By Cameron Lee
December 19, 2024
If you’re on social media, you’ve probably seen one of comedian Tim Shropshire’s food reaction videos or skits by now. The Charlotte resident has gone viral many times since the desolate days of the pandemic when billions of people were seeking amusement online. Many of his friends call him Shrop, and have been following him since he was doing comedy sets at churches and retirement homes.
“I’m talking about, if you turned 85 I was up in that bad boy,” Shropshire said. “Who is telling these jokers that I’m the comedian of choice for old people? I would get an email like, ‘Yeah, my grandma turned 72, can you come perform for her?’”
Many may now be discovering Shropshire on his multiple platforms but, from 2008 to 2016, he was primarily performing at nursing homes– what he called the “Jokes and Applesauce” tour. When Shropshire started actually performing at real comedy clubs, his peers were taken aback by the sets he honed in chapels and drab facilities for the elderly.
“I could do a 45-minute set, and I would rock it. And comics would be like, bro, like, who are you and where you been?…I was at Piney Grove having a good time. I was at Mount Carmel, Mount Pisgah,” he said. “That taught me how to work a crowd, how to walk into the audience. So I almost felt like I was doing theatre.”
Fayetteville, Family, and Football
Born and raised in Fayetteville, North Carolina, as the son of a first sergeant in the army, Shropshire lived as wholesome of an American life as you can imagine, built on three pillars: family, football, and church.
“It was literally church and football, that was it. And so we, me and my brother, did that religiously…we played football, you know, ever since we were like five, six years old,” Shropshire said. “Like we were the type of family that sat at the table every night and we waited on dad to get home at seven o’clock. Dinner was on the table. We ate dinner, and we talked for about an hour.”
He played cornerback and tight end at Lewis Chapel Middle School and then moved to middle linebacker for his junior and senior years at Seventy-First High School, where he says a 21-tackle game against Jack Britt High School earned him multiple scholarship offers.
Shropshire had offers from major college football programs like Tennessee and South Carolina, but he admits that his SAT scores disqualified him from most of the schools. Based on the recruitment of assistant coach at North Carolina A&T, Chennis Berry (who is now the head coach of South Carolina State), he accepted a scholarship to become an Aggie.
Class Clown to Comedian
It was in Greensboro where he discovered his penchant for making people laugh. After suffering a season-ending injury against Morgan State midway through his sophomore season, Shropshire had a lot more free time on his hands, and he spent it acting up instead of studying.
“I didn’t know I wanted to do comedy at the time, but looking back on it, if I didn’t have an audience…I would have been fine, but I had an audience, and I just wanted to entertain when I saw people. It was just something ingrained in me. I just wanted to make you laugh,” he said.
His grades dropped drastically after the injury and he almost lost his scholarship after accumulating over 22 citations and getting kicked out of multiple dorms on campus.
“It really messed me up psychologically…because it was the first time I didn’t play ball…and I didn’t process it well. So I went to class, I just didn’t do my work,” Shropshire admitted. “And in that moment, it hit me like, what am I gonna do with my life? Because, what if football really ended?”
It was at that point Shropshire started to reestablish his relationship with God, after he discovered a new church, Evangel, based on the recommendation of a couple friends. Searching for his divine calling, he started pondering other career paths.
“That’s when I found out, like, hey, if I could do anything for the rest of my life and not get paid for it, just searching for purpose, asking those types of questions…I’ll make people laugh.”
Committing fully to stand-up in his senior year, Shropshire got his first official gig at Greensboro College for a Greek night. And, like many new comics at their first show, he bombed.
“I panicked, and just walked off that stage. And it got so quiet,” he said. “There had to be a good 600 people out there and I was like, oh, it’s time for me to go.”
It took him a little bit of time to recover from the embarrassment, and during that time he questioned everything; even his faith. It wasn’t until he saw a friend who told him candidly, “The only reason why you ain’t doing stand-up right now is because you’re scared.” That comment struck Shropshire to the core and he snapped out of his funk.
“I just embraced it, embraced every rollercoaster, everything. And I just started getting booked for different events,” he said.
Church Circuit to Comedy Clubs to Viral Videos
After working the North Carolina church circuit and private party bookings for a few years, Shropshire got one of his first big breaks after reaching out to a promoter to open for comedian Kevin Frederick, better known as KevOnStage. He ended up meeting Frederick the night of the show in Charlotte, and they’ve been locked in ever since– Shropshire will perform 20 dates on his Life from the Back Pew Tour in early 2025. Frederick helped produce his first headlining tour in 2019, also putting him on his Keep Your Distance Comedy Show during the pandemic.
“He’s [KevOnStage] an incredible guy…just a giver, like thinking of the next man…not too many people doing what he’s doing,” he said. “He’s killing it online with his content, and then he’s also killing it with touring, selling out theaters across the country. He’s built a nice empire over there, and it’s really dope to see.”
Another pivotal moment for Shropshire was when he started touring with gospel legend John P. Kee. The Gospel Music and North Carolina Music Hall of Famer was looking for comedians to take on tour to perform in 2016, and Shropshire got the opportunity after initially not making the cut. He followed up with a sincere message thanking Kee, which then earned him a spot.
“He taught me a lot more about comedy than the average comic did, because he was telling me to stop being so routine, to feel the crowd out,” he said.
Shropshire’s first food-related video that went viral was a short skit of him in tears of joy after finding out his young daughter was not a fan of chicken wings, which afforded him more food. It was a silly self-filmed two-minute video that accumulated well over four million views in a matter of days. It also got him several bookings and promo opportunities all over the country, allowing him to expand his reach and play more venues outside of North Carolina for the first time. In 2019, while on tour with KevOnStage, he met Mark Gregory (the son of the late comedian and activist Dick Gregory), who advised Shropshire to hit more comedy clubs. He performed his first headlining shows in Greensboro, Charlotte, and Greenville, South Carolina, and was amazed by the people who came out to see him.
Covid shut down Shropshire’s plans to embark on his first multi-city headlining tour in early 2020, which left him at home with his three children at the time (now four) and wife Esther (who is a nurse) with lesser means to earn income. By sharing more of his personal journey throughout the lockdown with hilarious skits and progressively more food reviews, he’s steadily increased his viewership and followers. But there’s no question that his physical comedy is what instantly brings laughter to so many, and spreads like wildfire. His videos continue to circulate throughout all of his social media channels, which have accumulated over 331,000 followers on Instagram and 277,600 on TikTok.
Family, Food, Funny, and Festival
Shropshire is now set on expanding his brand with his first annual Shrop Fest in Raleigh, which will take place at Phillips Farm featuring over 30 food trucks (mostly wings and BBQ), music, and comedy. He’s also plotting more long-form YouTube show content while keeping an open mind to television opportunities. And while he still loves doing restaurant reviews and reactions, he wants to draw more attention to his comedy shows and skits in the coming year. Shropshire has come a long way since his days acting up on the campus of A&T, but his pillars remain somewhat the same; only funny has replaced football, and food will probably always be synonymous with his name. At the core though, family is what matters most.
Shropshire, his wife Esther, and four children may not be home at a traditional dinner table every day, like when he was growing up, but his daughter, Harmony, helps with recording many of his social media videos, and Kensey, handles most of his merch. It’s a new digital world, and the Shropshires are making it work– his vision is pretty simple:
“If we can win on our own, with our own camera crew, my own team, and I could travel with my family, bro, that’s the dream for me.”
You can check out Tim Shropshire‘s skits, upcoming tour dates, and info on Shrop Fest through his Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube.
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