The next stop for Subway Takes
Kareem Rahma on the viral series’ new chapter.
Embedded is your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, written by Kate Lindsay and edited by Nick Catucci.
My Subway Take is that if no one drinks it, I should be allowed to bring home the wine I brought to the party. —Kate
No matter what side of the internet you fall on, there’s certain content I’d wager ends up on all of our feeds. With guests including Olivia Wilde, Troye Sivan, and the Brooklyn Nets—not to mention that viral “candid girl” take—Subway Takes is one of those internet projects that transcends algorithms. Now, host
—who also works above ground, asking cab drivers to take him to their favorite places and to “Keep The Meter Running”—is taking a desk job.The Last Stop is Rahma’s new talk show, hosted on YouTube, in which he invites back memorable Subway Takes guests in order to defend their opinions. They are then debated by a panel; in the first episode, it includes art critic Jerry Saltz, author Brenda Cullerton, and comedian Ian Fidance. The take? Neel Ghosh’s argument that Boomers have ruined the world.
Rahma moderates the five debates that will make up the show’s first season. This is the next phase of a life change Rahma made a few years ago when he decided to step away from a CEO role and and dive into creating for social media. It was a good decision: both franchises’ minutes-long videos regularly reach millions of viewers.
In this interview, Rahma and I talk more about the work that went into that leap, his formula for viral success, and the Subway Take he’s never shared.
I'm curious about your foray into internet content. Is that always what you've done?
I had a very non traditional route. I went to school for journalism and I chose that because it was easy. I had zero desire to be a journalist, but I was just like, this is a professional job, but it's also creative. And I like that. I was very obsessed with making a living. My head was not in the clouds. I was very practical. But I also knew that there was no way that I was ever gonna be a banker or a lawyer or anything that actually makes money. But journalist seemed like, Hey, this is maybe good.
Then I worked in advertising agencies. I got really lucky. My first job was as an SEO intern and then that became an SEO associate. You know, those moments where you don't want what's in front of you, but it pays off in the future? I think that was one of the first moments, 'cause I was always a whiz kid with the internet but I didn't totally understand how it worked. And the SEO thing just opened [my eyes]. I was like, "There's a whole method." I understood how the internet worked.
I did that for a few years and then that morphed into social media and I moved to New York in pursuit of the American dream of starting a tech company. I wanted to be an entrepreneur. And within my first month in New York, I knew that that was not going to happen. Number one, I had no network. Number two, I had no real education when it came to that kind of thing. And I honestly, number three, didn't have a track record. So I got really lucky again—right place, right time. I got a job at Vice, and this was 2011 when there were like 70 or 80 employees, and I didn't even know what it was. I worked there. I was the head of audience development, and then I worked at the New York Times where I was the head of audience development on video. And then I was like, I'm gonna start a company.
I started a company called Nameless Network, which was Now This News meets Vox. And so it was a distributed video media company with readable videos, and I did that for about five years. So I was slowly inching my way closer and closer towards what I'm doing now. But ultimately I had a midlife crisis around the time of the pandemic. I was turning 33. I'm not so happy being a CEO. I'm not a founder. I'm a creative person. And I felt unhappy for a really long time. And I'd always had the itch to be talent. I don't think I want to email for a living. I'm gonna be a comedian. And being a child of the internet, I was like, the easiest and fastest way to do that is to make videos. In my mind, comedian was not necessarily analogous with standup comedian. In my mind, a comedian was someone who makes funny videos on the internet. So I started doing that and one thing led to another and I found myself having an identity crisis where I was just watching the internet and everyone had a thing, and that's what ultimately really pushed me in the direction of Keep The Meter Running, which then led to starting another show, which was Subway Takes.
A misconception about making content for the internet is that success is blowing up overnight. And so I think you expect it to happen really fast. And I think your trajectory is a testament to the idea that the significant work that came before this is actually really important for knowing how to translate comedy into a successful, repeatable format. How did you crack this code?
I talk about how I lived my thirties in my twenties, and now I'm living in my twenties in my thirties. And I think the benefit of that is I have a lot of insight and context. I still call people who are older than me for advice, but I also call people who are younger than me for advice. You can lean on both sides and you're not too grumpy to appreciate what the kids are doing, and you're still green enough to be able to get good advice from people older than you.
I did a hard pivot. Like I said, "I am changing my career to be a comedian." It wasn't like "I'm an aspiring comedian," it wasn't like "I'm an aspiring entertainer." The day I decided to make my first video, which was November 2020, I think, or 2019, I don't remember exactly what year. I was like, this is what I'm doing now. And I think creating and developing the formats is exactly that. There's value in going viral, but I've been going viral for a long, long time even before those shows. I've never gotten the global moment. I've never had the Hawk Tuah moment. So after two years, I'd say, of experimenting and having success in going viral and having my work seen, that's when I was like, I shouldn't care about the virality. I should more so care about the format and the intellectual property and the brand building. That comes from experience, and knowing what I need to do next.
There's also the failed ideas. There's several failed video series ideas that I had. They didn't work. And would they work now? Some of 'em were too early, I think. To be in the right place at the right time, you have to be in the right place. And that means leaving your house. That means doing the thing. So for me it's always been about trying new things, keeping the ball moving forward, 'cause being a creator or an entertainer or whatever you wanna call it is a very Sisyphean task where you're just rolling this boulder up a hill.
