Sarah Cooper

Sarah Anne Cooper (born December 19, 1977) is a Jamaican-American author, YouTuber and comedian. Her first two books, 100 Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings and Draw What Success Looks Like were published in 2016, with her third book, How to Be Successful Without Hurting Men's Feelings, being published in 2018.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Cooper began uploading videos of herself lip-syncing statements made by Donald Trump. The success of these led to appearances on several talk shows, and in October 2020 her show Sarah Cooper: Everything's Fine premiered on Netflix.

Early life and education Cooper was born in Jamaica in 1977. Her family moved to Rockville, Maryland, in 1980. Her father worked as an electrical engineer for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority in nearby Washington, and her mother in the human resources department of a consulting company. Later, while she was a user experience designer for Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides, She has said that she would analyze Stephen Colbert's monologues from The Colbert Report to understand what made them humorous. In 2014, she wrote a blog post called "10 Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings" that went viral with five million views. Her "colouring and activity book", Draw What Success Looks Like, was published in the same month. Her third book, How to Be Successful Without Hurting Men's Feelings, was published on October 30, 2018. It is subtitled "Non-threatening Leadership Strategies for Women", and contains satirical advice for women such as "Pepper your emails with exclamation marks and emojis.... Your lack of efficient communication will make you seem more approachable." Her books were not commercially successful. Her first viral satire, titled "How to Medical", features her lip-syncing a minute of audio from the April 23 press briefing during which Trump suggested that shining light into the body and injecting disinfectant would be an effective method for treating the coronavirus. She subsequently produced several other viral videos based on the same premise. By late October 2020, "How to Medical" had received over 24 million views across Twitter and TikTok. Cooper also redistributed her "How to Bible" TikTok video using her Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube accounts, achieving a combined total of 16 million views by the end of 2020. The Boston Globe remarked that Cooper's videos are also noted as being examples of extremely economical political satire since they are structured around an unedited voice clip of a politician speaking. This extremely minimalistic comedic approach, which includes neither a script nor an audience, was described as an innovative response to the limitations that comedians faced during COVID-19 lockdowns. Cooper lip-synced Trump talking about mail-in ballots, for a video played during the 2020 Democratic National Convention.

She was named Digital Creator of the Year by Adweek,

Television In the wake of the popularity of her TikTok videos, Cooper was invited to appear on The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell and The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

In October 2020, the Netflix special Sarah Cooper: Everything's Fine was released, produced by Maya Rudolph and directed by Natasha Lyonne. It features Cooper as the host of a fictional morning news program. The show is structured around spoofs of news segments, interviews, and commercials, and it incorporates a series of sketches featuring appearances from celebrities including Jon Hamm, Whoopi Goldberg, Helen Mirren, Ben Stiller, and Marisa Tomei. Cooper's character is a news anchor who struggles to retain her sanity and positive attitude despite the dramatic upheaval that she is reporting on, which is a commentary on the experience of observing the political, economic, and pandemic-related disruptions throughout the world in 2020 (as is the sarcasm of the title, Everything's Fine). A New York Times review compared Everything's Fine favorably to the parody news show Saturday Night Live, arguing that Cooper captured the zeitgeist of the news experience in 2020 more successfully than many other contemporary satires, but also asserted that "the comic ideas vary wildly in quality" with jokes that "are hit and miss".

It was announced in August 2020 that Cooper and Cindy Chupack would be producing a comedy show for CBS based on How to Be Successful Without Hurting Men's Feelings. The pilot was not picked up to series. Cooper was listed as one of the "Breakout Stars" of 2020 by Vogue and The New York Times, and as one of five Breakthrough Entertainers of 2020 by the Associated Press. In August 2021, Bleecker Street and Stage 6 Films picked up the worldwide rights to James Ponsoldt's coming of age film Summering, starring Cooper alongside Megan Mullally.

On October 3, 2023, Cooper published her memoir Foolish: Tales of Assimilation, Determination, and Humiliation.

Personal life Cooper married Jeff Palm, a senior software designer for Google, in February 2015.

Publications 100 Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings. Kansas City: Andrews McMeel Publishing (2016). . OCLC 944463172. Draw What Success Looks Like. Kansas City: Andrews McMeel Publishing (2016). . OCLC 944470964. How to Be Successful Without Hurting Men's Feelings. Kansas City: Andrews McMeel Publishing (2018). . OCLC 1028881934. Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings 2021 Day-to-Day Calendar. Kansas City: Andrews McMeel Publishing (2020). Foolish: Tales of Assimilation, Determination, and Humiliation. New York: Dutton, (2023),

Filmography Year Title Role Note(s) Ref(s). 2020 The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell guest The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon guest The Ellen DeGeneres Show (2 episodes) guest Home Movie: The Princess Bride Inigo Montoya Quibi Jimmy Kimmel Live! guest host The Late Show with Stephen Colbert guest Sarah Cooper: Everything's Fine Self Netflix The View guest Late Night with Seth Meyers guest 2021 HouseBroken Lenny, guest 1 episode 2022 Summering Karna Film 2024 Unfrosted Poppy Northcutt 2025 Kinda Pregnant Thrish The HousemaidPam

Awards and nominations

+ Awards and nominations received by Sarah Cooper Award Year Category Result Adweek Hot List 2020 Digital Creator of the Year Streamy Awards 2020 Creator of the Year Streamy Awards 2020 Subject Award: Comedy