Sixteenth Minute (of Fame) - ohmygod, shoes: liam kyle sullivan and KELLY

Episode Date: February 25, 2025

This episode rules. This episode does not suck! Jamie meets up with Liam Kyle Sullivan, one of YouTube's earliest stars with his character Kelly of "Shoes," "Muffins," and much more, before he workshopped his one-person show in Los Angeles. Nearly two decades out from Shoes, Liam reflects on learning what YouTube was by becoming famous on it, how Hollywood struggled to translate internet fame to conventional media in the 2000s, and how his relationship with Kelly has changed over the years. Do these two still have their New England accents? Well, yes. Come to The Bechdel Cast's Oscars Spectacular Celebration this Sunday: https://www.dynastytypewriter.com/calendar-squad-up See Liam's show in Los Angeles this Thursday: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/a-liam-kyle-sullivan-show-work-in-progress-tickets-1248665595409?aff=oddtdtcreator Follow Liam: https://www.liamkylesullivan.com/ https://www.instagram.com/liamksullivan/?hl=enSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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What do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? Answer, a new podcast called Wisecrack, where a comedian finds himself at the center of a chilling true crime story. Does anyone know what show they've come to see? It's a story. It's about the scariest night of my life.

This is Wisecrack, available next. Now listen to Wisecrack on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. CoolZone Media. Hello, everybody. Two quick plugs here at the top. First, it is the last call for listeners to get tickets to the Bechtelcast post-Oskers live celebration at Dynasty Typewriter this Sunday, March 2nd in L.A. There's going to be live and streaming tickets available. right after the Oscars viewing party at Dynasty. If you want to come early

and watch the ceremony with us, you're welcome to. Tickets are in the description, and it's going to be super fun. Secondly, this Thursday, February 27th, the subject of today's episode of 16th minute Liam Kyle Sullivan, aka Kelly, is workshopping his latest show, a Liam Kyle Sullivan show, at the Lyme Khyperian in L.A. Tickets also in the description.

I cannot wait to see it. Enjoy the episode. Drag in comedy has a long history. I can never have children. We can adopt some. But you don't understand, I was good? I'm a man. Well, nobody's perfect.

Not in big mom's house. Hello, I'm the church lady and this is church chat. Well, it's so great to be back. to be back. I've been gone for a while doing missionary work on ABC. And drag and comedy have been connected since the moment both existed. Obviously, there's a million ways that people have interpreted this from case to case over the years. There's the point of view that many of these actors are cis straight men playing against hype for laughs. Some would say at the expense of making women look silly. An example that comes to mind is Will Ferrell as Janet Reno.

Hi, I'm Janorino. Welcome to Janet Reno's dance party coming to you live from my basement. Say, I really like dancing to that song. There's the historical truth that comedy has generally been overwhelmed by cis men, making drag performance necessary if femme characters were to appear on screen at all. Again, going to SNL, in the long stretches of time in which they never cast a black woman, actors like Tracy Morgan and Keenan Thompson would be in drag anytime a black woman. black woman appeared on the show as a character at all.

Here now with a preview of her work is Maya Angelou. Thanks, Tina. As always, you ever vest the sweet aroma of woman in full bloom. Thank you. That's good, right? Oh, yes. But drag on mainstream TV isn't really drag culture. In order to define that, and I'm not. the person to define what drag culture is. It encapsulates a far wider community, spanning class,

race, gender, sexuality, location, history in general. So for a working definition, I'm going to kick it to Karim Kubchandani, author of Decolonized Drag, whose drag name, by the way, is Lahore Vagistan. Incredible. He says, here's my take. Drag is a genre of performance practiced in entertainment, nightlife, and festival context by and for gender and sexual dissidents, primarily the people who fall under the umbrella categories of queer and transgender, but also many others at the margin of normative gender and sexual configurations. But when it comes to mainstream culture drag, before drag race, there was a genre of drag that was basically, wait, this famous cis man shouldn't be in a dress. See Jack and Jill or the Nutty Professor. But in other famous pieces,

of mainstream media, drag characters are real characters. And drag is used as a storytelling tool about gender and sometimes race, culture, or sexuality. Think Tutsi, Mrs. Doubtfire, white chicks, hairspray, Juana Man, she's the man, Tu Wong Fu, the Birdcage, some like it hot, the list goes on. And there are plenty of criticisms of all of those movies to be had. However, no matter how many politicians try to suppress and weaponize drag performance as dangerous, that is so clearly horseshit. Drag has been around for as long as we have, although the way it's been presented in mainstream culture tends to be fairly prescriptive. You probably know that drag culture has gone very mainstream in the last 15 years, in large part thanks to the ever-expanding, occasionally fracking RuPaul's Drag Race Empire. Drag race.

Just start your engines. I'm the best woman weird. Rook, roo, bro, roo, bro, drag race. Queens are selling out gigantic theaters and becoming mainstream celebrities in ways that would once have been unheard of. But drag race has its complications, too. Many performers would agree that drag is inherently political,

a case that is carefully made by Kub Chandani in decolonized drag. And he does not spare drag race in this assessment. He carefully. outlines the ways in which drag race has been historically reluctant to change, especially not including trans competitors on the show for years, as well as racial tokenization, and often enforcing this colonial lens of beauty onto the queens, whether that means criticizing body hair, fatness, imperfect tucking, and just a general reluctance toward complete gender fuckery. Drag race has an emphasis on slogans and marketing based on individualism, something that

many collective drag communities resist, while continuing to, like any reasonable person would, continuing to watch and enjoy drag race anyways, because it's drag race. I cannot recommend decolonize drag enough. It not only reframe the political nature of drag for me and introduced me to a bunch of incredible acts I wasn't familiar with, but it also includes, I think, my favorite line in a book ever, there is a hunger for critiques of colonialism at the club. Wouldn't know, don't go to the club, but let's get back to comedy. Drag in comedy is a very complicated topic, the kind of comedy topic that will shock you in how unfunny it can become. And obviously, my interpretation of any of this is certainly not the

final word. But for the purposes of this episode, let's use the general comedy rules of who's the target? Are we punching up? Are we punching down? Because there are some drag characters in comedy where the target of the joke appears to be women or femmes, either a specific person or a broader caricature by a cis male performer who did not perform in drag outside of this. Monty Python does this a lot. An ugly kind of violence is rife stalking the town. Yes, gangs of old ladies. attacking fit, defenseless young men.

On the other side, there are famous comedy drag characters that are equally hyper-feminine, but are actually characters. It's pretty commonly agreed on that the kids in the hall were a sketch group that did drag a lot more thoughtfully without ever sacrificing the funny. Here's Jocelyn.

What would you say if aliens came down and tried to pick us up? Was they pay us in our own money? No, in alien money. No, I would not talk for that again, no. Dave Foley, oh my God, what a haughty. And it will come as no surprise that the kids in the hall were a big influence on our subject this week. The first drag character to make it big on YouTube, and I'm happy to say, in my opinion, built his character out with the big personalities associated with drag

without any contempt for his character or just women and femmes in general that a lot of earlier Python-style efforts were more. mean-spirited and self-conscious about. So drag had been a fixture in culture for centuries with a long and complicated history, but it hadn't yet cracked the mainstream internet by the mid-2000s. But a full three years before Drag Race would debut, a character would break through on what would be the biggest internet platform in the world one day. In early 2006, YouTube was just starting to find its footing not as a dating site as it was. originally intended, but as a video uploading platform.

