Max Cohen was tired of scrolling. Like many people, COVID lockdowns and the ensuing rise of short-form digital content had him spending more time on his phone than ever. And while he found some content and creators that sparked joy, others weren’t hitting.
“I think what drew me to making videos was seeing other people do videos that I thought I could do better,” he tells Tubefilter. “There’s so many guys who just prop their phone up and start talking. And I was like, Wait a minute, I can do that. Anyone can do that.”
It was a “Why not me?” situation, he says. On top of that itch, he realized the scrolling was beginning to genuinely exhaust him. “It’s a very tiring cycle to constantly be consuming media,” he explains. “I find it a lot more energizing, refreshing, and rewarding to create as well, and not just consume.”
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There’s also the fact that Cohen was gearing up to go to law school, but realized while working as a paralegal and studying for the LSAT that he was “miserable.”
“I was not creatively fulfilled. I did not want to pursue a career in law whatsoever,” he says.
@murrayhillboy Happy Yom Kippur and Easy Fast – from me and Bagel Boss Roslyn❤️🥯☕️ #longisland #roslyn #bagel #longislandmom #yomkippur ♬ original sound – Max Cohen
His first TikTok videos, posted in January 2024, were an attempt to find that fulfillment. He started with mostly unscripted improvs, like one where he does a POV of some dude hitting on you at a bar, but later drew on his background to create a commanding and meticulous Long Island Jewish mother many will recognize (especially in this leadup to the holidays). His first mom video got 3 million views on TikTok and Instagram, and unlocked a “whole side of my following,” he says. From that moment on, he knew he had something.
Now, just under two years later, Cohen is a full-time creator with a full-time assistant, a manager, and an agency. As @MurrayHillBoy, he has 155,000 followers on TikTok and 166,000 on Instagram, has signed with Viral Nation, and has taken his comedy onstage with a stand-up tour that’s so far hit Detroit and Columbus, and will be coming to the Jewish Federation of Indianapolis Nov. 13, Temple Judea in Manhasset, New York on Jan. 7, and Temple Beth Rishon in Wycoff, New Jersey Jan. 8.
For Cohen, his digital content, stand-up, and future projects in the works are all about sharing his story–a story that’s inextricably intertwined with being Jewish, being gay, and being alive in our current world. If there’s one thing he wants to do, it’s make people laugh. And, judging by his ever-growing following, he’s doing exactly that.
@murrayhillboy it’s like packing for camp on steroids #college #collegedorm #dormroom #collegelife #frat #sorority #jewish #jewishtiktok #jewishmom #weirdboymom #longisland #collegemovein #murrayhill #sleepawaycamp #parentsoftiktok #greenscreen #dorm ♬ original sound – Max Cohen
Tubefilter: Let’s start basic. Pretend I don’t know anything about you. Where are you from?
Max Cohen: I’m from Long Island, South Shore. That’s the poor part. I lie and say that I’m from the Five Towns, that’s the Jewish part, but I’m actually from the town next to the Five Towns, East Rockaway, known as the sixth town. But to make a very long story short, I’m a New Yorker.
Tubefilter: When did you first start getting into comedy?
MC: I first started getting into comedy. I mean, listen, I’m a neurotic gay Jew. I’ve been funny my whole life, you know–and humble as well! But I first got into comedy accidentally. I graduated from college in 2022 with a major in English. And I was working as a paralegal at a law firm with plans of going to law school. I was studying for the LSAT and I was miserable. I was not creatively fulfilled. I did not want to pursue a career in law whatsoever. So as a creative outlet and an escape from a job that I wasn’t happy at, I started posting silly videos online that would eventually blossom into the career I currently have. And I guess, you know, I kind of stumbled into comedy accidentally.
Tubefilter: When did digital content enter your atmosphere? What drew you to making videos?
MC: I mean, I think I was the same as everybody else. At some point in time, we just started spending more and more time on our phones–and, you know, more hours scrolling on Instagram, scrolling on TikTok. And I think what drew me to making videos was seeing other people do videos that I thought I could do better. There’s so many guys who just prop their phone up and start talking. And I was like, Wait a minute, I can do that. Anyone can do that.
So it was just sort of like a “why not me” type of situation. And I think it’s a very tiring cycle to constantly be consuming media. I find it a lot more energizing, refreshing, and rewarding to create as well, and not just consume.
Tubefilter: What was your first platform? What platforms do you use these days? Which do you prefer?
MC: My first platform was TikTok. I think TikTok has a very casual connotation to it. People like to use random usernames and random profile pictures, so it was a way for me to sort of separate myself from the videos I was making. I also didn’t necessarily want everyone in my life to find my videos.
