“Admitting that I did something wrong was the first step, and it was incredibly difficult. It took me years to actually fully believe — not just say so that my probation officer didn’t ride my ass — but actually believe: I, Kenyon Byers, have done something wrong. And I have to change.”
~ K.R. Byers ~
Nick Paro sits down with K.R. Byers — Substack writer, creative satirist, and self-described “just a dude” — for a conversation that moves from video games and Oregon Trail nostalgia into something considerably weightier: creative resistance under authoritarianism, the cost of absent fathers, and the difference between performing accountability and actually living it. K.R. came up in a small mountain town in Idaho, born in 1987, raised by a mother who once threatened to kill him if he turned out gay and a grandmother who told him to just be himself. He writes under his initials by choice, builds Legos, plays Civilization 7 until he wakes up in the nuclear age, and has recently started gold mining on weekends. That contrast — the whimsical life of a curious creative and the very serious journey he’s had to get here — runs through everything he says.
The conversation opens on creative resistance, and K.R. is direct about why he shifted his approach. Early on, he wrote whatever he felt — notes about how horrible the president was, the occasional “fuck Trump” when the mood struck. He’s moved away from that, and not because his convictions changed. He doesn’t want to say the name. He doesn’t want to feed the algorithm for someone who, in his read, does ridiculous things specifically to dominate the news cycle and get people talking about him no matter the valence. Instead, K.R. writes allegorically: a recent article on the similarities between cult leaders and serial killers was not labeled as such, but it wasn’t subtle either. He wants to create stories that poke fun at the administration without naming it — to be useful without being another amplifier. He likens the old approach to changing in front of an open window for a stalker. He’d rather close the window and call the cops. The creative shift has mostly helped his mental health. He feels less on edge, less obligated to grind out news content just to stay relevant. He misses, a little, the feeling that he was doing enough for his country. Both things are true.
The discussion of influential masculine figures lands on two people who couldn’t be more different in context but point in the same direction. K.R.’s father worked on IBM mainframes when computers filled entire rooms, drove long-haul trucks, split logs, and never once leveraged his intelligence or capability for intimidation. He treated people with empathy and courtesy, lived a strong life without performing it, and modeled what it looks like to face the enemy within rather than projecting it outward. The second figure is Tupac — not the image, but the lyrics. K.R. describes a kind of emotional complexity and systemic awareness in Tupac’s work that he didn’t find in the men around him growing up: a voice from a masculine space that was willing to name grief, name poverty, name the humanity of people the world was throwing away. Both the father and the rapper, in K.R.’s telling, understood that strength doesn’t require an audience and doesn’t require contempt for the vulnerable. That’s his model.
The most striking section of the episode concerns K.R.’s biological father — a man who was 38 years old when he impregnated K.R.’s mother at 15. He avoided K.R. for most of his life to escape the consequences of what, legally, was statutory rape. K.R. eventually went to see him, once, because he didn’t want the guilt of being in the area when the man died and having never said hello. The visit lasted long enough for a handshake. His father wouldn’t get out of the chair. Nick’s response is careful and clear: you don’t owe guilt to people who deserve no pity. A man who spent decades running from the consequences of what he did to a child — consequences that were never external, only self-imposed — is not owed a visit, a call, or a feeling. That frailty, Nick says, is exactly what they’re here to name. The refusal to face consequences is the core failure. K.R. listens. He already knows it.
Nick shares his working definition of intelligent masculinity: the refusal to outsource accountability onto others and the discipline to live with the consequences of our actions and values — consequences good and bad. K.R. has had direct experience with this. About fifteen years ago, in Idaho, he was caught with three and a half ounces of marijuana — a felony under Idaho law. He stood at a fork: become a statistic, keep breaking the law, keep performing the version of himself that the trauma of his upbringing had built, or take accountability and change direction. He chose the latter, but he’s honest that it took years to actually believe he’d done something wrong rather than just saying so. That gap — between saying “I did something wrong” and believing it enough to reorganize your life around it — is the real work. He did the work. The felony was dismissed the year before last. He hasn’t been back. He names self-evaluation as his ongoing practice: he caught himself using dismissive gendered slurs on another show recently, corrected himself on air immediately, and didn’t make it a production. The hardest ongoing work, he says, is fighting the voice that tells him if he’s not making a billion dollars an hour, he’s a failure as a man. That one, he still fights every day.
The episode closes with the Mulan-derived lightning round that ends every Intelligent Masculinity conversation. K.R.’s answers land exactly where his arc has been pointing all hour. Swift as a coursing river: “Make decisions more decisively than I just did.” Force of a great typhoon: “When I come in a room, you know I’ve been there because everything is wrecked.” Strong as a raging fire: “I dance to pop music in the living room by myself, and I’m not ashamed of it.” Mysterious as the dark side of the moon: “I seem like an open book, but there is a lot more to my story and past than I have ever once discussed online.” That last one lands with weight. K.R. has shared a lot today — a mother who called him sissy, a grandmother who told him to be himself, a father who shook his hand and sat back down, a felony, a girlfriend he calls his wife. And underneath all of it, there’s more. That’s not evasion. That’s a man who has learned the difference between being open and being exposed, between sharing what’s useful and giving away what’s yours.
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I’m Nick Paro, and I’m sick of the shit going on. So, I’m using poetry, podcasting, and lives to discuss the intersections of chronic illness and mental wellbeing, masculinity, veteran’s issues, politics, and so much more. I am only able to have these conversations, bring visibility to my communities, and fill the void through your support — this is a publication where engagement is encouraged, creativity is a cornerstone, and transparency is key — please consider becoming a paid subscriber today and grow the community!.