It had its first major viral hit in December 2005, shortly after its launch. Lazy Sunday, wake up in the late afternoon, called Parnel just to see how he's doing. Hello, what up, Porn. No, Sandberg, what's crockin? You think you what I'm thinking? Party up, man, it's happening. This is almost a 20-year-old sketch, you guys. Sorry about that.

This was a Lonely Island digital short starring Andy Samberg and Chris Parnell that originally aired on SNL. And like a fair amount of early YouTube, the platform then relied on broadcast institutions to prop up their site where users did not yet have the tools or the incentive to upload content of their own. And just months after Lazy Sunday, a character named Kelly came along, an independently produced sketch. by Liam Kyle Sullivan. Shut up, duck. Skig. I'm going to box clap, you shut back. Maybe you remember this video.

And if you're thinking, no, this other video I remember must have gone viral first. Probably not. The only real contender, and it would be a hard tie, is a video uploaded by comedian Jackson Laplie, called Evolution of Dance,

a video that Laplie himself uploaded to the site in April 2006. And we'll leave it at that because I hope to make it episode with him in the future. But that's about it. Most of the early YouTube hits, like... Charlie Bit me. Candy Mountain, Charlie. Yeah, Charlie. We're going to Candy Mountain. Chocolate rain. Some stay dry and others feel the pain. Wow, chocolate rain two weeks in a row. Pretty amazing. All of these clips came out at least a year after shoes. And the only reason that I can't tell you

the exact moment shoes first became a hit on YouTube is because its first upload no longer exists. The video first appeared on the writer, director, and stars website early in the year, after what he describes as months producing the video with friends on the weekend and featuring a character that he'd honed on comedy stages in Los Angeles between acting gigs. That character was Kelly, profoundly mid-2000s in her aesthetic, wearing a blonde wig with bangs, fingerless gloves, thick black-rimmed glasses, a miniskirt, and a plether vest over a pink t-shirt that says super femme. This would later be replaced with an iconic black t-shirt that simply says,

Bech. The character is played by Liam, but Liam is not a known entity at this time. So to most fans of this video, it's not Liam, it's Kelly. The most popular upload of shoes now includes an open. sketch that establishes a wider world of characters, two conservative New England parents with teenage twins, a boy they're obsessed with, and Kelly, their daughter who they demean at every opportunity. But in the original video, it cuts right to the chase. A droning club beat kicks in after Kelly storms out of the house. Kelly, what are you going to do with your

life? I'm going to get what I want. And what does Kelly? want? Cheers. Chews. Cheers. Oh my God. Cheers. Liam Kyle Sullivan, aka Kelly. Your 16th minute starts now. I'm not so bad when you turn up your lights, but I can be perfect all the time.

So make me a star, let's take it too far. Then give me one moment. Sixth minute of fame Sixteen minute of fame Sixteen minute of fame Sixteen minute of face One more minute of fame I'm not so bad when you say

Welcome back to the internet's most famous of the internet's most famous characters of the day and figure out how their moment changed their lives and what it says about us and the internet. I'm your host Jamie Loftus and I consider taking Taco Bell up on their $700 Vegas dinner marriage and Elvis impersonator deal for, two whole minutes this week before realizing my mom would literally break me in half if I did that. And this week, we're returning to the mid-2000s to catch up with an internet celebrity Alzheimer, Liam Kyle Sullivan, and Kelly. And while the internet had been around for some time, by the time we met the gorgeous Frankenstein, who is Kelly, the concept of celebrity that began online was still very new, making our girl nothing. short of a pioneer.

So come with me, if you dare, to early 2006. The Pittsburgh Steelers win the Super Bowl. Go yinzers. It's the year that junior highs would be shaken to its core by poor Borat impressions. And Liam Kyle Sullivan's character, Kelly, became a star on YouTube. Although Liam himself was basically the last person to know, because, as I said, he didn't upload the Kelly video himself. So, where did this mysterious uploader, Rip, Shoes, and Liam's other massive viral hit from this year, Muffins, from?

Well, they downloaded it from his website. PSA, to my listeners under 25, there used to be this thing called websites. Children would have to learn how to make them on a different website called neopets.com. Some of us still have them. I haven't updated mine in two years, and that was only because my diabolical ex-agents wanted me to take their names off of the site. At the time Kelly went viral,

Liam was kind of a technophobe. He was born in 1973, and like many Gen Xers with him, was punk rock skeptical of the internet for some time before it involuntarily changed his life. And to be clear, whoever uploaded shoes to YouTube wasn't doing it in order to make a quick buck

before the creator could realize that he could make that same quick buck himself. Liam actually really encouraged people to download shoes, muffins, and other videos. Come to Pleasant Valley Road in Santa Rosa. Well, you can have a warm picnic under the sun. It's always a beautiful day here at Pleasant Valley Road in Santa Rosa. Which I can tell you for sure, because when I visited

his site on the way back machine, clicking on the muffin sketch automatically downloaded it to my computer. He'd first shown the sketch during his live shows, because he literally did not know that YouTube existed yet. And what's more, there was no

quick buck to be had on YouTube in 2006. Like so many moments in this story, you'll find that it is very arguable that Liam Kyle Sullivan went viral just a little too soon. Because this was not YouTube, as we know it now.

This was over a year and a half before YouTube accounts could monetize goddamn anything. It's months shy of Google's $1.65 billion acquisition of the platform in late 2006. There wasn't really a path for virality yet at this time. Because the site didn't financially incentivize successful users to stay, and mainstream entertainment still viewed web sensations as kind of entertainment second class citizens, although it never stopped them from trying to do something. Here's Kimmel in 2007. We are back.

Catherine Bell is here with us. This song has been covered by the likes of John Mayer, Trey Kuhl. It's gotten more than 4 million views on YouTube alone. It easily gets my vote for song in the summer from Minneapolis. Please welcome Tazonday with the song Chocolate Rain to tonight's Internet Talent Showcase. But before we can get to what Liam did, with this unprecedented, nearly uncharted kind of success, let's get to know him a little better.

Like all of our greatest artists, and I'll say it, people, Liam Kyle Sullivan grew up in Massachusetts and went to a weird congregational church. By all accounts, his childhood was really nice, although elements would end up inspiring Kelly's family in his future work. In shoes, Liam plays Kelly's father, Kelly's twin brother, and Kelly, and told me that he developed their exaggerated sibling dynamic based on how his older sister was treated in comparison to him when they were growing up.

While they were similarly good kids, didn't drink, didn't do anything, Liam remembers that his sister had imposed rules and curfews that he never did, an exaggerated fate that he would later assign to Kelly in the sketch's extended intro. Happy birthday twins. A computer and a car. Thanks, Mom and Dad. Kelly, go ahead and open your present. What the hell?