I’m currently now on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. With my larger followings being both on TikTok and Instagram, I think I now prefer Instagram. The algorithm on that app is just so much more consistent. And when you’re someone who’s like me doing sketch comedy, I’m putting hours and hours into every video, so it can be really frustrating on TikTok when, for reasons that are unclear to me, a video doesn’t perform as well as some others. So I would pick Instagram for the algorithm.
That being said, I think the TikTok comment section can sometimes be funnier than Instagram. There’s just a different type of humor there, and I think the comments on TikTok are a form of media on their own. But I definitely got my start on TikTok and now gravitate more towards Instagram.
4. How did your account(s) first start growing? Was there a particular video that took off and really started attracting a new crowd of viewers? What (if anything!) have you done to consciously grow your following since then?
MC: I think my videos first started going viral because I was just being authentic. I was doing very little editing. I was not scripting anything beforehand. I was just propping my phone down and spewing some thoughts. There were probably two videos that were large turning points for my follower count at the start of my content creation journey, one of which was like the seventh video I ever posted, which was “POV, the worst guy at the bar comes up to you.”
This was after a long day of work, I put on my disco lights that me and my roommates would use and propped my phone up in my living room. And I did a one minute, 40-second unscripted improv of just a guy at a bar hitting on you, the viewer. That got like 1.3 million views. So that was a big part of me having confidence in what I could do and really believing in my own comedic and improvisational skills.
That was January 14, so a bit later on in April, I did my first like Jewish mom video, which again was completely off the cuff. Me just being myself with my friends, kind of making fun of all of our moms, making it up as I go. I threw on some weighted bracelets that my mom uses on her walks. Another really long video, very little editing. That got around 3 million views on Instagram and on TikTok. So that sort of grew my whole Jewish mom character and that whole side of my following. Previous to that moment, I mainly had a following of post grad guys and girls as well.
OK, we gotta hear about the name. What’s the significance of “Murray Hill Boy”?
MC: For those who may not know, Murray Hill is a neighborhood in Manhattan. It is commonly thought of as 1st Avenue to Park Avenue, and from 28th Street to 40th. It’s a very small area, and it is primarily composed of recent college graduates from schools across the country and many across the northeast. Many of its residents are tri-state area or tri-state area-adjacent people. It really is this like safe haven and little community for recent college graduates to find each other while still living in the city.
I was living in Murray Hill at the time that I created my account, and I, of course, am a boy. So in an effort to maintain my job and my law firm, I decided to make my username “Murray Hill Boy” as a little bit of an alias and also a little bit of a clue into what my content would be about. And it just sort of stuck. Now I think it’s kind of become larger than just the physical location of Murray Hill, but it speaks to sort of this culture of this post-grad, not fully an adult life that I and many others are currently living through.
You’ve been in a run of doing lots of live shows (congrats!), many of them at Jewish venues. Can you talk a little bit about the culture behind your comedy? How does your background and family life inform your material?
MC: Listen, I am who I am. I’m very proud of who I am, whether it’s the fact that I’m a New Yorker or that I’m gay, or that I’m Jewish, you know, all the different fabrics of my life weave their way into every video I make, whether I want them to or not. Oftentimes, it’s honestly done unintentionally. My culture and my comedy are inextricably linked.
A lot of what I do as a content creator is be a sponge. I’m just soaking up the interactions and the personalities around me, and then I’m sort of spitting them back out in this overexaggerated, comedic way. So whether that’s my family or my friends–who, all of which happen to be Jewish, that is sort of what I’m poking fun at. But of course, in a loving and respectful way.
When my live shows first got started, the first sort of people to reach out were temples, synagogues. I, of course, wanted to do a show that was aligned with what the people attending the event wanted to see. I now do a lot of different teen organizations. I also perform at colleges. So my comedy show varies based on who my expected audience is, but Jewish people have always been funny. I think we resort to humor and comedy to get us through tough times, and I am no exemption to that rule.
How much does editing play a part in your videos? Are things scripted now, or more spontaneous?
MC: I film myself as all of my unique characters and then spend hours and hours editing and splicing those videos together to A, make an interesting story, and B, adhere to the attention spans of the viewers on these social media apps. People are scrolling through your video, likely while they’re doing something else or while they’re bored, so getting them to watch your video to the end is an incredibly difficult task. 0.1 seconds of downtime, somebody’s gonna scroll over the next video. So a lot of my time per video is spent editing, making sure that it is engaging a hundred percent of the time throughout the whole video so that nobody scrolls past it.
Regarding spontaneity. I do think that some of the funniest moments of the videos that I film are those improv moments, are those added-in-last-minute things that just sort of come with really living in the character and getting into the situations enough that you sort of naturally develop a typical response somebody would have not just reading off the script.
In that same vein, how does drafting new comedy material work for you? Do videos play a part in that, or are they two separate pursuits? (Like, for example, if you come up with a joke for a video, will that joke later appear–maybe even in expanded form–during a live show?)
