Josh Johnson on Building a Comedy Career on YouTube vs Netflix

The Colin and Samir Show

Colin and Samir

Business

4.9 • 665 Ratings

🗓️ 12 August 2025

⏱️ 91 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Comedian Josh Johnson is doing something almost no one else in stand-up is doing: releasing a new set every single week on YouTube. In this episode, we talk with Josh about how he’s built a 350M-view channel without Netflix or HBO, why stand-up comedians are some of the best observers of the human condition, and what creators can learn from the way he writes, performs, and publishes at such a relentless pace. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Your work is like performing at a really incredible scale.
0:02.9	I think you did last year alone, like over 100 million views on your comedy. I want to be like the best, like best writer, best performer, best everything. Do you have aspirations to do a special with like a Netflix? Or do you feel like you're already doing it? As best as I can, the two things I'm looking to do now are like... I think like a lot of creators need to hear that. Yeah, I feel like I needed to hear that right now.
0:01.8	Something we haven't talked about is the DailySys. Welcome to the Daily Sharks. I'm Josh Johnson. Do you remember the joke or jokes that lost the room? I was just like, uh-huh, y'all heard about these sharks? I am a problem. How do you view the structure of a joke?
0:38.3	I think you laugh for a few different reasons.
0:41.3	If you are starting YouTube right now, what you don't want to have happen is...
0:45.3	Today's guest is comedian Josh Johnson.
0:48.3	Josh is doing something super unique, not only in the world of stand-up comedy, but also on YouTube.
0:52.3	Traditionally, comedians will put out
0:54.1	an hour special after going out and touring and really workshopping it. Josh is putting out a
0:59.2	weekly special every single Tuesday on his YouTube channel. And it's working. These uploads are
1:03.6	doing between like one and five million views and his channel has gotten over 350 million views.
1:09.7	And all this success has actually landed him a hosting spot
1:13.6	on the daily show, which is really cool to see. Comedians are absolutely some of my favorite people
1:18.3	to have on the show because they are such good observers of the human condition. They are
1:22.5	incredible writers and writing is the basis of everything that we do on YouTube.
1:30.8	I think the other thing that makes Josh and other comedians really unique is that they're doing their craft in front of people on a regular basis for Josh.
1:34.5	It's every weekend.
1:35.3	He's out on the road.
1:36.5	He's performing his ideas and his writing, his stand-up in front of a live audience.
1:40.9	So no one gets more feedback than comedians.
1:44.0	And they get to use that
1:45.2	and craft it into new material. And that's pretty similar to what we do as creators. It's just the
	...

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