Julian Shapiro-Barnum is using a lot of new words to describe himself. He’s a “passionate lover” and a “bisexual twink.” He jokes about “cruising” 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, 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.
None of this would be very surprising if it weren’t for what Shapiro-Barnum is already known for.
The 27-year-old comedian and performer has become an internet darling with a series called “Recess Therapy” where he conducts sincere, sometimes absurd interviews with kids about life’s big questions: What is the future going to be like? Where does money come from? What is the meaning of life?
Now, Shapiro-Barnum doesn’t want to just be the “Recess Therapy guy” anymore. With a new series called “Outside Tonight,” 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 — letting his proverbial hair down and showing the world he can hang with the grown-ups, too. “I just haven’t said anything about my personal life in the five-ish years of being on the internet,” Shapiro-Barnum said, perched on a director’s chair in Long Island City in Queens just before shooting the show’s finale. “With 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.”
