Ryan Conferido (Ryanimay)
a.k.a. “Omicron”
Two-time dance champion and Emmy-winning choreographer — or, as he puts it, 'I also used to dance a lot.'
Host on JK News / Off The Record — and, though he'd be the last to lead with it, a two-time America's Best Dance Crew champion with Quest Crew, a 2016 Creative Arts Emmy winner for Outstanding Choreography (with Quest Crew, for ABDC), and a So You Think You Can Dance Season 1 alum. These days he mostly plays live piano requests from the chat in one continuous mix. He'll turn the résumé into a punchline, but the piano is the thing he takes seriously.
Filipino-American (full name Daniel Ryan Conferido). LA / Las Vegas based.
# At the Table 5
candids from the set — tap to expand
# How Ryan Got to the Table
Ryan was JK-adjacent for years before he was JK — the LA Asian-American dance world (Quest Crew, the Kinjaz circle) runs straight through the Just Kidding crew. He arrived at the desk as a host around 2022–23, and his real arrival moment was anchoring the very first long-form 'JK Overtime': 'Ryan vs Anthony,' March 2023.
# Other Ventures
# Lore at the Table
- Omicron the name the table gave Ryan's dark side: the cold, 'black-pilled' schemer who thinks ten moves ahead, has 'no hope in his heart,' and pulls jokes straight from the dark web. When mild-mannered piano-Ryan flips into cynical-mastermind mode, that's Omicron — and across ~23 episodes, it stuck.
- The cricket prank Omicron in the wild: Ryan hid a cheap cricket noise-maker that chirps at random intervals, then sat back and let Nick slowly convince himself he was developing tinnitus — a phantom ringing nobody else would cop to hearing. A dollar-store toy that nearly became a medical diagnosis.
- Quest Crew, two-time champs long before the host's chair, Ryan was a founding member of Quest Crew, who won MTV's America's Best Dance Crew in Season 3 (2009), then came back and took the all-star Season 8 in 2015 too. The crew they beat in that final? Anthony and the Kinjaz — the man sitting right across the table.
- The orQUESTra piano Quest's signature flex was that Ryan actually plays: in their famous ABDC routine he performed live piano while D-Trix spun a headspin on top of the piano. Dance and live music, fused.
- So You Think You Can Dance, S1 his first national exposure came on Season 1 of SYTYCD back in 2005 — the launchpad that fed into Quest.
- LMFAO tour after the ABDC run, Ryan went out on the road with LMFAO as their musical director.
- Piano by ear he plays entirely by ear and now runs live piano-request streams, taking song requests from the chat in one continuous mix.
# The Personal File
Married to Smac McCreanor — the Australian dancer/comedian known to millions as the viral 'Hydraulic Press girl.' Two performers who built a life (and a retro set-design studio, Retro Cetra) side by side; he tags her in his own bio, and she's captioned a piano tribute to him 'the best of my life is being with @ryanimay.' And the family's about to grow — Ryan and Smac are expecting their first child, a little girl.
Smac McCreanor on Instagram →