Anthony Padilla is YouTube's microphone for the people, interviewing everyone from furries to COVID-19 survivors
- Anthony Padilla, who established himself as one of YouTube's first stars after founding the wildly popular channel SMOSH in 2006, is turning his attention to a new venture: the "I Spent A Day With..." series, a talk show he writes and produces.
- While the series began as an extension of his work in comedy, Padilla quickly realized that he could use his platform to have an earnest conversation with underrepresented and marginalized groups.
- In the last two years, the YouTube star has generated over 90 million views from interviews with groups combatting prejudice.
- In the series' latest installments, Padilla has tackled the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic
- Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
Over the past two years, Anthony Padilla has interviewed furries, KIDZ BOP stars, professional cosplayers, ex-cult members, nudists, Area 51 stormers, sugar babies, witches, cam girls, and professional cuddlers. The YouTube star's "I Spent A Day With..." series, which he launched in 2018 after sitting down with "flat Earther" conspiracy theorists, whose ideas have been repeatedly disproven, has evolved to become an online destination for exploring the experiences and psyches of individuals that are part of intriguing, controversial, or marginalized groups. To date, Padilla's sit-down interviews have generated over 90 million views.
The 32-year-old, who is considered to be one of the original YouTube stars, got his start on the platform in 2006 when he and his friend, Ian Hecox, created a channel called SMOSH.
SMOSH, which began as a website in 2002 (featuring videos of the two lip-syncing cartoon theme songs) experienced massive success on the new video-sharing platform. The duo began by producing sketch comedy videos, from a George Washington vlog to advice on how not to make a first impression. Over the next decade, the two-person project evolved into an empire, boasting a team of actors, a movie, two spinoff channels, and millions of subscribers.
In 2017, however, Padilla parted ways with SMOSH, citing creative restrictions from the brand's parent company — and he decided to pursue new projects on his personal YouTube channel.
The move from creating sketch comedy to producing his own talk show was not an obvious choice.
Padilla claims he actually stumbled into the newest phase of his career. Interviewing, he says, was not necessarily something he knew he would enjoy — but after sitting down with other content creators to make a parody video about what it means to be a professional YouTuber, he found his niche.
"I realized how much I enjoyed improvising and asking people questions," he told Insider. "Coming from a background of so many things that relied on comedy, the idea of being genuine on camera was frightening. But I realized that there was some space for me to be natural."
After his first interview with flat Earthers, Padilla says, it became clear that his background in comedy could be useful in tackling the unfamiliar and the "outlandish" — but as he sat down with more interview subjects, particularly ones from marginalized groups rather than conspiracy communities, his approach began to change.
"I thought maybe I could use my platform, not just to get some cheap laughs but to also learn about people at the same time," he told Insider. "Then it just started growing and evolving into a series where I relied less and less on comedy and more on just getting to know people more."
After conducting several interviews with vulnerable groups, Padilla was struck by the weight of his newest undertaking.
"And I realized the further I went and the more misunderstood groups I sat down with, these people really had a lot of trust in me to portray them accurately and give them a voice on a platform that they maybe never had before," he explained.
Now, Padilla hopes his interview series can be a safe platform for underrepresented groups to reach a large audience.
"I feel like there's not really a safe place for many people on the internet to feel like they could speak about their struggles and their vulnerabilities while also representing well and having a voice that could be heard," he said. "There are really not many places where people feel like they can reach a wide audience of people who just want to learn and listen to what's going on in their lives."
Providing a safe place for his guests to educate an audience requires preparation. Padilla, with the help of a production coordinator, takes weeks to research each episode's topic, reading relevant articles and blogs, watching existing YouTube videos on the subject, and studying previous interviews. He then writes an introduction that typically explains the group's history and misconceptions they may face.
As the series has developed a devoted following, subscribers even write in to request that he interview certain groups.
Fans frequently submit their requests for interviews with various groups as well as questions they have for upcoming guests.
"It's how I get a sense of what people are curious about and what misconceptions are out there," Padilla explained.
One particular interview that was driven by fan interest was an episode titled "I Spent A Day With Multiple Personalities," in which Padilla sat town with individuals diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID).
The episode, he said, ended up being one his best.
"It really taught me a lot about how complex the human brain is and how resilient it is — how it wants to survive," he recalled. "And I think that interview is really, really important. It was monumental."
The episode, he says, also highlights just how "deep" that 20-minute interviews can really go.
"Afterward, it felt like I ran a marathon because it was so emotional," he said of the experience.
His interview subjects and their stories ultimately stuck with him. Weeks later, his fellow YouTuber Trisha Paytas posted a video in which she claimed to have multiple personalities, made several inaccurate claims about DID, and called one of his interview subjects "crazy." The video outraged viewers, prompting angry responses from subscribers and people diagnosed with the disorder. Padilla was one of the first to respond to the video, posting an Instagram story in which he wrote, "claiming you have dissociative identity disorder is not a cool excuse to mock people in the community and call them crazy."
In the latest installments of the "I Spent A Day With..." series, Padilla is tacking the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic.
For the past month, the YouTube star is turning his attention to the people affected by the pandemic, donating profits from recent episodes to the World Health Organization's COVID-19 response fund.
In an episode titled "I spent a day with CORONAVIRUS SURVIVORS," he spoke with Carol Goldman, who was stranded on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, YouTuber Katie Hodges, and one of his own subscribers, Naome.
All three tested positive for COVID-19.
"The message I was trying to relay is that COVID-19 is very real," he said of the series' pivot to focusing on the pandemic. "I wanted [viewers] to see how rampant this virus is because maybe some of them haven't seen it firsthand."
Padilla also posted episodes in which he spoke with immunocompromised individuals who are considered "high risk" for contracting the virus and frontline health workers who are grappling with a new reality.
One frontline worker, a nurse practitioner named Katie, and admitted to "cry[ing] every day" and facing verbal abuse outside of the hospital when wearing her scrubs in public places.
Another healthcare provider, Dr. Rudolph Tanzi, who works at Massachusetts General Hospital, warned that re-opening public spaces too soon will result in an influx of patients that hospitals cannot accommodate.
"We'll have people dying on football fields with blankets and no ventilators," he said.
Ultimately, Padilla says, he hopes his COVID-19 segments can be the "right messaging" to convince his subscribers of the gravity of the situation.
While his recent content has been largely centered around the pandemic, Padilla plans to continue to elevate a wide range of voices on his show.
"I realized that if we all took the time to ask more questions and get to know the people around us, even the ones at first sight and they consider it a bit strange, this world would have so much less judgment and prejudice in it," he said.
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