“I want people to feel like they’re watching TV when they’re watching me.”
Even if you’re not addicted to TikTok — or to Keeping Up With the Kardashians — chances are you’ve seen a parody video from Boman Martinez-Reid, a.k.a. @Bomanizer. It’s on that app that he’s built an audience of 2.1 million followers (and another half a million on Instagram) with his “Bodashians” series that expertly spoofs America’s most famous family (argue with the wall!) and the other soapy reality dramas that have become some of our culture’s most sacred texts.
Consider this video in which Boman the character tells his friend Eden Graham and step-sister Alyssa Michael (each also playing versions of themselves; Mom, Ana Martinez, is also frequently roped into videos) that he’s suffering from a serious health crisis: a headache. Each performer speaks in the lifeless monotone we’ve come to associate with the Kardashians, as the quick edits, dramatic music cues, and shady confessionals work to carve gripping TV from, well, nothing.
Now, Martinez-Reid is trying something to achieve something that has stumped many other social-media stars: make the transition to TV. In his native Canada, he’s premiering a new show, Made for TV With Boman Martinez-Reid, on the Crave network on July 12, with hopes it will soon find distributors in the U.S. and elsewhere. The semi-scripted, semi-improvised series lets Martinez-Reid sic his satirical skills on a bunch of popular TV formats, from dating shows to drag competitions to broadcast news. There to help him with advice on how to best play the part in order to produce TV gold, or just emerge as a breakout reality star, are experts in each field, including Francesca Farago from Too Hot to Handle and Perfect Match, Priyanka from Canada’s Drag Race, and Ashley Darby from The Real Housewives of Potomac.
The Toronto-based performer was in New York City for Pride weekend, where he was co-hosting the annual Youth Pride event. When we met for coffee, he arrived 20 minutes late — not because he’s morphed into one of the divas he’s made a career of embodying but because he’d gotten hopelessly lost on the subway.
Where does the name Boman come from? I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before.
My mom is from Spain. She’s from Galicia and over there, it’s Celtic; they wear kilts and play bagpipes. She gave me and my brother Dakota Celtic names. Usually Boman is spelled with a W, like Bowman, but I guess she wanted to be different. She also says that she knew that I was going to be somebody so she wanted to give me a name that could live on its own.
When did she know that? Right from birth?
She claims it was even before that! Like, “I just have a feeling!”
When did she tell you that? Because that’s a lot of pressure to have growing up!
Only very recently. Although my mom was somewhat of a stage manager — a momager. Every year after Christmas dinner and before dessert, we would do the Ana Martinez Family Christmas Show. And this went on for years. It was like our version of SNL. My mom was the director, the producer. She was grilling me and my cousins and my brother. We were rehearsing sketches about the year that just happened. She was always like, “You’re going to be a performer.”
I was looking at your bio on TikTok and it says, “Follow me before I’m famous.” You’ve got 2 million followers there now. Don’t you think you’ve made it?
No! Oh my God. I’m not. I feel like there’s still room to grow. Are you kidding? I leave it there because it’s kind of campy. I’ve made my way a little bit.
This all started as a pandemic thing for you, right? I went back to the beginning of your feed, and there seems to be a period where you moved home and had a lot of time on your hands.
Yes. I had a lot of time on my hands.
That’s pretty common for people who are at your level. At the beginning of the pandemic, they just sort of found an audience.
I started making TikToks in December 2019. I went to school for radio and television, and while I was there I was learning behind-the-scenes stuff but really what I wanted to do was act, but I had absolutely no way to actually tackle that. It all felt very intimidating to try to make it as an actor in Toronto. I was like, How do I get the fast-track pass to cut the line a little bit?
Conveniently, TikTok was just becoming cool. I was dating a guy who was on TikTok. It was a red flag. It was cringe at the time to be using TikTok. Like, ew! That guy went viral, and then I was like, Oh my God. He’s not even funny! If he can do it, this has to be easy! I remember going to bed and not even being able to sleep because I knew I needed to figure out what I was going to make as my first TikTok.
I went viral for the first time in February 2020. I was watching Vanderpump Rules — I am a Housewives stan but I don’t watch Vanderpump Rules — so this was the first time I was watching something as an outsider, and I was like, Oh, this is dumb. And I wondered, How do I take this idea of how dumb these shows are and compact it into a one-minute video? I remember the stress of trying to understand how to do that because I was so new to short-form video. I started making these reality-TV parodies where I would take mundane problems that are barely problems and turn them into these reality-TV epics. Shortly after there was a pandemic, I made this video where my friend coughed, and it was heard around the world.
Tell me, as a layperson, what it’s like being TikTok famous. What would surprise people?
I’m not gonna be like, “It’s a hard job.” Any job is hard! Any job comes with very exhausting components. I do think that it would surprise people how mentally taxing it is to constantly care about social media. I can’t take a social-media break. I mean, I could, but like, I can’t. It becomes your world and it can be draining, especially when you are on the creative side of it and trying to constantly outdo yourself. It can be a mind game.
Before I had a following, I used to be like, If I had a million followers, I wouldn’t care. I would post anything! I would be getting so many likes. Who cares?! It’s not that way. It is not. You care.
