PBS SoCal’s Digital Series WON’T YOU BE MY GAMER? Debuts New YouTube Channel and Announces New Fall Lineup
Press Contact
Allison Gray
agray@pbssocal.org
747.201.5298
Los Angeles, Calif. – October 23, 2025 – PBS SoCal Southern California’s flagship PBS organization, announced the debut of a new WON’T YOU BE MY GAMER? YouTube Channel since the initiative has been successful in bringing PBS SoCal a growing, younger audience and driving new subscriptions. Since launching the PBS SoCal-produced digital series in July 2024, co-hosts video game writer Elyse Willems and game developer Nikole Zivalich have been joined by various featured experts for a total of 50 20-minute episodes, giving viewers a chance to learn about a wide range of diverse topics in an interactive gameplay experience. A new Halloween-themed episode with monster expert Dr. Emily Zarka, host of “Monstrum” (the flagship series on “Storied,” the YouTube channel for arts and humanities from PBS Digital Studios) will premiere starting TOMORROW, Friday, Oct. 24 at 5 p.m. on the WON’T YOU BE MY GAMER? YouTube channel where they will learn about the history of the legendary witch Baba Yaga while playing REKA. Then, the trio will dig into the real-life folklore that inspired monsters like the wyvern, basilisk and leshen in The Witcher 3 on Halloween, Friday, Oct. 31 at 5 p.m. Viewers tuning into all new episode premieres at 5 p.m. can watch the hosts play live as well ask have their chat questions asked and answered by Elyse and Nikole in real time.
With a doctorate in Literature from Arizona State University, Dr. Emily Zarka’s expertise lies in monsters, the Gothic and horror in literature, film and folklore. She is currently on the faculty of the English Department at Arizona State University teaching undergraduate and graduate classes in composition and literature and serves as ASU's official “monster expert.”
In upcoming episodes, Willems and Zivalich will team up with USC musicologist Nate Sloan to play popular music-themed video games as well as historical author Marc Wanamaker highlighting his knowledge of old Hollywood. Sloan is a performer who researches jazz, Tin Pan Alley and popular music as well as composes for theatre and film, including the score for the short documentary Slomo. Wanamaker is the founder of Bison Archives, which manages research on the motion picture industry and helped form and worked with AFI, the LA International Film Exposition and American Cinematheque.
Upcoming scheduled episodes and hosts are as follows (*subject to change):
Oct. 24 and 31 – Monster Expert Dr. Emily Zarka with Monster/Undead games (REKA and The Witcher 3)
Nov. 7 and 14 – Historical Author Marc Wanamaker with Old Hollywood games (Sims 4 Get Famous)
Nov. 21 and Dec. 1 – Musicologist Nate Sloan with Music games (Trombone Champ and Hi-Fi Rush)
Elyse Willems brings her signature blend of comedy and authenticity to WYBMG, drawing from a career spent making millions laugh. Elyse spent nine years as a creative force and performer at Funhaus, creating content that earned the channel an overall 1.6 billion views. She's written for video games, including “Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed” and the upcoming Halloween game, served as showrunner and writer for the sketch series Arizona Circle, and authored the #1 children's book, “A Night in Halloween House.” In addition to WYBMG, she co-hosts the darkly comedic “30 Morbid Minutes” podcast, and the trivia podcast “Answer for It.” Her puppetry work can be seen in How Are We Today? airing across PBS member stations.
As a lifelong gamer, Nikole Zivalich brings a wealth of gaming and pop culture knowledge to WYBMG. Nikole is currently a writer and producer for TV and video games. She started working in live internet TV back when Twitch was still Justin.tv and hosted shows on theStream.tv and Revision3. At G4, Nikole hosted and produced the award-winning gaming podcast "Feedback" and was featured on shows like "X-Play." She’s written for and produced various video games across mobile, console/PC and Roblox, including “Kings Quest”, “Dungeon Saga RPG” and “Tetris.” As a games journalist, she has written for IGN’s Daily Fix, GamePro, and Shacknews. As a TV producer, Nikole spearheaded interactive elements of live TV shows like “Talking Dead,” “Talking Preacher” and “Talking Saul.” Nikole’s TV pilots and features have placed in various screenwriting contests across Screencraft, Stage32, LaunchPad and Coverfly.
Join the conversation on social media by tagging @pbssocal with #BeMyGamer
About PBS SoCal
PBS SoCal uses the power of public media for good, strengthening the civic fabric of Southern California and providing our community with an essential connection to a wider world. As a local, donor/member-supported non-profit organization, PBS SoCal is available to stream on the PBS app and the PBS Kids App and reaches nearly 19M viewers across 7 Broadcast channels — including 2 primary channels, PBS SoCal and PBS SoCal Plus and 5 digital subchannels. Select programming is also available on PBS SoCal’s YouTube channel. With a commitment to make content available anytime and anywhere for free, PBS SoCal offers programming that reflects the diversity of Southern California and showcases the full schedule of beloved and trusted PBS content spanning Education, News, Environment and Arts & Culture. PBS SoCal also sparks the sharing of ideas at in-person cultural events and community conversations as well as prepares children for kindergarten and beyond by bringing bilingual, hands-on learning experiences to the community for free.