Words with Climberisms’ Dylan Taylor, the funniest voice in climbing
From Adam Ondra and Chris Sharma to Margo Hayes and Janja Garnbret, his Instagram voice-overs are bringing laughs to countless climbers
American climber Dylan Taylor takes popular climbing footage from old films or recent comps and dubs his impersonation of the climber over the video with a few funny lines.
His first voice-over clip was posted on Instagram back in February, and until the Olympics he had steady growth. But after Taylor started to voice clips from the Olympics only hours after the original clips had aired, the number of people following started to grow daily, by the hundreds, and has almost doubled since July.
The top climbers that he’s featured include Chris Sharma, Margo Hayes, Adam Ondra, Daniel Woods, Dave Graham, Hazel Findlay and Giuliano Cameroni. Many of the climbers have shared his clips on their Instagram pages. And Emily Harrington said about Taylor’s clips: “New favourite way to start my day is watching these.”
His impression of Sharma’s famous “psaaaaaaat” has reached so many climbers that it’s now common to hear young climbers at the gym yell it mid-climb. We touched base with Taylor as the number of climbers (likely climbers) following him jumped above 32,000.
Where are you based and what gym do you set at? I’m based out of Los Angeles and set for Touchstone Climbing.
What’s your background? I’m from Cocoa Beach Florida and my background is skateboarding. Started skating at the age of four, and it was my life until I was about 16. It took me all over the U.S.A., which was fun, but I was so young it seems all blurry.
Did you study comedy? Theatre? No I’ve never studied comedy, just have always been a big fan of Jim Carrey, Bill Hader, George Carlin, and as of recent Sam Kinison. Not theatre, either, but movies are my life. I watch a lot of movies and would have to say film is one of my biggest passions. I surprisingly don’t watch a lot of comedy.
What inspired the first voice-overs? I always thought an Instagram called @savvyamusing who voice-overs basketball was hilarious, and always thought a page like that for climbing would be amazing. For years, I thought that. So, it took me a while to get the courage and do it myself. And what gave me that push was while in a hospital for mental health reasons, and while in a group reading sesh, we were all taking turns to read and a nice old lady named Rose told me I had a nice voice, so I finished out the group reading. Thanks, Rose. And since then, which was last October, it kinda set me up into a spiral of me “really, really” realizing it’s time to do something with my voice. A breaking point, per se.
What was the first voice-over you did? Chris Sharma doing Witness the Fitness in February.
How longs does it take you to get into “character”? As soon as I got the material, I’m in it! Or as soon as I get the material I’ll sit on it for day/weeks.
Who’s your favourite climber to voice? Hard question, but I would have to say Giuliano Cameroni DOOD.
Have you had any pushback from the climbers in the films? Nope, nothing thus far.
Have you had many requests? I do get many requests. As much as I want to fulfill and make all these people stoked out of their minds and heard, I’m not Superman and won’t force the material.
Do you have a list of clips, or do you just wake up and find one to voice? I definitely have a huge list and videos I haven’t posted. But mostly things that are relevant get in the way of the list. Which isn’t a bad thing.
Your Instagram followers have almost doubled in the past few months, far outpacing most climbing meme pages. What does that tell you about the content that climbers enjoy? I don’t know. They wildin! But I think people just needed something refreshing and new.
How far are you going to take it? Not sure. If I think too far ahead I get stressed; but, I guess, I would like to take it far.
Do you prefer voicing comps, outdoor sends, or just random movie clips? Depends on my mood and the material. I will say Matt Groom at IFSC is a lot of fun.
If you could play any character, in any mainstream Hollywood film, who would you play? JOKER!!! ?
Adam Ondra
Margo Hayes
Giuliano Cameroni
Janja Garnbret
Sean Bailey
Alex Megos
Natalia Grossman
Jason Momoa
Daniel Woods
Vertical Limit
Alex Honnold
Cedar Wright
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