Joel Kim Booster

Born Kim Joonmin in Jeju Island, South Korea,[3] Booster was adopted by an American couple as an infant.[4][5] He was raised in Plainfield, Illinois, in a "conservative, white, Evangelical Christian family" and was initially homeschooled.[6][7] He went to public school for the first time when he was 16, which he described as his "first time being around non-religious people."[4] He studied theater at Millikin University for his bachelor's degree.[6]

Booster is gay and often talks about his sexuality in his stand-up. He explained he knew he was gay from childhood ("before I knew I was Asian") but kept it a secret.[4][8] During his senior year of high school, his parents found out his orientation by reading his diary where he had described his sexual encounters with other boys.[6] Booster moved out and began to couchsurf until he stayed with a family friend.[7][9]

On July 21, 2020, Booster publicly shared that he has bipolar disorder.[10]

Living in Chicago, Booster took a job as a copywriter and began to perform in theater and write jokes after work.[9] His stand-up career began in an unconventional fashion by opening up for plays in Chicago's theater scene.[4] He moved to New York in 2014 to pursue a career in comedy.[4][7] He performed a set on Conan in 2016.[9] He then appeared in his own Comedy Central Stand-Up Presents special in 2017. Booster has also written for the shows Billy on the Street, Big Mouth, and The Other Two.[7]

On November 3, 2018, he released his debut stand-up album, Model Minority.[6] The material covers racism in the gay community, growing up Asian in a white community, and his own non-adherence to stereotypes about Asian Americans.[9]

Booster has acted in various roles such as with Susan Sarandon in the YouTube original film Viper Club; on Netflix's The Week Of and on Hulu's Shrill starring Aidy Bryant. He co-starred as Jun Ho in the NBC comedy series Sunnyside, which ran for one season.[11] In 2019, he co-hosted a digital series called Unsend with Patti Harrison on Comedy Central.[12] He is a regular panelist on Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! on NPR.[13][14] In 2019, he started the podcast Urgent Care with Joel Kim Booster + Mitra Jouhari with comedian Mitra Jouhari under Earwolf.[15] Booster appeared on the December 8, 2020 episode of The George Lucas Talk Show with fellow guest Eliza Skinner.[16]

Booster wrote and starred in the 2022 romantic comedy film Fire Island, streaming on Hulu and inspired by Pride and Prejudice.[17] It is one of few mainstream gay films with a predominantly Asian American cast, and co-stars Margaret Cho, Bowen Yang, and Conrad Ricamora.[18] The film received positive reception and was noted for its cinematography, faithfulness to Pride and Prejudice, and depiction of a loving friendship between Howie and Noah (played by Yang and Booster).[19][20][21]

In 2022, he released a stand-up special on Netflix called Joel Kim Booster: Psychosexual. Abbey White of The Hollywood Reporter described the special positively: "...Psychosexual offers a hilariously biting deconstruction and reconstruction of Booster’s identity onstage; a repudiation not only of himself as a representative or “role model” for his various communities, but an affirmation that as a comedian, his only job is to tell jokes — regardless of whether that speaks to any community at all."[22]

Booster was called a Comic to Watch by Variety[23] and one of Vulture's 20 Comedians You Should and Will Know,[24] and was named a Forbes' 30 Under 30 in Hollywood & Entertainment.[25]

• 2018: Model Minority[7]

• Koreans in New York City
• LGBT culture in New York City
• List of LGBT people from New York City

• Joel Kim Booster at IMDb
• Official Instagram