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Comedian Dan Yang built a huge following on the driest takes on the internet — abusing robots, the Grammys, the Wasian meetup in Central Park — all delivered with zero expression. Live from Brooklyn, he sits down with host Johnny Hwin for the story underneath the feed.

In this episode, Dan talks about:

• Growing up in the East Bay with Chinese immigrant parents — and why he "didn't work hard enough" to become a doctor
• Being a latchkey kid raised by the TV: Simpsons, Conan reruns, and translating Comedy Central sets for his grandma
• Why Park Slope kids will grow up "well-adjusted but annoying"
• Discovering comedy through improv and open mics ("the bar is that low")
• Moving to New York in 2015 and the slow climb in stand-up
• Finding his deadpan voice and going online around COVID
• His first viral video and the philosophy of "post and touch grass"
• Robots having a big year, the trash can that broke his heart, and Trump's tax-funded Knicks ticket
• Real advice for anyone chasing a creative life

Recorded live in front of a Brooklyn audience.

Follow Dan Yang: @realdanyang
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Grammy-nominated producer. Multi-platinum artist. Harvard grad at 19. Tech founder. Financial educator. Ryan Leslie has lived several careers in one lifetime — and this conversation covers all of them.

Ryan traces his journey from a Caribbean-rooted Salvation Army household to Harvard at 15, from sleeping on his dad's couch to producing Beyoncé's track on the Bad Boys 2 soundtrack on his first night in New York City. He breaks down how he used early Google AdWords and MySpace to send Cassie's "Me & U" viral before anyone else saw it coming — and why he eventually walked away from the entire major label system.

The pivot point: discovering that even after selling records on iTunes, he couldn't get his fans' email addresses. So he put his phone number on the internet instead. 35,000 texts later, he had a $2M album cycle, a database of his most loyal fans, and the seed of what would become SuperPhone.

Ryan and host Johnny also get into Wealthplan — Ryan's investing and financial literacy platform for artists — and close with a masterclass on relationship equity: why the most valuable investment you can make at any age isn't in stocks or streams, but in the people in the room with you right now.

Topics covered: growing up Salvation Army · Harvard at 15 · going all-in on music with no Plan B · the Beyoncé break · MySpace SEO · pulling from iTunes · SuperPhone · Ben Horowitz · Nipsey Hussle · Bad Bunny · Wealthplan · relationship equity · advice for young creatives1

Support the show

🎥 Connect with Us: https://linktr.ee/57.fam

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For collaborations or inquiries, email us at fam@fiftyseven.nyc

Send us Fan Mail

What does it actually take to write honestly about sex, shame, and identity?

In this episode, we sit down with Zachary Zane — Brooklyn-based author, sex columnist, and one of the most prominent voices in modern queer culture. His memoir Boy Slut: A Memoir and Manifesto was a 2024 Lambda Literary Award finalist, blurbed by Dan Savage as one of the best sex writers working today. He's written for the New York Times, Rolling Stone, GQ, Men's Health, and Cosmopolitan — and he never planned to be a writer at all.

We get into his childhood OCD, the bisexual visibility movement, accidentally going viral, writing with humor about taboo topics, and why shame only survives in isolation.

In this episode:
00:00 — Intro
04:00 — OCD, sexual shame, and growing up in a "sex positive" family
10:00 — What bisexual visibility actually gets right (and wrong)
14:00 — Going viral by accident and becoming a writer
18:00 — Using humor as a craft tool — and when it backfires
24:00 — Building a movement (while battling imposter syndrome)
29:00 — The first step to letting go of shame

📖 Boy Slut: A Memoir and Manifesto → https://bookshop.org/p/books/boyslut-a-memoir-and-manifesto-zachary-zane/b84737203b150376?ean=9781419764714&next=t&

✍️ The Boi Slut Zine (submit your work!) → https://zacharyzane.substack.com/p/boyslut-size-submissions-guidelines

📲 Follow Zachary → https://www.instagram.com/zacharyzane

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🎥 Connect with Us: https://linktr.ee/57.fam

📧 Contact:
For collaborations or inquiries, email us at fam@fiftyseven.nyc