What'd you expect? Condams? It's a gigantic toy dinosaur. And before the needle drops for the beginning of the song, Kelly's parents both call her fat and slutty. Hoar. Liam was a theater kid, and went to Emerson College in Boston,

wisely dropping out after a year like I should have. And that's because he was already accomplishing what he was going to school to study. He quickly started getting parts and became a fixture of the Boston theater scene. At the time, focusing on straight ahead theater. I'm talking The Grapes of Wrath, a Midsummer Night's Dream,

the Three Penny Opera, all pretty heavy stuff. And after a few years of that, He did what all perfect people do. He moved from Boston to Los Angeles. And by the late 1990s, Liam is a working actor trying to build out a career for himself. He appears uncredited in a 1999 episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer,

also in drag. He is in a Dick Wolf show called Players Question Mark. He's in a Sundance indie, and he's in a bunch of commercials for Guinness, E-Trade, Dell, and PlayStation. A very solid resume, but not exactly creatively fulfilling in the way that playing Al Jod in Boston was. So Liam did what most actors who don't get into recreational sports or Coke do. He started taking comedy classes.

When I learned this, I realized that there were a few things that I had made false assumptions about with Liam before I met him for the first time. After watching the Kelly sketch for years, I felt sure that he had been doing comedy for years and years when this sketch came out. And I also felt sure that he'd done a lot of drag work. But neither of these things were really true. The Kelly costume isn't winning any drag race challenges anytime soon, but Liam embodies this character fully, to the point where he says he was almost never recognized by his voice or appearance in public. And as for comedy, that was something he began doing around 2000 at the recommendation of a friend to branch out a little bit.

and he ended up falling in love with the sketch at the now-shuttered Acme Comedy Theater in North Hollywood. So Kelly actually comes from his serious training as an actor and his personal life experience. And it's at Acme Comedy Theater that characters like Kelly begin to take shape. By the early to mid-2000s, he was performing and taking classes there regularly, leaving dramatic stage work mostly behind while taking on guest roles and film and TV where they came.

What's your favorite early Liam Kyle Sullivan role, Jamie? Well, thanks for asking. That would have to be the photographer in Season 5, Episode 13 and 14 of Gilmore Girls. Wonderful. There we are. Okay, everyone in just a little closer. That's perfect. Hold that. Good job, Liam. But if you asked Liam, he was probably most excited about his first meaningful recurring guest star role on TV,

on ABC's hit comedy Eight Simple Rules. He made these appearances in 2004 and 2005 while he worked on developing a solo sketch show, simply titled A Liam Show on the Side. The role on Eight Simple Rules was a big break after years of hustling, but he managed to balance it with a Liam show as he continued to build out new characters, many of which would appear later on his YouTube channel in some form.

Obviously, one of these characters was Miss Kelly. So this all starts as a stage show, the kind of sketch show that involves a humid black box theater and running backstage to change wigs while top 40 music plays between characters. It's a humble beginning, many such cases. But what made the difference was Liam's decision

to start adding interstitial videos into the show to help them flow a little better. And Kelly was a popular enough character with his audience, and he enjoyed playing the character enough, so he decided to make a video with her. We talk about it in our interview in more detail, but here's how Liam described the production of shoes on his website in February 2006.

Then I had some ideas for funny short films. I thought if I could borrow equipment and shoot them with my friends, I could put them together and put up a show and have a whole lot of fun doing it. I called my friend Eduardo Cisneros, and we made a whole bunch, and that I put them together,

and here I've got a show. and a website. I write, produce, and direct everything, but Eduardo Cisneros and Rich Briglia have helped a lot with cinematography and co-directing. I also edit everything myself. Bit of a control freak, yes, but in my experience,

collaboration with friends always makes a better product, so I listen to my friend's ideas. This text appears alongside a picture of a young Liam reaching toward the camera with the caption, area actor gropes for career. Other stuff on this site includes the sale of a comedy DVD question mark. He really was not an internet guy.

Anyways, this DVD sold for $10 and featured a collection of video sketches that he'd worked on with friends over the past few years. Most of these would eventually end up on YouTube as well. Titles include Dr. Ulay, sex therapist, fever bitch, Muffins and, wait, hold on, let's circle back to muffins. Muffins! Okay, this episode is mainly focused on Kelly and the phenomenon that was the shoes video. But we should take a quick side quest to talk about muffins, because it was wildly successful as well, and was also originally re-uploaded to a primitive YouTube by someone who had originally downloaded it from Liam's website. The joke of muffins is a little more straightforward than Kelly lore, but it does feature another Liam drag character, one he says was loosely based on his mom.

Mrs. Cunningham is an eager, older homemaker in a short gray wig, a pink moo-mooh, and an apron, forcing a series of bespoke muffin experiments on her unwilling test subject, her son Johnny. What would you like for breakfast, Johnny? muffins that's right at Cunningham muffins we know that muffins make the best breakfast so why not try all of our exciting new flavors a bunch of you were like oh my god I remember that yes you do so the meat of the sketch is in how weird and eventually sinister the muffin flavors get for every fan of this sketch everyone has their favorite muffins here are mine paper clip newspaper Fire!

And at the end... You'll eat a muffin. You'll eat it and like it. God, describing the jokes in a sketch is so miserable. Just go watch it. It's still up. It's good. The premise is very simple.

It's well written. Liam's performance is great. And it's clearly independent. Filmed on a random day in someone's crummy kitchen. Within a year or two of muffin's release, there would be early YouTubers who would create similar

generally less good comedy for YouTube and other platforms. But seeing an independent sketch like muffins or shoes breakthrough at the time made by someone no one had heard of before was a pretty new concept. Keep in mind, the only other sketch to have been super successful on YouTube at this time had literally been on SNL. But in these sketches, which are still Liam's most successful, a few consistent things stand out.

they're independently produced they're dark but can be enjoyed by anybody they feature drag characters and they were not written and made with YouTube in mind so let's go back to shoes and enjoy the glory of the video itself

so we know the general setup with Kelly as this neglected rebellious daughter in a middle class neighborhood who's shoe shopping to stick it to her parents but the majority of the song is Kelly's shoe shopping with her friends in multiple locations across L.A. Appraising shoes like this. These shoes rule.

They should suck. These shoes rule. They should suck. The aesthetic here could not be more mid-2000s. There's all of these quick zooms on Kelly's face. The shots are very high exposure, high contrast of her Doc Martin slamming the pavement of Melrose Avenue. And the camera will often cut to her friends in similar hot topic waist chain, low-rise, khaki pants. Those were so uncomfortable. It's this hyperfeminine shopping montage. But the best part

is that it has no patience for men whatsoever. I think you have too many shoes. Shut up. I think you have too many shoes. Shut up. I think you have too many shoes. Shut up. I think you have too many shoes. Shut up. Stupid boy. Let's get some shoes. Let's party. During this sequence, Kelly is literally stepping on men. She steps on the camera at one point as a male shoe salesman coweres in fear. And then we cut to this huge pool party full of scene kids.

