Who is Ziwe? From Comedian to Satirical Interviews with Famous Stars
Table of Contents
Introduction
Awkward, blunt, and cunning. These words describe Ziwe’s interview style in her hit YouTube series, “You’d Be an Iconic Guest.” While her popularity soars to new heights online, many people probably learned about her through her interviews with Law Roach, Wanda Sykes, and Kevin Hart. With that, who is Ziwe?
Who is Ziwe?
Ziwe, born Ziwe Fumudoh, is a model, internet personality, comedian and interviewer who is famous for her hit interview segments of “You’d Be an Iconic Guest.” Her show guests range from comedians and internet personalities to politicians such as former mayor Eric Adams and former House Representative George Santos.
Out of all the interviews, one of the more notable interviews that is currently trending online is her interview with image architect Law Roach. While Ziwe is getting the flowers she deserves as a comedian and interviewer, the question lies in how she got here, and how she did it.
Early Years
According to Style, Ziwe was born in 1991 in Massachusetts as the 2nd of three children from Nigerian immigrant parents. She attended Phillips Academy Preparatory School, where she would endure harassment and bullying due to her name. This also sparked her questioning of racial issues, which continued to shape her career and interview technique and methodology.
During her university years, she originally was enrolled as a mathematics major, but fell in love with writing. It is through this renowned passion of writing that she would go on to write for the satirical news outlet The Onion and The Colbert Report.
After finishing university, she would move to New York to work for Lorne Michaels’ comedy studio, Above Average Productions. It would be in her YouTube series in 2017 called Baited that her popularity would skyrocket, and how her current interview style would shape everything in her “You’d Be Iconic Guest” series.
Her Interview Style
Ziwe’s interview style can be described as putting on an awkward silence between her and the guest. It is accompanied by questions that are designed to disturb her guest or make them uncomfortable in their own seats.
One of the more pointed questions she often asks revolves around race. In her interview with Law Roach, she asked the image architect to list all of her Black friends to defend his stance on having Black friends. In another interview with comedian Wanda Sykes, Ziwe asked about her favourite slur. Suppose this is one of the reasons why many viewers gravitate towards her interviews.
In all of Ziwe’s interviews, her main objective is not to truly interview them to gather information; rather, to bait them to get angry or frustrated at Ziwe herself. It is not every day that an interviewer would disturb their guest in the capacity that Ziwe does in her interviews. In an article from Variety, Ziwe discusses her style and methodology in conducting these interviews. She states:
“There’s an element of performance coming from me, as a host, and coming from my guests, as people who are answering for their racial biases.”
It should also be noted that her editing team often makes great edits and occasional comments that bump the comedy factors even more. With that in mind, her interviews often market towards Gen Z people due to their overall quality and stature.
