He co-starred in the movie Bros. Branum was born and raised in Yuba City, California to a Protestant father and Jewish mother.

He wrote a column for the Daily Californian,[2] one of which brought the United States Secret Service to his apartment in November 1997 before the Big Game between Berkeley and Stanford University, in which the Associated Press misquoted parts of his article, suggesting that he made suggestions that Berkeley students murder Stanford freshman Chelsea Clinton.

[citation needed] After being recommended by co-hostess Laura Swisher, Branum was hired as a writer for Unscrewed with Martin Sargent while it was still on TechTV in San Francisco.

In 2012 Branum became a writer for the show Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell, performing a recurring segment "No More Mr. Nice Gay.

[11] He was the regular host of Pop Rocket, a podcast that dissects popular culture, on the Maximum Fun network, which was cancelled in May 2019.