Odell was born on May 22, 1990 in Japan, where he resided until he was eight years old before moving to Dallas, Texas, then as a teen to Nebraska. He attended Lincoln East High School, where he graduated in 2008. In his senior year, his short film Energy Crisis in America, highlighting rising gas prices, won third place in the high school section of the StudentCam competition, hosted by C-SPAN.

Odell made the decision to drop out of school to focus on his YouTube channel, “BryanStars” after winning YouTube NextUp in 2011. Through the NextUp contest, YouTube aimed to foster creators on its platform. Odell and 25 other YouTubers received a $35,000 grant for their channel and a multi-day workshop in New York City with professional online bloggers. At the time, he had about 55,000 subscribers.

On June 3, 2012, Never Shout Never was interviewed by Odell, in an interview that was being covered by The New York Times. About halfway through the interview, Christofer Drew Ingle cut Odell off, calling his show “a joke” and his questions “bullshit”. As a result, the band ended the interview, leaving Odell in tears. Ingle was arrested the same day for possession of marijuana.

In 2012, Odell started the “BryanStars Tour”, which toured throughout the United States. The tour featured bands like Ghost Town, SayWeCanFly, Modern Day Escape, Her Bright Skies, Snow White’s Poison Bite, Farewell, My Love, Late Nite Reading, Rocky Loves Emily and YouTubers like CatchingYourClouds, Johnnie Guilbert, Damon Fizzy and CYR. Odell created three BryanStars Tours from 2012 to 2013.

In 2013, BryanStars Interviews was voted by music fans as the “Best Music Blog” in the Alternative Press Reader’s Choice Poll 2013. BryanStars Interviews was nominated for a Shorty Award for “Best Web Show” in 2014 along with Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. In 2014, retailer Journeys produced “This Is My Journey” segment about Odell that played in stores nationwide.

In 2014, Odell was picked to be one of the “Warped YouTubers” with Damon Fizzy (also calling himself DeeFizzy), Johnnie Guilbert, CYR and Piddleass. The following year, Kevin Lyman (creator of Warped Tour) made Odell the official host of the tour. Odell worked with Warped Tour through 2015 as their official host on all social media, announcing over 100 bands for the tour.

Odell taught a class on the 2015 Vans Warped Tour called “YouTube 101” where he taught aspiring YouTubers how to pursue a career in social media.

Moving forward,Odell then founded “My Digital Escape,” a collaborative project and YouTube channel featuring numerous smaller creators who shared a similar passion for music. While an active creator in My Digital Escape (or MDE, as it was known to fans), Odell served as manager of the project as well. The channel stopped uploading in May 2016. The channel reached 800,000 subscribers and 100 million views. The channel prominently featured Odell, Johnnie Guilbert, HeyThereImShannon, Jeydon Wale, Kyle David Hall, Alex Dorame and Jordan Sweeto. In 2016, My Digital Escape went on tour across the United States and visited 21 cities.

In 2016, Odell went into the studio with ZK Studios to record his debut EP. On March 21, 2016, BryanStars announced the release of a 5-track EP entitled “Follow Your Dreams”. It was released on April 1, 2016 and charted on Billboard at #22 on the Alternative New Artist Album Chart, #59 on the New Artist Album Chart and #128 on the Indie Albums Chart.

In November 2016, Odell announced that he would be releasing a second EP titled the “Picture Perfect EP”. It was released on December 4, 2016.

Odell came out as gay on his YouTube channel in 2017. After considerable controversy later that same year, he stepped back from his social media ventures, specifically his YouTube channels. He has not been active on any of his YouTube channels since, and My Digital Escape disbanded.