Shows about fried chicken are disrupting late night — and celebrities are flocking to them

Amelia Dimoldenberg had been on more than 80 first dates before she finally met her match in a North London chicken shop in November 2023.

The British comedian and internet personality, who made a name for herself by flirting through her interviews with celebrities on her popular YouTube series "Chicken Shop Date," was finally sitting across from someone who could understand what it's like to have chicken be an integral part of one's career.

"This may be the greatest crossover of all time," Dimoldenberg proclaimed to Sean Evans, the host of First We Feast's YouTube talk show series "Hot Ones," which bills itself as "the show with hot questions and even hotter wings."

"Marvel, I don't think, has anything on us," she deadpanned.

In the world of upstart talk shows, the match-up of Dimoldenberg, 31, and Evans, 38, could indeed be likened to "The Avengers." The pair are the epicenter of a new kind of celebrity interview show, one that doesn't air on linear TV and frequently goes viral.

Though both share a poultry-based gimmick, what really unites "Chicken Shop Date" and "Hot Ones" is their thoughtful execution of consistently revealing and meme-able interviews. Whether Dimoldenberg is disarming celebrities with awkward flirting or Evans is asking them probing questions amid the increasingly physical demands of the Scoville scale, the chicken shows have each perfected their own unique recipe for entertainment that viewers want to see — and celebrities want to participate in.

Over the last decade, both shows have worked to prove they're not just a flash in the pan, amassing hundreds of millions (or, in the case of "Hot Ones," billions) of views, millions of subscribers, and producing over 100 episodes each. The fan fervor for both series has reached high enough levels that "Hot Ones" now sells its own hot sauces. Meanwhile, Dimoldenberg's mega-viral "Chicken Shop Date" episode with Andrew Garfield inspired such enthusiasm that fans dressed up as the pair for Halloween.

Both shows also benefit from being independent: BuzzFeed sold First We Feast, the studio behind "Hot Ones," to a group of investors in 2024 for $82.5 million, while Dimoldenberg has called her decision to keep ownership of "Chicken Shop Date" under her production banner, Dimz Inc., "the best thing I've ever done."

Eschewing a corporate overlord hasn't kneecapped either show's opportunities for industry acclaim, either. "Hot Ones" and "Chicken Shop Date" are both now Emmy eligible; "Chicken Shop Date" entered the 2024 race in the outstanding short form comedy, drama or variety series category, while "Hot Ones," which has previously been nominated for Daytime Emmys, successfully petitioned to be considered in the outstanding talk series category at the Primetime Emmys alongside late-night heavyweights.

As ratings for traditional late-night talk shows continue to decline, shows like "Hot Ones" and "Chicken Shop Date" are gobbling up space in pop culture consciousness as a more appetizing alternative.

"These new shows are not a trend," Liza Anderson, the founder and president of Anderson Group Public Relations, told Business Insider. "I really feel like they're the way for the future."

'Hot Ones' and 'Chicken Shop Date' transcend their gimmicks to showcase an unfiltered side of celebrities

In the era before the internet, TV appearances were an essential part of a traditional celebrity press tour. In a 5- to 10-minute slot on national TV, stars could simply promote their show or film by answering a host's canned questions, reaching a large audience of people tuning in live.

"Everything that we used to do 10 years ago was scripted," Anderson told BI. "Any time I put somebody on a major talk show, we had the questions ahead of time. We rehearsed the answers. We knew what was coming."

The rise of social media and streaming has dramatically changed viewers' appetites. Though morning talk shows and late-night interview shows soldier on, large swaths of younger audiences have moved to the internet, where they can watch shorter, more offbeat clips of their favorite stars on digital series and interact directly with them via social media.

"There was a time when you had a TV or movie star, and you didn't want to pierce the veil and get to know the actual actor. The psychology was that it took away from the character," Anderson said. "Now, the opposite is true. The philosophy and psychology behind it is that you want to watch actors that you feel a connection with personally, not just professionally."

Nowhere was that craving for a parasocial connection more apparent than in the aforementioned and now-legendary 2024 episode of "Chicken Shop Date" with guest Andrew Garfield. After two years of flirtatious interactions on red carpets, Dimoldenberg and Garfield finally sat down for a "date" — one that repeatedly broke the fourth wall so convincingly that fans were adamant the pair should date in real life.

"i can't believe the best rom com of 2024 is an 11 minute promo interview between amelia dimoldenberg and andrew garfield," one fan wrote on X.

