Each one opens with an interview with a pop culture guest, then goes to one-minute rounds of "I Don't Think So, Honey!" (IDTSH) where the hosts and guests each expound on pet peeves. The podcast premiered in 2016 and as of September 2019, has 170 episodes. The podcast Yang co-hosts with Matt Rogers, Las Culturistas, is described by Vulture as both "delightfully screwy" and a "two-headed snark routine". Yang has also performed improv at the Upright Citizens Brigade. The company was woman-centered, and was flexible with Yang's time-off needs for comedy. Yang taught himself Adobe Photoshop, graphic design software, and designing graphics at One Kings Lane, a luxury interior and home design website, from 2013 to 2018. At NYU, he met Matt Rogers, with whom he started Las Culturistas, a weekly comedy podcast where Yang "unapologetically expresses his personality, story and himself by sharing his experiences as a member of the LGBTQ community". After realizing he was actually inspired by Oh for her acting ability, he decided to pursue a career in comedy instead. Yang's college major has been misreported as microbiology. He went to pre-med classes and graduated from NYU with a bachelor's degree in chemistry. Yang was inspired by Sandra Oh's character Cristina Yang on Grey's Anatomy for her neurotic and relentless pursuits, and aspired to be a doctor. They have since found a truce and enjoy a "great relationship." His father assigned her to chaperone him during this period as Bowen tried " straightness on for size and failing miserably." He came to accept being gay, incorporating it into his comedy, and hoped his parents would learn to accept that aspect of him. Yang moved to New York in 2008 to attend New York University (NYU) like his older sister. Bowen said, "It was a cultural thing for them, this cultural value around masculinity, around keeping the family line going, keeping certain things holy and sacred," he said "It was me wanting to meet them halfway but realizing it had to be pretty absolute. In an interview for The New York Times, Maureen Dowd questioned why his parents, both scientists, did not see the disconnection. Bowen attended the conversion therapy to appease his parents, and recalls being immediately alarmed by the counselor's mix of religion and use of pseudo-scientific reasoning to explain away positive homosexual manifestations. Yang's father cried often over the revelation and, being non-religious but wanting to "solve problems", arranged for him to attend eight sessions of gay conversion therapy. His parents were not receptive to the news, stating that such things " did not happen in China". When he was seventeen, Yang's father found out his son was gay from an "open chat window" on the family's computer. Yang graduated from high school in 2008 and was voted "Most Likely to Be a Cast Member on Saturday Night Live" in his yearbook.
Yang's high school calculus teacher, Adrian Holguin, was also his coach for Smoky Hill High School's improvisational comedy group, Spontaneous Combustion. As a child, he was drawn to late-night comedians and hosts David Letterman and Conan O’Brien. When he was nine, they moved again to Aurora, Colorado. When Yang was six months old, the family moved to Canada and eventually settled in Montreal, where Bowen first discovered Saturday Night Live ( SNL). The children spoke Mandarin in their home, and attended Chinese Sunday school. The couple moved to Brisbane so Ruilin could earn his doctorate in mining explosives. Yang's mother is an obstetrician-gynaecologist. Ruilin's parents were illiterate, but he read books for hours by candlelight and eventually got into university-a rarity so soon after the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), which effectively shut down universities. His father, Ruilin, was raised in a rural part of the Inner Mongolia region of mainland China, growing up in a straw and mud hut.
Yang was born in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, to a family that had emigrated from China in the 1980s. He is also known for his appearances in the LGBTQ romantic comedies Fire Island and Bros, both released in 2022.
Yang has appeared in the television series Girls5Eva, Ziwe, and The Other Two, and is a cast member on Awkwafina is Nora from Queens. He was promoted to the main cast before the 47th season. Yang was promoted to on-air cast member for SNL's 45th season as a featured player, in September 2019, becoming its first Chinese-American, third openly gay male, and fourth-ever cast member of Asian descent. Since September 2018, he has been on the writing staff of Saturday Night Live ( SNL).
He co-hosts a comedy pop-culture podcast, Las Culturistas, with Matt Rogers. Bowen Yang ( Chinese: 楊伯文 born November 6, 1990) is an Australian-born American actor, comedian, podcaster, and writer based in New York City.