I also describe it that way, 'cause I'll finish a week of work and then it's like, okay, time to do it again. But trying to get that really standout virality is just not predictable at all. The times I've gone viral, there was never any part of me when I was pitching the idea that thought virality was going to happen. There's just no way to predict it. Doing something that you know does well over and over again is, I think, less maddening.
When I did the first episode of Keep The Meter running I was like, I know that this is gonna work. With Subway Takes I was a little bit like, I don't even know if this is a good idea. It just took trying it. And after literally the trailer, the trailer alone got a million views. I was like, oh wait, maybe it actually is gonna work. There's that feeling, which I'm sure you have, which is the dopamine influx of going viral. I feel like it allows you to focus on having a format or having a thing that allows you to really focus on the content and making the thing that will make you happy, rather than the thing that will make everyone else happy.
So both of those shows being a hit, it's made my life a lot easier. I feel confident in the format and I don't care if a certain episode doesn't perform well or something doesn't take off. It just doesn't bother me in the same way that it used to, if I put all this effort into something and like no one saw it.
It's the repeatable thing. You're like, well, I'll just try again next week, or whatever the cadence is. It feels more forgiving. Do you remember the wildest take you've heard?
I mean, there's been a couple that are crazy. But one of the wildest ones that still to this day, I think is one of the funniest episodes is “Jack Harlow should be able to say the N word.” I can't get over it. Every time I think about it, I laugh, it is so funny to me. That is what the show is for.
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I'm always curious, how do other riders react?
It honestly becomes like the showtime dancers on the train. They watch it like it's a live show. There's a live studio audience. People are laughing. You're gonna hear it in some of the episodes. Sometimes they chime in with their own little takes. Sometimes they take pictures. I think it is a treat, 'cause it's not disruptive. The most space we're taking up is four seats. We're usually not on there during rush hour.
Do you always take the same train?
So generally speaking, I am on the L train in the middle of the day, and that's because no one's going from Brooklyn to Manhattan at 2:00 PM on a Tuesday. Whereas in the city, people are still taking the train up and down. Sometimes on a weekend I'll take like the G. It is just a gamble sometimes. Like if it's like a special guest, like Charli xcx or Omar Apollo, I'll have to just meet them where they're at, around their neighborhood, and then it's just a random train.
Have you ever shared your own subway take?
I have not. I'm saving it. I have a special thing that I want to do. You know what, maybe I'll tell your readers 'cause it's completely okay if one of them can help me. But what I'd like to do is to get Eric Andre to interview me and to wear the big suit. But I'm not gonna say anything about it being Eric Andre. It's gonna be like, featuring Kareem.
I love that. And now the empire is expanding. I watched the first episode of The Last Stop. Tell me all the good stuff about how that came about.
When I started Subway Takes, part of it was this desire to have a podcast. Everybody has a podcast. I don't. I had talked to a lot of comedians who had invited me to start podcasts with them. And I was like, why? And they're like, “I just need clips for my Instagram or TikTok.” And I was like, what if I just made a podcast where the clips were the show? Knowing full well that it's a lot easier to build an audience on a short form show than a long form show.
So the idea was always to expand the format into something, I just didn't know what it was gonna be. I creatively was itching to do something new and different and to expand the brand and expand the format. I used to be a huge fan of Politically Incorrect. I remember this episode where it's like Marilyn Manson and a couple other people. And I always remember this episode and I was like, what if I did that? No one's doing that now. I waffled a lot on whether I should just start a podcast called The Last Stop, which was an extension of Subway Takes where the format would be the same: guests from Subway Takes, they come on The Last Stop and they double down on their takes. Because I'm crazy, I was like, I'm not gonna do a podcast. Everyone's doing a podcast. I'm gonna do a talk show. So that's how it was born. My good people at Recess have been collaborators of mine in a cool way. So they funded the first season, which is five episodes.
What has been the biggest difference having to do long form? Does your process change at all?
It's a lot harder, not gonna lie. With The Last Stop I'm shooting with four cameras. It's just a lot more money. It's a lot more labor. It's a lot more people involved. But it feels good to be able to make something that goes a little deeper. I'm just hoping that people dig it. We'll see, I do love expanding these ideas. Keep The Meter Running, same thing. I have plans for that, although they're on hold for a moment.
Are you interested in expanding either by moving into a more supervisory role and having it be kind of like its own quasi streaming service? I'm realizing that sounds a lot like what you were doing before and then you were like, “I need to create my own stuff.” So what are your longer term goals?
I think it's trying to mature these things into viable financial products. I know it sounds extremely boring, but I would love to make a good living doing these shows. I love making this stuff. And if that looks like Subway Takes just being huge on YouTube, if that looks like brand partnerships, if that looks like television...I get the most joy in taking the idea from an idea to something tangible to something even bigger. I'm lucky because these are two hit shows. I'm happy if these are the two shows that I can build and make into a career. I may eventually start some sort of production company, but for the time being, I just need to get these shows to a place where I feel really confident.
My last question is just, who is someone who hasn't been on Subway Takes whose subway take you really want?
I have a couple, but let me think. Fran Lebowitz?
Oh my God. Yeah. I can already picture it.
We're both wearing the suits.