MC: I think they’re very connected. I’m well aware of the fact that when people are coming to see me do a show, it’s because they’ve grown to love the content I’m putting online. So I want them to feel like they are getting the experience they were expecting to have.
Here’s what it comes down to: Both the content and the live shows are pulled from my real life. So I think the unifying link there is my real life experiences–the fights I get in with my parents, the fights my friends get in with their girlfriends. The content and the live shows share a lot in common because they’re both based on my real life. I think no matter what I’m doing, whether online or in person, the goal is to always be authentic, be real, and tell a true story, which is my story.
When did you sign with Viral Nation? What’s changed since then? What guidance/assistance have they been able to give you?
MC: I signed with Viral Nation in December of 2024. I went full-time with my content in July of 2024. So just about six months into that journey. So much has changed since then. I think so much would’ve changed with or without them. That’s just the nature of growing a platform, the more followers you have, the more at traction you build, the more of a community of fans you can create, the more opportunities are presented to you.
But Viral Nation has really been crucial in navigating the business side of things. When I started doing content, I didn’t have a clue what a brand deal looks like or how that process should go. And before I signed with them, I was negotiating brand deals on my own, and unfortunately really undervaluing my service and the work that I provide. So I think they helped me financially to sort of raise my rates and be able to make this a full-time career. They also put me in contact with my talent manager, who has phenomenally transformed my career.
Viral Nation has given me a lot of guidance and assistance about, for lack of a better word, show business. What these larger brands are expecting from a brand deal, what a going rate is for a creator of my size…I think when you’re a content creator, you’re very alienated, you’re very isolated, you don’t have coworkers. There’s not really anyone to bounce ideas off, and there’s not anyone to ask like, “Hey, how much do you charge for a brand deal?” So I think being part of an agency that represents other content creators besides yourself from all varying walks of life sort of helps to place you within a group of your peers and be able to provide you with viable information about what your worth is. Because I think when you’re on your own, people have a tendency to really undervalue the services and goods they’re able to provide.
Do you consider content creation your career? When did you know it was going to be a serious pursuit for you?
MC: I am a 100% full-time content creator. I also have hired a full-time assistant. I also have a manager and agent and agency and an accountant. So yes, this is very much full-time. I quit my job six months after I made my first ever video. And at that point I had only made money from content for two months in a row, and that was enough for me to chase the dream. So I would say, you know, since I quit my full-time job to do this, that was sort of the turning point where I realized this was going to be a legitimate career for me.
But honestly, I’m not in it for the money. I just needed enough money to be able to support myself. I love doing this because it is fulfilling and creative and is something that I enjoy doing. I like making people laugh. I like bringing joy to people’s feeds on their phones that sometimes are otherwise lacking it. So yeah, I’ve been all-in on this as soon as I was able to monetize it, which luckily for me–not luckily, ’cause I worked for it–but “luckily for me,” happened very quickly.
What else have you got going on outside of content and comedy? What’s life like these days?
MC: There’s always a thousand things going on. I’m navigating doing just about one live show per month. I’ve got brand deals going on. I’m putting out multiple videos a week. I’ve just moved to New York City out of my parents’ house, which I am elated about and I’m so excited to get back into the swing of things, the context there.
Being that I lived in Murray Hill for two years, when I went full time with the content, I moved back with my parents. Now I’m back in the city, so sort of just getting my feet wet in a new part of the city. I’m in the Flatiron/NoMad area, filling up an apartment, living on my own for the first time. God willing, finding a boyfriend. Not that God ever listens to me when I talk to him, but if he did, he would’ve sent me one by now. But yeah, just really flexing my muscles as a content creator.
And now that I have an assistant and I have my own space, I’m seeing the new level of videos that I can pull off. I think when you work for yourself, it’s sort of hard to not be working 24/7. So I wish I had a better answer for you of what I’m doing outside of work, but at least for now that 24/7 go-to is just making videos and making people laugh.
Any future plans? We know you’ve got some shows scheduled in January–what else is there to hype up?
MC: I’ve just launched my own merchandise. I currently have hats that say “FU Larry!”, which is the catchphrase of one of my iconic characters, Lisa Cohen. So I’m excited to continue pushing out that merch, getting people to buy it, and I’m very proud to say that 10% of the proceeds from those hats will be donated to Jewish on Campus, an organization which works to combat antisemitism across the country.
As you said, I have a couple of live shows coming up, and I’m just excited to keep taking my videos and keep taking my comedy to the next level. I’m not really sure exactly what’s next. I have three different creative endeavors that I really can’t share too much information on, but I’m very excited to see where those go. What I can say is they all involve the larger transition of making it off the phones and either into real life or into a larger screen–but again, I really can’t say too much on that.
I’m just looking forward to continuing to be myself, to be a proud New Yorker gay man and a Jew, and just continue doing what I love, which is making people laugh and sharing my story.
Viral Nation is a Tubefilter partner.
