Her Instagram bio says, “They like me more on TikTok.” The numbers back her up: 135,300 TikTok followers and 18.7 million likes, built one club set and one sidewalk rant at a time in New York City.

Quick answer

Sam Kochman is a New York City stand-up comedian who grew up in West Palm Beach, Florida, and moved to New York in August 2021. She is best known for her TikTok, where 135,300 followers watch her crowd work, club sets and walk-and-talk commentary videos. She performs around Manhattan at rooms like New York Comedy Club.

Key takeaways

  • She is a New York City comic originally from West Palm Beach, Florida.
  • She found stand-up through a comedy writing class that ended with a five-minute showcase set.
  • As of October 17, 2026, she has 135,300 TikTok followers, 18.7 million TikTok likes and 16,300 Instagram followers.
  • Her most-viewed YouTube upload is a crowd-work clip filmed at New York Comedy Club.
  • She says she went to the University of Pennsylvania and lived in Seattle before New York.

The guy who said $50 million

The clip opens on a brick wall under the blue-and-red neon of the New York Comedy Club sign. Sam Kochman, in a brown T-shirt and jeans, tells the room she likes to ask men in the audience a very specific, very not-safe-for-work question: how much would you have to be paid? Then she turns to a man in the crowd: “You look nervous, I’ll ask you.”

He stalls. “He’s dying to take out his phone and ask ChatGPT right now,” she says. When he finally answers “50 million,” she calls it nonsense, asks what his rent is ($1,600, he admits), and decides he would actually do it for about $4,500. She closes by noting that one man once told her $12.

The 56-second short, posted to her YouTube channel in April 2026 under the title “I’m an expert,” had passed 18,000 views by mid-October, the most of any upload on her channel. It is a good snapshot of what she does: fast, unfiltered, built on real back-and-forth with the room, and very comfortable steering a conversation most comics would avoid.

Who is Sam Kochman?

Sam Kochman is a stand-up comedian based in New York City. Her TikTok bio reads simply “NYC Comedian,” and her Linktree describes her as an “NYC based comedian.” Her YouTube channel greets visitors with “Welcome to Sam’s Klub.”

A 2024 podcast bio on Are You Mad At Us? described her as a stand-up comic, writer and photographer. On stage and online she works in a few modes: tight club sets, crowd work, and selfie-style street videos where she walks through Manhattan with wired earbuds and riffs on whatever is in the news. The contact email in her Instagram and TikTok bios is with Tonight Management.

She uses she/her pronouns, which is how podcast hosts and show notes introduce her.

Where is Sam Kochman from?

Kochman grew up in West Palm Beach, Florida, according to her guest bio on the podcast Are You Mad At Us?. On comedian Brennan Tasseff’s podcast, in an episode released in February 2024, she said she went to the University of Pennsylvania, then lived in Seattle for about four years after college.

She told Tasseff she spent roughly seven months back home in Florida with her mom before moving to New York in August 2021.

How did Sam Kochman get started in comedy?

Stand-up started as a hobby. After the move to New York, Kochman told Tasseff, she was trying to figure out what she actually enjoyed, so she signed up for a comedy writing class. The class ended with a show, and that show was her first five-minute set. Walking off stage, she said, her reaction was that “this is not a hobby.”

From there she took another class, started doing open mics and kept writing. She told Tasseff she landed an industry-room residency, with many of those shows at Greenwich Village Comedy Club, which is where the two comics met. She also said she had been a lifelong Chelsea Handler fan, watching Chelsea Lately and reading Handler’s books as a kid, and that comedy is her coping mechanism.

By early 2024 she was co-hosting two shows of her own, the New Money Comedy Show and the Late for Work Comedy Show, according to her Are You Mad At Us? episode notes. On Tasseff’s podcast she plugged New Money as a monthly show at Howard’s in Brooklyn.

Why is Sam Kochman going viral?

