Rudy Ayoub: Bringing the Habibi Spice to Los Angeles

The first Arab dad skit got Rudy a lot of attention. He said Habibi in one of the videos and the Western culture quickly latched onto it, the word felt exotic to them. They would say: “It sounds cute, what does it mean?”. So, it stuck. Habibi Spice is his brand, Arab Dad’s name.

“Born in Lebanon, everything around you is heavy. You need some lightness, and you get used to wanting to be the lightness in the room when everyone’s being serious”, says Rudy Ayoub. The Lebanese American comedian is beloved for his Arab Dad persona on social media, among other side-splitting skits.

A burgeoning childhood

His family spotted his potential early on and did not hinder his creative outlets, in fact they encouraged them. Ever since he was eight or nine, his mom would say: “you always wanted to be funny”.  They knew he didn’t have a head for science. “Even my Teta, she thought I was hilarious”. Initially, there was some apprehension, but when he started making videos in LA, they saw results and they could breathe easy.

When his parents bought him his first digital camera at twelve, he would make humorous videos. Music came first at that age; he played the guitar decently. When his parents split up, he thought this was what he wanted to do, up until college where he went into filmmaking, and comedy and music collided.

The city of angels

Having visited relatives in LA a couple of times during Summer, Rudy caught himself liking the city. The 31-year-old studied Radio/TV in Notre Dame University Lebanon before dropping out in his third year to move to Los Angeles permanently 10 years ago.

Rudy prioritizes health and sleep, which makes everything else fall into place. For seven years, he’s been waking up at 6:00 am to work out, his circadian rhythm set on sleeping at 9:30 pm.

Regardless of the life he’s built in the states, he still misses the slower pace in Lebanon. In his hometown of Ajaltoun, he could walk around town. Everyone is inviting, for the most part. “When you’re here it’s go, go, go. Everyone’s grinding. In Lebanon it’s not like that, they love the aade. There’s no aade here, they don’t even have chairs”, confesses Rudy.

Unlikely sources of inspiration

The inspiration for his work comes from real life, and how people respond to different situations. “I wrote most of my viral videos on the toilet, I just pull out the phone and start typing. I imagine a certain scenario, this guy is at the store, the president is briefed about something, then what happens?”, shares Rudy comically.

His main focus is on the dynamics of people in conversation and the different patterns he notices in the world. Things that are unfair, funny, and outrageous. What’s more, his process doesn’t involve anyone else. “It’s always been this way and I prefer working alone”.

The first work that went viral was published on YouTube, long before shorts were created. One of his skits got over one million views at a time when it wasn’t as easy to get that many views on short-form content. “When it first happens, you think it’s amazing all these people saw my work. I was so excited”. Nowadays, he shoots one or two skits per week.

Habibi Spice

Another post of his went viral in its simple resonance with Arabs everywhere. He played guitar with his face cropped out, the caption read: “Hollywood when they show an Arab country”, while he played an Eastern-sounding melody. People started stitching it, becoming a huge stitch that got 3.5 million likes on YouTube.

No one knew that he started the video till he reposted. It included a shot of a lady singing in the background while the character is lost in the desert, and the camera pans to an eagle. A shot of a woman posing as a camel eating, featured randomly in the movie, a lady in lots of fabric staring at the camera, wobbly air on screen to show how hot it is, a random guy that welcomes the American protagonist, and the one-dimensional black character only there to give funny one-liners.

“It’s a mix of representing a certain culture, eastern and western cultures connected with it, especially the diaspora who can relate. You must do personal things that people connect with”, shares Rudy.

A triple threat

One might not expect that Rudy doesn’t like to go to music shows and watch live music; he gets anxious and claustrophobic. Most of the time he rides in the car without it. “As a musician, there’s always music playing in my head, ADHD music noise”, says Rudy. He must filter out what he wants to hear and music playing in the background disrupts that. What’s more, there are things he likes to focus on such as the sounds of nature and his surroundings.

He’s always meant to get into acting, the improv and stand-up world, and make more connections and friends in this industry. He wants to be around them because he works solo all day and it would be a nice change of pace that would expand his world in LA, the pulse of the industry.

The algorithm monster

The content game is not without its struggles. Creativity is constantly required. “You need to feed the algorithm monster every day. You can feed it with slop content like a lot of people do, or you must stay on top of everything and make sure to produce viral ideas”, admits Rudy. It takes a toll on him, causing exhaustion for his mental health because there’s no time off, his brain is always churning drawing inspiration from life.

It’s a fickle monster. Sometimes he works on something thinking it will be a hit, and it tanks for no apparent reason, other times he doesn’t expect the footage to do well, and it explodes, going viral. “You don’t really understand the algorithm monster, but you have to please it”, says Rudy.

This is the comedy game that Rudy signed up for and if his trajectory so far is any indication, it is one he was meant to be playing all along. “I make people laugh, I make music, I’m able to create art, that’s such a luxury”.