New Hampshire's Dan Larson a YouTube hit with "Secret Galaxy" pop culture documentaries
BOSTON – Through wise cracks, a bit of bathroom humor and a whole lot of knowledge about pop culture, Dan Larson takes audiences to a nostalgic universe onboard his popular YouTube channel "Secret Galaxy."
"We're kind of doing these mini pop culture documentaries on a weekly basis," Larson said.
Larson and his longtime friend Greg produce the show out of their New Hampshire studio once a week. They focus on entertainment from the 70s, 80s and 90s.
"It's nice to escape for 12-15 minutes to watch one of our videos," Larson said. "And learn about this thing that you used to spend all of your time with."
Larson said these trips to the past often serve to soothe during turbulent times of the present day.
"We have been in this nostalgia as a security blanket," Larson said. "As a cozy hug that alleviates and lets you escape a lot of things that are happening in the real world right now."
With nearly 400,000 subscribers, the channel is now Larson's full-time job. It started off as just toy review but morphed into so much more through a concentrated effort to make it stand out.
"Figuring out a unique narrative about a property that hasn't necessarily been told before or a way that we can tell it our way," Larson said. "Or see it the way we tell it even if people have seen 50 other videos about that exact same topic."
It takes Larson three days to research and write, then his partner Greg edits and uploads.
"I've always wanted some kind of creative outlet," Larson told WBZ-TV. "To be able to say the things I wanted to say to be able to draw the things I wanted to draw. Superhero adventures. Robots that kind of stuff."
And while nostalgia rules at the moment, Larson admits today's widespread entertainment options may not translate to fond memories in the future.
"Every day at school kids were watching the same stuff they were talking about the same stuff. They had these shared experiences," he said. "Today kids are growing up with just completely different options. One person might be watching TikTok all the time, the other person might be playing games, watching Discord, you might be on Netflix. It's a scattered audience and there's not going to be this shared experience. I don't think these things are going to have the same strength to resonate and that's part of why you still see those same brands from the 80's driving all of the entertainment."
Watch: Extended conversation with Dan Larson