Julian Shapiro-Barnum Is Going To The Big-Kids Table

Julian Shapiro-Barnum found his big break in an unexpected place: his senior thesis. The 26-year-old comedian from Brooklyn, New York, became a YouTube sensation in 2021 when he launched his kid-focused interview series, Recess Therapy, after bending the rules for his final project at Boston University. “You’re supposed to do a 45-minute video with these strict guidelines, but I didn't really want to play by the rules. I was bored,” Shapiro-Barnum says. “So I tweaked everything and did a series of interviews with kids, which was not the assignment.”

In between sips of iced coffee during our Zoom call, the comedian recalls how he suddenly became an online brand “with no intention” of putting his college work out into the world. But after posting clips from his thesis for some friends to see, he was approached by Doing Things Media to turn the idea into a web show. Since then, Shapiro-Barnum has made a name for himself as YouTube’s “kid guy,” expanding his uplifting interactions with children (about everything from deep existential quandaries to why corn is a perfect snack) into 2024’s Celebrity Substitute, a follow-up web series with an even larger scope.

These shows made Shapiro-Barnum a viral success, with nearly 3 million followers on Recess Therapy’s TikTok. But now, he’s leaning into a side of his comedy he hasn’t had the chance to showcase on his upcoming late-night show Outside Tonight. He describes the project, which is being heralded as the Internet’s first late-night talk show, as a more “irreverent” series, naming Conan O’Brien as an inspiration.

The first time we filmed Celebrity Substitute, I realized that everything I learned from Recess Therapy was not applicable.

“No kids on this one. It’s too late; they’ll be asleep,” Shapiro-Barnum says. He sees this notable pivot as a chance to finally broach some less PG topics that he hasn’t been able to tackle before. “I love what I do with kids, and I will continue to do that work, but I’ve been looking for a place to flex more of my comedy background,” he says. “There have been so many ideas that I haven't been able to implement because my shows have only been with kids. I’m really excited to dig into this big backlog of things I’ve wanted to do for so long.”

Shapiro-Barnum’s work with children has been an extension of his own experiences growing up. He was raised by five queer parents, which helped him feel like he was one of the grown-ups from an early age. “Something that was so cool about having so many parents is I got to test my jokes out and be funny amongst a lot of different types of adults,” Shapiro-Barnum says. “I remember really early, sitting at a table with a bunch of adults and feeling part of the conversation.”

He’s always been obsessed with The Muppets, and he fell in love with improv in the fourth grade. So, meeting children on their level and never talking down to them came very naturally. Still, he faced frequent rejections in the early days of Recess Therapy. “It was so hard for the first two-plus years. We would just walk up to every single family in a park and be like, ‘Hi, we’re working on a project where we interview kids.’ We heard ‘no’ a lot more than ‘yes,’” Shapiro-Barnum says. “It was too much work. No matter how big the show got, we were still walking around every single week. It became unsustainable, so now we have a place that we go, and we have a huge network of families and schools that we work with.”

His next venture, Celebrity Substitute, had more funding thanks to big-name backing from Broadway composers Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. (Shapiro-Barnum and Pasek connected over sharing the same high school drama teacher.) However, the new web series also presented Shapiro-Barnum with a whole new set of challenges. Not only does he have to handle a whole classroom of kids instead of just talking to a few one-on-one, but he also has an A-list singer, actor, or supermodel to guide through the teaching process.

“The first time we filmed Celebrity Substitute, I realized that everything I learned from Recess Therapy was not applicable. This is just a completely different show,” Shapiro-Barnum says. “Recess Therapy is conversation-oriented, and Celebrity Substitute is action-oriented. We want the kids to feel comfortable getting creative and building something they’re interested in.”

Shapiro-Barnum cites Kehlani’s episode as a favorite (“She brought 110% of herself and the kids got really into it”), but he also recalls guests like Reneé Rapp and Cynthia Erivo going the extra mile behind the scenes. “Reneé Rapp gave all the kids her phone number, which was a bad idea on her part, but it was very sweet, because she loved them so much,” he says. “And Cynthia Erivo took the time to meet with a little girl who had done a project on why she was her hero. The girl wasn’t in the class we worked with, but Cynthia sat and talked with her after filming finished. It was very meaningful.”

Now, as Shapiro-Barnum preps for Outside Tonight, he’s ready to flex a new muscle. Just weeks after the debut in June, Shapiro-Barnum will also be releasing his debut book, How to Grow Up Without Becoming a Grown-Up, on Aug. 4. It’s clear he’s expanding beyond the playground this year, but one thing will never change: he’ll always have a seat at the kids' table.