And then back to Kelly to put her parents into debt once and for all. These shoes are $300 fucking dollars. Let's get them. And as many remember, Kelly ends the video by mouth. nothing off to a snobby sales rep in the most iconic way possible. Um, this style runs small. I don't think you're going to fat. I mean, your feet are kind of bad. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. By the way, bitch. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.

Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. This whole sequence is intercut with random high-exposure shots of hot girls and leather bikinis with flaming hula hoops. It's a whole vibe. And sure, is this a very 2000s sex-in-the-city parody way of describing feminine liberation through shopping? Well, yeah, but that's the point. Kelly is a drag character that's commentary on oppression experienced in white teen suburbia

might not be the most radical thing in the world. But it was really different for this time. During the Bush administration, it would be pretty unlikely to see a character like Kelly become this prominent by being supported by traditional media engines. And once more, you can't help but root for Kelly. Her parents trade her like shit, and so she puts them into credit card debt. It's a recession era of fantasy. In decolonized drag, Kareem Kub Chandani draws attention to a far more diverse group of drag performers doing their agreement. equivalent of this, building out the world of their drag characters by pulling from their

personal life, as Liam did from his New England childhood with Kelly. And when Kelly and Shoes hits YouTube, it goes nuts. But Liam doesn't realize this right away. He's staying on his normal actor grind. He's getting a bit part on alias. He's continuing to perform on stage at Acme. The internet is a part of his plan to grow his career, but it's not. not the plan. And unlike today, where the viral life of a video can rise and fall in the space of a couple hours, it took shoes months to catch on when the pace of the internet was much slower. In Liam's recollection, it was weeks before he heard his videos had been both uploaded and extremely successful on YouTube, and it only even heard of the platform because

someone he did comedy with had told him about it. And once he found out, he had had to figure out what to do about it. I have tried so hard to figure this out, but it is unclear exactly when the first upload of shoes disappeared or how many views it had when it did, but the primary upload of the video is now on Liam Kyle Sullivan's channel uploaded in April 2006. His upload of the shorter shoes music video is made in early May,

and according to a vice 10-year retrospective of the video from 2016, Liam wasn't convinced it was big, big, until that September, when the video was featured on a Los Angeles early morning show called Good Day, L.A. Shows. Oh, my God, this is Shoes. This is my new favorite song. Ah, Shows. Shoes.

Hello, Kelly. Oh, my God, Shoes. Oh, my God. Kelly is a drag queen. Let's get some shoes. And she lives here. Let's get some shoes. Let's get some shoes.

Does she use your pool? Let's get some shoes. And Liam was so excited about this that he actually uploaded this clip himself, which was quickly followed by shoutouts on TRL and more and more press in the mainstream. Not just to say, have you seen this video shoes, but just as much to say,

have you heard of this new thing called YouTube? And boy would we. Liam seems to understand in the moment that in the short term, his newly minted YouTube channel is where people are going to go to see his work. And so he starts planning to release new videos featuring Kelly. Was this always the master plan? Turns out not really.

He told Vice in 2016. I had written a bunch of songs and actually had to be persuaded by my friend to shoot a video for shoes, but I had no idea I'd be doing so many different things with her. At some point I was just throwing everything out there like, What else can I do with Kelly? Turns out a lot. But again, keep in mind that the trickle of viral content at this time worked much, much slower. Liam filled the space it took to produce new Kelly videos by uploading his back catalog of sketches,

including a re-upload of muffins and other videos that it appeared on his DVD. In June 2006, Liam released an entire album of music from Kelly, including a lot of hits that would later translate to future music videos. Like such as... You couldn't do it in person. You had the text message breakup. This one features major Kelly fan, Margaret Cho, as I think a dominatrix? Liam would actually go on to tour with her as an opener

shortly after the shoes video first blew up. Then there's no booty calls. Oh, what are you saying? You want to get together? I want you to comb overall dress. And stuff in leather like you used to do. Back in 02. You give me nice dreams.

Make me want to scream. That's not happening again. That was back then. And now I'm interested in bigger and better men. Nobody calls. Dack. Nobody calls. Dack.

That's not happening. And I think most successfully, let me borrow that top. Let me borrow that top. Let me borrow that top. Let me borrow that top. And while these hits didn't hit the heights that shoes had, they were all successful to the tune of millions of views. And they also expand upon Kelly lore.

We meet more members of her family, cleverly integrated by Liam from other characters that he did in his one-man show, plus a cool, hot vampire best friend named Heather. And for my money, in these future videos, Liam hammers down repeatedly on the important, empowerment of Kelly's character. Even as the people around Kelly continuously fail her, whether it's her strict parents, asshole boyfriends, or girls who think they're better than her, Kelly and her friends

always have endless confidence in her. It's never, oh my God, I'm so insecure, I'm a loser. It's, you've wronged me, I know it, and now I'm going to eat you for fucking dinner. This is a cyberspace coward, and he plays with his asshole on the shore. I'm going to tell all my girlfriends how bad the sex was. I'm pissed like President Bush would be in a gay parade in Texas. If that confused you, I'm going to have to lose you. Go back to first grade and get yourself a blues clue.

I don't even know whatever made me cheers you. Because we're good together. But I can do better. What are you saving it for? You're not even wearing it. You're not going to wear it. Let me borrow it. And while this round of viral Kelly videos released between 2006 and 2008 appealed to really

anyone who was remotely logged in at the time, it seemed to appeal to kids quite a bit. I think because Kelly was really funny, but she was also really cool. You were never, ever laughing at her the way that you see punching down drag comedy that we talked about earlier in this episode. She was awesome. YouTube monetization would come around via their infamous partners program in late 2007, but in the meantime, Liam grew the character and made ends meet in other ways. One was touring his act through the country with Margaret Cho and Solo,

appearing as himself and doing stand-up about being Kelly. Most of the clips from this tour were uploaded by fans who attended back in 2007 and feature Liam talking about how becoming Kelly made him a better man. kind of sexy and so i was like how do i do that and so it was a little struggle but the biggest struggle was finding women's clothes in the stores because i had no fucking idea one size in this brand is a totally different size in this other brand what the fuck is up with that somebody needs to like organize that shit and then like everything guys you know why women ask does this make me look fat it's because everything you wear as a woman makes you feel fat and

It's like nothing comes in your size, like I go in and I was like, you know, I'm a guy, but I'm not like huge or anything and I go and I say, oh, this is a nice little top here. Do you have this in a large? And the girl's like, now. It's like, fuck you. Okay. And so there's that. And then there's makeup. Like, I found out how fucking hard it is to do your face in the mirror. And you know, guys, when you're like, come on, honey, hurry up, it's time to go. What the fuck's taking so long in the bathroom? It's because there's a lot of fucking work to do in there. And while they're on the lower side of views, Liam also made sketches with Kelly between music video releases that, in retrospect, are sort of reflecting on the experiences that Liam was going through in real life while trying to translate Kelly's online fame to a more traditional acting career. In August 2007, he released Kelly's Hollywood Meeting,

where a series of identical-looking white guy agents desperately try to sign Kelly while having basically no idea what she does. You too. You too. My tube. It's everyone's tube when you touch it. It's a tube.