TikTok is her main stage. As of October 17, 2026, her account @samkochman shows 135,300 followers, 18.7 million likes and more than 4,100 posts. That volume matters: she posts constantly.

Her Instagram tells the same story on a smaller scale. Her walk-and-talk commentary reels travel furthest there: one posted on October 7, 2026, had more than 203,000 plays by October 17.

Her stage clips draw smaller numbers there, mostly in the hundreds to low thousands of plays, including sets filmed at FlopHouse Comedy Club. A street-filmed Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce reel drew nearly 21,000 plays, and Swift comes up more than once. Her Are You Mad At Us? episode spent time on “the psychology of Swifties.”

Reader poll

Have you seen Sam Kochman do stand-up in New York?

Sam Kochman does crowd work at New York Comedy Club in “I’m an expert,” the most-viewed upload on her YouTube channel. Language warning.

What is Sam Kochman’s comedy like?

Blunt, political and very online. Her YouTube uploads include a stand-up bit about the Supreme Court, clips titled “Mitch McConnell” and “Tiger Woods DUI,” and a sidewalk story about offering to photograph a tourist couple who wanted “the Twin Tower” in the background. Singular. She took the picture of One World Trade Center and did not correct them, she says, but she has not stopped thinking about it.

Her stage material leans on dating, family and men, with clips labeled “Men are suffering!!” and “Love you, dad!” The crowd work is where she is loosest. She asks pointed questions, waits for the answer, and builds the joke out of whatever the audience member gives her.

Where can you see Sam Kochman perform?

She works the New York club circuit. On May 11, 2026, she was on the lineup for Backroom Comedy at New York Comedy Club’s Midtown location, alongside Phoebe Robinson, Sabeen Sadiq, Michael Brigante and Chase DuRosseau. She has comedian pages on the websites of Broadway Comedy Club, the Grisly Pear in Greenwich Village and Ted Jones World Comedy, and her clips show her on stage at New York Comedy Club and FlopHouse Comedy Club.

We could not find a released stand-up special or album. The best place to watch her is online: TikTok first, then Instagram and her YouTube channel.

Is Sam Kochman on tour?

Not that we could find. As of October 2026, she does not list a tour or ticketed dates on her Linktree, which is where her social profiles point. Her shows are mostly New York club spots. Your best bet for dates is her Instagram and TikTok, or the calendars of the Manhattan clubs listed above.

Where to follow Sam Kochman

Frequently asked questions

Who is Sam Kochman?

Sam Kochman is a New York City stand-up comedian originally from West Palm Beach, Florida. She is best known for her TikTok, where she posts crowd work, club sets and walk-and-talk commentary videos to 135,300 followers as of October 2026.

Where is Sam Kochman from?

She grew up in West Palm Beach, Florida. She has said she went to the University of Pennsylvania, lived in Seattle for about four years, and moved to New York City in August 2021.

How did Sam Kochman start doing stand-up?

She took a comedy writing class after moving to New York. The class ended with a showcase, and after her first five-minute set she decided comedy was not just a hobby. She moved on to open mics and more classes.

How many followers does Sam Kochman have?

As of October 17, 2026, she has 135,300 followers and 18.7 million likes on TikTok, and 16,300 followers on Instagram. Her biggest recent Instagram reel had more than 200,000 plays.

Does Sam Kochman have a comedy special?

Not that we could find. We found no released stand-up special or album as of October 2026. Her sets and crowd work are available on her TikTok, Instagram and YouTube channel, all under her own name.

Where can I see Sam Kochman live?

She performs at New York City clubs, including New York Comedy Club, where she was on a May 2026 Backroom Comedy lineup. She does not list tour dates online, so check her Instagram or TikTok for upcoming shows.

Image credits

  • Featured image: The Comedy Cellar on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village, the same street as the Greenwich Village Comedy Club, where Sam Kochman says she did many of her early industry shows. Photo: Jim.henderson, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped.

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