-listeners "a bunch of freaks."
• It Makes Just As Much Sense In Context: Daddy's Fancy Boat. Many commenters were confused as to why the guys were laughing so hard about it, thinking maybe it was a reference they weren't aware of. It's not a reference to anything, it just broke them.
• The Movie Buff: Graydon.
• Multiple-Choice Past: Conversed by Riley about Dignan's inconsistent past on Audio Olympics when he brings up his twin sister named Dignity that Riley has never met or even heard of until Dignan brought it up.
  Riley: "No, but it's just like—his life is inconsistent. At one point he told me he had a brother named Dunlap and his last name was Dirkin; then all of a sudden he said he had never said that and his last name is Zazumba-Zaffodil."
  Dignan: "I never said that."
  Riley: "You never said which one?!"
  Dignan: "The latter."
  Riley: "Zazumba-Zaffodil, you never said that? Can pull up a video right now... Now you are saying you have a twin sister named Dignity whose a Tennessee Congress Woman?"
  Dignan: "Yes."
  Riley: "Yeah... ok. I just don't believe it."
• Never Bareheaded: Riley. He does do a "hairline reveal" in one video, where he removes his beanie to reveal... another beanie underneath (which he eventually does remove).
• Only Sane Man: Grant.
• Overly Long Gag: The bits sometimes go into this territory, to the point where they only spend a small portion of time playing the games compared to the amount of time doing bits.
• Our Slogan Is Terrible: In Episode 15 of Feud, Riley proposes "Glory!" (a quote from Graydon in a previous video) to be their channel's slogan, which Graydon rejects. He then proposes, "That's not bugs, it's a bag of ranch!" to be their slogan, a nonsensical phrase he made up on the spot, and since Riley can't come up with anything else, Graydon decides it's their slogan now. Another proposed slogan is "HIVEMIND: Comedy first, morals last."
• Precision F-Strike: Graydon shouts "FUCK!" very loudly after getting a question about Eminem wrong, startling Riley. He then starts freestyling...
  • He also did this in an earlier video when he guessed the wrong answer to a question where the right artist was The Kid LAROI, he said he was upset cause he's such a big fan of Laroi's music and it hurt to get the answer wrong.
• Pungeon Master: Riley with his common wordplay a lot of the time can be seen as this. Graydon to a lesser extent.
• Reaction Video: Not usually, although when they're streaming, they'll react to music that's sent to them from fans in full.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • They're rarely ever serious in the videos, but there are moments when they speak candidly about serious topics, such as when they discuss homophobia and transphobia in their review of Kendrick Lamar's Mr. Morale and The Big Steppers.
  • When Graydon asks Grant if Manchester United is his favorite sports team, Grant says in a deadpan voice, "I'll kill you."
• Running Gag: Several.
  • Riley can never get into the top ten clips of the week on SportsCenter.
  • Dignan is in prison but sometimes gets to be in the videos when he's released on furlough.
  • Graydon guesses obviously incorrect songs when he doesn't know the answer during the games.
  • After the second question in videos featuring Quadeca, Quadeca does "Bar Of The Day", where he writes a bar in the style of someone (usually Riley) and reads it aloud. He also does a victory lap around the table when he wins.
  • "They renamed Las Vegas to 'Las Vegans,' 'cuz there's so many vegans..."
  • Riley always gets questions relating to Lil Peep, his favorite artist, wrong.
  • Riley's obsession with Justin Long.
  • Calling Quadeca "Quanka" or some other mispronunciation.
  • Riley's uncle is Tony Hawk.
  • Graydon being weirdly knowledgeable about animals.
  • One of them claiming they're going to do an impression of someone, then just quoting the "I'm funny how?" scene from Goodfellas.
• Sanity Slippage: "Dignan Lost His Mind While We Were On Tour."
• Shout-Out:
  • Quadeca reps for the entire country of Bulgaria in the Audio Olympics, even though nobody was supposed to represent a country in the first place. He lists various fun facts about the country throughout the video and even sings their national anthem in Bulgarian from memory, meaning he definitely had to practice. The few Bulgarian fans of Hivemind in the comments were overjoyed.
  • For their bracket of their favorite songs of all time, both Graydon and Riley chose songs that they hadn't discussed before on the channel.
• Smoking Is Cool: Graydon. He mentions smoking cigarettes a few times, and one of the topics for "Graydon Feud" is the most popular cigarette brands. He also (comically) shuts down Riley trying to clarify that they're not pro-cigarettes.
  Riley: "I wanna be clear that we don't promote smoking."
