The brainchild of New York comedian Rachel Coster and short form entertainment studio, Gymnasium, Boy Room launched on TikTok in March 2024. In each episode, Rachel investigates the bedroom of a “boy” in his late twenties, pulling back the curtain to show the audience his disgusting living situation. The show uniquely speaks to a digital-forward Gen Z audience and meets these customers where they are. The creative plays on the nostalgia of early 2000’s investigation shows like MTV Cribs and Room Raiders - 30% of Gen Z identified this decade as their preferred era of content (NRG). Gen Z also uses TikTok as their primary form of television with a recent Deloitte survey finding that nearly half of Gen Z respondents (47%) and 33% of millennials said they prefer to watch social video and live streams vs TV shows or films. The series format allows Gen Z audiences to consume via bite-sized episodes on TikTok.
Over the course of season 1, Boy Room found success with digital audiences, amassing a combined 140K followers across TikTok and Instagram with episodes averaging 1.2M views. The first season garnered features in The New York Times, Business Insider, Curbed, the New York Post, GQ and Interview Mag. But viewers consistently left comments asking for the same thing: actually fixing the messy rooms.
Our specific goal was to create a more emotional connection and mental availability with Gen Z audiences, appearing in the content they know, love and are already consuming versus only interrupting their mobile media experience.
Amazon Prime identified the opportunity to partner with Gymnasium to give audiences what they’ve been craving – actual renovations. The Prime social team stepped in to comment “we can fix him” on a Season 1 episode, and sent Rachel in to help these boys fix up their rooms over the course of a second season. The partnership with Prime allowed the series to evolve from just an investigation show a la MTV’s Room Raiders to a fully Gen-Z friendly renovation show akin to Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. This elevation in the creative allows Prime and Gymnasium to meet audiences where they are and meet Prime’s internal goal of elevating customer’s daily lives by bringing them closer to their unique passions and interests.
Boy Room showcases diversity in boys coming from different socio-economic backgrounds, ethnicities and passions from NY to LA. The second season and partnership with Prime gives the boys the space and product to authentically be themselves, reflecting the brand positioning that Prime can fuel the ever-changing passions and pursuits of young people. The second season also maintains Prime’s promise to customers of fast and convenient shipping by completing all renovations within 24 hours.
To date, 10 of 16 episodes for Season 2 have launched, driving over 50 million organic cross-platform views – doubling the viewership from Season 1. Followers across TikTok and Instagram have more than doubled from Season 1 with 300K across platforms. The impactful response from Season 1 to 2 demonstrates that the partnership between Amazon and Gymnasium has exponentially enhanced the series performance. 60% of viewers are female and 91% of viewers are under the age of 34 further showing that digital series meet younger audiences where they’re currently consuming content.