I’m wondering if being Canadian has affected your sense of humor. Have you had to tailor things to appeal to Americans? Or do you find it’s kind of universal?
I’m able to look at Americans in a funnier or sillier way than they can see themselves. I feel that I do have to tailor my content to Americans. I have to rephrase things so that Americans don’t flood the comments with, “Oh my God! He said, ‘grade nine’ instead of ‘ninth grade.’”
You’re somebody who has an innate understanding of TV. Where does that come from? What role did TV play in your childhood?
I grew up watching TV. My fondest memories are waking up in the morning, and me and my dad would go on the couch, and I would sit on his legs and we would just watch TV all day. I was watching a lot of reality TV — a lot of TLC. I also fell in love with the shows that I would watch. I was watching That’s So Raven, and I was acting it out with her. I always saw myself as her. I would pretend to be her or say the lines that she was saying. And then I would bring that to school, then I would be making jokes about that. I would learn from it, then deliver it elsewhere.
I saw her recently at an event in L.A. The breath left my body. It was like seeing Michael Jackson. I told her that she raised me. She laughed. And I can now say I made Raven-Symoné laugh, which is crazy.
When did you start discovering all these “slice of life” reality shows?
It was actually Dance Moms. That was the first one that I really got into. And then my ex-boyfriend showed me The Real Housewives. It takes a gay to show another gay The Real Housewives to really get it. He showed it to me in this way that made me see that as much as it is really interesting, it’s also really funny. The way that it’s edited is really funny. I then took that and implanted it into my content to show everybody this is so funny.
Do you remember when you first watched Keeping Up With the Kardashians? And your first impressions?
I remember it being on, and I could never get into it. I’m not a fan of the show. I don’t have anything against the show; I just have never been able to get it. Because I went to school for radio and television, I feel like I know when things are forced. When you watch the Housewives, obviously things are heightened for TV, but those women have no control over the edit that they get and the story lines that they are in. If I had a reality-TV show with my family, every night we’d be talking about what we’re going to film tomorrow. I could just never get into the Kardashians because to me it’s just not believable. But that being said, the earlier seasons of the Kardashians are so iconic. That was back when reality TV was still new, and if you had a reality-TV show, you had to make good TV. And it was so good. I went back and watched those, and I fell in love.
Has parodying these shows changed the way you see them?
I was already looking at them in a silly way, but now I watch them as inspiration, even finding phrases or things to say. I was watching The Real Friends of WeHo and Todrick Hall sat up on that show and said, “So … a lot went down last night.” And I laughed. That’s such a reality-TV thing to say! Nobody talks like that! And then I made this whole video where it was us talking about how “so much went down, a lot went down.”
Is studying these shows the secret to parodying them so well?
It’s studying it, but I want it to feel like it’s its own thing. I want to parody it, but I want people to also reference the Bodashians as its own show. My dream is the Bodashians getting its own Wikipedia page. I want people to feel like they’re watching TV when they’re watching me.
I use TikTok as my résumé. I use it to show people what I can do. I want to act. I want to create TV. And this is an example of how it could look. So I put lots of thought into the big picture of it: having the trailers for a season, having a theme song. I have a song coming out that’s called “I Have A Thing.” It’s the theme for when I leave and I say, “I have to go; I have a thing.” So building out a world — it’s so engaging for the audience, but it’s also fun for me because I am constantly evolving and building out these characters in their own way that are separate from the Kardashians.
Let’s talk about the transition from TikTok to TV. Many have tried. Many have not succeeded. I’m wondering what lessons you learned from their failures for Made for TV.
We wanted it to feel unscripted. We had a writers’ room, but it’s very improvised. So that fueled so many moments of this show where you’re watching and you’re like, Is this real? Was this supposed to happen like this? All I really wanted to do was make something that if I was on TikTok and I was scrolling and I saw a clip from this show, I’d be like, Oh, I want to watch that.
Is there someone whose career you’re trying to emulate?
Quinta Brunson. She started on social media and went on to create a show that she’s starring in. That’s the goal. I’m doing it to a certain extent, but I would love to do something scripted. She does such a good job of capturing her brand of comedy but also really creating something that is so approachable for everybody.
But knowing what you know about TV, are there any of these reality stars you look at and think they’re being 100 percent authentic?
Oh my gosh, yeah — to a fault! Some of these people are too real. I know some people who have gone on to Canada’s Drag Race whom I do not like because they are mean. And then they go on the show, and they’re mean. And people probably watch it and think they’re just giving us the drama that we’re looking for. But that’s just how they are! And now after this show, I can look at it and think it’s impressive that they can do that so confidently, because it takes a lot.
There are some Real Housewives who I’ve met who are exactly the way that they are on the show. It’s real! When I met Ashley Darby years ago, something that surprised me was that she is exactly the way that she is on the show and will also openly talk about her relationships with her cast members as if it’s her friend group. You watch these shows and you’re like, This show is fake. These people don’t do anything. That’s not true! Because Housewives are professionals at what they do. I think people would be very surprised by how real these shows are.
So as you become more famous, do you worry that you’re going to become everything that you parody?
Yes, and I’m so excited for that day! I can’t wait. I’ll take it. I’ll be that girl. Are you kidding? I think it feeds into this idea of being delusional and how important that is.
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