I went to Harvard. We've got to sign you. We've got to have you today now. Record deal. Radio show. One billion Chinese. What's that mean? Two billion shoes.

Right. Kelly, I saw one set of footprints. You were carrying him. In the other hand. Christ was off making a campfire or something gay. Was that a young Chris Hardwick? No need to look him up. if you haven't heard of him. He was canceled and acquired by Hearst Media. No comment. The sketch

continues. Kelly, the shoes video, the shoes album. I mean, it's a no-brainer. We've got to sign you. We need you. We love it. We love you. We love you. We need you to be part of us. We want to make money off of, well, we want to make money for you. Let's get some, uh-huh. So yeah, Liam seems to be poking at the fact that people were eager to profit off. of Kelly, but didn't really know what to do with her. In the sketch, the agents are trying to get her to sell cereal called Honey Nut Shet bags. And because Kelly takes shit from no one, she lets these guys have it. What was a?

The video ends with a woman flipping off the camera and a teaser for Kelly's new music video. Let me borrow that top. The message is clear. Kelly isn't going to sell out. Kelly is punk rock. Liam admitted in an interview in people that came out this past week that he doesn't really feel comfortable expressing anger, but Kelly does, and that's empowering for him. I get really uncomfortable with anger.

It's hard for me to express it because I just kind of get scary. But when Kelly does it, there's something about it that connects because there's a lot of injustice in the world and we've got to address it. Around this time, he also stars in a short-lived VH-1 sitcom in 2007 called I Hate My 30s, while continuing to upload to YouTube as Kelly and himself with his other characters. The in-between videos are simpler by necessity, mostly tour promotion or fan appreciation montages. The last major Kelly music video was released in 2008, called Where Do You Think You're Going in That? where Kelly's mother calls out her perfect hot topic outfit

and incorrectly translated Chinese character tattoo. Excuse me. Where do you think you're going in that? You're going to march right upstairs. That's what you're going to do. March it. Kelly doesn't even speak in this one. It's just an increasingly demented club beat

of her mother's criticisms of her outfit, while Kelly becomes increasingly glamorous and adored. It's what the kids are now calling Recession Corps released during the 2008 Recession. I'm not sure what's happening now. I think it is not sure what to do during the rise of fascism core. Liam also wins a People's Choice Award at this time for shoes.

Over two years after it came out, in the category, best user job. generated video. Should have e-gotted. But even if you're a big fan of Kelly, which I consider myself to be, shoes, text message breakup, and can I borrow that top, are as big as it got outside of the longtime fans. Make no mistake, Kelly's legacy was absolutely cemented in YouTube lore. Liam says that he's been reached out to incessantly to recognize the 20-year anniversary of YouTube recently, and that plenty of people say watching his work is the first time they remember watching YouTube at all. But because of how little the media landscape

understood the internet at this time, Liam never saw the profit that a creator would today with an equal number of eyes. In an equal number of eyes, we're talking hundreds of millions of views, is basically unheard of today. It's no exaggeration to say that Liam at his peak was commanding Walter Cronkite numbers. But at the time, those eyes were not perceived as having value. It's fucked, right? In retrospect, it makes me genuinely irritated how it's YouTube that benefits from Liam's creativity, while the system that legitimize YouTube as a starmaker never nurtured

his career in the way he deserved. And this is a straight white guy. Think of all of the people more marginalized than Liam that never stood a chance. at this. But Kelly continued, as did Liam, posting primarily and most successfully as his star character, as well as his coterie of other characters for the next five years or so, while continuing to maintain his mainstream acting career. The most famous non-Kelly character he did was Aunt Susan, Kelly's gay aunt who he released a second album as in 2009, titled Susan Walker's Greatest Tits. My name is Susan Walker. Go Raider.

I don't know, into the 2010s. The Kelly character rolls with the times during a YouTube culture that was becoming increasingly popular, algorithmically driven, and relying more on search engine optimization than the weird ingenuity that introduced us to her in the first place. During this era, we get Kelly vlogs, with the character taking questions to camera directly. Kelly, what do you think about Kim Kardashian? Well, she's a hot batch. Kelly, please talk about Connie. Okay, I saw Coney 2012

And then I saw all that controversy and backlash Against this director who made it And I was all, this guy's just trying to help people in Africa What did you do today, Betts? Lay off. But by the time the last of these videos were released in 2012, YouTube had changed a lot. This was a year where PewDie Pye and Jenna Marbles

were the most successful users on the platform where being a YouTuber was now considered a job and where users now needed to branch out to multiple different platforms in order to fully thrive. And by this time, Liam was happily married in a story that I'm going to let him tell you because it is so great.

He was starting a family and behind the scenes was struggling with keeping the character up during a version of YouTube that he was somewhat less than enthusiastic about. And so while Liam continued to post videos as other characters for a while after this, Kelly all but disappeared for a period of years, and Liam pivoted to a series of full-time jobs

with a skill that he wouldn't have had without Kelly, video editing for the Internet specifically, working for the Fine Brothers, Nickelodeon, and Defy Media, meaning honest trailers, smosh, etc., over the next several years. And things as Kelly are quiet for a bit. YouTube, of course, grows into a behemoth over the 2010s. And by the 10th anniversary of shoes in 2016, the platform's modus operandi has shifted

to click-baby headlines, vaguely radicalizing content, BuzzFeed video, and to Liam's benefit, content that got people nostalgic for the early internet. This is the year that Liam appeared on the then-Fine Brothers channel in a video called YouTubeers React to Shoes, viral video classic, in which either now canceled or niche YouTubers of Yore, most notably Shane Dawson, watched and reflected on the influence shoes had had on the platform. In Liam's standalone videos, we get a clearer idea of who he is 10 years later, and really who he's always been, a very thoughtful, sweet person who is surprised that his creation has had such an impact on people.

When I was looking at all the stuff that YouTube provides, like you can look at who's watching and when they stop watching. And with that in my head, I became like an executive, thinking business rather than creative. I could never really get back to that kind of like, all right guys, we're going to make a video, isn't this cool? It was all, it became much more of a business. So the YouTubers in this episode talked about this video as being one of the most important in YouTube history,

and some specifically even mentioned how you inspired them to do what they do on YouTube. I mean, that's incredible. Ah, wow. That's amazing. It's so lovely seeing how Liam takes this in. But he had his own relationship with the Kelly character, as well as the stress and burnout that can come with internet churn. and the pressure of trying to make something happen.

While he and Kelly had a solid legacy, it had never quite turned into the multi-million dollar career that we see today with YouTubers who are working with far less cultural clout. And it was up to him to process that. So for the moment, the character stayed inactive. Kelly didn't return to YouTube until all the way in 2020, when she came back for a lockdown-themed theme mask endorsement. Let's wear a mask.

