{"id":579025,"date":"2026-08-01T15:33:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T15:33:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/579025\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T15:33:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T15:33:16","slug":"sex-not-recess-is-on-julian-shapiro-barnums-brain-these-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/579025\/","title":{"rendered":"Sex, not \u2018Recess,\u2019 is on Julian Shapiro-Barnum\u2019s brain these days"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Julian Shapiro-Barnum is using a lot of new words to describe himself. He\u2019s a \u201cpassionate lover\u201d and a \u201cbisexual twink.\u201d He jokes about \u201ccruising\u201d and goes deep on the social etiquette of posting nudes to Instagram stories. He is doing this weekly before an extremely online audience on YouTube<\/a>, who tune in to see Shapiro-Barnum do everything from asking the elderly for sex advice to getting lessons in the art of thirst traps.\n <\/p>\n

\n None of this would be very surprising if it weren\u2019t for what Shapiro-Barnum is already known for.\n <\/p>\n

\n The 27-year-old comedian and performer has become an internet darling with a series called \u201cRecess Therapy\u201d<\/a> where he conducts sincere, sometimes absurd interviews with kids about life\u2019s big questions: What is the future going to be like? Where does money come from? What is the meaning of life?\n <\/p>\n

\"Shapiro-Barnumnamed Tariq.” class=”image_large__dam-img image_large__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image_large__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1288″ width=”1693″ loading=’lazy’\/><\/p>\n

\n Now, Shapiro-Barnum doesn\u2019t want to just be the \u201cRecess Therapy guy\u201d anymore. With a new series called \u201cOutside Tonight,\u201d which launched on YouTube in June, he is revealing a distinctly less family-friendly image. By his own description, he feels a little like an adolescent Disney star \u2014 letting his proverbial hair down and showing the world he can hang with the grown-ups, too. \u201cI just haven\u2019t said anything about my personal life in the five-ish years of being on the internet,\u201d Shapiro-Barnum said, perched on a director\u2019s chair in Long Island City in Queens just before shooting the show\u2019s finale. \u201cWith the first couple episodes of the show, I wanted to stake my claim and be like, I can be vulgar without sacrificing who I am and my identity.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n He\u2019s not quite vulgar, but he\u2019s more adult than we\u2019ve ever seen him before. The show\u2019s premiere saw him (somewhat clumsily) doing his first-ever keg stand and interviewing a panel of elderly New Yorkers about their sex lives. The second episode<\/a>, centered on insecurities, featured Shapiro-Barnum questioning if he has had enough gay sex to truly consider himself bisexual.\n <\/p>\n

\t\tGay Dogs, the cast of Adults, & Gianmarco Soresi \/\/ FULL EPISODE
\n\t\t\"Video<\/p>\n

\n It\u2019s a sea change for a creator who is, as he says, mostly famous among \u201cmoms with strollers.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cRecess Therapy\u201d launched in 2021, when Shapiro-Barnum was on the cusp of graduating from college with a degree in theater. The videos quickly took off, anchored by Shapiro-Barnum\u2019s own boyish enthusiasm and his young interviewees\u2019 uninhibited, unexpected responses. He\u2019s since launched a second show, \u201cCelebrity Substitute,\u201d<\/a> that sees him bringing stars like Tom Holland and Quinta Brunson into the classroom to teach a room full of youngsters a lesson of their choosing. It\u2019s a formula that works \u2013 and has garnered Shapiro-Barnum millions of views and what he characterizes as a niche fame.\n <\/p>\n

\n So, why switch up on a good thing?\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI don\u2019t want to do one thing forever,\u201d he said. \u201cJust because something works doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s like the whole story or the whole picture. It\u2019s been really freeing to like, do a not-kid-forward project, but not abandon that, because I love that and that is me.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"Julian<\/p>\n

\n It\u2019s a pattern of reinvention he hopes to follow throughout his career: \u201cI hope to shake it up again and again and again and I think the next thing will be surprising in a completely different way.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The quest to reinvent oneself has plagued plenty of other public figures attempting to pivot from cute and palatable to edgy and adult. You could say Shapiro-Barnum is in his Addison Rae era. But don\u2019t worry, he\u2019s still making \u201cRecess Therapy\u201d and \u201cCelebrity Substitute\u201d \u2014 which makes the balancing act of being both the internet\u2019s favorite playground confidant and a boundary-pushing late night host even more delicate.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cPart of the show is being more honest and authentic about who I actually am,\u201d he said. \u201c\u2018Recess Therapy\u2019 is totally an element of myself. I am that person, that is the real me. It is not entirely a character, but the way that I\u2019m going to talk to a six-year-old is actually often not how I am when I\u2019m like with my friends around the world.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The new show was born from his own deep love for late night TV. It\u2019s been years in the making \u2014 earlier iterations involved him filming with his parents and interviewing strangers on the street during the depths of COVID-19 lockdowns.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cOutside Tonight\u201d keeps many of the aesthetic trappings of classic late night. The host wears a suit (albeit rakishly sans tie), sits at a desk complete with mugs emblazoned with the show\u2019s logo and is accompanied by a trumpet-forward house band, \u201cThe Noise Complaint.\u201d Keeping the \u201chusk\u201d of late night allowed Shapiro-Barnum to experiment in every other way \u2013 like by shooting outdoors, in locations that include a roller rink, the Whitney Museum and the park underneath the Kosciuszko Bridge connecting Brooklyn and Queens. His main inspirations are \u201cThe Chris Gethard Show\u201d and the early days of Conan O\u2019Brien. \u201cWe like shows that feel like they\u2019re throwing something at a wall,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n

