We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kyle Huff. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kyle below.

Kyle, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

How did you learn to do what you do?
Honestly, the same way I tell anyone who asks me, repetition. Just pure, unglamorous, borderline boring reps. You can binge every podcast, read every article, take every course, but nothing is as good as actually sitting down and making content. Your first ten videos are going to be your biggest learning experiences. Getting an idea out of your head and hitting publish is one of the hardest parts of the job.

Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process?
I would’ve started posting sooner and worried less about it being perfect. The gap between consuming information and actually creating is where most people get stuck, myself included early on. The faster you close that gap, the faster you grow. Some of my best performing videos were one I thought were terrible and not ready to see the light of day.

What skills do you think were most essential?
Finding something you genuinely can’t stop talking about. That’s it. Passion is the secret sauce in this industry, it’s your competitive advantage. Audiences are incredibly good at detecting authenticity, and when they find someone who truly loves what they’re talking about, they come back. You can teach someone editing, but you can’t teach them the passion needed to be sincere.

Kyle, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Kyle aka “PapaLobster” and by day I am an engineer, but by night I am a Youtube storyteller diving deep into the world of esports, video games, and the fighting game community.

The way I got into it was pretty organic. I’ve been a part of the fighting game community for a long time. I lived it, using the little funds I had from being in the military at the time and traveling all around the country competing. At some point I realized that the stories coming out of this world were genuinely fascinating, but they weren’t being told in a way that anyone outside the niche could actually access or appreciate. That gap is what pulled me in.

What I create are narrative-driven videos that treat gaming culture with the same seriousness and craft that you’d expect from a documentary or a long-form sports story. My goal is to make someone who has never touched a fighting game in their life walk away from one of my videos feeling like they just watched something that actually mattered, because to me it does.

What sets me apart is the combination of things I bring to the table. My engineering background trained me to think in systems and communicate complex ideas clearly. My years inside the community give me authenticity and context that you simply can’t fake. And my storytelling approach bridges those two worlds in a way that doesn’t talk down to hardcore fans but also doesn’t alienate newcomers.

What I’m most proud of is bringing this amazing culture to outsiders without stripping away what makes it special.

If you’ve ever been curious about esports or the fighting game scene but didn’t know where to start, my channel is built for you. And if you’re already deep in the community, I think you’ll appreciate seeing your world reflected back with the respect it deserves.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

There’s one that comes to mind immediately, and it still makes me laugh when I think about it.

When I was in the military, I was absolutely obsessed with competing in fighting game tournaments. The problem was I wasn’t exactly swimming in money. But I had leave, I had determination, and I had a community scattered across the country that I needed to be a part of.

So I made it work the only way I could. I’d carpool with whoever was heading in the right direction, split hotel rooms with ten other people, and claim whatever floor space was available. There was no glamour in it. But honestly? Nobody in that scene expected glamour. We were all just there because we loved it.

The moment that really captures everything though was on a cold weekend in New Jersey, prom had just happened and there were no hotel rooms available within 50 miles of me. So I did the only thing I could think of, I ended up sleeping in a parking garage elevator. Not a room. Not a lobby couch. A parking garage elevator.

That’s just how much I loved the community. You’re not doing it for recognition or reward, you’re doing it because not doing it isn’t really an option. That same mentality is what eventually pushed me to start Papalobster, and it’s what keeps me going when the algorithm isn’t cooperating and the views aren’t where I want them to be.
The elevator wasn’t a low point. It was proof of how much I wanted it.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Honestly? It’s the people I meet at tournaments.

I know that might sound like a surprising answer coming from someone who makes videos, but hear me out. Millions of views is a cool number to look at don’t get me wrong. But a number on a screen has never once given me chills. But someone coming up to me at a tournament and having them tell me that something I made meant something to them is a completely life changing experience.

I can distinctly remember nearly every single one of those interactions. The specific person, what they said, where we were standing. That kind of thing doesn’t fade the way metrics do.

Those moments are my fuel. When the editing is grinding me down, when a video doesn’t perform the way I hoped, when I’m staring at a blank script wondering why I do this, I go back to those faces and those conversations and it resets everything.

That’s who I’m really making content for. Not an algorithm, not an abstract audience of thousands. I’m making it for the person I’m going to run into at the next tournament who found the fighting game community through one of my videos and decided to show up. That’s the whole point for me.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/papalobster13/
• Twitter: https://x.com/PapaLobster13
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@papalobster
• Other: https://www.twitch.tv/papalobster/
  https://www.tiktok.com/@papalobster13