Let's wear a mask. Let's wear a mask. Let's wear a mask. But aside from his few other lockdown-era live streams, Kelly didn't really come back in earnest. Liam and his wife, Alana, had a second kid and continued on their respective career paths. Liam went on to work for BuzzFeed video

and is currently an editor for the Try Guys Fun Fact. But things changed last summer, and Liam couldn't stay away from Kelly any longer. Last year, Liam was contacted by a pride event in L.A. asking him to perform as Kelly. He hadn't performed as her on stage or really much on stage at all for nearly a decade at that point, but the event pushed because, they explained,

Kelly was a queer icon. And after the better part of two decades, creating, accidentally becoming famous friends, and not quite making a career of Kelly because of timing, Liam suddenly saw his creation in a new way. Not as a vehicle, but as someone who really meant something to people, including him.

My conversation with Liam Kyle Sullivan when we come back. A foot washed up a shoe with some bones in it. They had no idea who it was. Most everything was burned up. pretty good from the fire that not a whole lot was salvageable. These are the coldest of cold cases, but everything is about to change. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA right now in a backlog will be identified in our lifetime.

A small lab in Texas is cracking the code on DNA. Using new scientific tools, they're finding clues in evidence so tiny you might just miss it. He never thought he was going to get caught. And I just looked at my computer screen. I was just like, ah, gotcha. On America's Crime Lab, we'll learn about victims and survivors. And you'll meet the team behind the scenes at Othrum, the Houston Lab that takes on the most hopeless cases,

to finally solve the unsolvable. Listen to America's Crime Lab on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Sometimes it's hard to remember, but... Going through something like that is a traumatic experience. experience, but it's also not the end of their life. That was my dad, reminding me and so many others who need to hear it, that our trauma is not our shame to carry, and that we have big, bold, and beautiful lives to live after what

happened to us. I'm your host and co-president of this organization, Dr. Leitra Tate. On my new podcast, The Unwanted Sorority, we weighed through transformation to peel back healing and reveal what it actually looks like, and sounds like, in real time. Each week I sit down with people who live through harm, carried silence, and are now reshaping the systems that failed us. We're going to talk about the adultification of black girls, mothering as resistance, and the tools we use for healing. The unwanted sorority is a safe space, not a quiet space, so let's lock in, we're moving towards liberation, together. Listen to the unwanted sorority, new episodes every Thursday on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

What would you do if one bad decision forced you to choose between a maximum security prison or the most brutal boot camp designed to be hell on earth? Unfortunately for Mark Lombardo, this was the choice he faced. He said, you are a number, a New York State number, and we own you. Shock incarceration, also known as boot camps, are short-term, highly regimented correctional programs that mimic military basic training. These programs aim to provide a shock of prison life, emphasizing strict discipline, physical training, hard labor, and rehabilitation programs.

Mark had one chance to complete this program and had no idea of the hell awaiting him the next six months. The first night was so overwhelming, and you don't know who's next to you. And we didn't know what to expect in the morning. Nobody tells you anything. Listen to shock incarceration on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Your entire identity has been fabricated.

Your beloved brother goes missing without a trace. You discover the depths of your mother's illness the way it has echoed and reverberated throughout your life, impacting your very legacy. Hi, I'm Danny Shapiro. And these are just a few of the profound and powerful stories I'll be mining on our 12th season of Family Secrets. With over 37 million downloads, we continue to be moved and inspired by our guests and their courageously told stories.

I can't wait to share 10 powerful new episodes with you, stories of tangled up identities, concealed truths, and the way in which family secrets almost always need to be told. I hope you'll join me and my extraordinary guests for this new season of Family Secrets. Listen to Family Secrets Season 12 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to 16th Minute. I'll be at the Liam show this Thursday in Los Angeles. Will you? Two weekends ago, Liam generously agreed to meet up with me at the Lyric Hyperion. theater in L.A., the place where he's currently building out his solo show about his history

with Kelly, featuring Kelly. It's also where I've built out most of my own shows over the years, and somewhere I think a lot of really special stuff happens. Anyways, this is an interview that we did in the Lyric Hyperion Cafe, so it does sound like that. But honestly, I kind of like it. We're in a place we're both comfortable in, we're drinking coffee, we're shooting the shit and we're being from New England. So this was a pretty lengthy conversation, so I'll share the first part here, and we're

going to air the rest in a second part this Thursday. So consider this your invitation to an informal 16th minute hang with Liam and Jamie. Go Bruins. My name is Liam Kyle Sullivan, and I'm known for the shoes and muffins videos on YouTube that I made almost 20 years ago. That feels crazy for me. I can't imagine how it feels for you. Sometimes it's like it was yesterday

and other times like, yeah, that feels about right? 20 years. We met at The Lyric, which is where you're workshopping your show. Is this the first time you're talking extensively about your life and like about Liam on stage

and like your connection to Kelly? Yeah. Whoa. Yeah. I think it was because last year got an invite to perform Kelly at a club. downtown. It was a show called What's My Age Again? Oh, okay. It's a nostalgia show. Nice.

At precinct. I talk about it in the show. At first, I said in my head, I said, no. Because I kind of, you know, close that chapter, at least in my mind. I'd made one video during the pandemic about masks, but I hadn't performed live as Kelly in easily 10 years, I think. Was there like a specific decision made to be like, done or it just sort of happened? No, it just sort of happened. Yeah. I was hot for, I don't know, two, three years. And then by year five, I was like, oh, really cooled off.

And I wasn't able to parlay it. Hi, Jake. Hi, Jake. Into more, you know, traditional television or film success. And I just couldn't keep up with how the landscape had changed. You had to post so much. And I was still kind of operating on the release of a music video every six months or something like that. Right. I was still in that mind frame. So I just kind of stopped. And then when I got that

email, I was like, wow, this is something I never thought I would do again. I ended up doing it. How did it feel? It felt amazing. It felt really good. Good. There were so many people who I met, who were just really happy to meet me. And I was under the impression that, you know, I was kind of like old news, but people told me, no, I saw you when I was like 13. It just inspired me. You know, I thought maybe I could be a YouTuber or I can do drag. Even somebody told me it helped them to like come out. That's amazing. It's amazing, right? And I just felt so good about that. And I realized that I hadn't really engaged with that audience because I was 32 when I made the video. Talking to kids online seemed inappropriate at

the time. Which a lot of YouTubers don't seem to realize. Well, yeah, but I think maybe times have changed a little. I don't know. But at the time, it was new. And so it just, it seemed like, no, I'm not going to engage with a 13-year-old online. Or I didn't know how old people were sometimes. I'm so glad you had that experience at pre-sum, because it does feel like with the internet, there is like a different kind of attachment. It feels weirdly closer, and I don't know why that is. But I think especially in like the early days of YouTube. I think also there was no algorithm controlling what you saw. Right.

So it felt more like, I found this. It was more like the music business used to be where you go and find records or find bands on your own and they felt so personal to you. I think maybe that's part of it because it was new and corporations hadn't found it yet. When I look back in YouTube history and it's like, oh yeah, if you were on the for you page any time before 2013, it was because a person saw your video and was like, this is amazing. And it just feels like when a person sees your video, there is no agenda other than this video is really good. Yeah. Yeah. It felt a little like a meritocracy.

Yeah. What happened to that? What happened? I don't know. Anyways, precinct. Yeah. So that experience was so inspiring to me that I thought, why don't I do a show, like, go back to, because I used to do live shows all the time. Right. I called them a Liam show and I do sketches.

