On the day of the Democratic mayoral primary in New York, Adam Friedland, a lanky, stammering Jewish standup, walked onstage in the back room of a Brooklyn bar, and said his father was worried about his support of Zohran Mamdani.
Clearing his throat, he pivoted into a bit about how Israeli policy in Gaza is bad for the Jews, but specifically for him. “They’re ruining it for me,” he said in a deep nasal whine, a parody of self-involved careerism, before speculating on what it would take for him to overcome this reputational damage. “I’m going to have to invent an entirely new form of hip-hop now. I’m going to have to write “Not Like Us” about Sephardic people.”
Later in the show, Sarah Sherman, the “Saturday Night Live” cast member who performed on the bill, shouted at Friedland from the audience, asking why he hadn’t spoken up in favor of Mamdani. He rolled his eyes, flustered again. Not long after, Hasan Piker, the star live-streamer, called Friedland while taping his show to ask him whom he was supporting in the race.
One of the stranger consequences of right-leaning podcasts’ perceived success at getting out the young male vote for President Trump has been that people now really care about the political views of the flamboyantly anguished Friedland. The futile pursuit to find the Joe Rogan of the left has put a spotlight on Friedland and the buzzy weekly YouTube talk show bearing his name that courts a young male crowd. Earlier this year, a GQ headline provocatively suggested he could be the “millennial Jon Stewart.”
What an unlikely turn of events. Friedland’s shrugging, louche affect is the opposite of the righteousness that creeps into the end of Stewart’s monologues. Until recently, Friedland was best known as the nebbishy third wheel on a popular podcast called “Cum Town.”
But we live in desperate times. And Friedland has been savvy and charismatic enough to take full advantage of that, raising the ambitions, political and comedic, of his show, which involves long-form conversations with guests who lean toward the internet famous — influencers, semi-canceled newsmakers and the merely controversial. (He talks to the polarizing journalist Taylor Lorenz on this week’s episode.)
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The post Adam Friedland’s Trick: Combining the Political and the Personal, Virally appeared first on New York Times.
