When Kareem Rahma learned that he had been nominated for an Emmy, he was exactly where you think he would be — on a subway.
“It’s funny, I was on the subway shooting an episode of ‘SubwayTakes,’ and my assistant flashed the phone at me, like, ‘Oh my god,’” Rahma, who co-created, executive produces and hosts the show, told TheWrap. “I don’t know if I wanted to find out that way, but I found out while I was at work, I guess.”
Rahma and his co-creator Andrew Kuo are still considering whether Rahma’s reaction will make it into a future episode of “SubwayTakes.”
Rahma is one of two creators who have scored an Emmy nomination this year, alongside musical satirist Randy Rainbow. Both “SubwayTakes” and “The Randy Rainbow Show” have been nominated for Outstanding Short Form Comedy, Drama or Variety Series. But while this marks the fifth Emmy nomination for Rainbow, it’s a first for Rahma. It’s also a first for YouTube, as “SubwayTakes” is one of the creator-helmed series the platform has spent the past year pushing for Emmys consideration. After YouTube’s CEO Neal Mohan asked for Emmy voters to seriously consider creators back in 2024, that acknowledgement from Hollywood at large seems like it’s finally starting to happen.
“To me, [this nomination] is simply a reflection of the work that so many creators are putting in to their programming these days. These productions are massive, difficult and expensive, and they really mirror the same experience that people working in television have,” Rahma said. “It also signifies to me that the Academy is recognizing the quality and the work that goes into these shows. As the industry morphs, merges and intertwines year over year, it’s good to see the Academy starting to think about how people working in television might be having different kinds of jobs moving forward.”
At first glance, “SubwayTakes” may look like a simple show to make. Each episode follows Rahma as he uses a MTA card as a microphone and asks his guest to give a controversial opinion. It doesn’t matter if his guests are actors like Ethan Hawke, politicians like Zohran Mamdani or random New Yorkers — they all have to give a take that’s hot enough to clear Rahma’s high standards. It’s two guys on a subway train chatting between rushing pedestrians and screeching rails. How difficult can it be to make?
The answer is very. It’s a testament to Rahma’s relaxed and confident charm as well as the show’s balance of meticulous planning while leaving room for the unexpected that he’s able to make his short-form show feel so effortless. Each episode is filmed with a production team of several people, and multiple episodes are often filmed in a day. Adding to the chaos, “SubwayTakes” takes pride in actually filming on the MTA. That means it’s not uncommon for New Yorkers to interrupt interviews, the audio to be scrambled or any of the dozens of other unpredictable challenges that can happen when filming in public.
“A lot of the people that work with us are people who have worked on television shows in the past,” Rahma said, noting that most of the show’s editors, producers and sound engineers have experience making traditional film and television.
@subwaytakes All sauce should come on the side!! @Marcello Hernandez #podcast #hottakes #subwaytakes #interview #nyc ♬ original sound – SubwayTakes
While Rahma is now as TV disruptor of sorts, that’s in stark contrast to what led him to creating “SubwayTakes.”
“I would sit around and be like, ‘Man, I really want to be on TV. I need a TV job. I want to be in a writer’s room’ or ‘I want to be a host to show’ or ‘I want to act’ or ‘I just want to do anything in the industry,’ and it just didn’t happen,” Rahma said. “To be able to make it happen through sheer brute force and determination, obviously a little bit of luck — or plenty of luck — it’s just really amazing to be able to write your own path.”
As Hollywood as a whole is in contraction, Rahma is one of many creators looking to expand. This Emmys season, YouTube backed six shows for awards consideration — Rahma’s “SubwayTakes,” Cleo Abram’s “HUGE* If True,” Michelle Khare’s “Challenge Accepted,” Julian Shapiro-Barnum’s “Celebrity Substitute” and Brittany Broski’s “Royal Court.” Rahma estimated that around 150 people are employed between these six shows.
“We’re such busy people. We are working all the time. I talk to my friends that are in traditional television, and they’re like, ‘I haven’t had a job in four months.’ I’m like, ‘Come work with us. We got plenty of stuff to do, man,’” Rahma said. “In a time where there is a lot of conversation about contraction or limited job opportunities, it’s amazing that we’re able to provide jobs for people. I know the saying is usually follow the money, but I think where the industry is, it’s really follow where the ideas are.”
“And the ideas are coming from people who are thinking independently. The traditional gatekeepers are maybe not so welcoming,” Andrew Kuo, the co-creator and executive producer of “SubwayTakes,” told TheWrap. “Our industry is changing, but the ideas are coming from people and now we have the ability to take those ideas and turn them into something. These are labors of love, and they turn into something bigger. It’s just great to be where we are right now.”
Roughly two years ago, Rahma started ending his interviews with celebrities by saying that he’d see them at the Emmys. For Rahma, the sign off was always a joke, even when his interviewees seemed to take him seriously. But after a concentrated campaign that has ended in a nomination, it seems as though that silly goodbye was actually foretelling the future.
“It seemed so farfetched. Then, at the beginning of this year, we started really talking about what if we actually tried to get an Emmy? So for the past six months our team has been guiding us down this rabbit hole that we’ve never encountered before, and they’ve done such a good job,” Rahma said. “YouTube has been such a helpful partner in making this happen by supporting us at the FYC events, by connecting us with the right people, by paying for advertising in places that we certainly would not be able to afford. They’ve been a really fantastic partner, honestly, and I actually don’t think that we would be here without them.”
Rahma and Kuo hope that the “SubwayTakes” nomination will be empowering, both to creators and anyone who needs proof that they should bet on themselves. But when TheWrap asked which congratulations text was the most surprising to the pair, Kuo quickly said “My parents.” There’s something fitting about that.
The creator economy has crossed yet another giant threshold. But as it continues to creep into mainstream pop culture among older generations, it still has a ways to go.
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