It’s May in sunny LA, and Adam Waheed is getting into character. A makeup artist glues an over-the-top prosthetic overbite to his face as Waheed reviews the latest cut of a sketch for sandwich-chain Jimmy John’s. His co-star, Hannah Stocking (who has 75 million social media followers), is already in costume—rocking a massive chin with a bulldog underbite to match Waheed’s cartoonish woodpecker profile.

The two social media stars will spend the next seven hours filming what will become a 45-second digital short. In one scene, Waheed, 33, uses his fake beak to carve their initials into a tree. In another, Stocking tees up a golf ball with her chin at a local driving range. The bit is classic Waheed, known online as Adam W. It’s absurd and universally funny. Built for global appeal, his videos are light on dialogue and heavy on slapstick. A similar video they posted recently pulled in 100 million views.

No big deal for Waheed. One of the biggest comedians on social media, he reaches 55 million fans across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube—and pulls in over a billion views a month. That’s right—one billion. “I’d rather get eyeballs,” he says. “And figure out how to make money later.”

Aspiring comedians once took to the grueling stand-up circuit or jostled for spots in improv academies like Second City. Waheed is part of a new creator generation breaking through via their smartphones. He’s not alone. Comics are among social media’s biggest celebrities. The 2025 Forbes Top Creator list counts more than a dozen digital jokesters, including Khaby Lame, Brent and Alexa Rivera, Jake Shane, and Hailey Kalil. The cohort has more than 700 million followers and earned an estimated $175 million over the last year. Waheed has 20 million subscribers on YouTube alone—Saturday Night Live, the gold standard for sketch comedy, has 15 million.

Brands flock to his sketches. Over the last year, Waheed has earned an estimated $16.5 million thanks to Google AdSense and brand deals including T-Mobile, Old Spice, and the NFL. Many creators treat branded content as an afterthought. Not Waheed. He invests his own money and much effort to make commercials look like organic content. “I don’t feel like I’m watching a brand video, but just watching Adam W,” says TikTok Creator Manager Emma Gribbon. The strategy pays off. “Our goal is to broaden our reach to young, multicultural, and international fans,” says Ian Trombetta, a marketing boss at the NFL. “Adam’s comedy is tailor-made for that.”

Waheed’s sketches are an exaggerated take on everyday life. “We don’t have to choose which audiences to tap into with him,” says Juwan Thompson, a P&G communications manager who worked with Waheed on Old Spice campaigns. “His content is so relatable it speaks to a wide variety of people.” For ideas, Waheed looks to his experiences, scrolls social media trends and news headlines. “Your content must be engaging enough and good enough for someone who’s never encountered you to watch,” says Waheed. “Even if you have no clue who I am, is this video relatable? Is it funny? Will it make you laugh?”

To get guffaws, Waheed uses high-quality cinematography and complex props. “It takes craft to be able to fit in the setup, the punchline, the ending, and make somebody laugh,” says Justin Antony, head of creator partnerships at Meta. “Adam layers in Hollywood-style production,” says Emmanuel Perez, a creator manager at YouTube. “He's blocking, scripting, and filming multiple takes to make sure the angle’s right.”

The creator life is a grind. “You can get 10 million views on a video, and the next day, someone else is getting 100 million views. You must continue putting up those numbers.” Waheed’s production process is a deadline-junkie’s dream. He posts a new sketch every other day. He starts at 9 a.m.—developing an idea, filming, and posting by 2:30 p.m. He shoots on an iPhone, with a crew of just five handling production, lighting, and editing. “When my back’s against the wall is when I thrive.”

Waheed was far from thriving when he took his first shot at showbiz back in 2015. He grew up in Queens and later Long Island in an Egyptian and Afghani immigrant family. He attended Southern Methodist University, where he walked onto the D-I Football team playing defensive back. After college, he was aimless. “My sister said, ‘You’ve always been funny. Try acting.’”

Off to LA he went—and got nowhere. Few auditions, no agent, zero gigs. He lived with six other people in a two-bedroom apartment in North Hollywood, working as an office assistant and parking cars (he still has the red valet vest). He began posting videos online out of desperation. “I thought maybe a director would see me and put me in a movie.” Waheed spent several months shooting one video while teaching himself writing, filming, editing, and acting. It flopped. He decided to return to New York to get a real job. But he had to wait a month to earn enough for his plane ticket home. He posted more videos. His fourth video, a sketch of his girlfriend recklessly driving while applying makeup, went viral. It got 400,000 views overnight. Waheed got hooked. “I made one thing people enjoyed, and I would do it a hundred more times to replicate that success.” He did. Six months later, he had 500,000 followers and was getting millions of views. But he was still broke. Then he got a DM from the marketing team at T-Mobile. They offered him $20,000 for a video. He spent $6,000 on production. It got more than a million organic views. T-Mobile signed a one-year partnership deal—they’re still a client.

Now the short-sketch king is looking to go long. Waheed’s currently filming in a horror-comedy movie in Canada. And he’s plotting to produce movies—not for Hollywood, but social media. “Why can’t I make a $5 million movie and put it on YouTube?” says Waheed. “In five years, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok will have prestige.”

Then there’s stand-up. Waheed has been cutting his teeth on the stage. Last year he opened for a Koy show at San Francisco’s Chase Arena. “If I got 11,000 views on a video, I would consider deleting my account,” says Waheed. “But 11,000 people in real life is no joke.”