Julian Shapiro-Barnum wants to make one thing clear. With “Outside Tonight,” he’s not hosting a late night show about the internet.
“It’s a late-night show made by somebody who is on the internet,” Shapiro-Barnum told TheWrap.
What exactly that means harkens back to exactly how Shapiro-Barnum sees the creator community. The host of the kids-focused talk shows “Recess Therapy” (3.2 million Instagram followers) and “Celebrity Substitute” (340,000 Instagram followers), Shapiro-Barnum is no stranger to going viral online. Remember the “It’s Corn” song? That was Shapiro-Barnum’s “Recess Therapy,” which has been around since 2021.
“The internet is like this exploding version of a late night show. Every great YouTube show, every great Instagram show, every TikTok show is a component of a variety late night show that doesn’t exist, or maybe this new great late night show is the internet itself,” Shapiro-Barnum explained. “But what no one is doing, and I don’t know why no one’s done it yet, is bring those pieces back together.”
That’s where “Outside Tonight” comes in. A fusion of traditional late night and the YouTube era, every episode of “Outside Tonight” takes place outdoors around New York City and focuses on answering a specific question Shapiro-Barnum has, like “When will I be ready to grow up?” Over the course of 45 minutes of interviews, sketches and games, the series attempts to answer that central question. It’s a mix of the focused format of John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight” with a mad dash of late night-inspired variety segments.
There is no network or major production company supporting “Outside Tonight.” The only allegiances this team have are to the show’s brand sponsors, which are clearly disclosed, and to YouTube’s content standards. That means there’s no safety net, but there are also no corporate surprises, like Jimmy Kimmel experienced when he was suspended last summer or Stephen Colbert saw last month with the cancellation of his show.
“People keep saying ‘Congratulations on getting [“Outside Tonight”]’ like they’re framing it in ways where it’s like somebody gave us this,” Shapiro-Barnum said. “But this was blood, sweat and tears. Not that I need the credit in that way, but there are misconceptions. No one’s opening any doors. All these creators open the doors for themselves.”
TheWrap: For guests that you’re bringing on, are they like Kareem Rahma and Brittany Broski? And by that I mean creators who have fully figured out their — for lack of a better word — bits?
In a perfect world, we want to level it. We want Kareem, Joe Jonas and Jackson — who’s just walking by and sees the show — to be able to come sit on the couch and all chat with me. The reason we’re sitting outside is because every great digital show takes place in public. I think that started from necessity. “Subway Takes,” “Recess Therapy” and “Chicken Shop Date” happened because we didn’t have access to studios, so the city was our studio. But I think we all fell in love with filming outside and the public being a place that we filmed. When I was thinking about what’s the next of late night, I was like, “We’ve got to get rid of the studio and just embrace the fact that, for the past six years, the city has been my studio.”
I also think another reason late night in general has struggled a little bit is because of its inaccessibility. That’s my issue with the entertainment industry in general and why I think podcasting — the Jake Shane model, the Alex Cooper model, the celebrities with your best friend type of conversation — has risen in power. People want to feel like their favorite talent are within reach of their friends. There’s something about filming in public that naturally does that.
We spoke very briefly during a YouTube press event, and during that time, you said you wanted the show to be a tastemaker and a curator. Can you expound on that?
When late night started, there was no other way to bring the entertainment industry into one’s living room. We have no need for that anymore. But what there is a need for in a culture where there is so much to be consumed is curation. This isn’t the best of culture, but it’s me and my team being like this is who we love right now.
It’s connected to that authenticity thing. “Outside Tonight” has a specific point of view. Like I will never have Donald Trump on — no shade to Jimmy Fallon, but that’s just not the type of show this is. I’m not trying to be the great leveler. I want my show to have a clear voice, and I think the best way to connect with people is to not aim for the middle.
Colbert did that so well. He was so beloved because people knew where he stood. He was a tastemaker, and people looked to him. They wanted to hear what he had to think about things. Not all, but I think late night has been afraid to do that. That’s been interesting to watch.
You’ve hosted two very successful shows. How have you seen your audience evolve, and how have you had to adjust as a performer?
My background as an entertainer is in playwriting and improv comedy. I fell into the interviewing kid thing, and I’ve been doing that for a very long time. Everything I did was shortform for years, and then three years ago I started “Celebrity Substitute” and had to go through the trial and error of making half hour TV episodes of that. Now I’m going through the ringer of can my audience trust me and come along with me to make adult content for the first time?
When you’re backed by a network, you have that institution backing you. You have the marketing arm, you have the budgets, you have all this stuff. I have had to convince brands to pay for everything, personally. Basically, I had to sign up to sell and package all of this, not independently, but very much leading the charge time and time and time again. I have unwavering faith with my ability to do these things, and that’s hard. It is cool to have all this freedom and power to make your own stuff … We wouldn’t have it any other way. We love what we do, but there is something deeply scary about always manning the helm.
What do you want the reaction to be once it comes out?
I want people to be kind and generous and know that we worked very hard. I want people to have fun and engage with it, but I hope people feel like it reflects what they actually want to watch and what is funny to them. I don’t want anyone to feel like I’m just trying to like copy what’s been done before. I hope people watch it and feel like it’s like a refreshing take on the on the genre. I hope it feels like drinking water to a somewhere in their mid 20s.
As content creators have gotten more recognition and created more of their own shows, it’s been nice to see people of the internet succeed. It finally feels like mainstream culture is catching up to digital culture.
It’s kind of like when Quinta [Brunson] got “Abbott Elementary.” I was like, “Hell yeah, like that’s my friend from BuzzFeed. Now she’s finally making TV.” Or like when Ayo Edebiri was hired on “Big Mouth.” We’re infiltrating the industry, like the internet freaks are infiltrating the mainstream. It’s my dream of how we help change politics and make them better. We gotta get in there, change it from the inside.
The internet is home for a lot of people. I tried to make a [more traditional] TV show of “Recess Therapy,” and I felt so powerless and weird, like I was asking for somebody to let me do what I knew I could already do. It was just such a negative experience for me.
Now I feel so free and I’m having fun when I’m making stuff with my friends. Sure, it’s exhausting, and I want to die all the time, but at least it’s my own thing, you know? The agency behind it is so empowering. This is a project I started when I was 20 years old. I put a card table on a street corner, my friend played guitar, I did interviews for two hours, and I’d never been happier in my entire life. For six years I was like, “I gotta do that again.” For the past year and a half, I’ve been just telling people that the show is happening until I got some money and hired people, and now it’s happening. I’m terrified but couldn’t be more excited. That’s the power of YouTube.
“Outside Tonight” premieres new episodes on YouTube Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
