Kareem Rahma built a media empire from failure by ditching entrepreneurship and leaning into what he's naturally good at: hanging out with people and creating intimate, character-driven short-form content. His shows like "Keep the Meter Running" and "Subway Takes" work because they capture the fatherly wisdom and life lessons of ordinary New Yorkers—a formula born from losing his father young and seeking guidance from cab drivers and strangers.
Key Moments
Kareem Rahma
“Those episodes were obviously when you tell a guy, 'Keep the meter running,' and he goes, 'Let's go on a helicopter ride in New Jersey,' by the end of the day, you spent literally $2,000.”
Explaining why he had to pause the first show—the production costs were unsustainable with no revenue stream.
SmartLess is a comedy interview podcast hosted by Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, and Will Arnett. The show features the hosts riffing on current events, pop culture, and conspiracy theories before diving into extended conversations with guests from comedy, media, and entertainment. Known for tangential humor and absurdist takes on serious topics, SmartLess blends genuine curiosity with comedic irreverence.
Takeaways
1
Ordinary people hold the wisdom you're seeking The through-line of Kareem's show is not celebrity interviews but fatherly wisdom from cab drivers, construction workers, and ordinary New Yorkers. He lost his father at 20 and actively sought guidance from strangers doing manual labor. The insight resonates because it reframes content creation not as extracting entertainment from famous people, but as documenting the practical life lessons of working-class mentors.
2
Stop building and start hanging out Kareem's three failed entrepreneurial ventures (nyc.tv, Nameless Network, various media startups) were attempts to scale and systematize content. Success came only when he abandoned the CEO mindset and focused on his natural strength: authentic, unscripted conversation. The insight: sometimes the best content business comes from doing the thing you're already good at, not from building infrastructure around it.
3
Short-form vertical unscripted TV was a blue ocean In the early 2020s, when Kareem was making 'Keep the Meter Running,' there were no TV-quality shows designed specifically for TikTok and Instagram vertical video. He created what he later calls 'the first big hit' because the format was white space—everyone was making content, but nobody was treating short-form vertical as a proper television show with narrative structure.
4
Television production quality works on YouTube now For his new season (premiering May 13, 2026), Kareem is applying his thesis: make television-quality content with television storytelling (proper cinematography, narrative arcs, produced segments like a play performance) but distribute it on YouTube as a season. This is a deliberate inversion of the TikTok-first strategy—treating YouTube as a prestige platform where full-length episodes justify cinematic production.
5
Viral word-of-mouth still beats algorithms When Kareem's first 'Keep the Meter Running' episode hit 2 million views overnight, he didn't credit algorithmic optimization—he credited real people sending it to friends. The bodega clerk recognized him because word-of-mouth had permeated his local community. This suggests that in 2026, organic sharing through social trust still outperforms algorithmic distribution for breakout moments.
6
Monetizing early social media content was nearly impossible 2 million views on his first episode generated zero dollars. Kareem had to fund episodes himself (spending $2,000 per episode on helicopter rides and adventures) until brands began offering underwriting deals. This period explains why he eventually created 'Subway Takes'—a format that required no production budget, only a camera and a premise.