  Graydon: "I'm not gonna side with you there."
  Riley: (pointing at the camera) "Don't smoke! Especially if you're young."
  Graydon: "But if you're old... feel free!"
• Special Guest: They have had a few, with rapper, singer, producer, and their friend Quadeca appearing enough on the show that people consider him The Sixth Ranger and the most official unofficial member. This has also continued with commentary Youtuber nickisnotgreen, due to both Nick and Hivemind appearing on each other's channels very frequently.
  • The video "Guess The Inanimate Object from the Sound" featured Comedian and content creator Molly Garcia, who actually ended up being the winner of the game.
  • They also had Cam from the YouTube channel Cuffboys on one episode of "Guess The Rapper From The Type Beat", and they, in turn, appeared on the Cuffboys' podcast for an interview with Cam and Johnny.
  • Commentary Youtuber Gabi Belle appeared in the episode of Guess Which Artist Has More MONTHLY LISTENERS on Spotify" released on November 7th, 2022.
  • Rapper PmBata also appeared in an episode of "Guess The Rapper from the Type Beat".
  • Youtuber Dev Lemons appeared in the third episode of "Hivemind Feud" to battle Riley and Graydon and later appeared in an episode of "Guess the Rapper by the Weird Lyric".
  • Riley and Graydon faced off against each other in an episode of Patrick CC's "Aux Wars" series.
  • Graydon's girlfriend Eden has been in multiple videos.
  • Brad Taste In Music has appeared in several videos and on a few streams.
  • Luca and Anthony of NFR podcast have appeared in a few videos with Riley and Graydon also featuring on their channel as well
  • Lyle Forever also known as Therapy Gecko appeared in a Best Tweet tier list video.
  • Nickisnotgreen has appeared in a couple videos of theirs along with Riley and Graydon appearing on his channels as well
  • Riley and Graydon have appeared on Fantano's channel to do a guess the real genre game.
  • Singer and producer ericdoa did a Guess the rapper from the fiverr impression.
• Straight Man:
  • Riley compared to Graydon (though they often play this role interchangeably), and Grant compared to both of them.
  • Especially Brad Taste In Music compared to Riley and Graydon when he's been on the show.
• Stylistic Suck:
  • Some of the rapper impressions they got from Fivver were done like this, most notably the one of Lil Pump and Dev Lemons' impression of Eminem. Graydon/Dignan also sometimes sings like this, one notable example was him singing some lyrics from Ray Charles in one of the games of Guess the Popular Rap Song from the Sample.
• Suddenly Shouting:
  • Near the end of "Guess The Producer From The Really Old Beat", Grant shouted at Riley "I don't need to tell you anything!" when Riley complained about the fact the game was over without knowing the question they guessed for was the last one.
  • Graydon does this a lot, usually to startle Riley.
• Take That!:
  • Dignan's hilariously over-the-top rant against J. K. Rowling, where he says he hopes she burns in a house fire—and survives. While the rant is too over-the-top to be taken seriously, it does come from an actual place of anger for Rowling's hate speech against transgender people.
  • The "Worst Songs Ever Made" brackets are basically this for the whole time.
• Third Wheel: Riley, when Graydon's girlfriend Eden is on the show.
  Youtube commenter: "Riley is so much funnier when he is third wheeling and trying to win over Graydon's love"
• The Trickster: Grant can be this at times with the answers to the questions in the guessing games, stumping both hosts, usually because they said that a particular game was really easy so far.
• True Companions: All the guys. This goes not just for Riley, Graydon and Grant, but the other members that aren't seen as much such as Alex and Quinn as well.
• Two Aliases, One Character: Graydon and Dignan, however, it is a running gag to refer to Dignan as completely different to Graydon.
• Verbal Tic: Whenever Riley gets genuinely annoyed, he says "whatever."
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: In Guess the Popular Rap Songs by the sample (with NFR Podcast) Riley asks Luca and Ant if their father said that they were proud of them would it fix all of their relationship problems. With a dead serious tone and voice, Anthony of NFR Podcast says that he writes letters to his father everyday, hoping that he will write back, which he never does. While his father would get emotional, he would end up shredding the letter or putting it away somewhere. Graydon and Riley both laugh, with Riley saying "Your content isn't outwardly funny, but you got bits." Luca and Ant both treat this seriously and Ant shames the two saying he drove all the way done he just for the two to clown his sour relationship with his father and playing it for bits.

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Graydon, would you like to leave these people with any advice to lead or live their lives by?

A life that cannot be ruined by TV Tropes... is truly a great one.