The content creator's new Netflix podcast 'Shut Up Evan' premieres on May 1
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NEED TO KNOW
- Evan Ross Katz has secured his status as a pop culture fanatic thanks to his viral memes, which he started making while watching the first season of The White Lotus in 2021
- Since then, he’s continued to create content to support shows, and he’s ironed out a strategy for how to find the best scenes to turn into shareable social media posts
- Katz is also bringing his iconic cultural commentary to Netflix with the launch of his podcast Shut Up Evan on May 1
Evan Ross Katz consumed pop culture with such avid interest that eventually, he started contributing to it.
Looking back on the past few years of his career, the online personality, 37, says he owes a lot to the first season of The White Lotus, but you won't find his name on a list of cast and crew. Katz worked his magic from the audience, stirring up conversation on social media by sharing shareable memes of the show's funniest moments and best-written lines.
At some point over the course of the season, his content became an inextricable companion to the critically acclaimed series. It didn't take long for Katz to have the added endorsement of creator Mike White, whom Katz admired well before The White Lotus premiered its first season in 2021.
Credit: Clay Stephen Gardner
"I was watching White Lotus before it even premiered. I was locked in. I was like, 'This is going to be my show,'" Katz tells PEOPLE while discussing the recent launch of his Netflix podcast Shut Up Evan, which premiered on the streaming platform on May 1.
He eventually connected with Jennifer Coolidge, too, having loved her performance as Tanya in seasons 1 and 2. Katz sent the Emmy-winning actress a direct message to invite her on the previous iteration of his podcast of the same name, and she agreed.
"My listenership grew so much because of that episode. So I really do credit her at any turn … with really giving me the opportunity, inviting me into her home, doing this interview with me and kind of broadening my visibility," he says.
Katz hasn't stopped obsessing over The White Lotus, but he's also started to give his other favorite shows the same treatment. In fact, he also pulls clips and soundbites from viral interviews, movies, comedy specials and more, filling his Instagram grid with pop culture's best highlights. He tells PEOPLE it's a format he could keep up forever.
"I love making memes so much," he says. "It's funny, I wouldn't be so bold as to call it an art form, but there is a technique to it. I often say that I watch something once for pleasure and then I watch it a second time and I turn what I call my 'meme brain' on … It calms me."
The most memeable moments usually aren't the same scenes that make it to the trailers, Katz observes. There's far more content to mine in those "throwaway moments," he notes. "I call them meme gold."
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That's ultimately what Katz sets out to achieve as the host of his new Netflix show, which will feature both one-on-one conversations with celebrities and panel-style discussions with several voices.
"It's all framing," Katz says of the journalistic style that's reflected in both his memes and his interviews. "These things exist, but you kind of have to choose where you want to look at them."
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