\"Shapiro-Barnum,<\/p>\n

\n Even in his experimentation with pushing boundaries, there are still some limits. A joke about bomb threats didn\u2019t make the cut, for example. But a roundtable panel of his exes and a competition to find the gayest dog did.\n <\/p>\n

\n Story producer Marley Gotterer<\/a>, herself a hyper-online comedian of semi-absurdist Instagram reels fame, thinks you have to go big these days.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI think people who are trying to uplift and take risks and be honest is vital in this era of the world, the country, and media, where so many things are being censored and not greenlit,\u201d she said. \u201cYou gotta make it yourself.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Part of Shapiro-Barnum\u2019s thesis is that the independence of the internet \u2014 which has fostered a new generation of celebrities born outside of Hollywood or the traditional comedy ecosystem \u2014 can revitalize the dying late night genre. It\u2019s an independence that feels politically urgent, too.\n <\/p>\n

\n Speaking of the show, he said: \u201cAt the end of the day, I own it \u2014 no one can fire me.\u201d Here he references the cancellation of Stephen Colbert\u2019s long-running talk show<\/a>, which fans have widely attributed to the comedian\u2019s frequent criticism of President Donald Trump though network Paramount cited financial pressures, as well as the brief suspension<\/a> of \u201cJimmy Kimmel Live!\u201d last year.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThese networks own these shows, but the lifeblood of the shows should have ownership over their own work.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Working outside of the traditional studio system, gives Shapiro-Barnum\u2019s team more agency and the ability to move faster than traditional late night can. But it\u2019s still a much larger production than \u201cRecess Therapy,\u201d with a makeup artist dashing to blot Shapiro-Barnum\u2019s face between segments and a five-camera setup, as well as a few dozen crew. Just because there\u2019s no studio doesn\u2019t mean there aren\u2019t corporations involved. The production is funded by, as he says in the premiere, \u201cbrand money\u201d: specifically, advertisements for Amazon and Chase that star Shapiro-Barnum and are embedded in each episode.\n <\/p>\n

\n If that means he \u201cmight not be able to speak freely about\u201d certain brands whose names were bleeped out in the first episode, \u201cthat\u2019s the price I\u2019m willing to pay to make this show,\u201d he joked.\n <\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Shapiro-Barnum is just the latest creator to try to leverage online fame into something that looks suspiciously like the talk shows of yore. Any performer advertising a new project is now subject to a new junket of YouTube talk shows, podcasts, and vertical video series that might ask them to taste a really spicy chicken wing<\/a> or offer their hottest take<\/a> while sitting on the New York City subway.\n <\/p>\n

\n What makes \u201cOutside Tonight\u201d unique among the internet talk show crowd, according to Shapiro-Barnum, is that it\u2019s a \u201ctrue variety show.\u201d : Each episode features a monologue, an interview with a guest (including comedians Hasan Minaj, Caleb Hearon, and Gianmarco Soresi) and a guest musical act, along with panels and games, all performed in front of a live audience. Basically, it\u2019s an old-fashioned late night show, just updated for the internet.\n <\/p>\n

\n Like any show in the internet age, the series is tasked with creating coherent episodes that will also play well as discrete clips scattered across social media.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI think we\u2019re playing into short attention spans, for better or for worse,\u201d Shapiro-Barnum said. \u201cThis whole show to me just feels like this big, beautiful experiment.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n For fans of \u201cRecess Therapy,\u201d there\u2019s some of Shapiro-Barnum\u2019s open-hearted curiosity and depth sprinkled throughout \u201cOutside Tonight.\u201d In the finale, Shapiro-Barnum interviews his mother and astrologist Chani Nicholas<\/a> about why endings, including death, are so difficult to process. It\u2019s tender and funny at once.\n <\/p>\n

\t\tTo Be or Not To Be…with Paul Mescal & Jessie Buckley | Recess Therapy
\n\t\t\"Video<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThis is a comedy show through and through,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I think without depth, the comedy doesn\u2019t mean anything.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The parallel he sees between \u201cRecess Therapy\u201d and \u201cOutside Tonight\u201d is an invitation to be less serious. \u201cI\u2019m like, how can I get adults to come on this show and play and be silly and goofy in the same way as kids are?\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n So far, the show\u2019s success is modest.\n <\/p>\n

\n On YouTube, the channel has reached just over 6,000 subscribers, though the most popular clips on Instagram have received millions of views \u2014 a testament to where the audience lives.\n <\/p>\n

\"Keeping<\/p>\n

\n The show\u2019s most viral clip so far<\/a> features Laurie Cooper, Instagram\u2019s iconic New York City realtor of indeterminate age, pledging that she still goes out seven nights a week and saying you\u2019re never too old for love. The clip is funny, heartwarming, and surprising all at once, just like the best moments of \u201cRecess Therapy.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n For now, Shapiro-Barnum isn\u2019t sweating the metrics. \u201cI just make something that I believe in, and I hope that other people resonate with it,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cAnd like, if it doesn\u2019t work, at least you can tell we had fun trying it,\u201d he said of the new venture. \u201cIt\u2019s daring \u2013 and daring can be bad, but at least it was daring.\u201d\n <\/p>\n