Flirting with Dimoldenberg was far from the only thing Garfield did to promote his A24 romantic dramedy "We Live in Time." But amid sitting for a slew of press junkets, posing for magazine covers, and dragging a cardboard cutout of his costar Florence Pugh down the red carpet (yes, really), Garfield's viral moment on "Chicken Shop Date" was arguably his most impactful appearance. It was watched 11 million times.

Even bona fide A-listers of older generations are becoming keenly aware that chicken — or, at least, digital interview series — is the key to staying relevant to a generation that lives on the internet.

"The other night, I was interviewed by Amelia, the chicken nuggets," Nicole Kidman told the Guardian of Dimoldenberg. "That's all my daughter cared about, and I loved that." So Kidman looked up Dimoldenberg's show and was charmed by her work. "I loved her with Billie Eilish, and Andrew Garfield and her was so funny. And now I have to go for a date with her. I'm asking for the date."

Celebrity publicists, too, are grateful for these unique concepts, which help portray their clients as multidimensional. "It's a good shift from a strategy perspective because it's something fresh and different," said Beth Booker, founder and CEO of Gracie PR.

"Traditional PR practices are still definitely at play, but we have to have those digital components to make our campaigns really effective because a press release and a radio tour just aren't going to cut it anymore," she added. "You have to find a way to cut through the noise, and those shows give you a really good opportunity to do that."

As late-night ratings plummet, talk shows are relying on social media-friendly digital segments to keep up

In their heyday of internet popularity, late-night talk shows broke the mold with gimmick-based celebrity interview segments like "Day Drinking" with Seth Meyers, "Carpool Karaoke" with James Corden, and "Wheel of Musical Impressions" with Jimmy Fallon.

Media outlets like Vogue, BuzzFeed, and Elle also emerged with their own specialty celebrity interview series, and some newer daytime talk shows have gotten in on the action, too: "The Jennifer Hudson Show" crew's backstage hype-up chants for guests, dubbed the "spirit tunnel," continue to go viral.

Still, it's no secret that traditional late-night is in its downsizing era. In 2024, "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" was cut down to four days a week, and "Late Night With Seth Meyers" dropped its live house band, 8G, reportedly due to budget cuts.

And while late-night shows continue to do games and other segments with stars, there's now more competition and diminishing returns. The most-watched video on the YouTube channel for "Late Night With Seth Meyers" is his day-drinking episode with Rihanna, which was released five years ago. The most popular video on the "Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" channel is an a capella segment with the cast of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," posted eight years ago.

"I don't know if there will be any late-night television shows on network TV in 10 years," Jimmy Kimmel said in August 2024 on the "Politickin'" podcast. "There's a lot to watch and now people can watch anything at any time; they've got all these streaming services."

Booker, however, is optimistic that late night isn't dead yet — though it is going through a transition period.

"I think the late-night shows are still going to survive, honestly, because a lot of them are bridging that gap to add in more of those viral-friendly segments," she said.

Anderson said that for now, there's still room for conventional talk shows in a press tour. However, most people are probably catching up on the latest celebrity news and talk show highlights while scrolling on TikTok, Instagram, and X rather than tuning in live.

"If you get a viral moment on ["The Drew Barrymore Show"], it can make or break somebody's career," Anderson said. "But nobody's sitting at home watching Drew."

What makes something go viral, though, has changed. Gone are the days when an ultra-gimmicky setup (think: James Corden's "Spill Your Guts or Fill Your Guts" or Jimmy Fallon's "Egg Roulette") could guarantee clicks on its own. When it comes down to it, the moments that audiences latch onto are the ones that use a contrived setting to pull a genuine emotion out of their guest.

When late-night legend Conan O'Brien ate his way through Evans' challenge in what's widely considered to be one of the best "Hot Ones" episodes ever, he paused his stream of frenetic anecdotes for a brief moment of sincerity.

"I've watched your show. You're a very good interviewer," O'Brien said, addressing Evans.

"I mean, this is fun, I like this, I get why you guys do it, and it's really fun, and it's compelling," he said, motioning to the hot sauces, the wings, and the camera, "but you are a very serious interviewer. You take it seriously, and you ask really good questions."

Evans laughed and thanked him, a little bit in shock.

"You'll cut that out. That won't make it in. No laughs there," O'Brien said.

It stayed in the final cut.