One thing became apparent when The Loadout spent time speaking with Atlanta FaZe Call of Duty content creator Hannah ‘NoisyButters’ Bryan recently: she’s just as genuine and vivacious as she is in her videos and streams. That’s quite a rarity, as people’s on-camera personas are usually dialled up a little bit, but NoisyButters keeps the positivity and happiness she’s known for up when we drag her out of bed for a morning interview about her life, career, and Call of Duty.
NoisyButters tells us she was inspired to start making YouTube videos by Minnesota Rokkr’s director of content Ashley ‘Midnite’ Glassel, back in the day when she was a content creator for OpTic Gaming, so she bought herself an HD PVR and started documenting her Call of Duty shenanigans. While attending high school, she juggled high school responsibilities like cheerleading alongside her new-found love for video creation. When she went to college, she eventually found a good balance between content creation and personal life, and when she graduated, NoisyButters decided to take a year off and put all her efforts into YouTube to see what would happen – and it paid off.
Making Call of Duty videos was just a hobby to start with, and NoisyButters had no idea you could even make a living doing it. “There’s a very old video on my channel. In it, I basically said, ‘I don’t want to be known on the internet, I want my own little corner where I can just sit here and tell my stories and have this little creative outlet. I don’t want to be super popular.’ And then years later, people are like, ‘so, what happened to that video?’ Ah, what a time. What a naive little Butters. Little did you know how far this would go.”
But when you’re creating videos for YouTube or streaming to a large audience, it often requires a hard grind. Many content creators find it hard to switch off and put the work down, or carve out a schedule and stick to it. NoisyButters says her friends describe her work ethic as like that of an excited little puppy. “‘You’re like a dog. You have the zoomies really hard for like a day and then you’re gone for a couple of days.’” It might seem like an odd comparison, but it’s the perfect analogy for someone like NoisyButters.
During college she had 15 to 16-hour work days as she studied, worked her IT job, and made videos on top. Taking on such a heavy workload, though, taught her a valuable lesson. “Time off to recover and recharge is not time wasted,” she says. “And I feel like, in this industry, it’s heavily implied that if you take time to yourself, you’re missing out on the potential growth on your social media. I don’t think you’re missing out at all. I think it’s extremely healthy [to] step away from computers, go outside, and touch grass. I know that’s a meme, but seriously, go outside. Sunlight’s amazing, the world is amazing. And don’t feel like you have to be pressured to be behind a screen at all times.”
NoisyButters’ focus on positivity and happiness has become her de facto catchphrase for video intros, and it’s a message she’s become synonymous with. But while others have to consciously work towards this attitude every day, for NoisyButters, it was something she was born with.
“I’m naturally very happy. I feel like I was born into this world to just be happy and positive,” she tells us. “And I think the best thing that I can do as a person and as an individual is to just spread that positivity. As cheesy as it sounds, there’s got to be a reason why I’m super happy all the time. There’s got to be. And I can give that happiness to others.
“Nobody’s perfect, I do have my off days every now and again, but even then, I’ll lay with my cats and go ‘man, today’s a good day. I’m chilling. I don’t feel the best, but tomorrow is gonna be a better day.’ And that’s pretty much how I approach life. I usually see the positive in every situation.”
As someone who is deeply embedded in the Call of Duty community, and indulges in both the fast-paced multiplayer action and the battle royale experience in Warzone, we were curious to find out which style of Call of Duty NoisyButters prefers.
“As somebody who has played COD multiplayer for so many years and has loved it, it was really weird when Warzone came out,” she says. “I am not a battle royale person whatsoever, but there is something about that game that I am obsessed with. I love Warzone. It’s weird. I don’t get it. Because I’m not a battle royale person, it’s the only battle royale I play. But I love it. So, the answer is I like both. But I’ve definitely been leaning towards Warzone.”
With Warzone progressively luring her away from the annual multiplayer offerings, what does she think about the rumours that Activision Blizzard is looking to skip 2023’s Call of Duty release in a bid to move away from the status quo?
“It’s gonna be super interesting. I think what I’m most excited to see is just a little bit of a breather for the devs,” she says. “I feel like the devs work extremely hard, and don’t get the credit that they deserve.” NoisyButters tells us that she believes allowing the development team to take their foot off the pedal a bit will be good for the series and the dev team’s creative juices.
While many would argue that Call of Duty games are becoming similar with every new release, NoisyButters disagrees, noting that she can point out the differences that make each entry unique. “I’m also the kind of person who loves to play the campaign as well. So that’s always a joy that I find every year. Before I play multiplayer, I stream and I play the campaign all the way through. That’s the very first thing I do. The very first video I upload whenever a new COD comes out: campaign highlights.” She does, however, worry that the series’ success every year puts pressure on the development team. “Like I said, there’s really no time for the devs to breathe, I guess. That’s what I’m most worried about … I think it’s gonna be a nice breather for the franchise. I’m excited to see how the community takes it.”
For a lot of fans, Call of Duty Vanguard’s World War Two setting was a disappointment, and it felt like a step backward. NoisyButters isn’t as discerning when it comes to setting, though. “I just prefer a setting where the gunplay is fun and everybody’s having a good time. I don’t really care what the time period is. I love me a World War Two COD. I love me a futuristic COD with jetpacks zooming around everywhere. I love a modern COD where our feet are on the ground.”
As talk turned to her favourite Call of Duty games, we find out about her sordid love affair with one of the series’ most iconic characters, Soap. “Soap is my absolute favourite Call of Duty character of all time. Fun fact, he was a childhood crush of mine,” she says laughing. Despite coming across as someone who doesn’t dwell on the past, there is one regret NoisyButters can’t erase. She rues missing out on nabbing Soap as an operator to use in Warzone when he was featured in a special Modern Warfare bundle. “I missed out on the purchase and you can’t go and buy him again,” NoisyButters says while staring at the Soap Funko Pop on her shelf. “Can you tell I’m a really big fan of Soap?”
As our time with NoisyButters came to an end, conversation turned towards the future. She explains that she knows she can’t continue her content creation journey indefinitely, and she’s been thinking about how she’ll feel looking back at what she accomplished when the time comes for her to bow out. “What if I think back and go ‘remember all those days that you took off from not making content? You could have made content, you could have made so much more content. You burned up your time, your limited amount of time for content creation, do you regret anything?’ And I think my answer is gonna be no, because all along the way of my content creation career, I’ve been really happy. And I think that’s my main goal.”
She tells us that she might go back into IT, or maybe she’ll get more into esports or help manage other creators, but she knows that her future role will definitely still involve videogames. Whatever NoisyButters does going forward, she knows that her own happiness is, and always has been, her number-one priority. “I think that, especially me being a creator who’s known for this positivity and happiness, I understand that a lot of people will come to my channel for that as well. And I totally get it and I welcome it with open arms. If you’re not feeling good, if I can make you smile for a little bit, you know, I’d say I did my job pretty good.”