Bryan Aldea is an #artist, #burner, #creator, #actor, and the greeter for topia.io/welcome. Before working for Topia, he was pursuing a career in acting as well as working in The Polo Bar as part of guest relations.

Aldea had gone to Burning Man in 2016, originally with only two other friends but they eventually met up with Inflatable Wildlife, a larger camp that basically took them in. For 2020, they were all supposed to go back, but the gathering migrated in the virtual world due to covid. He came into Topia world-building by setting up a virtual camp with friends from Inflatable Wildlife to participate in Burning Man x Topia.

What was supposed to be a one-time event became a regular thing as Aldea kept going back to Topia after Burning Man to play around with the camp and hang out with people he had met on the virtual playa; he was also discovering new ways that the world could be personalized to engage users who dropped by. Eventually, he attended world-building meetings, sharing what he was figuring out with the rest of the Topia team. He was asked by Brian Swichkow to be a Sr. World Builder on the One Studio team and one-man welcoming committee officially in December 2020.

Aldea lives in New Jersey IRL but in the Topia /lobby URL.

References

Bryan Aldea, instagram.com/whoabry