The Kid Mero

Joel Martinez AKA The Kid Mero, Ben Barson, the Xann Man, the human durag falp, Barmelo Xanthony is a writer, comedian, TV personality, YouTube personality, music blogger and Twitter personality. He rose to prominence alongside fellow Bronx native Desus Nice with their Complex TV 46-episode podcast Desus vs. Mero, which first premiered on December 18, 2013. As of season 5, he is currently a cast member of MTV2's Guy Code with Desus Nice.

He began writing for Vice's music platform Noisey in 2012 and his first article for them was published online on November 14, 2012 which was a review of Canadian electronic music duo Crystal Castles's album III. In total, he wrote 69 articles for Noisey between November 2012 and March 2014, most of which were album and mixtape reviews, all of which were written in caps lock.

In December 2014, MTV announced that The Kid Mero and Desus Nice would be joining the cast of Guy Code for season 5, along with 11 other new cast members. They appeared on the first episode of season 5 which was originally aired on January 14, 2015.

Mero has graduated from DeWitt Clinton High school. He also has previously worked as a teaching aide at a school in The Bronx and he is currently married to a teacher from New Jersey. The pair have four children, three boys and a baby girl (whose pregnancy Mero found out about during a taping of his show). He currently maintains the positions Mayor of Smack City and RoastMaster in Chief as well as the Plantain Supernova in the sky