I do short videos. That's where I first started making videos was for my live show. Okay. It wasn't for YouTube. And so, because YouTube didn't exist. But I thought, oh, let me try this again. And this time, instead of doing a bunch of characters and like stand-up stuff, I could do like tell my story. And it was challenging because I talk about this in the show too.

When people know the Kelly character in shoes and then they meet me. they're kind of like, huh, you're not Slay. You know, you're not fabulous or sassy. And I'm like, no, I'm not. But it's in there. So I don't know if you ever saw a teen wolf with Michael J. Fox where he turns into a wolf and he's an amazing basketball player. But when he's a human, you know, he's just okay.

Yeah. I'm kind of in that zone now. I'm like, no, I want to play the game as a human as my game. myself and see how that goes. Kelly's your inner teen wolf. Kelly's my interteen wolf. Yeah. Is it like about that period of your life? Is it about your whole life? I mean, there's whole life stuff sprinkled in. I talk about my mother, my father, my sister, my friends, people who inspired me, some celebrities that I met, the experience in the industry and how unique it was at that particular time. I talk a lot about that and where I'm at now and how that experience last

year at Precinct was kind of a springboard for other gigs. Like, I'm glad that I can still do it. I remember being scared to get on stage again with a microphone and, you know, the music and the crowd is all like pumped up. And I got up there and I forgot how to work a microphone. Like, there was a little on button, and I completely forgot to turn it on, and I just started talking. Oh, that long. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So then I was like, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, turn it on. And people thought it was a bit, like, that I was being funny. So I played it off that way. The crowd was so warm. They just buoyed me. You know, they kept me up and loving and, like, I could have fallen on my face, and they would have been like, great, okay. It's good to see you, man. You know, hearing people's

stories was just like, oh, my God. I got to keep doing it. this, you know. And so I went up to San Francisco. I booked a gig at San Francisco Pride, which was amazing. People would tell me, I hope you're getting your flowers, you know? Yeah. And it felt so good. I was like, wow, okay. Yeah, I'll take some flowers. Thank you. Yeah, you've earned them. And like finding sort of this new joy in it. That's amazing. It's a total new joy. Yeah. Because for a while, I felt really trapped by it. Because when you're famous for something, was it Taylor Swift, who said you'd kind of get frozen in that time? Like, I couldn't seem to break out of it.

Right. I had to keep doing it. And I think it kind of made me feel like a robot. Like, do the song and then go home or do something, Kelly. That's it. And so I felt I'm not growing at all. I feel a little hackish, you know? More with Liam Kyle Sullivan when we're back.

A foot washed up a shoe with some bones in it. They had no idea who it was. Most everything was burned up pretty good from the fire that not a whole lot was salvageable. These are the coldest of cold cases, but everything is about to change. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA right now in a backlog will be identified in our lifetime. A small lab in Texas is cracking the code on DNA. Using new scientific tools, they're finding clues in evidence so tiny you might just miss it. He never thought he was going to get caught.

And I just looked at my computer screen. I was just like, ah, gotcha. On America's Crime Lab, we'll learn about victims and survivors. And you'll meet the team behind the scenes at Othrum. the Houston lab that takes on the most hopeless cases to finally solve the unsolvable. Listen to America's Crime Lab on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Sometimes it's hard to remember, but... Going through something like that is a traumatic experience, but it's also not the end of their life.

That was my dad, reminding me and so many others who need to hear it, that our trauma is not our shame to carry, and that we have big, bold, and beautiful lives to live after what happened to us. I'm your host and co-president of this organization, Dr. Leitra Tate. On my new podcast, The Unwanted Sorority, we weighed through transformation to peel back healing and reveal what it actually looks like, and sounds like, in real time. Each week, I sit down with people who live through harm, carried silence, and are now reshaping the systems that failed us. We're going to talk about the adultification of black girls, mothering as resistance,

and the tools we use for healing. The unwanted sorority is a safe space, not a quiet space. So let's walk in. We're moving towards liberation together. Listen to the unwanted sorority, new episodes every Thursday, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your entire identity has been fabricated. Your beloved brother goes missing without a trace.

You discover the depths of your mother's illness, the way it has echoed and revered. reverberated throughout your life, impacting your very legacy. Hi, I'm Danny Shapiro, and these are just a few of the profound and powerful stories I'll be mining on our 12th season of Family Secrets. With over 37 million downloads, we continue to be moved and inspired by our guests and their courageously told stories. I can't wait to share 10 powerful new episodes with you, stories of tangled up

identities, concealed truths, and the way in which family secrets almost always need to be told. I hope you'll join me and my extraordinary guests for this new season of family secrets. Listen to Family Secrets Season 12 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What would you do if one bad decision forced you to choose between a maximum security prison or the most brutal boot camp designed to be hell on earth? Unfortunately from Mark Lombardo, this was the choice he faced. He said, you are a number, a New York State number, and we own you.

Shock incarceration, also known as boot camps, are short-term, highly regimented correctional programs that mimic military basic training. These programs aim to provide a shock of prison life, emphasizing strict discipline, physical training, hard labor, and rehabilitation programs. Mark had one chance to complete this program and had no idea of the hell awaiting him the next six months. The first night was so overwhelming and you don't know who's next to you.

And we didn't know what to expect in the morning. Nobody tells you anything. Listen to shock incarceration on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to 16th Minute. Here's more of my interview with Liam Kyle Sullivan. I want to go back a little bit to that first moment. So Kelly came out of your live shows?

Yeah, I was doing sketch comedy in the late 90s, early 2000s here in L.A. I was with a sketch group called Another Showcase Showdown. Nice. I was with the Acme Comedy Theater. I think Sketch really helped me as a performer because before that I was doing like straight theater like I would do in Boston nice oh I've got questions about yeah I've got questions about Massachusetts I've noticed her hat oh yeah Fenway yeah I would do plays and I did you know Shakespeare and

Bricht and Noel Coward because that's what theaters were doing and so that's where I auditioned and luckily I got cast but when I moved out here I was like okay let me keep doing theater and that's what I knew and I did some plays but you know I was like well I have to get into TV I didn't move out here to just do theater you know I was doing showcases and stuff like that and I was doing a play I was doing the missinthrope um by moliere and a friend of mine said you know you should look into sketch comedy because you're you're kind of out there like your characters when you do something you go balls to the wall and I was like yeah that's how you're supposed to do it right and she's like but I think I think I think

think sketch would really suit you. Yeah. It's like, okay. So that's when I found sketch, and I was like, oh, improv, sketch, you know, stand up. All that came later. And I was like, oh, okay, this is really fun. I can write my own stuff. I didn't know I could do that.

Well, and you had the hardest part out of the way where you already knew how to perform. And later, when I found sketch, I branched out into playing women because I have, you know, kind of an effeminate, I'm in a feminine heterosexual, I'll just say it. And so I leaned into that. And I've found much more power in that and artistic freedom than trying to butch up and play parts that I would never get cast at. And, you know, I'm not going to play a jock. Were you a comedy fan as a kid? Did you have, like, favorites as a kid?

Yeah, I loved comedy. My sister and I used to wake up early to watch the Three Stooges. Nice. Because they came on at like six in the morning on Saturday mornings. I guess later, SNL, we were one of the first families that I knew to get a VCR. My father was a, he worked at Channel 5, WCVB TV. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

He did editing and stuff, and he knew all that technology really well. He had to convince me to buy a computer. Really? Yeah. Wow, good for him. Back when I was like, you know, late 20s or whatever. Like, I didn't have email. for a long time.

Kids in the hall, too, when I was a teenager. I loved kids in the hall. A very drag-heavy sketch group. I mean, a lot of them. Yeah. Yeah. And they did it like it was not, like they were playing a woman. They weren't doing a glamorous thing.

And that's how, that informed me, too. I got to meet Bruce McCullough. Amazing. From going viral. And it was so cool to sit down with him and have. have a conversation like we were peers. Like, he treated me like a peer. He called me brother.

It was so great. And nothing came of it, but it was just that one meeting was so, you know how they say, never meet your heroes? Not always. He was wonderful. You know, Monty Python, it's like they do a lot of drag, but they're sort of making fun of women in the way that they do drag. Yeah.

But the kids in the hall never were. And Kelly never was. Like, it was just like, this is just, this is the character. Yeah, this is a real person. Yeah. I wanted so badly to make her look and act like a real person. I mean, she's a little exaggerated, but just the look especially. And I remember getting comments like, are you a boy or a girl?

And I was like, yes. Yeah, because I wanted people to kind of not see it as like, oh, here's some guy thinking he's making fun of women or something like that. That's not what I wanted. And it never felt that way. Did you originally make these videos to be posted? Did you make them to be shown live? Like, how did that, like, what made you decide to add in video elements? Well, I had been making short videos for my live show.

So I would do, like, a character on stage with a monologue or a song. And then I'd show a video and go backstage and change as a new character and come back out. Right. I had about an hour. Another aspect was, well, what about a film festival? Like slam dance. And so. So shoes did not get accepted.

Wow. Egg on their fucking face. Right. No, no. And then I had a website. Mm-hmm. And I'd seen what Lonely Island had done. Right.

And I was like, oh, okay, so you make a website and you put videos up and then you invite industry to that. Somehow, like, that was, it was not a fully formed plan at all. Right. But it's just kind of like an online portfolio kind of thing. Yeah. But it was also like I want. want to create my own work because that is, A, satisfying, B, can be really fun. C, it gets you working even though you're not getting paid, you're working.

So when you're working, you have a vibe. Right. When you walk into someplace, like an audition, that says, hey, I've got shit going on. Yeah. Like, this isn't my whole day. The video is taken from your website and uploaded to you. YouTube not by you originally? Originally, yeah. Wow. So how long did it take you to find out it was A, there, and B, very popular? It took a month or so because now things go viral

and they're kind of over. Like, it takes maybe a day or a week or, you know, very short time. Right. But back then, it was still so new. Like viral video didn't exist really. So it took people time to find things. You know, I think you had to like send a link via email. I heard about it word of mouth. Wow. Yeah. Someone just told me in person. I said, do you know about this YouTube? You're on there. And so I made a channel. I put my video up. So there were so many iterations, is that the word? Yeah. Of it out there. And muffins too. I remember very specifically the one, there was a upload of muffins that had 30 million views and it was some other person who did it.

Crazy. Isn't that crazy? What was your relationship with the internet like before all of this happened? I had no relationship whatsoever. Right. So this like forces you to change that, right? Oh yeah, I had to adapt myself. Yeah, even email. Oh, right. You didn't want to email people.

They'd be like, I just emailed you just. I'm like, I don't, come on, guys. Because when, you know, things started heating up for me, I kind of had to, in those meetings that I got, kind of explain a little bit, like, how I got to where I was, how I made it to this meeting. You've got eyes on you, but they're not on your account. Like, yeah, what was, what did you first do?

I mean, my first reaction was excitement. Yeah. Because I felt like this was a great thing. This was a showcase for me. People were seeing me. I was getting attention. And maybe they would find their way back to my site and know who I was. Right.

I loved it. I loved seeing that people liked my work. The fact that it was other people uploading it didn't even register as like, Oh, hey, wait. Right, because I wouldn't have been weird then, really. It wasn't. There was no RevShare. It was like this underground thing that the grownups didn't know about yet,

and it was really fun and cool. That's awesome. Yeah, I loved it. And only later when RevShare became a thing, did I realize what I'd missed out on? Like, if I'd waited a year or two. It's like, how could you have known? But how could I?

Yeah, no one could predict the future, and I've stopped beating myself up about that. I talk about that in the show too. How I needed therapy. Thank you so much again to Liam. And if you're listening to this and are in the L.A. area the week this episode comes out, I will see you at the show on February 27th. I am so excited. And part two of this interview will be released on February 27th this Thursday. And you're going to want to tune back in to hear how Liam and his wife, Alana met. It's truly amazing. There's so much more I could say about Liam's work, about its effect on YouTube, about its effect on drag, about its very personal legacy for a lot of kids who are now adults, and remember Kelly as this cool punk-rock, fuck-you-mom channel of early internet anger. But honestly, I'm just so personally very inspired by Liam, not just by his creativity,

but by his willingness to connect with his creation's legacy. and there's a lot more to come. See you Thursday. 16th Minute is a production of Cool Zone Media and I Hard Wholesale. It is written, hosted, and produced by me, Jamie Laughness. Our executive producers are Sophie Lichten and Robert Evans. The Amazing Ian Johnson is our supervising producer and our editor. Our theme song is by Sad 13.

Voice acting is from Grant Crater. And pet shoutouts to our dog producer Anderson, my cats flea, and Casper, and my pet rock bird who will outlive us all. Bye. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA. Right now in a backlog will be identified in our lifetime. On the new podcast, America's Crime Lab, every case has a story to tell. And the DNA holds the truth. He never thought he was going to get caught.

And I just looked at my computer screen. You know, so it's like, ah, gotcha. This technology's already solving so many cases. Listen to America's Crime Lab on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's Black Business Month, and Money and Wealth Podcast with John Hope Bryant is tapping in. I'm breaking down how to build wealth, create opportunities, and move from surviving to thriving. It's time to talk about ownership, equity, and everything in between. Black and brown communities have historically been last in life.

Let me just say this. AI is moving faster than civil rights legislation ever did. Listen to Money and Wealth from the Black Effect Podcast Network on IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I just normally do straight stand-up, but this is a bit different. What do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? Answer, a new podcast called Wisecrack, where a comedian finds himself at the center of a chilling true crime story. Does anyone know what show they've come to see? It's a story. It's about the scariest night of my life. This is Wisecrack. Available now.

Listen to Wisecrack on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're looking for another heavy podcast about trauma, the saying it. This is for the ones who had to survive and still show up as brilliant, loud, soft, and whole. The unwanted sorority is where black women, femmes, and gender expansive survivors of sexual violence rewrite the rules on healing. support and what happens after. And I'm your host and co-president of this organization, Dr. Leitra Tate. Listen to the unwanted sorority, new episodes every Thursday on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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